His Name Was Earl

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday August 28, 2016, the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 2:4-13
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Luke 14:1, 7-14

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

This is an odd story, as many stories are. Of course if all stories were "normal" there would be no point to recording or telling them. This is the story of someone I met one day at First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas named Earl. I'll let you decide if this story is worth recording and telling.

Early one Wednesday afternoon I had a meeting with my Spiritual Director. According to the Spiritual Director's International Website, Spiritual Directors are folks "who share a commitment to the art of contemplative spiritual compassionate listening." The closest certified Spiritual Director to Weatherford is the Rev. Carol Waters in Clinton.

Spiritual Directors aren’t counselors. They are fellow travelers who listen and ask good questions like a counselor, but their concern is with spiritual health and development instead of mental health. The image they use to describe their work is called The Three Chairs. This description of The Three Chairs Concept comes from their website:

In one chair a seeker sits, desiring a deeper relationship with God, a Higher Power, or Ultimate Reality. In a second chair, a spiritual director listens, inquires, and holds the space for the seeker to encounter the true Spiritual Director in the third chair.

On that Wednesday afternoon, to help me encounter God, he asked me how I had been blessed lately. I talked about my second anniversary at the church (celebrated about ten days earlier) and about other stuff, but he knew there had been so many stresses in my life that sometimes the tiny diamonds of blessings got buried under tons of dung. One comes sprinkled like pixie dust and the other comes dumped from a bucket truck. Ever feel like that? Can I get an "Amen"?

Not long after my Spiritual Director left, a man rang the church doorbell. He was a black man at the door, maybe in his late 20's but looking much older. He told me his name was Earl and he could not read or write; and he sounded like someone who could not read or write. I hate using what we from Kansas called "discouraging words," but it was true. He was dirty. His clothes were in tatters. He looked, moved and sounded like the walking-talking stereotype of an illiterate black man in deep east Texas. God forgive me for this overgeneralization, this stereotype; but then again, this might have been a part of some sort of test. More on that in a couple.

When I answered the door, he said that he was sent over to us from another church because he was looking for some bibles. While he couldn’t read, that was no problem because his mamma could. While he couldn’t read them for himself, he knew some bible stories but he had no idea what they were called or where to find them.

I said "Sure" and headed toward the chapel where there was a surplus of bibles. Georgia, the church secretary, offered to go and get some from the spares stored in the choir room instead. That was perfect. So he came into my study while she went to the choir room for the bibles. I also gave him a Gideon New Testament-Psalms-Proverbs book. He asked for three of those. No problem, there are plenty more where that came from.

He asked me to mark some things for him. No problem. He asked me to mark "that place where it says 'the Lord is my shepherd.'" No problem, the 23rd Psalm coming right up! By this time Georgia got to my office with the other bibles and she started marking them. Then he asked for that story of the guy who "Satan took everything he had but God returned it seven times. "No problem, Job coming right up!”

This is when Georgia told me she had to leave. She had an appointment. No problem, it had been in the works all week. That left us alone, Earl and me, just the two of us.

This is when Earl made a less precise request. He said that he was watching the Trinity Broadcasting Network the other day and they mentioned a scripture "where God brings two people together who have nothing in common, but it blesses them both."

I thought about it for a moment. By this time, I had begun to believe Earl was a soul God placed in my day so I could be blessed, and be a blessing too. Kind of the on the nose about what my Spiritual Director said not twenty minutes earlier.

I told Earl that I didn't know the verse they used on TBN or what they were talking about, but I wanted to share Hebrews 13:2, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." I told him that as much as we were a blessing to him by giving him the bibles, he was a blessing in my life. He was the man I needed to see that day. So I marked it in the bible he handed me and that's when it got weird.

Suddenly, Earl's demeanor completely changed. He stood taller. His eyes became clear. His voice took on a power and command I did not expect. He blessed me. I mean he blessed me, not in some general “you are a blessing in my life” way, he blessed me. I don't know exactly what he said because I was so taken aback that I didn't hear everything he said. What I did hear was, "We won't see each other again for a long time, but we will see each other again," and that's where it got fuzzy again.

As he started to leave he dropped one of the small Gideon testaments, and when it hit the floor, the moment was over. The electricity in the room was gone. His old voice returned, he smiled and said "Whoops."

It's said that the vast majority of people never have a spiritual experience while in church. Well, I had mine that day. I met a man who seemed to shrug off his human facade like I’ll take off this robe after church. He blessed me and told me that we will meet again one day. He spoke with a voice of peace and authority that I haven't ever heard another human being use. Was Earl an angel? Perhaps, I think so. Biblical Greek translates the word we use for “angel” as “messenger” and I got a message.
Does that make me crazy? Well, if I’m crazy, that’s not the reason.

I was asked if I had been blessed lately and not an hour later, there’s a man who in his own way is giving me the message that “God said ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” Don’t get me wrong, at that moment my life didn’t turn around. Life wasn’t a bowl of cherries. Every moment hasn’t been “happily ever after.” There is struggle, but as much as I have ever felt helpless I have never felt hopeless.

If Earl had walked into most offices, he would have been ushered out as quickly as security could get there. That’s the nature of most offices. Not so in the church, thank God. So it was my good fortune to be blessed that day to offer him a seat and because of that he blessed me.

There was nothing tangible, physical on this earth he could offer me. Nothing. He had nothing, he owned nothing. He was waiting on his mamma to bring back the car. They might have been sleeping in it for all I knew. All he wanted was the Word of God and I had plenty of the printed variety. He wanted some instruction too and so I could offer him the Word of God proclaimed. He had nothing, but he had a lot of it.

So in a way, without intending to, purely because I was living in the moment, I was doing as Jesus commanded in Luke 14:12-14. There was a man in my office who could never repay me. He had nothing to give me; and I didn’t know he had anything I wanted. I was able to have him sit at the table and feed him with the bread of life and give him the living water that satisfies hunger and thirst, the Word of God. By this I was blessed. I was blessed by an angel named Earl.

Come to think about it, maybe those were the verses the folks on TBN were talking about. “God brings two people together who have nothing in common, but it blesses them both?”

After he left, about five minutes later our Worship Leader, a man named Al, came in to pick hymns for Sunday’s worship. I asked him if he saw a black man leaving, either getting into a car or walking away on foot, because I wanted to tell him this story. He said he didn’t. I didn’t think there was any way Earl could make a “quick getaway” and was sure Al would have seen him. No, Earl was gone.

Friends, I keep asking if you have had any experiences like this. Last week’s board meeting included this story and three others from three board members. So that you know, the other six aren’t off the hook, there’s another meeting in two months.

There are so many questions of faith, but here’s one for the people of faith: How have you been blessed? How have you been blessed lately? How does your faith make a difference in your life? As Christians in a world that has a warped view of Christian values, we are like Jesus, we are being carefully watched, and when we live our lives like our faith makes a difference, the world sees. That’s when the world begins to understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s time to show the world the Gospel again.

A Most Unlikely Sword

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church on Sunday August 21, 2016, the Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Reading Paul’s epistles to the churches is a lot like reading a Jeopardy board. The board is filled with answers and the contestants come up with the right questions. His first letter to the church at Corinth contains the answers to questions from that congregation which are still used. The latter part of Chapter 14 deals with answers about worship.

Starting at verse 26, Paul gives instructions about psalms, doctrines, tongues, revelations, and interpretations and their use in worship. The verse ends saying that the purpose of these things is to edify, to build up the Church. Through verse 39, Paul goes into who can, who must, and who mustn’t participate in worship. He also speaks to propriety in worship. He sums up his talk in verse 40 which I share with you from the King James because it cuts to the chase, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

There is a joke among Presbyterians that this verse is tattooed on us before leaving seminary. Actually Presbyteries quit mandating the tattoo in the early 80’s. (Small joke, very small.) But I say this because pastors, especially freshly minted pastors, often get wound a little tight. Everything has to be just so… I was a basket case on my first Easter Sunday in the pulpit. If I knew then what I know now. A couple of years later, I was so comfortable in worship that on a Sunday when preaching on “good gifts” my children’s sermon included me taking a bite out of a Milk Bone brand dog biscuit.

Just so you know, you will never find a Milk Bone in the Communion tray replacing our traditional wafer, and that is not a joke.

I imagine all denominations have their own stories about “decently and in order” and today we hear one where Jesus is the star of the story.

We begin with a woman. There isn’t much we know about this woman. There is much we assume, but not much we know. We know she has what the King James calls “a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.” While the NIV’s language may be more accurate, “she was bent over,” there is a poetic quality to being “bowed together” which captures her plight better than “bent over.”

We really know nothing else about her. She could be in her late 20’s, her back bowed because of an accident. She could be in her 30’s and bowed from childbirth and work. She could be older and with these same conditions and have a disease like arthritis. We know so little about her, she could have a birth defect and this eighteen year “spirit of infirmity” may be visited upon an eighteen-year-old.

There is no talk of other family. Is she a teen? Are there children? Are they young or adult? Is she a respected woman, a real “Proverbs 31” gal whose body has paid the price? Is she a widow? We know nothing. What do we know?

We know this. Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues. The crippled woman was there. Jesus saw her. Jesus called her forward. Jesus said, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he laid hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. This we know. Then we get an earful from a synagogue leader who seems to have been a fan of Paul from his “decently and in order” Pharisee days.

Back to the King James, “And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people,” Notice his indignation is toward the people, not Jesus, “‘‘There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’” The synagogue leader is doing what he’s supposed to be doing, keeping order in the assembly. If he doesn’t, worship doesn’t glorify God. Right?

Jesus made a rookie mistake, he’ll get a talking to in the coach’s office in the clubhouse after the game, but not in front of the press or the other players.

But Jesus isn’t going into the clubhouse. This is the second time in two weeks of readings Jesus has called people “hypocrites.” Last week he dropped “the H-Bomb” on the crowd who couldn’t tell what direction the wind was blowing. This week he drops it on religious leaders who think order is more important than relationship. Hypocrite is a word that’s bandied about often, especially these days, so what does it mean?

Random House tells us a hypocrite is somebody who pretends to have virtues, morals, religious beliefs, or principles that they don’t actually possess. Especially a person whose actions go against those stated beliefs. Another slightly different nuance is someone whose public persona doesn’t match their private attitudes.

In biblical Greek it literally means to judge or to decide from under. Not very helpful, is it. It’s because it’s an idiom, an expression, one that came from the theater. It means “to act from under a mask” like the Greeks did in the theater, using masks so you could see what character they were portraying. Another way to approach that, two-faced. That’s what Jesus was calling the people when he was calling them hypocrites. He was calling them two-faced.

Jesus is saying that it’s time for the church to take the lead and make a difference in the lives of the people who need the Church to make a difference. It’s time for the church to take the lead and make a difference in the lives of the people who need the Church to make a difference.

There’s more flooding in South Louisiana. The Disciples of Christ and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance are already on the ground in South Louisiana, and do you know why? It’s because they’re still down there because of Hurricane Katrina. There is still so much to do post-Katrina that the people of God are still on the Gulf taking care of God’s business. They are there ready to meet the challenges of this new crisis. What they need is reloading.

Our denominations are working with disaster assistance in Syria and throughout the Middle East. They are in Nepal after the latest round of earthquakes. They are working in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Sweden, and other nations to help settle refugees. Here in Oklahoma they have helped provide emergency relief and helped rebuild after tornadoes and ice storms. They do this seven days a week, even on the Sabbath.

Last week our Gospel reading talked about how Jesus would separate families. Jesus wields a most unlikely sword, a sword of love, separating the people of faith. Today he separates those who only serve in robes from those who serve with their heads, hearts, and hands. Jesus shames the leaders, all powerful, affluent men. They untie their livestock so they can get water on the Sabbath, but they disgrace a sister, a daughter of Abraham who has been bowed under crippling pain for eighteen years. They will free their animals, but not their own people.

Eighteen years of crippling pain, Jesus sees her and “Plan A” takes a back seat to grace and mercy. “Decently and in order” get put on the back burner and a relationship is kindled instead. Jesus could have gone along with the liturgy, but his spirit is grieved by the condition of one of his lambs. She is lifted to a place she never imagined being, a place known only to those who know Jesus.

We end hearing, “When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” We have to be careful with this though. Forgive my foray into the political, but there’s a problem with people who delight in gaffes, when someone powerful is disgraced. There are people who wait for the humiliation and find elation. They find joy in others’ embarrassment. They delight in shame. They don’t find relief or relationship.

What our reading says is “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” They were not delighted in the humiliation of the powerful, but in the lifting of the infirm. They found joy in the building of the synagogue through the new work of Jesus Christ, the work of relationship and service. Joy was found edifying the body as Paul would tell the church in 1Corinthians. As tempting as it may be to delight in the shame of others, it never glorifies God.

You know, there’s a funny thing about Jeopardy. The questions the contestants give aren’t always the ones that go with the answer Alex Trebek reads. We read Paul’s answers, but we really don’t know the Corinthians’ questions, just like we don’t know exactly who the bowed together woman is. What we know is Jesus, the fully human and fully divine Lord of all chose that moment, stopping all that was seemingly holy, to make a holy moment of gracious connection.

It was out of everybody’s comfort zone, I imagine the leader, the woman, and the crowd wondered what Jesus was doing. I imagine the woman was both physically and emotionally uneasy coming forward too. But she did, and she received the blessing of encountering God. Let us rejoice! It is good to worship decently and in order, but we can’t let decency and order become a straightjacket that prevents us from encountering God and being healed.

He Knew

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday August 14, 2016, the Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I haven’t watched a lot of TV lately, but I do see some. With some TV come some TV ads. Geico Insurance ads never fail to amuse me. The “...it’s what you do” campaign has been entertaining. One of the most recent is a band of pirates taking a British frigate. The pirate tells the captain what he’s going to do and his parrot repeats everything he says… and more.

“Let’s feed him to the sharks…”

“AWK, Let’s feed him to the sharks…”

“And take all of his gold…”

“AWK, and take all of his gold…”

Then the parrot keeps talking! “AWK, and hide it from the crew.” This is when the pirate crew stops in their tracks and gives their captain the stink-eye. “AWK, they’re all morons anyway.”

It’s damage control time for the captain, “I never said that.”

“They all smell bad too. AWK.”

This is when the pirate crew surrounds their captain who’s talking fast, “No, you all smell wonderful, I smell bad.” In the meantime, the British captain skirts away from his captors.

Then the voiceover says, “If you’re a parrot you repeat things, it’s what you do. Wanna save 15% or more on auto insurance…” and so on.

I love it when a plan comes together, then parrots repeat things. It’s what they do. There’s no reason we shouldn’t expect the unexpected, but we don’t. When the unexpected happens, everyone is in shock. This is our reading from Luke.

Over the past two weeks, we have read warnings and encouragements, the Parable of the Rich Fool, do not be afraid, and a treatise on watchfulness from Luke’s gospel. Today we read something completely unexpected, something never read in Sunday School. Today we read that Jesus comes not to bring peace but division.

This is not the Prince of Peace we’ll find at Advent. Frankly that Jesus is a lot more likeable.

Every week I begin worship saying “May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Every week I end worship saying “May the grace of God, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” It seems like nobody read this when putting together the liturgy. So we should ask, if what Jesus said is true, and we always begin there, then what does it mean?

Let’s go to the beginning of the reading, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” To find more on the Baptism of the Lord, let’s go back a little further.

In the third chapter of Luke we find John the Baptist in the wilderness, “The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, ‘I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’” When Jesus speaks of bringing fire, he’s simply reminding us of what John has already said. This isn’t anything new, but from the mouth of the Lord it sounds far more ominous.

Then Jesus speaks of his coming baptism, though he has already been baptized in the waters of the Jordan. There are many images wrapped around baptism, washing, cleansing, renewal, birth, life, new life; but one that often gets overlooked is death. Yes, death is found in the waters of baptism. Ask any sailor about the dangers and terror of the water and they’ll tell you death is a possibility. Jesus knows that he is on his way to his death, to his tomb. His death is as much a part of his baptism as his life. To teach this will take time, and he knows that he will be pressed for time.

He does not have much time to be with his apostles, his disciples, the people he calls his Body. He knows that time is short before this Earthly part of his mission will be completed, so yes, his time is constrained. This brings him distress. It is because he loves so much that he feels the pain of his limited time. He knows his time is limited and his work is eternal. So much to do, so little time.

Now let me ask this, is there anything particularly divisive in the Gospel? The gospel, it’s love. It’s grace. It’s peace. It’s service. It’s caring. There is sacrifice and that’s not anybody’s favorite, but we get grace and peace in exchange, definitely the better end of the deal.

Still Jesus knows people will make decisions about him. Who he is, his Lordship. Is he God? Is he a man? Is he perfect? Is he crazy? How do we follow him? Do we follow him? And every time people make one of these decisions about Jesus, it creates something of a theological crossroads. Some will go one way, some another.

As people make those decisions, Jesus knows what will happen next, division. This is why he says “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” It’s tempting to lay this indictment at the feet of those who do not believe in God, but this wasn’t who Jesus was talking to. He was talking to his people. He was talking to believers.

He knew how people would interpret his nature and his message would cause division. The first division was between the Jews and the Jewish Christians, the Jewish followers of Jesus, both followers of the Lord God, the God of Abraham. Their first decision was whether Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, or not? This division was during his lifetime and led to his death.

Then came the division between the leaders of the Jewish Christians and the leaders of the Gentile Christians. The Jewish Christian leaders taught followers had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian. It made sense, Jesus was Jewish, most Christians were Jewish Christians. That turned out to be a stumbling block to the Gentiles so a council was held in about 50 AD, not twenty years after Jesus’ death. Acts 15 is where this council’s decision is reported and the division was made. In its wake came two branches, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

Splits like these have been happening ever since. As for the denominations that form The Federated Church, five American denominations came out of the late 18th century movement that birthed the Disciples of Christ. Presbyterians take the cake. Presbyterianism in America dates back to 1706, but because of schism, reunification and schism again, there are ten branches of Presbyterians in America, the most recent schism in 2012. (Actually, I thought there were twelve.) As for the United Churches of Christ, in 1957 the Evangelical and Reformed Church and the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches united to form the UCC. So in a world of division, there is hope.

So people love the gospel, even if we don’t believe the same things the same way. We received the gospel of love and grace and peace and service and caring and sacrifice and some things we don’t like as much. So it’s easy to see that there’s something for everybody to love and something for everybody not to love. So then what was Jesus trying to tell his disciples?

The Church (the capital C Church) must take heed. Some churches will say this scripture is about nonbelievers, but Jesus wasn’t talking to nonbelievers, he was talking to his children. The scandal is splits between believers; the division in the pews, and the witness that is to the world.

Next Jesus tells us the Body of Christ can’t say things like “Come join with us, not him, he doesn’t love Jesus like I love Jesus.” That sentence says one of two things. The first is that I love Jesus better than my neighbor; or the second my neighbor doesn’t love Jesus at all. This puts the speaker in the place of God, saying who is faithful and who is not.

So, we must remember in accepting the truth of the gospel, in sharing the gospel, in teaching the gospel, in living the gospel, not everybody is going to accept the Good News the same way if at all. Some will want to live by their old ways, but remember, we are reformed and always being reformed. God is continuously showing us new life. We are called to be faithful and follow.

Importantly, we have to realize since decisions about who is faithful and who is not aren’t up to us the subject and the object of our faith is the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. When we make decisions about the gospel, and we will, divisions will be made. Let us pray our decisions are faithful.

Finally, this is the good news; God is faithful even when we are not. Our reading from Hebrews is known as the “Heroes of the Faith.” They were heroic because they were faithful. The scripture continues, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”

Here is the hope for humanity: In Christ, by Christ, through Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of faith—one day all of the things that we let divide us, the things that seem so important, one day, because of Christ’s great love, none of these divisions will matter. Not one little bit. Jesus knew this.

He knew this all along.

Swing Your Feet

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday August 7, 2016, the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

On our first date, I took Marie to the North Pole, a delightfully cheesy Christmas themed amusement park at the foot of Pikes Peak. The buildings were like Swiss Chalets. There are odd statues on the grounds. And elves; some of the elves are people in costume, others are statues, some are painted wooden cutouts. One of these had this mildly malevolent expression so Marie and I named him “Omar the Evil Elf.” In my study there is a picture of Marie posing with Santa I took that day.

Something you always discover on first dates are the things that you like and the things you don’t. Me, I don’t like super spinney rides. I get dizzy, I get nauseous, and that’s a bad look on a first date. Marie hates, loathes, despises, abhors, roller coasters, cable gondolas, generally things that hang you over the ground with little support. She’ll tell you. She doesn’t even like bridges.

She was a good sport that day, she went on the gondola ride with me. It’s not a 100-yard-long loop and doesn’t go higher than 20 feet. Not much unless you hate these rides like Marie does. She got on. We were going up and I was falling in love with this wonderful woman.

I was having a great time. She was in abject terror. I told her “Swing your feet!” and she said “NO!” She had a white knuckle grip on the bar that she released one hand just long enough to show me her sweaty palm. Then suddenly the ride stopped, with us about 50 feet from the end, 15 feet in the air. At the end of the ride they helped two people jump down from the gondola in front of us because they couldn’t get the ride going and it was “close enough.” After we got off I didn’t think she would talk to me for the rest of the day.

So if she feels that way about a puny gondola ride at a cheesy amusement park, you know the chances of me getting her on one of those glass walkways like the one over the Grand Canyon or Tower Bridge in London are bad. What is infinity to the power of infinity against? Those chances got lower last year when one of the panels on the Yuntaishan Scenic Walkway in China’s central Henan province cracked, well, shattered.

Nobody was in any danger according to Chinese officials. Each panel was three pieces of tempered glass about nine square feet. Built like a piece of plywood, it was designed to support 1,700 pounds, and that much weight on one square yard isn’t that much if you consider three guys my size couldn’t stand comfortably in one square yard and don’t weigh 1,700 pounds. Then consider people would be walking along so these panels wouldn’t have to tolerate sustained weight. What would cause the impact needed to crack one of these panels is a dance team doing high kicks in stiletto heels. That would put tremendous force on a very small space. But scenic bridges were not made for a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader high-kick routine and they don’t wear that kind of heel anyway.

The whole idea of the glass bridge is to give us a different way to see the glory of creation while asking us to have faith that something we don’t think should hold us will. But when one layer of glass cracks, when what was once clear became pebbled, when what was filled with the laughter of people filled with awe became screams of people yelling “get out of my way,” when what was stable shuddered with the fracture causing just a tiny panic; faith gave way to “feet don’t fail me now.” Park officials reported nobody was injured, but they also reported the entire structure trembled with the break.

So when we hear our reading from Hebrews, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see,” we get it. We can’t really see the clear bridge panels, but we know they’re there. We can walk on them, but stepping out takes faith because walking on glass seems unreasonable. We’ve seen too much broken glass to have faith in it as sidewalk material, but these walkways keep going up.

That verse is one of scripture’s more renowned, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” And surely this is true. The remainder of the reading from Hebrews is filled with examples from the most ancient ancestors of the Hebrews, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lord made them promises, promises which were kept. The ending to our reading makes an important point.

The ending of the reading notes that the most important promises, those of a nation so vast that they will be as countless as the sands by the sea and the stars in the sky, was not kept during their lifetimes. While the means to keep that promise was finally put in place during the life of Jacob, it was not fulfilled before the deaths of these Desert Fathers.

As our reading reminds us “they did not receive the things promised,” but they had the promise. They had faith in the promise and the one who made it. Their faith endured even though they did not. Their faith endured in the hope that God would fulfill the promise, if not today, if not soon, one day. Their faith had a long memory, back to the days of the covenant of Noah, their faith had a basis in promises kept by the Lord. They had faith that the promises of the Lord, the promises that we know as the covenant with Moses and the Exodus would come.

They had a vision of the heavenly country to come. By their great faith in the promises of God for this world and for the next, as it says in Hebrews, “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” This is all because by faith, by faith alone we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. As this is from the New Testament, fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is old news to those who know. And by faith, faith that profits from the experiences of our forbearers, we share in the covenants of old and the new covenant sealed in the blood of Christ.

Luke shares one of the most common commands in scripture, “Do not be afraid.” This command is found 70 times in the NIV. This is both a promise as well as a command. He promises us something better commanding us not to fear. Jesus offers more than fear. Jesus offers light. Fear should not be our guiding light, though all too often it is.

Then come the words “little flock.” Jesus describes his followers like a shepherd describes lambs. Lambs not ready for slaughter.

Jesus realizes that in our own way we have come together, but not always of our own volition. Often we are herded. We are small and we are weak and with just the wrong push at just the wrong time in just the wrong way we panic, like crowds on a bridge of shattered glass. It may be safe, but you can’t look to a flock for wisdom. We may not be ready for slaughter, but our own fear may take us over an edge we were never intended to find. Think about lemmings. Think about how natives used to hunt buffalo off of a cliff.

Is this an excuse for “peer pressure?” I’m acknowledging that when people fail to see that our Heavenly Father is pleased to give us the kingdom, we’ll settle for less. As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” We are meant to be children of God in the Kingdom of Heaven. When we give up our liberty in Christ for safety in what we know, we don’t deserve either and often seem to lose both.

But God in Christ knows we will be anxious, liberty can be scary and a little flock is never known for its confidence. This is where we must rely on faith, the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is where we have to remember to store treasures in heaven, in a purse that will not tear. Treasures that will not spoil.

I was at the Hyatt Regency Chicago for a convention in 1982. Coming through the front door I saw a decorative hanging covering construction over the lobby near the front wall. A minute later another man who had just checked in said, “I wonder what they’re doing up there?” I said, “I bet they’re fixing the skywalks like the ones that fell in KC last summer.” He looked at me and agreed, then he asked how I knew so quickly. I told him I was from Kansas City; my second grade teacher was among the dead. He nodded, we parted.

Faith in what looks secure, steel and concrete. Faith in what had held for years. Faith in what the engineers said would hold. Faith that the change order placed by a later architect was tested. Faith that the best laid plans of mice and men don’t go askew. Faith in the greatest structures built by men. This faith lasts as long as it takes for the first pane of glass to crack and send men, women, and children scurrying like so many lost sheep.

We are to have faith in the Lord who loves us more than that. The Lord who gives better gifts. The Lord whose promises were kept yesterday. The Lord whose promises are for today, tomorrow, and more tomorrows than we can count. We are to have faith in one another in God’s holy name, not in our own. We are called to love in his name. We are called to give in his name. We are called to have faith that surpasses all understanding… not in us, but in Christ and Christ alone.

So on this holy ride we call life, rely on the promises of God, look at the person next to you, let go of that hand rail, and swing your feet.