Where the Light Is

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday July 9, 2016, the fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

While I ordinarily preach using scripture from the Revised Common Lectionary, this is Children's Sunday. The Federated Church just completed its "Fun with Bells (and Parables) Vacation Bible School. Keeping with the theme of the week, I am preaching the parable of the light and the basket.

Genesis 1:1-5
Luke 11:33-36

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 one of those Sundays when there is too much to say and too many places to start. So let’s start here. Some people will say that the pulpit is no place to talk about politics. I will agree that the pulpit is no place to endorse a political candidate or a political party. Aside from the tax ramifications, which are important, it’s a bad pastoral move. It’s not my role to endorse anyone and you don’t want to hear it. But, to say the gospel is apolitical is misreading the gospel.

In ancient Rome, Caesar was Lord. Caesar was the master over the empire and ruler of all. The word of Caesar was life and death. To declare “Jesus is Lord” was a political statement. To say “Jesus is Lord” was to put the authority of somebody else before the Emperor and was punishable by death. The Romans were pretty lenient with religion; they didn’t care because it kept the locals happy. But to declare a living man was God and Lord of all was to challenge Caesar, and that wasn’t happening.

So if I should ever sound political that’s why and that’s what I consider before I say anything in the pulpit. Yes, the gospel is political.

This week has been a study of contrasts. It’s been hard wrapping my head around it. The news has been filled with lows and the church has been filled with highs! It’s not like we have turned a blind eye to the world, but Vacation Bible School has been glorious. To see the joy in the kids and the volunteers was wonderful!

When I was in Berryville, Arkansas, four churches came together for VBS and it was fun, but there were over a hundred kids and it seemed like as many parents and it became a huge production. Don’t get me wrong, it was great, but by the time it was done I was exhausted. The production was huge. And I didn’t really get to know any of the kids. This week, walking down the street, sitting in The Cup, playing “Telephone,” teaching lessons, hearing the bells, seeing the crafts, and just watching your children and grandchildren, and neighbors; I got to know the kids. I could see and feel the Holy Spirit at work. I could see joy in their faces. I didn’t see pride, I saw delight. Even playing there was love and cooperation and peace that surpassed my understanding.

To hear the questions, the comments, oh, it was so wonderful. We checked out the foundation in the baptistery and they asked me questions about baptism, so it’s probably time for that conversation for some of you.

Let me share this wonderful story, Zach saw the gaps in the Magill’s back patio wall and asked what they were, Terry told him they were to drain the patio after it rained and that very few people ever noticed them. As this was happening I was sitting next to Alice and said he was going to be a Detective someday. Alice suggested he could be an intelligence analyst. Let’s face it, the kid’s got a future.

Just to sit by the pool, watch the children play, watch Lisa juggle, drink a limeade; do you mind if I praise God that you called me to be your pastor? That you called Marie and I to come to Weatherford and The Federated Church? Thank you and praise God!

Then during the afternoons, I would go into the office and check the email. One of the joys of serving The Federated Church is that for four generations, you have figured out how to be one Body of Christ with first two and then three Christian denominations under one roof. You figured that out. God knows the Presbytery hasn’t figured it out, just ask Jody and Bruce, they’ll tell you. You have found the way. The flipside of that is that with three denominations I get triple the newsletters and triple the action alerts. Because of the violence in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas this week, that’s been a lot of reading.

Just to add more blood to this fiasco, while editing the sermon, Marie told me about two more on Saturday, another shooting in Alabama and the incident at the Dallas Police Headquarters.

Some of those emails asked how I was planning to modify today’s worship and sermon. Well let’s start here, I wasn’t planning on telling you about my email. I was planning on a lovely extended children’s message. Lighter than usual, a pleasant change for everybody. To help, some folks provided ideas for worship. These included links and letters and resources. These provided food for thought. There was a lot of good information. Some suggestions. A couple of suggestions those weren’t very subtle either.

This quote came from Texas Governor Greg Abbot during a Friday afternoon press conference, “We as a people need to move forward and live our everyday lives knowing that Texas is going to be greater going forward unaltered, unaffected by this act of cowardice.” (Dallas mayor and Texas governor address shooting, http://finance.yahoo.com/video/dallas-mayor-texas-governor-address-001007137.html, retrieved July 9, 2016. Remark found at 11:30.) Really, as a city, as a society, as a people, we need to move forward unchanged, unaffected after a peaceful protest is shattered by sniper fire? The Dallas Police Department, I can’t say they supported the protest, but they supported the rights of the protesters. Then these protectors became victims of this heinous act of cowardice and we’re going to be greater going forward unaltered and unaffected?

I was shown other more conciliatory words from the Governor later in the day. More polished, but not from a dais, not from a microphone. These words came first.

In this great nation we have killings in schools and in movie houses, in homes and in the streets. Police and civilians are killed by police and by civilians. First degree murder and justifiable homicide, warranted and unwarranted killings and for the love of God a seminary classmate from Dallas buried her mother and two cousins last year because they were shot and killed in a House of God. They were members of the Emmanuel AME Church. They are three of the Charleston Nine.

Still we are told we “need to move forward and live our everyday lives knowing that [our world] is going to be greater going forward unaltered, unaffected.” We live our everyday lives unaltered, unaffected, like nothing has changed because nothing has changed. And if we continue to live like this nothing will change. Violence and hatred and rage and darkness will be a way of life until something drastic changes. Unaltered and unaffected is the last thing we need to be.

Like I said, it’s been quite a week.

I try to be subtler than this in my sermons, but one of the things I do is work through the musical question, “So what?” Well, so this…

Jesus said, “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy (the NIV text note says this could mean ‘generous’), your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy (the NIV text note says this could mean ‘stingy’), your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.” You should have seen it here this week. You got a taste of it earlier. There was a light shining that glowed from within these kids. There was a light that glowed, reflecting the light of the Holy Spirit that burns.

I was filled with such joy because I got to be a part of it! What a privilege! What an honor! These kids were so generous with their love for God and for one another. They shared what they had. They shared time and energy. They made sure no one was left behind. They laughed together, they learned together, and, during the parable of the Good Samaritan, when they discovered the smelly kid in their class at school was their neighbor too, they paused together. At that moment, they became more generous with who they thought was their neighbor. Their light became healthier.

These kids are so generous. They submitted to the Word of God and to learning and the bells and the crafts and most of all to one another. Kids that didn’t know each other on Tuesday were friends on Thursday. The light that shined was full and bright. At the food bank they came to realize that the poor not only needed bread and cereal, but baby formula and toilet paper. The epiphany was obvious; poverty means more than they knew. Generosity means more than they know.

Yes, they learned that they will goof, to use grown up words, that’s the nature of sin. In a world that spends so much time and energy on mayhem, murder, and bedlam, in that darkness there is light. In a world where my internet news feed is 85% chaos or Kardashian, in that darkness there is light. These wonderful children, who live in this circus learned that by love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ redeems the world and their “whole body [will be] full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on [them].”

I saw that in a world full of darkness, the light still shines.

Terry taught them a song, “This little light of mine/I’m gonna let it shine/Not gonna hide it under a bushel/Gonna let it shine on everybody/I’m gonna let it shine. The light shines and we are called to take that light and shine in the world. Genesis tells us, the Lord created the light and separated it from the dark. That’s what the Lord was doing here all this week, taking the light and separating it from the dark.

For those of you who weren’t here last week I asked, “What’s your story?” This is mine. This is a time when Jesus and the church made a difference in my life. During a week when the darkness threatened to swallow everything, your children shined the light of Christ. The light of Christ shines and I pray it can be seen in my eyes. Don’t let your light rest in a place where it will be hidden, under a bowl. We all need to be able to share our light, and let it shine, and the children will lead us all.

Grammar Rocks!

This sermon was heard at the Broadmoor Presbyterian Church on Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2014.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Psalm 8

2Corinthians 13:11-13

Matthew 28:16-20

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

When it comes to looking at scripture one of the things that I like to say is that all translation is interpretation. I’ve said it here and I’ve said it in other places. Of course there are other issues. Douglas Adams has commented on this in his work.

If you are not familiar with the work of Douglas Adams, you are missing some of the best comedy, science fiction, and comedic science fiction to come out of Britain in the latter half of the 20^th Century. He worked in radio, television, computer games, film, and stage. He worked on Monty Python, Doctor Who, a detective novel series, and travel and endangered species documentaries; but these are not the greatest source of his fame. Douglas Adams is the creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In the second of the five books that make up the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy (yes, Adams wrote five books in the Trilogy, that’s just a germ of his sense of humor) Adams says this about time travel and language:

One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well adjusted family can’t cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting a conversation whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term ‘Future Perfect’ has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.

The one thing I want us to take from this is that often, when we say or write things, others interpret them differently depending on time, place, experience, expectation, and so on. When we read things, often we read them differently from how they were intended by the writers.

Our first reading is not just an example of this, it’s a controversial example. The New Revised Standard Version gives us “God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…” The New International Version replaces “humankind” with “mankind.” The King James Version gives us “man” instead of either of these. This opens the “gender of God” controversy, is God a man because God created man?

Then again verse 27 gives us God’s simultaneous creation of male and female. With this, the whole human/man/humankind/humanity controversy falls flat. It will be milked forever, but in this piece of scripture, given women and men were created together, the controversy of Adam’s rib born in Genesis 2 is missing in Genesis 1. Of course it is present in Genesis 2, so fight the good fight.

No, the controversy I want us to consider is who the “us” and “our” are when God said “Let us make humankind in our image.”

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. Today we celebrate the three persons of God. We don’t celebrate three Gods. I like the way Karl Barth describes the Trinity describing God as “not three divine I’s, but thrice the one divine I.” One of America’s premier Barth scholars, the Reverend Doctor Cynthia Rigby reminds us that trying to describe the Trinity is almost as easy as trying to nail Jello to the wall. Describing the Trinity Patrick used the Shamrock, three leaves yet one plant. Naming the Trinity, the most common terms gleamed from scripture are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Mind you, scripture contains no mention of the Trinity, not even in our Genesis reading. When we talk about one God in three Persons, we talk about how God has been revealed in the total body of scripture, not somewhere specific. But since our God is one God not three, then who else is in that group of Gods who make up that first person plural in verse 26? Simply put, our controversy is that humanity is created in the image of Gods, but not in the image of the Triune God.

So who is our God talking about and who is our God talking to? This is where the controversy kicks into high gear. This may not be easy to hear in a Christian Church, Genesis was not written for us. I’m going to say it again because it’s shocking, Genesis was not written for us. Genesis was written as a way for the Hebrew people to remember who they are. The first eleven chapters are collectively known as the Hebrew Creation Narrative. It’s a story, a tale, a myth created to explain to a race of people who they are. It’s not a scientific tome. It’s a story for a people.

Now, just because this story isn’t burdened by facts does not mean it does not contain truth. One of the things Genesis does which no other faith had done before is introduce a benevolent God. A God who creates in love instead of needing to be tricked into creating was new. The Hebrews also introduced a new way to look at history; history as a linear expression. Up until that time people saw history as a cyclical expression of events. Linear history was just as new as a benevolent God.

What we don’t put together as Christians is the host of gods worshiped in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. Marduk, Tiamat, Baal, and Asherah were just some of the ancient gods worshiped in the Middle East at the same time as the God we worship. There are the Egyptian Gods like Ra, Isis, and Osiris; the Roman gods including Jupiter, Mars, and Minerva; and the Greek gods like with Zeus, Poseidon, and Aphrodite. To the Hebrews, the heavenly host was a busy place and our God was master of them all. When people were created, it was in the image of all these gods that we were created.

So here’s a good question, do these gods still exist? Whatever happened to the other gods of the ancient world? The Hebrews “knew” they were “real,” as “real” as the God they worshipped. They didn’t worship Baal or Zeus or Jupiter or Ra; but they still knew they were “real.” Still, thousands of years later, when our God who was around since before the beginning began, these other gods were around too; yet you don’t hear about anybody worshipping them anymore do you?

One of the best ways to describe what became of these “gods” comes to us courtesy of a 1967 episode of “Star Trek.” In the second season episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?” our intrepid explorers find a planet whose sole inhabitant is the Greek god Apollo. One of the science officers comes to ask Apollo what happened to the other gods of the Pantheon. Apollo responds “They returned to the cosmos on the wings of the wind.” The officer asks if this means they died. This is when Apollo shows us what it means for a god to die, “We're immortal, we gods. But the Earth changed. Your fathers changed. They turned away until we were only memories. A god cannot survive as a memory. We need love, admiration, worship, as you need food.”

A god who is no longer worshipped is no longer a god. Baal, Zeus, Jupiter, Ra—they were gods when people believed they were gods. When they became planet names and plot devices on TV shows like Stargate and comics like Captain Marvel they died a little bit every day. We know the Pantheon is powerless even if it is not empty. Yes, we may have been created in their image, but the only god who has real power is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God whose name is The Lord.

This is controversial, this is disturbing, and this is true. On this Trinity Sunday the Trinity is not found in Genesis. The Triune God is not a part of Hebrew theology and Genesis is the foundation stone of Hebrew life. So where does that take us on this Trinity Sunday? It takes us in a very interesting place, the very beginning. The New Revised Standard Version of Holy Writ begins like this, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Let’s learn a little Hebrew, what do you say— The Hebrew word the NRSV translates as “a wind from God” is ruach. Everybody, please say it with me, ruach. Ruach—there you go, you’re speaking Hebrew. This word sounds like wind, doesn’t it, ruach, but as with so many words it has more than one definition. An alternate definition of ruach is spirit, as in the Holy Spirit. Now that sounds like ruach. Suddenly, two-thirds of the Trinity appear in the first two verses of scripture and we never realized it. It may not how the original listeners would have heard those words, but it should be how we hear them, and it is faithful to the text where seeing the Trinity in verse 26 is not.

In our readings today, we go from the first words of scripture to the last words of Jesus as Matthew records them. Please forgive my foray back into the text, this time general grammar. In any sentence, the most important verbs of any sentence are the action and being verbs. In the case of The Great Commission, it’s the verbs that tell tell the nouns what to do. The participles, the –ing verbs tell the nouns how to do it.

In the great commission, the meat and potatoes is “Go and make disciples;” but the controversies about baptizing or what should and should not be taught overshadow the basic command.  When folks get tied up in the “how’s,” we neglect “go and make disciples.” When we get all tied up in the “how’s” sometimes we even chase our tails and it looks like the process becomes the outcome, and that must never be.

(If you want proof, catch the live internet feed from General Assembly this week.  It’s more proof that anybody who respects church polity and enjoys sausage should never watch either one being made.)

During my formative years, Saturday morning cartoons were fabulous. Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (and I can go “Hey, Hey, Hey” with the best of them), even Shazaam—my introduction to Captain Marvel; these populated my Saturdays. That was until just a couple of minutes before the half-hour and the hour, then it was time for Schoolhouse Rock.

New York advertising agent David McCall wondered how his young son could remember every Beatles song, but not his multiplication tables. McCall and Bob Dorough went on to write the first Multiplication Rock songs and animator Tom Yohe created the first visuals. They were and still are a hit. As for me, I own the four CD set along with Schoolhouse Rock Rocks, a CD of Schoolhouse Rock recorded by artists from the ‘90’s including Blind Melon, Better Than Ezra, and Moby. I’ve used Schoolhouse Rock while doing public address at Community College Baseball games and as a teaching tool while tutoring Greek in seminary.

One of the sets of Schoolhouse Rock is Grammar Rock. The one of the most popular and most remembered of these set is Conjunction Junction. How many people remember the function of Conjunction Junction is to hook up words, phrases, and clauses because of this little ditty? How many remember the three main conjunctions at the junction are “and, but, and or.”

What makes grammar rock on this Trinity Sunday is that we worship God who has appeared to us as Father and Son and Holy Spirit. We worship the God of the “and.” We don’t worship the God of “but” nor do we worship the God of “or.” We worship the God who calls all people to the throne of grace and mercy. We worship the Lord Jesus who calls all of us to go and make disciples. We worship the Lord Jesus whose last words to his disciples were “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Let me leave you with these words from Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  Amen.

Gideon Sunday Children's Sermon Audio

This children's sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday October 28, 2012, the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time.



On October 28, 2012, First Presbyterian Church along with many other local churches and the local Gideon camp celebrated Gideon Sunday. You can find the general format for this children's sermon at at this link and hear it here!

God bless the Gideon ministry. More information can be found at the Gideons homepage.

Heaven Torn Open

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday January 8, 2012, Baptism of the Lord Sunday and the 1st Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Genesis 1:1-5

Psalm 29

Acts 19:1-7

Mark 1:4-11

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 have always been fascinated by thunderstorms. I’m sure growing up in the heart of Tornado Alley had something to do with this. Their power has always left me awestruck. Last week I said that I wanted a word that meant “awe with a bit of fear,” this word is also helpful for how I feel about tornadoes. When I was in college, my first major was meteorology; I wanted to forecast weather and especially thunderstorms.

As for why I chose a career in higher education instead of weather forecasting, Calculus III and Engineering Physics destroyed me, I mean destroyed me. When people asked why I chose my career path I told them “Engineering Physics made me the man I am today.” When they pointed out that my career had nothing to do with physics or higher math, I told them that they were exactly right.

These days, there are two reasons I’m halfway collected during a big storm. The first is that we have better information about storms and it is more available to people in the path of storms. The other reason is that Marie freaks out about storms more than I do. We can’t have both of us screaming like frightened children, so I suck it up and act like the calm one. In over fourteen years of marriage, so far so good.

I don’t know if I have ever really seen a tornado. I remember once being at the store with my sisters and seeing one on the other side of the Interstate while Mom went to get the car. Honestly I don’t know if that’s a real memory or if I created it; could be either. It could have just been a big storm (which it was) and once I heard the sirens (which I did) I thought I saw a funnel.

I was once on a Boy Scout camping trip at Lake Perry in Kansas when a storm ripped through the reservoir. The weather guys said the winds were blowing up to 105 mph. We took shelter from the storm on the troop’s old school bus. The bus wasn’t overturned or anything like that, but I know why you should never ride out a tornado in a trailer. What I can remember was the fear and the noise. The noise was outrageous.

This wasn’t the only tornado to rip its way across Lake Perry. In the late 70’s, the faculty and staff of the Emporia State University Library Science College, one of the most important Library programs in the country at the time, was celebrating the end of the school year on the lake. While on the water, an East Kansas thunderstorm came up with little warning and dropped a funnel. The storm capsized the boat where the party was taking place. Many were killed. It took nearly ten years for the University and the college to regain accreditation and begin to rebuild its reputation.

Living on the high plains, another tornado hot spot, we could see the skies boil for miles. One day, when the skies were angry, Marie pointed out a cloud that appeared to be turning a color of green that should never be in the sky. Fortunately, I was able to point out that because the land was so flat that the horizons were further in the distance than she was accustomed. Those clouds weren’t bearing down on us, they were over the city of Eads, Colorado, more than 30 miles north. That’s like us being able to see the skies over White Oak from here. That freaked her out almost as much.

It could have been a mess last spring when the twister touched down four miles south of the interstate, five miles from our house. Marie and I watched the weather reports out of Shreveport and saw video from their Marshall tower cams. No funnels, but there was a lot of boiling sky between the square and the south. We eventually went to the closet with the weather radio. Of course the storm was a mess for the family who did lose their house.

Then there are the storms that reek havoc over the earth. The Great 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak lasted from May 3 to May 6, 1999 bringing violent storms to Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee. On May 3 alone 66 tornadoes broke out in Oklahoma and Kansas. The most significant of these first touched down southwest of Chickasha, Oklahoma, and became an F5 before dissipating over Midwest City. The storm tore through Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Moore, Del City, Tinker Air Force Base and Midwest City, causing $1.1 billion in damage. Forty-eight people perished during the outbreak. With estimates ranging from 66 to 74 tornadoes, it was the most prolific tornado outbreak in Oklahoma history.[1]

The Greensboro, Kansas tornado of 2007 began forming on May 4 after 5:00 pm in the northeastern corner of the Texas Panhandle, and strengthened during the early evening across the Oklahoma Panhandle. It slowly organized itself as it moved northeast through portions of Oklahoma, and then into Kansas. The first tornado warning with this cell was issued at 8:35 for Clark County, Kansas, and the tornado first touched down that evening just after 9:00. This storm was particularly devastating because it is quite difficult to visually spot a twister at night.[2]

Most recently was the catastrophic EF5 multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri in the late afternoon of Sunday, May 22, 2011. It was part of a large late-May tornado outbreak sequence that ripped a path in excess of a mile wide during its rampage through the southern part of the city. It rapidly intensified and tracked eastward across the city, and then continued eastward across Interstate 44 into rural portions of Jasper and Newton counties in Missouri.

The insurance payout for these storms is expected to be $2.2 billion with some estimates as high as $3 billion—the highest insurance payout in Missouri history and higher than the previous record of $2 billion in the April 10, 2001 hail storm which swept along the I-70 corridor from Kansas to Illinois. By July 15, 2011, there had been 16,656 insurance claims.[3]

I give you examples of the heavens being torn open and the earth being ravaged. I give you examples of destruction, sorrow, loss, and death. In these images are shock, pain, devastation, and despair. There is sorrow and grief. Rent the skies? Rent your clothes as anguish overwhelms conscious thought. Scripture tells us the Holy Spirit intervenes and knows and takes our prayers even when they are only moans. It is in these times that we need the Spirit’s intervention.

In my own limited way, this is what I think of when I think of “heaven being torn open.” We might see the skies being torn and inflamed. The clouds being whipped into a frenzy from all directions. We can see the funnels form behind wall clouds. We will be able to feel the temperature fall. Lightning crashes to the earth with the rumble of mighty thunder. We will see the effects of the wind as the grass, trees, and even buildings pitch and moan. This is what I imagine.

But in the beginning…

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”

In a time before there were heavens as we understand them, they were torn open. After these created heavens and earth God spoke the light into being. Before the sun and the moon were placed in the heavens to govern the day and the night, the heavens were created and opened that God created light, light that is good. This is how it all began.

I give you pain and anguish, God gives us the heavens and earth. It reminds me of a conversation in C. S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” where the children had just learned from Mr. and Mrs. Beaver that Aslan, the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, was a lion.

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I'd thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn't safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”[4]

God is not safe. God is not like a tame lion. But God is good.

Then “At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

I wonder what Jesus saw. I gave you my opinion of what I imagine the heavens torn open to be, but is that what Jesus saw? He saw the Spirit descending like a dove. He hears the voice of the Father. In this moment in time, all three persons of God descend upon the Earth to give one fully divine fully human a message, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

The heavens being ripped open is probably not safe, but God is not safe. Still, God is good.

Now imagine what everyone else saw, the people of the Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem. According to scripture, they saw nothing special. Scripture tells us only Jesus saw what is written in scripture as he was coming up out of the water. Only Jesus saw heaven torn open. Everyone else saw life its own self, business as usual.

As the line from the old song goes, “I hear the drums echo in the night, she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation.”[5] Jesus sees everything, the people saw nothing special. Maybe today, as we ordain a new class of Elders to the Session, some will see nothing special. For others, it will be life changing.

Let us all make life in Christ a life changing event. Like the heavens being torn open, not everyone will be able to see it. Those who do will not see it in the same way. So Lord hear our prayers and transform us, even if our prayers are little more than moans.

---

[1] 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Oklahoma_tornado_outbreak, accessed January 7, 2012.

[2] May 2007 Tornado Outbreak, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2007_tornado_outbreak#The_Greensburg_tornado_family, retrieved January 7, 2012

[3] 2011 Joplin Tornado, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado, retrieved January 7, 2012

[4] C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe New York: Collier, 1970, 75-76.

[5] “Africa” by Toto, to me, this is one of the greatest lines in pop music.

New Beginnings

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday January 11, 2008, Christ the King Sunday, the First Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

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

Last May[1] I mentioned that in my study there is a small picture from the Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar, Alsace titled “John the Baptist.” by Matthias Grünewald. Karl Barth used the first view of the altarpiece to remind and inspire him to what he considered the goal of his preaching and of all Christian proclamation.[2] This painting’s central image is Christ on the cross.[3] To his left is John the Baptist in camel hair holding holy writ and pointing to Christ. Barth believed that all good preaching was holding up scripture and pointing to Christ crucified.

But this is not the only view of the Isenheim Altarpiece, there are others. When the piece is opened, the second view[4] shows three scenes of great joy; the annunciation of the Christ, the concert of the angels singing and playing for the Madonna and child, and the resurrection of the Lord. Within these images; there is joy and sorrow, pain and redemption, beginnings and new beginnings.

The first view of the altarpiece presents the image which is central to the Christian faith, the crucifixion. The second view shows an iconic biography of the Lord from his annunciation to his resurrection.

Today we celebrate an event not found on Grünewald’s altarpiece, the Baptism of the Lord. On this first Sunday after Epiphany every year, we recognize this sacrament celebrated by John and Jesus, the Baptizer and the Lord. As is Mark’s common way of presenting the gospel, this is a very simple, very direct telling of their first encounter. His telling of this story resembles a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of the tellings we find in Matthew and Luke.

Dressed in the clothing of a desert aesthetic prophet, we have a simple description of John’s ministry, the proclamation of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We learn that people came from all over the Judean countryside. To all with ears to listen, John says that as he baptizes with water, one who is more powerful than he will come later to baptize with the Holy Spirit.

Then in those days, Jesus comes and fulfills John’s prophecy and is baptized in the waters of the Jordan. As Jesus comes from the waters, he sees the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends like a dove upon him. This is when the voice of God is heard from heaven declaring Jesus to be the Son, the beloved; with whom God is well pleased.

A good question that needs to be asked is “why does the fully human, fully divine Son of God and Son of Man need a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins?” This good question has a very good answer; Jesus does not need this baptism. Jesus chooses this baptism not for his needs but for ours. In his baptism, Jesus identifies himself with the Church, the church which he is the cornerstone. Being fully human, he knows we need this baptism, being fully divine, he ordains it for our sanctification.

What we see is the beginning for the church of Jesus Christ. We say that in our baptism we become a member of the community of the Church Universal. The book of Common Worship[5] says this about the baptism of water:

Obeying the word of our Lord Jesus,
and confident of his promises,
we baptize those whom God has called.

In baptism God claims us,
and seals us to show that we belong to God.
God frees us from sin and death,
uniting us with Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection.

By water and the Holy Spirit,
we are made members of the church, the body of Christ,
and joined to Christ’s ministry of love, peace, and justice.

Let us remember with joy our own baptism,
as we celebrate this sacrament.

We are invited to celebrate baptism not just as the beginning of the faith journey of the one being baptized, we are invited to remember our baptisms and treat this like a new beginning of our relationship in the arms of the Lord Almighty.

With the New Year come New Year’s resolutions. In resolutions, we establish the outcome goals for our new beginnings. What are our new beginnings as the Body of Christ? What are our new beginnings as this part of the Body of Christ? Do we seek to become more spiritual; praying more, reading scripture more, listening to God more? All of these are fruitful outcomes, but there is more.

We state our resolutions as goals, but only in a rare moment do we establish the actions to reach these goals. Do we pray more? Do we set aside the time to pray? Do we read more scripture? Do we find a schedule of reading and keep to it? Do we listen more to God? When we hear do we follow through?

In this part of the Body of Christ, there is weeping and gnashing of teeth about attendance in worship. So I ask, do you share our faith with others? Do you invite others to join you in worship? I know the answer is yes because the fruit of your sharing sits beside you here today.

And if you wonder about my success of bringing people into the worship fold, well, I cannot tell you I have caused a flood that would require Moses to open the center aisle before we could celebrate the Lord’s Supper. I have not. But if I ask two people, two people are asked. When everyone asks two people, well, the growth of this part of the body can be staggering. This is one way we can celebrate our new beginning.

If you wonder about how to share your faith, use the example of John the Baptist from the Isenheim Altarpiece, point to Jesus.

Our readings today began with the very beginning. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.” This translation comes from the New Revised Standard Version. It’s the version we read every week in worship. It is a favorite of mine, but it does have its limitations. It is said that it’s not as plain as the New Living Translation, nor as word-for-word literal as the New American Standard, nor as evangelical as the New International Version.

One problem rarely mentioned is its lack of Jewish flavor in the Old Testament and the Old Testament references. For that flavor, I go to the Jewish Publication Society’s translation. In this version, Genesis 1:1 reads, “When God began to create heaven and earth.” It’s quite different from our usual “In the beginning” isn’t it?

But there’s more at stake in this translation than simply style, and it is focused on one simple word—“the.” The JPS translation doesn’t talk about “the beginning.” The way the Hebrew text and the JPS translation render creation is not the way we think about it. We think about it as the beginning, the very beginning, the “there’s nothing else out there except for God in Three Persons and a whole bunch of nothing until God made there to be something.”

The way Hebrews thought about creation, they saw it as our beginning, a new beginning. In this thinking; God is so big, so wonderful, so completely different than we; that we have no idea about what happened by God’s hand before our creation. So by human reference, we can talk about nothing other than when God began to create heaven and earth. This is our beginning; this is a new beginning between God and God’s good creation.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen, amen. We sing this every week as we give glory to God the Father for the assurance of Christ’s pardon for our sins. Singing this, we pray for and give praise for the new beginning as it was in the beginning, a start, a moment without sin in life that we may know our relationship with God as the Lord intended.

The question we are called to answer is “what are we going to do with our new beginning?” In the baptism of the Lord, we see the new beginning promised each of us in the waters of our baptism. We see God’s exhortation that Jesus is the Son. Through baptism, Christ who is without sin identifies himself with all who come to the water who are born of sin. Christ joins the church as much as the church joins with him. Through this adoption, we become the children of God. And as the sons and daughters of the Almighty God, let us join together giving glory to the Lord so that one day we too may hear “you are my beloved with you I am well pleased.”

[1] Mentioned in a sermon called The Church Emerges found at http://timelovesahero.blogspot.com/2008/05/church-emerges.html
[2] Willimon, William, Conversations with Barth on Preaching. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2006, page 6.
[3] For a look at this image, go to http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/grunewal/2isenhei/index.html
[4] For a look at this image, go to http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/grunewal/2isenhei/index.html
[5] The Theology and Ministry Unit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “The Book of Common Worship”. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, pages 404-405.

The Fullness of God

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday May 18, 2008, Trinity Sunday.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

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

Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. Since he died before any of us was born, all that we know about him comes from what we learned in American History or heard from our parents and grandparents. He was truly the late 19th–early 20th Century version of the American Renaissance man. In his public life, he was a statesman, politician, president and public figure. In his life in the American West, he was a sportsman, hunter, explorer and soldier. His letters to his children show him as a winsome, lovable, gentle father, husband and family man. If we didn’t know, we might think that these are three different people, but we know him as one particular person.

You see where I’m going with this on Trinity Sunday, don’t you. Roosevelt in his way was three in one. Each one of these portraits was true to who Roosevelt was. We know enough from each one of them to know something. But even when we put them all together, we still don't know everything there is to know about who he was.[1]

I’m having trouble getting a handle on Trinity Sunday, especially since our gospel reading, the Great Commission, is perhaps the most evangelistic reading in the Gospel. So on this Trinity Sunday, what do we say about the Trinity?

Let’s begin here; the word “Trinity” is not found in scripture. It’s a theological term. It’s a way people describe God based on the witness of scripture. One of my theological dictionaries calls the Trinity “The coexistence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the unity of the Godhead. While not a biblical term, ‘trinity’ represents the crystallization of New Testament teaching.”[2] That’s as good as any place to start.

The trinitarian formula used most frequently in our worship, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is found in scripture. It was in today’s readings from 2Corinthians and Matthew. In 2Corinthians it is a blessing, a benediction to the benefit of the recipient. As we prepare to leave the sanctuary, I use this same benediction. In Matthew, it is used to describe the one God in three Persons we worship as we welcome new members into the community in the waters of baptism.

Of course, this formula is not without its critics. As humanity has explored the diverse possibilities for trinitarian images, there is a temptation to try to bring the mystery of God under our control.[3]

Some say it is gender specific; too male, not enough female. Even though we confess that the First Person of the Trinity is a most pure spirit without body, parts, or passions;[4] people get touchy about the maleness or femaleness of God. The quantity of masculine words to identify God in scripture only adds to the controversy.

Others note that people whose fathers weren’t present or were abusive have difficulty seeing God as the figure of a good Father, father with a capital “F.” I can’t disagree with this, after all, earthly fathers are a sin-soaked people; just like everyone else. But unfortunately, our earthly perceptions of fathers infect our perception of God the Father who we confess is infinite in being and perfection.[5]

Another issue with the history and theology of the Trinity is that some considered Jesus the Christ and the Holy Spirit to be secondary deities, subordinate to the First Person of the Trinity. But the church affirms that Jesus and the Spirit are not some lackey or servant gods to a supposedly supreme God when in truth all three persons of God are equal to one another.

Additionally, some have renamed the persons of the Trinity based on what we think are their usual roles. The most common of these is “Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.” This isn’t good because it tries to cubby-hole the works of God into a specific person of God. This is not the nature of the Triune God. For example, our Genesis passage this morning speaks directly to the Spirit’s role in creation as the wind that swept across the face of the waters. Our Psalm sings of God the Great I AM as the one who protects and sustains us.

All three persons of God create, redeem, sustain, and so much more. We need to remember that naming the Triune God by roles hides the truth of the scriptural witness and the nature of the fullness of God.

Our human efforts to tame the names of God have helped humanity homogenize God into compartments based on our perceptions of what God does. It has helped us put God into a hierarchy that would make a business tycoon proud. It has helped us infect the glory of God by our individual perceptions. By speaking of the Three Persons of God in these ways, in a very human way, we limit God. But the Triune God is not contained by human frailty.

Two years ago, the General Assembly voted to accept a report on this issue,[6] a Presbyterian look at the Trinity. It included this great truth: “Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are, together with God the Father, fully and eternally God. As the Nicene Creed affirms, Jesus Christ is ‘God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,’ and the Holy Spirit is to be worshiped and glorified as ‘the Lord, the giver of life.’”[7]

All three persons of the Triune God are eternal and equal. As the Triune God, the three persons cannot be separated from one another yet they are distinct from one another.

Now, if you think this is beginning to sound more like three Gods than one God in three persons, I can’t blame you. Perhaps one of the most important things we can say about the Trinity is that the concept of “Trinity” is a model, a way of explaining the mystery of God.

The PC(USA) Trinity Report puts it this way, “The mystery of the Trinity is an open and radiant mystery. It is the mystery of the truth that God is holy, abundant, overflowing love both in relationship with us and in all eternity. We meet God’s threefold love in astonishing faithfulness of the Holy One of Israel, in the costly grace given to us in Jesus Christ our Savior, and in the new life in communion with God and others that has come to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit.”[8]

The best way I have found of describing how to imagine the Trinity comes from the Swiss theologian Karl Barth who said “in it we are speaking not of three divine I’s, but thrice of the one divine I.”[9] There is one divine presence who has been shown to us in three distinct persons, shown to us in scripture, and still being shown to us today by grace. God in three persons is diverse, and in one, the Triune God is united.

The question becomes “What do we do with this knowledge?

One of the places we can find the answer to this question is in our Prayer for Illumination:

God, whose fingers sculpt sun and moon
and curl the baby’s ear;
spirit, brooding over the chaos
before the naming of the day;
Savior, sending us to the earth’s ends
with water and words:
startle us with the grace, love, and communion
of your unity and diversity,
that we may live to the praise of your majestic name.[10]

Excepting the prayer’s creeping modalism, it gives us an important clue. There are two distinct motions to this prayer, remembering what we know about the one who creates us and showing how we are to respond to God in praise and to creation in love and service.

The love of the Triune God overflows from the relationship of the three persons. We were created to share in that love, that wonder, that joy. We can’t repay God for the love we are shown; so what we must do, all we can do, is love in return. Love God and love one another in word and in deed.

When we claim the overflowing love of the Triune God we are called to respond. “[The doctrine of the Trinity] must be put into practice in our everyday life. It has its roots in the proclamation of the gospel and in the church’s life in prayer.”[11]

And as our reading from Matthew teaches, we follow the command to make disciples; sharing this love by going into the world, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching obedience to everything the Lord has commanded.

This is a daunting command, but with this command we are given the assurance that Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, will be with us to the end of the age. Rely on this and rely on the overflowing love in the fullness of the Triune God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[1] Homiletics Online, attributed to Harry Emerson Fosdick with an editorial contribution, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=902, retrieved May 16, 2008.
[2] “Trinity,” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
[3] Office of Theology and Worship, PC(USA), “The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing.” PC(USA): Louisville, KY, 2004,, lines 354-355
[4] Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter II, Paragraph 1. In the PC(USA) Book of Confessions this is found at 6.011.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Note that I wrote “accepted” and not “approved.” Because of the controversial nature of this report the General Assembly of the PC(USA) did not approve this report but instead voted to accept it.
[7] Ibid, Office of Theology and Worship, lines 217-220.
[8] Ibid. lines 245-249.
[9] Barth, Karl, “Church Dogmatics.” Volume I.1.Edinburgh: T & & Clark, 1975, page 351.
[10] Reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, Year A, Trinity Sunday, Prayer of Illumination, copyright 2002.
[11] Ibid, Office of Theology and Worship, lines, 483-484.