Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost, Year B, "Remnants and Restoration," Psalm 126 and Jeremiah 31:7-9 (Proper 25B, Ordinary 30B)

Sermon 10/27/24

Jeremiah 31:7-9 and Psalm 126

Remnants and Restoration

I have been thinking about you all in this challenging season. As I reminded you when I first joined the preaching rotation here, this church was the site of my first job during seminary. I was the youth pastor from 2000-2001. As part of my role I also helped lead in worship and preached about once a month, and this was my first job at a church other than my “home” church. I felt nervous and unsure of myself, but I was also excited to be in seminary and to be really “doing it,” this ministry thing I’d felt called to for a long time. I know this is a painful time. I remember the busy congregation of 25 years ago, and I know you’ve seen and mourned a lot of change, and I know the upcoming change of closure will be the hardest yet. 

I’ve been thinking about what it feels like to lose a place of deep connection in our lives, in our formation. The first home I ever really lived in, from infancy until I was about 9 years old, is still standing, and from the outside it looks the same. But the family that bought it from us completely tore out the inside. The rooms that were once my bedroom, my playroom, the rooms where my extended family gathered for so many Thanksgivings - they’re not there any more, not in any recognizable way. My grandparents’ home, around the corner from my childhood home, has been vacant for many years now, and is slowly crumbling, not safe for anyone to enter. The place I went to high school was demolished, making way for the district’s athletic offices, and a new high school across town. I can’t go into the halls I once walked as a student, a find my old lunch table or the music and theatre rooms where I spent most of my time. And my childhood church, where attend church with my grandparents and family until we moved twenty minutes away - that church closed many years ago now - a tiny country church that shrunk along with the town, and that has now been converted into a private home. 

It’s painful, it fills us with loss, I think, when we feel cut off from a part of our lives, particularly a part, a place, a season, a time that shaped us deeply. Our scripture readings for today both speak to communities who have known this kind of pain on a grand scale. The Ancient Israelites of the scriptures are marked by two major themes: the Exodus story, and Exile. After a season of warnings from the prophets to repent and return to following God, after warnings that they were failing to enact justice for the poor and marginalized, after warnings that their rituals were empty if the people did not truly give their hearts to God, and after warnings that if they did not change, then God would not prevent them from being conquered and controlled by foreign rulers, the Israelites found themselves sent out from their homeland. They were exiled from home. And it was devastating. The scriptures are full of lament and sorrow in the midst of exile. There’s a deep sense of loss. There’s fear, abandonment, grief, a replaying of everything that might have been done another way. 

But there’s also always still, even in the midst of what feels like the harshest punishment, God’s presence. God and God’s promises remain with Israel, even in exile. We see these themes in our scripture texts: In Jeremiah, the people are asking God: “Please, save us - the remnant. The leftover bits of your people.” The exile has come at a cost - lives have been lost. People have scattered. The clear identity of God’s people has been dulled. God, save the remnant. And God responds, “With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back.” The Psalm follows a similar pattern: “Restore our fortunes, God,” the people cry. And the Psalmist offers a blessing, imaging how God may answer: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.” The remnant is enough. The people are saved. God restores. There’s a homecoming. 

Homecoming is certainly a theme in the scriptures - we can think, for example, of the powerful parable of the prodigal son, welcomed home by the loving father, no questions asked. A welcome home is such a powerful thing, isn’t it? As much as I started by sharing with you so many places in my life where I can never “go home” again, I find myself in a strange season in life where I am a student at Drew Theological School again twenty years after I attended here the first time. I graduated with my Master of Divinity in 2003, and in 2020, I started my PhD at Drew. I returned to a very familiar campus. I returned to many of the same faculty who were my wise professors the first time around, and have continued to teach me now, all these years later. 

But even though I have returned “home” to Drew, of course, it is not all the same. I don’t have the same classmates. The places I lived twenty years ago have been upgraded into luxury housing I could never afford. Seminary Hall has an addition - for which I’m thankful - but which also changes the building a lot. Many students take classes online, and fewer are on campus, in the building. And I’m different. I started the MDiv at Drew when I was 21 years old, not even five years out of high school. Now I’m a person who is in my 40s and who has spent years in ministry and had so much life experience that I didn’t have the last time at Drew. I’m home at Drew - but home is different, and “me” is different too. And thank goodness for that. I loved Drew then, and I love Drew now, but I’m reminded that being “home” at Drew has more to do with its values, its commitments to justice and love and compassion that I resonate with, its pursuit of diversity and wisdom that inspire me, rather than some unchanging material aspects. 

I’ve been thinking about my Drew homecoming as I think about these Exile texts and as I think about you all. I hear you in the voice of the prophets and the voice of Jeremiah - a remnant - the remaining people, perhaps feeling like you are about to be exiled, and perhaps already longing for home. What do God’s promises look like for you? Because I do believe God’s promises are with you. I do believe that God will restore, rebuild, grow new life in and with you. But what does that look like when you can’t come home in the way that you might have hoped? 

I mentioned to you that my childhood church is now a private home. I have so many memories of my little childhood church. It is where I learned the stories of the bible, and memorized scriptures in Sunday School. It’s where I was confirmed - it happened a few years earlier than usual there, since we were a small congregation. It was where I first took communion. It was there, as a five year old, that I collected the used bulletins after church each week to save because I was going to be a pastor when I grew up. It was where I made my first request for a favorite hymn at a hymn sing, and where I first made a prayer request out loud on my own. So many precious memories. When we voted on the closure of that church at our Annual Conference, my Uncle, who was a District Superintendent at the time, when to speak at the microphone. And what he said was: this church may be closing, but the impact it has had is not over, because this church produced pastors, and church leaders, and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who continue to follow Jesus even though it won’t happen from inside those same walls anymore. This church planted seeds, and produced fruit, and the harvest will still continue. This church has a legacy that matters. 

Friends, remnants sometimes get treated as a byproduct, waste of something else that was created that is leftover and not worth much. But thankfully, we serve a God who can do a whole lot with a very little. God loves a remnant. God brings life from what is leftover. God work restoration where it seems there was nothing left. God takes the pieces of our broken hearts, and rebuilds. And so even when “home” isn’t here to return to, God builds home within us, and we bear the fruit of all the seeds that have been planted in us along the way. 

Some of the details of what is “home” are changing. And we are changing, ever and always. But the constant is God, who is with us at home, and with us in exile, and with us as we find home again. Thanks be to God, our home. Amen. 

 

Sermon, "Rough Draft Prayers," Psalm 124

 Sermon 9/21/21  

Psalm 124

Rough Draft Prayers

Years ago I took a unit of CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education, and I worked in the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, of a local hospital. It was often heartbreaking work. And I still remember a conversation with one family, whose newborn was fighting for his life. I remember them talking to me about praying to God and that they wanted to just pray for God to save their baby, heal their baby, but...they wouldn’t let themselves pray for that. They didn’t think they could ask God for that, but that they could only pray for God’s will to be done, even if “God’s will” turned out to be that their child would die. I was still learning how to best listen and how to respond when people are inviting you to share in their pain in such profound ways. Their willingness to talk to a 23 year-old chaplain intern about their ailing infant was a sacred gift to me that I didn’t take lightly. I was learning, trying very hard not to tell people what to do and how to feel in a misguided attempt to “fix” things for people. But I really did want to let them know that they didn’t have to edit their prayer for God. They could pray to God exactly what was on their hearts, even if they thought it was somehow selfish. They could cry out: God, please, please, please, spare my child. That would be ok. In fact, I believed - believe - God wants that. Our raw, rough draft, edit-free prayers. The real stuff we’re thinking. Our broken hearts. These are the simple prayers: Help me. Save me. Save them. I love you. I hate you. Where are you? Did you forget about me? Thank you.  

Sometimes the Psalms strike me as prayers like that. They read almost like they’re coming from the moment of crisis, or from seconds after the worst of something has passed. They’re written from the trenches of war and violence, from the depths of grief, from the heights of joy, from the moment of the realization of great love, from our loneliest moments. The Psalm we’re looking at today gives me that sense. I read in it a profound sense of relief, immediately after a danger has passed. Wow - God - if you hadn’t been on our side, we wouldn’t have survived. God, without you on our side, we’d be dead right now! We were attacked, about to be eaten up, about to be drowned in the flood waters, the strength of our enemies. My animal studies ears perk up at the imagery and meanings here: God, we were almost prey to the teeth of our hungry enemies, predators. God, we were birds caught in a trap, struggling, struggling, but because of you we broke free! God - you, you, were our helper, you who made everything that is. Thank God. Phew. Utter relief, survival against the odds, and abundant gratitude - we’re still living. We’re still breathing. We’ve made it. Can you resonate with the psalmist? Have you ever felt such profound relief from danger? Have you ever felt with such clarity: If God hadn’t been with me through that, I’d be lost right now? 

But, as much as I might imagine the “gut response” nature of this psalm, the authentic thanksgiving after surviving some kind of life-threatening attack, I can’t help but cringe a bit at the opening lines. “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side.” Indeed, the psalmist implores all Israel to make this claim - “if it wasn’t for the Lord being on our side against the attack of our enemies…” The idea of God taking sides - taking the side of one over the other, against the other - there aren’t many situations where that holds up to thoughtful theological scrutiny. As Pastor James Howell writes, “Some of the thinnest, most atrocious theology we overhear in our culture is about God being on the side of … the white people, or the [pure] people, or the people of a certain religious inclination, or those who are straight, or think the Bible is literally true” and so on. (1) Being sure that God is on your side, supporting your actions - well, as a private prayer describing your relief at having a survived a life or death situation - it makes sense. But this psalm is one of a collection of Songs of Ascents - Psalms meant for corporate worship, words said by people together, over and over, usually disconnected from immediate urgency, no longer the hurried response of a people just surviving attack. It’s a gut respond, rough draft prayer that becomes codified, until everyone knows: “God is on our side.” And I can’t help but imagine different peoples and regimes using this psalm, casting themselves in the role of a victim, and all others as the enemy, and God as on our side: “If it had not been for God being on our side, let America now say” for example. The implications give me chills. The words sound dangerous. Arrogant. 

What do we do then, with a Psalm like this, a perhaps earnest prayer written in desperation that is said and said and said again, prayed not by the oppressed but by the oppressor, used not by the prey but by the predator, said not by the weak but by the strong and powerful, said not in the heat of the moment, in the midst of gut-deep relief, but with careful planning? 

We’re perhaps in a perfect context to consider such a question. We are, physically, virtually, at a Theological School. Students are busy, busy, busy, reading and writing and submitting assignments. Sometimes, of course, what my professors get from me is my too-hurried response, an assignment left till the last minute, my hurried, unedited thoughts that contain myriad typos and worse, rushed claims and conclusions that don’t hold up to scrutiny. But hopefully and thankfully usually, what we turn in isn’t just or ultimately a first draft. We have “delete” buttons that allow us to rewrite clunky sentences. We have friends and family and tutors that read our first drafts and give feedback. We submit paper proposals and listen to the wise questions from our professors that help us refine our thesis. We get grades and feedback that help us on our next attempt. Our first draft is worth something, but it also isn’t our final draft, thanks be to God! 

I think scripture can feel to us like a final draft. It’s been published, after all. What chance is there to amend now? And maybe we don’t want to amend the heartfelt gut-reaction texts, even though we are now very much not in the heat of the moment. But I think our process of engaging the text - as individuals and as communities of faith, can be like an ongoing revision of our theological first drafts. Together, we can figure out whether God is on our side, or whether we are on God’s side, or how God is even on the side of our enemies, or whether we’d rather really be side by side. Wrestling, we can refine an understanding of God’s preference for being on the side of the poor and marginalized, and where our place is in relation to God and God’s people. We can edit our placement, deciding whether it is best to plop down a Psalm or any text into any setting, or if there’s a best time and a best place to set a text to build up community instead of creating divisions. To see a prayer or a text isn’t to devalue. Instead, it’s meant to leave room for more learning, room for wisdom - our own and others, room for feedback, room for the perspective we gain over time. 

I’m thankful for our rough draft prayers, muttered to God on the spot in our times of deep need, because I believe God welcomes every word from our heart. And I’m thankful that we have the opportunity to go back, examine our claims about God and faith, and submit some revisions. And then do it again and again. Amen.  

1. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/the-holy-innocents/commentary-on-psalm-124

Sermon, "Everyday Jesus Spirituality: The Discipline of Starting Over," Psalm 51:1-17

Sermon 2/23/2020

Psalm 51:1-17

Everyday Jesus Spirituality: The Discipline of Starting Over

       “Create in me a clean heart of God, and renew a right spirit within me. Create in me a clean heart of God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, O Lord. Take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and renew a right spirit within me.” 

I’m pretty sure that I’ve had you sing that song with me before, because it is really hard - maybe impossible - for me to read Psalm 51 without thinking of this song. I learned it as a camp song, which we sang frequently at Camp Aldersgate, particularly in my junior high years. It really spoke to me then. Those junior high years can be pretty emotionally fraught. Everything is heightened, as young teens deal with newly intense emotions and feelings that are hard to process. And one of the feelings I was often processing was guilt. I was trying hard to be a good follower of Jesus, but I felt like I was screwing up all the time. I got upset with myself if I let days or weeks go by when I didn’t read my bible faithfully. Struggling with body image, I got upset with myself if I screwed up on my never-ending diet. If I got into a fight with my mom or my siblings, I felt miserable afterwards. And so “Create in Me a Clean Heart” really spoke to me. A song of confession. Please God, help me start over. I think I was both very dramatic and very, painfully sincere.  

But the deep desire to be able to start over isn’t just a junior high thing, is it? How many times have you had some aspect of your life you wanted to start over? How often have you longed for a fresh start? How often have you told yourself, “tomorrow, I’ll start again?” How many resolutions have you made for New Years Day, or the first of a month, or a Monday morning fresh start, or whatever works? It can be exhausting, draining, discouraging, can’t it, all this starting over? And yet, as we wrap up our series on Everyday Jesus Spirituality, we’re looking at how to practice a discipline of starting over. Is that something we really want to do? Learn how to start over again and again? Is there, perhaps, something we’re missing about starting over? A different way we can think about starting over? 

Let’s take a look at our text, this reading from Psalm 51, to see if we can find a better understanding of starting over. The context of this psalm - the “why” of why it was written and why it shows up in our Biblest today is really important, helps us understand what the Psalm is all about. In most of your Bibles, you’ll probably find a note at the beginning of Psalm 51 that says something like this: “A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” There’s a complicated, messy, unpleasant story at the heart of this psalm. 

David was a king of Israel. In fact, he’s remembered as the most beloved king in all of Israel’s history. Forever after, when the Israelites think about the “good old days,” they’re thinking about King David’s days. “Remember when David was king?” He’s the golden boy, the one they’re forever longing for. This is so true, in fact, that when Jesus comes along, the biblical authors take pains to show us that he’s descended from the house of David, and they have to clarify that Jesus is actually ruler over even beloved King David, that Jesus is the Messiah in a way David most certainly was not. David is the standard by which all other kings are compared. 

And yet - David was no saint. In fact, he was a sinner just like we all are. In fact, David does some really terrible things. Once, when David was King, he saw a woman named Bathsheba bathing on her rooftop, a common practice. He saw her and he wanted her for himself. And because he was the king, he could get her. When this story is told in in the book of 2 Samuel, we don’t ever hear from Bathsheba herself, because it seems it is really only what King David wants that matters, and what he wants is Bathsheba. 

David is already married, but having many wives was legal and common. The trouble is - Bathsheba was already married too, to Uriah, a soldier. That doesn’t seem to matter at first - David isn’t interested in marriage, but in sex. He has sex with Bathsheba, and that’s that. But then they realize she is pregnant. So David makes things worse - he tries to cover up what’s happened. Uriah is off at war, fighting on behalf of David, his king. But David calls him home, hoping Uriah will have sex with Bathsheba, and the child can be passed of as Uriah’s. Uriah is a faithful soldier, though, and he won’t revel in the comforts of home while his fellow soldiers are out fighting. So David makes an even worse choice: since he can’t trick Uriah, he instead has him sent to the frontlines of battle, hoping Uriah will be killed in war. And he is. And when Uriah is dead, David simply makes Bathsheba one of his wives. Problem solved, right? 

David seems ready to just move on with his life, content with how it has worked out. But David has a spiritual advisor, Nathan, who is a prophet to the king. That’s not an easy role - Nathan gets to tell a powerful ruler how they’ve screwed up, something David probably doesn’t want to hear. But Nathan uses another scenario, telling David about a hypothetical rich man who took property from a poor man that didn’t belong to him. David is outraged at the story, at the injustice, and wants the rich man to be punished - and finally Nathan reveals: “You, David, are the man.” David is the one who has acted unjustly. Finally, David is convicted of the magnitude of his sinfulness, of the way he has abused his role, of that fact that he orchestrated a death in order to have what he wanted. His child with Bathsheba dies, and David is filled with grief and repentance. Finally, he is broken and ready to turn to God for help. 

This is the context of Psalm 51. David didn’t just mess up on his diet or fight with his siblings. He took a life. “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” How David needs it! “Have mercy on me, O God!” the psalm begins. “Wash me thoroughly … my sin is ever before me.” “You desire truth in the inward being,” David realizes, and finally he is ready to be truthful with God. “Create in me a clean heart - don’t cast me away.” In the psalm, David promises to teach others about the ways of God too. “My tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance” God, he says. And he concludes that what God wants most from us is not the sacrifices and burnt-offerings that were the ritual of David’s day - not when they masked guilt and sin. No - what God wants from us is our broken and contrite hearts. Our honest brokenness is worth so much more to God than our prettied-up, covered-up sinfulness disguised as being right with God. 

How do we start over? How do we start over when we’re so far off track? Most of us probably haven’t orchestrated the death of a subordinate so we can steal their spouse for ourselves. But our sins are real, our brokenness is real, and our need for a clean heart - it’s so real, so deep. How do we get there? How do we get clean hearts? 

We make sure, in part, we have folks like Nathan in our lives. We don’t all have a prophet on our household staffs, but I hope we all have close friends we can turn to in crisis. It’s really hard to listen when someone tells us we’re doing wrong, and it’s really hard to lovingly tell someone who means a lot to us that they need to examine their actions. It’s not for casual friendships or acquaintances. One of the things that amazes me about my dearest friend is that she’s really open to me being honest with her, challenging her if I think she’s not seeing situations in her life - and her actions in them - very clearly. I admit that my tendency when situations are flipped is to get defensive. To be sure I’m right. But I try hard to listen when I have someone like Nathan in my life, who can tell me the truth when I’m not walking on God’s path. Who is a Nathan to you? And how can you be such a faithful and loving friend that you can be Nathan to someone else? 

How do we get clean hearts? We ask for them! David asking for a clean heart from God is an act of repentance. He admits he has been wrong and that he needs God’s help. It takes him a while to get there, but eventually he does. Often, I think we are sure that we can do it on our own, do it ourselves. We tease when toddlers get to that awful phase of burgeoning independence, and everything is “I can do it myself” and it means that getting in and out of the car takes five hours because you have to let them slowly, with great struggle, climb into the seat on their own effort. But we don’t ever really grow out of that phase, do we? We are sure we can do it ourselves, and we are taught, as adults, that independence is good and needing help is bad and weak. Friends, we cannot clean our own hearts. We cannot take away our own guilt from our sinfulness and brokenness. We need God for that. We need God so much! We long for clean hearts - and we can have them. But we have to ask the one who creates our hearts to begin with for help, because transforming our lives is not something we can do on our own strength. We need God. We need strength in Christ. And we need our community of faith. We get clean hearts when we ask for them. 

How do we get clean hearts? We realize that God gives clean hearts not new hearts. I think sometimes we want to just start over, start from scratch, and leave the past behind us. In one part of our Psalm, I realize I disagree with David. He says, “Against you, you alone [God], have I sinned.” That may be technically true - all of our sins are breaking our covenant with God. But David’s sin hurt more than just himself and his relationship with God. His sin certainly hurt Uriah. He hurt Bathsheba. He hurt his unborn child. He hurt his nation, because he abused his role as king and leader. He hurt his relationship with Nathan, such that Nathan had to concoct a fake story to get David to listen to him. When we turn away from God, it doesn’t just hurt us and God. It hurts the people around us too. And so while we might sometimes long for a new heart, what God gives us is a clean heart, because in the process of cleaning our hearts, we go through the process of repairing the harm that we’ve done. We have to make amends. Confident that God forgives us, we have to work on reconciliation with those around us who have been hurt by our actions. It’s hard work! But patiently, diligently working for reconciliation is the way that God cleans our hearts. We’re forgiven - absolutely, 100%, no matter how many times we’ve screwed up before. But being forgiven doesn’t mean our work is done. Our work is just beginning! We let God clean our hearts by committing to the work of mending, with God’s help, all the torn places in our lives. 

 This week, Lent begins, and we walk with Jesus the hard and sometimes lonely path to the cross. But we’re always Easter people, even in Lent, and we know that we are resurrection people, new life people. Peter Shurrman writes, “We can all get in a rut where we can’t [imagine] a new day with redeemed relationships, alternative vocation, and a fresh perspective on the future.” But, he says, “We are called to practice resurrection, to practice starting over - not from scratch, but like a fresh chapter or page in a story in which the plot arcs toward resolving conflict, healing fractured families and bodies, and mending a polluted creation. Faithful discipleship means turning from our disappointments toward prayerful hope and joyful service … Each new day is an opportunity to practice starting over - in a new place with a new practice, a new perspective, and new people. The reality of resurrection tells us not only is this possible; it’s the movement of God in the world and our gift and calling as Christians. Starting over is Christian hope in action.” (Shurrman, Peter, Reformed Worship 130, 13, emphasis mine.) 

Let’s practice resurrection. Let’s put the hope of Christ in action, and start over, even again. Not from scratch - because forgiveness is ours, God’s love is ours, and God never has to do that over for us. But let’s start again, with God’s help, with each other’s help, with our brokenness offered to God. Create in us clean hearts, O God. Amen. 

Sermon, "Back to (Bible) School: Poetry," Psalm 136

Sermon 9/24/17

Psalm 136

Back to (Bible) School: Poetry

            Do you like poetry? Have you ever read or written poetry? I think we can feel both daunted and bored by poetry. Daunted if we have to try to figure out what it means. One of my favorite movies is In Her Shoes, based on the book by the same name from Jennifer Weiner. In the movie, one of the characters, Maggie, is dyslexic. She ends up working at a nursing home, where one of the residents is a retired English professor. He encourages her to read to him, and not just read, but he helps her understand what she is reading. The first time she reads to him, she reads a poem. When she’s done, having struggled through word by word, he asks what she thinks. She says, “Good.” He says, “Unacceptable,” and then proceeds to ask her question after question until she realizes that she can figure out what the poem might mean to her, how it applies to her life right now. It’s a beautiful scene that captures how disinterested we can be in poetry, how much it overwhelms us, how afraid we are of getting the meaning “wrong,” and yet, how beautiful is can be when these artful words of others can speak deeply to our spirits.

            Do you like poetry?

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.[1]

You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise.[2]

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.[3]

The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still water.” (Psalm 23)

            Have you ever written any poetry? I went through a phase of writing poetry when I was in late elementary school and junior high. I was inspired, believe it or not, by an episode of Roseanne, the soon-to-return sitcom from the 80s. The character Darlene, who I loved, wrote a poem on the show, a poem that revealed her deep, unspoken emotions, and I was enthralled and inspired. I thought Darlene was very cool, and I set about to write my own deep, insightful poetry. It was not the greatest stuff. I’ve had pity on all of you by not digging some out of my old journals to share with you today. But truthfully, writing poetry, even bad poetry, helped me process all the myriad and overpowering feelings one has in the tumultuous tween and teen years. Writing poetry gave me a place to creatively process all the stuff that was in my heart at a time in my life when I felt pretty misunderstood.          

            Do you like poetry? Do you like music? Consider all the lyrics to songs that you have stored away in your brain. Consider the songs that shaped you as a child, as a young person, as an adult. Sometimes hearing a particular song can transport us back to a time, a place, an experience, help us recall things so vividly. The lyrics to all our favorite songs are poetry set to music, a kind of poetry that most of us are more familiar with today.

            The Bible is full of poetry. We find it in both the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, though less frequently. In the Hebrew Bible, the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs are considered books of poetry. These books are sometimes also referred to as books of wisdom. As I said a couple of weeks ago, the books of poetry in the Bible are not primarily about communicating facts, even though many of the passages of poetry refer to and respond to historical events. Instead, in the poetry of the Bible, we see the authors pouring out their hearts, sharing their deepest feelings in words they’ve written. To me, that makes the words of poetry in the Bible very meaningful and contemporary, because although our world has changed, I don’t think the range of emotions that we experience has changed. The authors of biblical poetry bring to us the feelings, the spirits, the souls of people of faith who lived thousands of years ago, and we discover that we experience the same intense emotions, and struggle with the same searching questions of faith.

            Today we’re looking together at Psalm 136. There are 150 psalms, songs, in our Bible, and they fall into several categories. Some are called “royal psalms” – they have to do with the business of the kings of Israel and Judah – psalms about a royal coronation, a blessing on a new rule, a royal marriage, or accounts of a king’s military leadership. Some psalms are laments – individual laments and communal laments – mournful psalms written in times of despair. Others are psalms of thanksgiving. They’re meant to praise God, give thanks for God’s actions. More than a third of the psalms are addressed to the Director of Music. They were meant to be sung as a part of worship. Our psalm for today is like that, meant to be shared musically in the call and response way we read it together today. A key feature of Hebrew poetry is a style called parallelism. Parallelism is a repeated pattern where we find one verse stating an idea, and the very next verse restating the same or a very similar idea in a slightly different way.[4] For example, our Psalm today starts with lines about giving thanks first to “the God of gods” and then to the “Lord of lords” in the very next verse.

            In Psalm 136, the focus is on praising God, particularly because of God’s steadfast love. The psalmist praises God’s faithfulness, driving the point home by repeating these words as every other stanza of the poem. God’s love is forever, God’s love is forever, God’s love is forever. The psalmist writes in a way that will have the congregation repeating these words again and again, etching them into their memory, helping the congregation feel the truth of them. “God’s love is forever” is like the refrain, the chorus of the song, sung over and over.

            Psalm 136 also shows us an example of Israel telling its story. Over and over in the scriptures, we hear reference to the Exodus, God leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land. It’s their defining story. Remember, when we talked about the law, the commandments, the Exodus, God’s saving the people is the reason given behind many of the laws for the new nation. So too, in the poetry of Israel, the story of the Exodus is told again and again. It is the story that shapes Israel, that provides the example of God’s faithfulness, that provides their sense of future and purpose, and binds them together as a nation. This psalm, like many others, reminds the people of their core identity. As Christians, we do this with Holy Communion. We tell ourselves the story of Jesus sharing a meal with his disciples, and sharing his life with us again and again, until we know it deep in our bones.

            I wonder, what’s our defining story as a congregation? What’s the story we tell ourselves again and again about our relationship with God? As a church, what story do we need to remind ourselves of again and again? What’s your defining story with God? What’s the message of your life, the way that God is showing up all through your days, again and again? How are you reminding yourself of God’s faithful presence in your life? And I wonder, what’s our refrain? What’s our chorus? What are the words that we need to etch onto our hearts about who God is? God is forgiving. God’s love is unconditional. God’s grace is for you. With God, everything is possible. What refrain do you need to hear over and over again? 

            I want to challenge you, as I challenged the children this week, to try to write your own poetry, your own praise song, your own words that help you share your heart, your feelings, your emotions with God. You don’t have to share your words unless you want to – they can be just for you. And if writing really isn’t your thing, I want you to think about how you might best express your praise for God, your love for God. Is it through art? Painting or drawing? Through music? Dance? How can you open your heart to praise God in a creative way this week? Try something.

“O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good, for God’s steadfast love endures forever.” Amen.

           

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[1] Frost, Robert, “The Road Note Taken,” http://classicalpoets.org/10-greatest-poems-ever-written/

[2] Angelou, Maya, “Still I Rise,” http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/world-poetry-day-28-of-poetrys-most-powerful-lines-ever-written-a6944301.html

[3] Shakespeare, William, “Sonnet 18,” http://classicalpoets.org/10-greatest-poems-ever-written/

[4] “Psalms,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalms

Sermon for Second Sunday of Advent, "His Name Shall Be Called: Mighty God," Psalm 72:1-14, Mark 4:35-41

Sermon 12/4/16

Psalm 72:1-14, Mark 4:35-41

His Name Shall Be Called: Mighty God*

            “And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” On this second Sunday of Advent, we’re thinking together about what it means to call Jesus “Mighty God.” Thinking of Jesus as God incarnate might come pretty naturally to us. Christians worship a Triune God. That is, we believe that God is a Trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – three persons of God, but still one God. But in the story of the scriptures, though God’s people were longing for a messiah – which means anointed one, a title given to a king – they weren’t expecting the messiah to be God-in-the-flesh exactly. God’s best servant leader, yes. But God in human form? Maybe not. So, how do we come to see Jesus in the words of the prophet Isaiah, when Isaiah calls the promised child “Mighty God”?

In many cultures over the millennia, nations would view the rulers of their country as attaining their role, their position, because of divine decree. In other words, the ruler was in place because God or god(s) wanted them to be. And so, often, the ruler himself (and it has been predominately “him”) would be viewed as having divine qualities, divine power, if not being actually considered divine. Certainly, for the Israelites, there was no separation of church and state. The nation was God’s people, and the king was a servant of God. People were longing for a ruler, then, who would clearly be God-chosen, God’s servant leader directing God’s people.

The ideal ruler had a lot of responsibilities. The ruler would have “victory in war … success in economics … productivity in agriculture and … justice in social relations.” (20) Also, the king’s job was to “practice economic justice toward the poor and needy.” (21) It was written in to the law that the ruler would be the protector of the most at-risk in society. We read about this in our passage from Psalm 72, where the whole Psalm is a prayer of blessing for a king, containing a description of what a king who is serving God ought to look like: “May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice … In his day may righteousness flourish and peace abound … May all kings fall down before him … For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.” The Psalmist speaks of a Ruler who is a protector of the poor and vulnerable, who cares deeply about their lives, a Ruler who is strong enough to shield them from violence and oppression.

            Still, Isaiah describes something more than a Mighty King. Isaiah says Mighty God, a bold claim. Does Jesus meet the criteria? In his book, Names for the Messiah, Walter Brueggemann writes, “Jesus is a carrier of divine power.” (22) The phrase “Mighty God” “asks about [Jesus’s] power in a world that is organized around many claimants for power, most especially the power of Rome. It is clear that [Jesus] will not compete with the power of Rome on the terms of Rome.” (23) Instead, Jesus insists that his power “is not grounded in the usual authority of empire; it is not an authority that comes … in coercive or violent ways. His kingdom, his claim to authority is indeed “divine” in that it is rooted in and derived from [the will of God], whose intention for the world is quite unlike the intent of Rome.” (24)

            We get a picture of Jesus, Mighty God, in our gospel lesson from Mark. Jesus has been teaching the crowds by the seaside. The crowds become so great that Jesus gets into a boat and teaches from just offshore, just enough to give him a platform, and a little distance from the press of the crowds. When evening comes, he says to his disciples: “Let us go across to the other side.” So they leave the crowds, and they head across the water. A windstorm rises up as they travel. The waves are beating against the boat, and the boat is nearly swamped. And through all this, Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat. The disciples wake him, asking, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re about to die?” Jesus gets up, rebukes the wind, and says to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” He uses the same kind of commands and actions he would to drive out an unclean, harmful spirit from a person. And immediately, the wind ceases and there is total calm. Jesus turns to the disciples and asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Their only response is to turn to each other in awe and wonder, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” They’ve heard Jesus teach and they’ve seen him heal. But power over the elements like this – this is something different, something more altogether. There were many healers and teachers. But power like this was reserved for God. To have power over the chaos of a storm – to have the storm obey, like the unclean spirits also obeyed Jesus – this is the power of Mighty God.

            Passages like this one are known as theophanies. A theophany is one of those fancy church words that means a simple thing: A God-appearance, where the glory of God is revealed in a particular act or moment. You know the word epiphany – when something is revealed suddenly, when we have sudden clarity – a light bulb moment. A theophany is when God is suddenly revealed – when the presence of God in our midst is revealed. In Jesus, we encounter the ultimate theophany – the ultimate revealing of God’s presence, God-with-us. Throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus does what only God can do, revealing the glory of God.

            It’s that same revealing of God’s glory that is woven through the story of Jesus’ birth. Listen to what Luke tells us: “In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’” A Mighty God comes in the Christ-child, and God’s messengers fill they sky to tell the news.

            Jesus, God-with-us, carries divine power that is different than the power the world knows. Brueggemann says, “Jesus exercises counter-power that refuses the coercive, exploitative power of Rome and instead enacts abundant power that makes life possible.” That’s the aim and focus of Jesus’ power: Jesus, Mighty God, makes abundant life possible. (24) We see this in the gospels when Jesus casts out unclean spirits – he has power over that which makes chaos and disorder, stumbling blocks to life. And we see it when he calms the storm. The spirits, the storm – they obey Jesus because in him is the power of Mighty God. Writes Brueggemann, “Clearly the two adversaries of Jesus, the unclean spirit and the storm, are forces of chaos and death. They are agents of ‘uncreation’ … Jesus contains and subjects these deathly chaotic threats by creating space for new life.” Creating space for new life – that’s the work of Jesus in the world.

Jesus, Mighty God, doesn’t promise a lack of chaos in the world. Instead, our Mighty God-made-flesh in Jesus promises to draw from the chaos abundant life and hope, where the alternative is death and despair. This is the ultimate hope we have as people of faith, as we recite these words from apostle Paul at graveside services: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” We believe that Jesus brings life, where we expected death.

But beyond longing for or trusting in Jesus’ ultimate giving of life eternal instead of the hopelessness of death, what does it mean for us, for our lives now, for Jesus to be Mighty God, Lord of Life? We have to ask ourselves: Where do we need to allow Jesus to create space for new life in us? Where is our life full of chaos, where is death and despair threatening to take hold of us? The more we can offer our whole lives to God, even those parts of our life – especially those parts of our life we’re embarrassed by, the stuff of our life that makes us feel ashamed or weak or overwhelmed or like we just can’t handle it anymore – when we offer that to God, and let go of protecting and hiding the chaos of our lives, God can get to work drawing out new life from the mess. We have to be vulnerable. We have to be ready to offer our obedience, our willingness to follow this Mighty God. But I promise, the Lord of Life can transform your chaos, can transform your hopelessness into joy.    

Not only can Jesus create abundant life out of the chaos we entrust to him, but Jesus also invites us, his disciples, to carry out his work, his mission, by being co-creators, by helping to make paths for creative, new, abundant life to take place. How are we making pathways for new life in world? How can we nurture creative energy for life in our families, in our congregation, in our community? God makes us caretakers of the garden of earth, and we can work to make sure what God is growing is soaked in light and water and planted in good soil. Who do you know who is feeling hopeless who needs some words of encouragement? Who is beginning a journey with God of new life that needs your support? We are called to clear the path for the Lord of Life to be at work in the world.

On the flip side, we have to do some self-examination in this season of Advent. Jesus wants to make new life of our chaos, and wants us to help make new life pathways in the world. Sometimes, when we turn away from God, we find ourselves instead making stumbling blocks, putting barriers in the way of God’s paths. Sometimes, we find ourselves stirring up the chaos, in our lives, and in the lives of other, instead of working with God to create life. In these days that feel so chaotic, when the temptation to add the swirl of hate and anger can be so tempting, we must ask ourselves: Am I adding to the chaos? Are my actions toward others leading them toward hopelessness, or toward abundant life? Jesus speaks in some of his harshest words in the gospels toward those who get between others and their life with God. There are so many ways that God might bring new life out of your chaos, but it will never be through causing chaos for others.

Jesus is about the work of making space for new life in the world, in our lives. Let us be about the work of making space for Jesus. In these Advent days, and all the days that follow, let every heart prepare him room, room for Mighty God, the Lord of Life. Amen.

*References throughout are from Chapter 2 of Names for the Messiah by Walter Brueggemann.