Heritage Presbyterian Church

Love Grows Here

Sunday’s Sermon – Starry-Eyed – Galatians 3:23-29 – Scriptures and Seuss

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This July, our summer sermon series pairs Scripture texts with well-known and loved books by Dr. Seuss as modern parables to deepen our exploration of faith in the world together. This week our Dr. Seuss classic is The Sneetches.

Last week for Heritage Plays, 23 of us met up at Suntrust Park to enjoy a baseball game. Matt, Andrew, and I got to the stadium just before the game began. A few steps past the gate, I began to notice fans carrying the kids giveaway for the night: a Braves backpack. They were no longer giving them away at the gate, and I wasn’t surprised, assuming we’d missed it. But, just in case, I talked Matt into letting me walk towards another gate to see if they still had any. He convinced me that was a fool’s errand, so we began to head toward our section. But I kept seeing people with these backpacks. More and more of them. I even saw one of the employees holding two of them, so I asked him if perhaps I could have one (he told me, “no” – he was holding them for some other fans in a reserved seating area). Every time I saw someone with a backpack, something poked at me inside. I wanted one. I noticed they weren’t even the totally cheap-o ones either. And everyone seemed to have them. More and more. Like they were giving them away nearby even. My internal monologue was getting a little ridiculous as I looked around. I begrudgingly followed Matt back up the stairs, and then, right by the gate where we had entered, I noticed something. Everyone had a backpack. I looked again. There were a few stacks of them, and employees giving them away. I walked over, prepared to persuade with my very cute infant. Before I could get out a sentence, one was in my hand and I was saying “Thank you!”

Now, I don’t need this backpack. In the words of my wise husband, we don’t need this backpack. Another backpack. Even if it does have an “a” on it and a place for water bottles. And he’s right. But my sense of jealousy at what others were carrying around, and my pride at having one of my own in my hands was palpable. Probably in ways beyond what it should be. All for a “free” giveaway at a ball game.

Sometimes, we get caught up in wanting what other people have, don’t we? There was a cartoon devoted to this idea, illustrated by Arthur R. “Pop” Momand, it ran in The New York World and other papers from 1913 until 1940. It featured a couple, the McGinis family, who were social climbers and struggled to “keep up” with their neighbors, unseen characters who never appeared in any comic, named “The Joneses.” This is one theory on where we get that idiomatic expression, “keeping up with the Joneses”[i]. Whether it’s out of a sense of keeping up with the Joneses (or Kardashians, or anyone else), we tend to pay attention to what others around us have. We are jealous of the newest phone or latest model of car; we wish our haircut would look half as good as hers, or that we had half the hair that he does. And we play a comparison game: we wish our haircut would look half as good as hers, or that we had half the hair that he does. And you know, we do this at church too. We notice that their cookies don’t look misshapen and burnt at the potluck; we see that they not only attend worship each week, but also go to Sunday School and volunteer at the food pantry; we stand for a hymn and realize that while we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, they are singing notes we can’t even read in beautiful harmony. It seems, no matter where we fall on some social ladder, we look at those around us and it seems they have it more together than we do, and we are jealous. And while a lot of times this becomes about material possessions, the “stuff” in our lives and our ability to get our hands on it, the root of the issue is not so much the stuff, but our obsession with who is “in” and who is “out,” and our ego’s deep need to be “in.”

The early church also struggled with this question. Following the radical whirlwind that was Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Christ-followers and new believers set out to figure out what it meant to be the church. We see glimpses of it in the gospels, but the real meat of their predicaments (pun intended) is found in the book of Acts and the epistles. One of the central questions? What it meant to reconcile a new faith community that included both Jews and Gentiles. These were not small questions, either. Mark Douglas notes that:

How much like a Jew does a Gentile need to be in order to be a Christian? . . . is the central moral question for the early church because it is a deeply theological question. God made promises to Abraham and Abraham’s heirs. Gentiles are not natural heirs. So how do God’s promises apply? If the promises apply to Gentiles, God seemingly treats Israel in an arbitrary way. If they apply to Jews, then how does the crucified Jesus matter to Jews? . . . On the one hand, the new church could worship a God who is willing to break promises – but that will take them away from their claim that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. On the other hand, they can pursue a vision of the continuing faithfulness of God’s promises to Abraham – which seemingly excludes Gentiles and makes the new gospel of the crucified Lord irrelevant to Jews[ii].

Imagine, if you will, that the early Christians, those Jews who believed that Christ was the Messiah, were like the Sneetches with stars on their bellies. They had their rhythms and routines figured out, and stuck together. They were the chosen ones, set apart. They’re not too keen on anyone else joining what they have. Or maybe they’d be willing to accept newcomers, as long as they began to look and act just like them.

James Kemp offers:

This story is rich with social commentary about how fallen human beings search for ways to make divisions among themselves. It also makes a statement about those who have a vested interest in keeping people divided and at war because they can sell their products to both sides[iii].

If we follow Seuss’s story, it’s pretty clear that the truth of the matter is we like to be set apart and special, and don’t like when things disrupt that status quo.

But, now, how in the world will we know,” they all frowned,
“if which kind is what, or the other way round?”[iv]

We are so quick to provide those answers, aren’t we? And we’re willing to go to some pretty extraordinary, and expensive, lengths to keep things the way they are. Instead of being focused on what unites us, we too-often become “starry-eyed” and obsessed with those things that may or may not set us apart and certainly divide us.

I think that’s because, at the heart of it, we are afraid that we aren’t enough, and so we let our fear drive us to put others down so we won’t feel like we’re on the bottom. One of my favorite devotional sites, d365.org, begins with a thought-provoking “pause” each day. The theme this week was “fear less,” and began with these words, which I think challenge the “starry-eyed” parts of us:

            Our world appears to thrive and profit from our fear –
            Fear of those different from us,
            Fear of insignificance and isolation,
            Fear that our secret shames might come to light.
            Could there be another way to live?
            Is it possible to fear less?[v]

The early church was living in a time of fear, when everything in their world, religiously and secularly, were shifting in dramatic ways. For a community set up against the challenging context of the Roman Empire, the Galatians had to rethink both their theology and their politics as those from the secular world became a part of their faith, or of some new faith that was emerging. All of a sudden, the church was full of people juggling multiple, and often conflicting, identities, with different understandings about things like what to eat, and what do with their bodies (i.e. circumcision). Paul spends a lot of time sorting out what no doubt were long lists of contentious questions about how things were supposed to work, rooted in a sense of the early church wanting to remain special, starred, rather than invite everyone in.

Our text for today is the high point of Paul’s letter. You get the sense that he is at a point of exasperation, following detailed conversation about nuances of the law. It’s as if he throws his pen across the room, and grabs his hair screaming at them for their obsession with the details. “GROW UP!” he might have shouted, noting that their quest for who is “in” and who is “out” was like teenage girl cliques or childhood clubhouses. They can’t see the forest for the trees. Or, quite literally, I wonder if Paul adopted the phrase that I have started using when I get in the weeds of minutia myself in ministry, “Jesus Christ did not die for this.” So Paul comes back to the central point of the gospel: that in Christ, God was doing a new thing. A new family has been formed, one that breaks down every boundary imaginable. Social distinctions are obliterated.

Paul says that Christ alone matters: Christ our unity, Christ our focus, Christ the line of energy along which relationships run, Christ the beginning and the end, Christ the cause for which we live, Christ from which nothing can take us, not even death – especially not death[vi].

Paul writes:

Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus
Christ[vii].

Dr. Seuss says:

Sneetches are Sneetches and no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether they had one, or not, upon thars[viii].

This is a vision for the church of the future; to truly be one in Christ Jesus.
Proclaiming and celebrating unity in the church means learning from our differences instead of allowing them to divide us. It means encouraging others and not boasting about our own accomplishments. It means courting a spirit of gratitude instead of pride. It means that we cannot separate love for God from love for one another[ix].

Living this way is not just for Christians or the church exclusively. This is the approach to community that should be our goal; to recognize that people are people, and that every. single. person. in this world is a beloved child of God. That doesn’t mean that we don’t notice our differences. Indeed, that’s also dangerous and detrimental. We don’t need to ignore the things that make us distinct. But we shouldn’t let those things that make us different be what drives us apart. Why? Because the God who created us, the Savior who died for us, and the Spirit who both scatters and gathers us together, is so much bigger than that.

And because we are brought together in the one who is indeed that big, we need not be afraid of anything; not those things that make us different from each other, not those forces in the world that are pushing against us, not the thing that keeps us up at night, or is that we can’t even bring ourselves to say, not even death itself. So maybe, just maybe, we can be as smart as the Sneetches, and recognize that there are McBean’s all around us, seeking to divide us and make money off of our fear,  but that, in the end, it doesn’t matter if we have stars on our bellies or not. Realizing that is realizing God’s overwhelming grace. A grace so powerful that it allows us to step out of the relentless lines going in and out, and instead embrace a new reality and identity as children of God. Together. For in Christ Jesus, we are indeed one. May we be smart enough to realize this is the truth, and go and live like it. Amen.

~sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford, July 28, 2019

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses
[ii] Mark Douglas, “Theological Perspective: Galatians 3:23-29,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
[iii] James W. Kemp, The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss, (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2004)
[iv] Seuss.
[v] “Pause,” www.d365.org, week of July 22-28, 2019, written by Joshua Hays
[vi] Carol E. Holtz-Martin, “Homiletical Perspective: Galatians 3:23-29,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
[vii] Galatians 3:28, The Message
[viii] Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches and Other Stories, (New York: Random House, 1961).
[ix] Kemp.

Sunday’s Sermon – Creation’s Cries – Romans 8:18-25

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This July, our summer sermon series pairs Scripture texts with well-known and loved books by Dr. Seuss as modern parables to deepen our exploration of faith in the world together. This week our Dr. Seuss classic is Horton Hears a Who!

Have you heard the expression “mom brain”? It’s usually a joking-but-true phrase we use to ascribe the phenomenon of how after having children, a woman sometimes loses the ability to keep things straight and are forgetful, to say the least. This is particularly true in those early, sleep-deprived months, but its effects are surprisingly long-lasting. The parenting load is no joke, and the struggle is real. But, truth-be-told, the idea that having children changes things is a scientifically proven fact.

Research shows that pregnancy changes the architecture of the brain for at least two years in areas that govern the understanding of the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and intentions of others[i].

One of the ways this is seen is in a woman’s response to her crying baby.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health watched the behavior of 684 mothers who had infants approximately 5 months old in North and South America, three countries in Western Europe, two in sub-Saharan Africa, one in the Middle East and two in East Asia. Mothers in all of those places were more likely than not to do the same thing when their infant cried in distress: they picked them up, held them and talked to themi.

And while this might seem like a common response, the neurological responses showed a much different reaction between mothers and other women without children. In mothers,

these responses were deeply wired into the nervous system at a level that is typically associated with instincts. . . the crying of babies triggered the moms’ brains to move and prepare to talk, even before the mothers had necessarily processed what was happening and what they needed to doi.

In summary, those who were parents had an innate instinctual connection with those crying out, and a response of care almost before they could even think about it.

If such a connection is hard-wired into us as humans, how much more must it be hard-wired into God’s relationship with us as Creator? The entire witness of Scripture reveals a God who longs to be in relationship with God’s creation. Over and over again, God seeks out covenant with God’s people, offering grace and love in the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures alike. And here, in Paul’s letter to the Romans, we are reminded of God’s care and presence for what God has created even in the midst of creation’s cries.

N.T. Wright describes this Spirit-inspired prayer as “the beating heart of [Paul’s] whole sequence of thought[ii].”

No matter what, Paul says, God is listening and preparing to free God’s people from bondage and usher in a new age of redemption, where cries will be no more. Through Christ, God responds to the cries of creation for wholeness.

Just as God led God’s people through the wilderness to freedom, so the Spirit leads all of God’s children to a life of freedom.
. . .
Paul’s claims are expansive: everything will be redeemed – all of creation, our bodies, the substance of this earth[iii].

The knowledge of all of this leads Paul into a description of hope; a hope for what is not yet seen. Blair Alison Pogue notes that we don’t really live in a world of hope, saying:

Most Americans are optimistic, but not hopeful[iv].

In the midst of struggle, we want things to work out for the best, but aren’t necessarily convinced that it’s really possible. Vaclav Havel, 20th century Czech writer, statesmen and former president, talked about hope as prophetic and more as:

an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons[v].

Put this way, then, hope is about anchoring our hearts beyond ourselves. This is what Paul was writing about to the Romans. For Paul,

Christian hope is not pie in the sky; it is hope rooted in what Paul calls “the first fruits of the Spirit” (v. 23). This metaphor of the first fruits means that in Christ we already have come to know the power of life over death. We already know freedom. We already know love. We have tasted the first fruits, and they have whetted our appetite for the final banquet. We do have out-of-hand expectations. Because we know the first fruits, we rejoice at the loving, the living, and the freedom. We hunger for more, and we cry out wherever love is absent, life is shortened, and freedom is taken away. The church of Jesus Christ is the community of sisters and brothers who live in anticipation of a new birth of freedom, a new day of loving, and an inheritance of life abundant[vi].

What does it look like to live in this kind of community? Horton the elephant gives us a clue in the Dr. Seuss classic, Horton Hears a Who!. In the midst of his everyday life, this elephant pauses to listen for a call to help. And rather than ignore it, or pass it on as someone else’s problem, Horton makes it his mission to protect and care for that little voice on the speck of dust, because “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” He goes to great lengths, extraordinary lengths, to attend to what we learn is not just one little voice, but a whole people down in Whoville who are at risk. He embodies what it means to be a caretaker of God’s creation, even at the risk of his reputation and at times his safety. He is mocked and ridiculed by others who cannot, or perhaps choose not, to hear the cries of those small voices. He goes out of his way, quite literally, to seek out the speck in a whole field of clover, determined to not let it get lost now that he is aware of its presence. And he endures harsh treatment and even imprisonment for daring to advocate for the smallest of the small, all while trying to encourage their voices.

Where are the “specks” in our world? The list is likely larger than the three million clovers Horton sorted through in that field to find his friends. I wonder if that scene might remind us that there are countless issues and concerns, the majority quite worthwhile, but that some will quite literally call to us more than others, and be the ones the Spirit is nudging us to be passionate about. Throughout Scripture, we hear such calls, to care for and attend to the lost and the lonely, the widow and the orphan, the stranger living among us. Those, along with others on the margins of society, were the ones Jesus himself spent the most time with, and are the ones that are crying out, waiting and longing to be heard. And creation needs, God needs, Hortons in the world to hear and respond: to the older adult who feels forgotten, to the prisoner whose family can no longer visit because he’s been moved even farther away, to the child at the border who does not know if or when she will see her mother again, to the young adult who is struggling with addiction, to the child terrified to go back to school because of bullies. For these, and all of those instances where creation is crying out, who will listen? Who will respond?

This morning, I have a present for each of you. I have a basket full of “specks” and invite you, following worship, to take one home with you. Carry it around for a while, kind of like Horton did, as a prompt to engage in active listening for who God might be calling you to hear. Living in this kind of anticipation puts us into an active relationship with the world, not just as we know it, but in the fullness of all who is. And we might just be able to hope for things we do not even see as a result.

Vaclav Havel reminds us that:

Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpromising the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from ‘elsewhere.’ It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now[vii].

So may we listen, and act, and live into being the good caretakers and stewards of creation that God intended us to be – for all of God’s children and all of God’s world. Even when it seems impossible or futile, even when it means we’re putting ourselves out there. May this be our call: not just being satisfied with the present, but living into the future promised by God. For this, all of creation cries out. Amen.

~Sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford, July 21, 2019

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[i] Belinda Luscombe, “Here’s How Mothers Around the World React When Their Babies Cry,” https://time.com/4992130/motherhood-crying-babies/, accessed 7/20/19

[ii] N.T. Wright, “Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 10:591. As quoted by Karen Chakoian in “Exegetical Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[iii] Karen Chakoian,“Exegetical Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[iv] Blair Alison Pogue, “Homiletical Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[v] Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, as quoted by the Vaclav Havel Library Association, https://www.vhlf.org/havel-quotes/disturbing-the-peace/, accessed 7/20/19.

[vi] David M. Greenhaw, “Pastoral Perspective: Romans 8:12-25,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

[vii] Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace, as quoted by the Vaclav Havel Library Association, https://www.vhlf.org/havel-quotes/disturbing-the-peace/, accessed 7/20/19.

Sunday’s Sermon – Sent – Luke 10:1-11

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This July, our summer sermon series pairs Scripture texts with well-known and loved books by Dr. Seuss as modern parables to deepen our exploration of faith in the world together. This week our Dr. Seuss classic is Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

“Congratulations! Today is your day!” our book this week begins. It could also be a modernization of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples. While often we think about Jesus sending the disciples out into the world with the Great Commission in Matthew 28 which called us into worship this morning, our text from the gospel of Luke reveals another sending of the disciples that is equally compelling. On his way toward Jerusalem, Jesus sends out disciples to spread the good news to all the world. And did you catch the number? It’s more than “the 12” we tend to cite. It’s 70, and that number is significant. It mirrors the number presented in the list of all nations in Genesis 10 alongside the story of the tower of Babel. Thus, we are meant to understand it to be complete. It is a monumental moment in the gospel, furthering Luke’s insistence on sharing stories that reveal God’s desire for the gospel to truly be for all peoples and all nations, a theme that continues well into the book of Acts. One step further, this is a story about what it means to be in community together. The disciples are even sent out two-by-two. Mitties McDonald DeChamplain offers that:

Jesus is clearly affirming that proclaiming the good news of the kingdom is not a solo performance, but a communal and relational activity – a concert of the whole body of those commissioned. The message is ever inclusive and expansive[i].

But, before the disciples can race on their way, Jesus has some words of wisdom for what they might expect. He lays out the possibilities for them for the road ahead. You know the countless locker room scenes shown in tv, the movies, or even real-life sporting event coverage? The coach tends to have an uplifting, inspiring speech. The players are captivated and focused, and everyone leaves cheering because of how pumped up they are? Yeah – this isn’t quite that pep talk. You see, Jesus lays out for them not just the exciting and wonderful good news that is the message they will deliver; he also tells them to brace for things that are difficult. They’ll have to figure out their way without carrying much of anything with them. But more disturbing, they may face total rejection. Here in 11 verses, Jesus describes what life looks like as a disciple, and it’s full of ups and downs.

Dr. Seuss’s last book, published in 1990, was Oh! The Places You’ll Go!. It quickly became a best-seller and reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. It still remains near the top of those lists, especially in the springtime, when there is a bump as it’s purchased for its words of wisdom to new graduates. Ready for the roller coaster? The book begins with that uplifting notion, quite literally with a hot air balloon soaring. But then bang-ups and hang-ups happen. You can be left in the Lurch. Confusion sets in on which way to go. You get stalled out in the tediousness of waiting. Until you don’t, and then you’re barreling ahead to fame and fortune. Or the bottom can fall out and leave you lonely, or scared. Surrounded by fears that threaten to overwhelm. And you get mixed up with all sorts of strange birds. But you can, and will, do amazing and marvelous things in the end. Whew! It’s a whirlwind of experiences, all wrapped up neatly in rhyme. But, isn’t it also a depiction of the realities of the journeys of life?

That same kind of comprehensive description of the way things might be is what Jesus gives to the disciples in Luke’s gospel. I love that Jesus paints such a realistic picture of life. He doesn’t look at the crowds that have been following them and promise them something that is perfect. He doesn’t promise riches or good health or any form of guaranteed benefit for doing this work. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not a guarantee of “the good life” here and now. In fact, sometimes it’s quite the opposite. DeChamplain continues saying:

The reality that many things can devour and diminish the commitment of Jesus’ disciples, and the likelihood of rejection on the journey is strong. Those commissioned, however, are not to be people pleasers but God bearers – offering God’s peace to all[ii].

Some days, that will be received well, and community will be formed. Meals will be shared, people will be healed, and the kingdom of God will be glimpsed. But other times, well, it’s just not pretty. And when that happens, Jesus calls his disciples to leave, and not even take the dust from that place with them on their feet. Move on, there is more journeying to do.

We often like to imagine that beautiful mountaintop scene from Matthew, with discipleship being all about going out, preaching the gospel, baptizing babies, and celebrating God’s presence with everyone joining hands and singing happily. But Luke’s version of the kingdom of God is grittier than that, reflecting that life as a disciple can be a bit of a roller coaster. Personally, I find that kind of honesty about life refreshing, because it carves out space for God to be a part of every aspect of our journeys, with us at every twist and turn in the road. And if we know that to be the case from the start, it might be easier for us to find God in the midst of the “Great Balancing Act” we know as life. And if we can do that, we might have a chance at this thing called discipleship.

We know that living a life of faith has its ups and downs. Some days, we are filled with the Holy Spirit and enthusiastic about spiritual practices. Our prayer life feels focused, we are eager to read the Bible or some other devotion. We serve others with love and compassion. We might even come to church with a spring in our step, excited about participating. The music is uplifting and the sermon really hits home with us. Other days, though, it’s not so easy. Our Bibles gather dust on the shelf because life is too chaotic. We rush through prayers or forget them all-together. We would rather hit snooze or go to brunch than attend worship. Or maybe the sermon is a dud. It happens. Or, we want to engage in fellowship, but feel disconnected from others. Maybe we fight some with each other, or grieve the loss of what once was in our faith communities. The list goes on. If we took stock of our lives, attentive to the faith aspects, I imagine we’d also find it full of ups and downs. The good news of today’s text, I think, is that Jesus tells us that’s normal and to be expected. He also calls us to go anyway.

Robert Short gives us wisdom for the journey, saying:

To get lots of mileage, you must have a great mission. If you really want to go great places, then you’ve got to have something great to go for. The greater the goal, the farther you’ll go . . . Furthermore, if you really want to be unconquerable in this quest, if you want to be a winner no matter what happens, then what you are going for must also be unconquerable. It must already be the winner[iii].

He then reassures us that all of this can be accomplished (yes, we’ll do great things! Move mountains even!) – not because of us, but because the work has already been accomplished in Jesus Christ. We are simply called to take that message into the world and share it in as many ways and in as many places as we can, trusting that God has been, is, and will be, responsible for what happens from there.

Two lesser-known theologians, Jake and Elwood Blues quipped “We’re on a mission from God!” Being disciples is not just about coming to worship and professing faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It’s about recognizing that our Lord and Savior launches us into the world. We were not meant to be stagnant beings just biding the time until Jesus comes back. No, we are to go ahead and proclaim his coming. That’s what the seventy were sent to do in Luke, and two thousand years later what we are called to as well.

I think we often forget this part of discipleship – the going part. Especially as a community of faith. Sometimes we treat the church too much like a destination and endpoint for our faith, an offramp instead of an on-ramp on which we accelerate into the world. Carol Howard Merritt challenges us on this complacency, saying:

Too often Christians are shut up in sanctuaries, concerned about leaky roofs and outdated boilers, counting the attendance, and wringing their hands because people do not seem to be worshiping God as they did in the past. Congregations spend so much time caring for their own and feeling anxious about their demise that they sometimes forget that they, like the seventy, have been sent out with the gospel of God’s love and justice and mercy. How can we get out of the pews and join in the mission of God to the world? How, like the seventy, do congregations recognize and embrace their active participation in the reconciling work of God beyond the narrow confines of their own fears and needs?[iv].

The answer, I think, lies in our ability to simply keep going, and stay focused on the call we have been given as disciples. Ultimately, that’s what Jesus tells his followers to do. Don’t carry extra things that will distract or weigh you down, rejoice in the message you’ve been given without trying to bounce around from place to place, and if things happen that block or impede the message, just move on.

In addition to the words from Jesus and Dr. Seuss, this morning we might borrow the lyrics of another poet, Frank Lebby Stanton, who was a popular editorial columnist for the Atlanta Constitution who was named Georgia’s first Poet Laureate in 1925. Among his many writings is a turn of the century poem titled, “Keep a’Goin.” It reads:

If you strike a thorn or rose, Keep a-goin’!
If it hails or if it snows, keep a-goin’!
‘Tain’t no use to sit and whine when the fish ain’t on your line;
Bait your hook an’ keep a-tryin’- keep a-goin’!

When the weather kills your crop, keep a-goin’!
Though it’s work to reach the top, keep a-goin’!
S’pose you’re out o’ ev’ry dime, getting’ broke ain’t any crime;
Tell the world you’re feelin’ prime – keep a-goin’!

When it looks like all is up, keep a-goin’!
Drain the sweetness from the cup, keep a-goin’!
See the wild birds on the wing, hear the bells that sweetly ring,
When you feel like sigin’, sing – keep a-goin’![v]

No matter what, we are called to keep going on the mission Christ has given us – to go into the world, our topsy-turvy, chaotic, ups and downs world, and share what we know to be good news, the very gospel itself. So, let’s do it. We’ve got writers giving us inspiration, Christ himself cheering us on, and we aren’t alone; we get to do this together. Today is our day! With God’s help, we’re off to great places! So, let’s get on our way! Amen.

~Sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford, July 14, 2019

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[i] Mitties McDonald DeChamplain, “Homiletical Perspective: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

[ii] Mitties McDonald DeChamplain, “Homiletical Perspective: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

[iii] Robert L. Short, The Parables of Dr. Seuss, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008).

[iv] Carol Howard Merritt, “Pastoral Perspective: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

[v] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/KEEP_A-GOIN%27_by_Frank_Lebby_Stanton_1c.jpg

Sunday’s Sermon – Picky Eaters – John 6

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This July, our summer sermon series pairs Scripture texts with well-known and loved books by Dr. Seuss as modern parables to deepen our exploration of faith in the world together. This week our Dr. Seuss classic is Green Eggs and Ham.

How many of you consider yourselves “picky eaters?” I asked this question on my Facebook page earlier this week, asking for rankings on a scale of 1-10. A few placed themselves midway, weighing various dietary choices and decreeing certain foods as anathema, from peanut butter to green peas, while others admitted to all out pickiness at the top of the scale. But the majority of my friends seem to rate themselves a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-10, many claiming they “eat anything.”

I wonder how the disciples would have answered, particularly after hearing Jesus’ lengthy description in John 6. These almost 40 verses, some of which we read this morning, are known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.” They come in the gospel text following familiar stories like the feeding of the 5,000, and Jesus walking on water. Now, Jesus settles in the synagogue in Capernaum and tries to explain to those who have gathered what is going on.

“I am the bread of life.” It is one of seven “I am” sayings in John’s gospel that unveil who Jesus is. They echo God’s voice from the burning bush in Exodus, revealing the presence of the divine. Throughout the gospel, Jesus himself lays out that God’s ancient promises are being fulfilled, noting that the ability for all to come to him depends only upon hearing and learning[i].  The people have been following with many questions, eager for additional proofs so that they might believe. Here, Jesus provides with, as David Hull describes it, a symbol that would have had rich meaning and immediate understanding to his audience. He notes:

Today we use utensils to move the food from a plate into our mouths. Bread is often served at meals, but it is seen as a “starter” or a “side.” Many who are watching their diets choose to forgo the bread. Therefore, when we hear that Jesus is “the bread of life,” we can too easily think in terms of a metaphor for something that is as optional as a dinner roll. . . The way that Jesus and his contemporaries ate was radically different from the way most Westerners eat. No utensils were used. A person ate with his food or her hands. Bread was usually used to dip into the food and bring the food from the dish to the mouth.  . . The Western mind-set allows us to think of bread as an extra that we can take or leave; but Jesus was operating with an image that was essential to the process of eating.  . . . Bread, then, was not an extra to be chosen or omitted; it was how persons accessed the food that was placed before them. According to John’s Gospel, then, the incarnation is the means by which we can access and partake of the life that God offers us. . . . Life is the main course. The “bread” is how we are able to receive the main course[ii].

In this passage, Jesus connects all of the dots, and lays it on a platter, if you will, almost literally for those who would listen, and invites them to join the feast. His words are graphic and visceral, carrying weight and impact that would have made those listening take notice. The fullness of God presented in dramatic fashion, ready for the taking.

But did you catch the response of those who heard it? Of the religious leaders and even his own disciples who had been following him? They are full of doubts and speculations, and scrutiny. It must have looked like trying to get a baby to eat green beans. In a study just over 10 years ago by researchers Forestell and Mennella, they introduced pureed green beans to a group of infants for the first time. Their reactions were as you might expect:

95% of the babies squinted

82% waggled their brows

76% raised their upper lips

42% wrinkled their noses

In short, babies looked disgusted, and the more disgusted they looked, the more slowly they ate[iii]!

Here Jesus is in John 6, spoon-feeding the very words of life to all who will hear, offering them that which will sustain, and they are turning up their noses at it.

As 21st Century Christians, we like to imagine that we would have seen Jesus and immediately known that he was the Messiah. We call ourselves disciples, indicating that he is the one we would have chosen to follow. We have the great benefit of knowing more of the story, and with 20/20 hindsight we can easily claim we would have been believers. If Jesus had shown up and said “I am the bread of life” in front of us, we would have gobbled it up, right? Maybe, or maybe not. Those who followed Jesus, even those closest to him, pushed back in this passage as they tried to make sense of it. You see, what we often forget is that Jesus was so provocative and innovative that he often stunned those gathered crowds. He left them scratching their heads, trying to figure out what it all meant. Jesus was in the business of change, and that wasn’t always readily accepted. He might as well have been offering them, well, Green Eggs and Ham.

In this classic by Dr. Seuss, the unnamed resistor is adamant about not trying what is offered to him from the enthusiastic Sam-I-Am. And so, Sam gets creative, offering different ways of hearing it and experiencing it in hopes of enticing him to take a bite. But each time, the creature resists. He doesn’t even list excuses or reasons. He simply repeats his dislike for green eggs and ham under any circumstances. He is, for the majority of the book, unable to even entertain the possibility of such a new dish that is unlike anything he knows or likes.

If we’re really honest, rather than jump in with two feet at what Christ himself would call us to do, we are a bit more like that character in the book. Writer James Kemp offers:

So many times in life we, like Sam’s friend, initially resist something that ultimately we might like, or something that ultimately we need whether we like it or not. We are hesitant to try new things, resistant to hearing new ideas or perspectives, especially when those new perspectives make us uncomfortable . . . It’s far easier to insist that we don’t like green eggs and ham than it is to try on a new way of looking at things, especially if the new message might reflect negatively on what we’ve been doing up to now[iv].

And so we resist change. We resist things that put us outside of our comfort zones. We tear things apart and seek to discredit rather than open ourselves to the possibility of learning something new.

Anne Lamott wrote that “the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty[v]”. Sam’s friend was sure that he knew he would not like Green Eggs and Ham, even though he had never tried them. His certainty blocked his ability to have faith in what Sam might have been offering him. Have you ever resisted something simply on principle? Simply because it was new? Could you imagine what that might be like in your faith life?

Today, I’d invite you to consider what spiritual foods Jesus might be offering you that you have either flat our refused, or have been pushing around your plate for some time. Maybe it’s a spiritual practice, or way of prayer. Perhaps it’s some nudging that you keep getting a sense you’re supposed to do as a way to live out God’s love in this world, but just haven’t been able to get the fork to your mouth, so to speak. Or maybe it’s something you just can’t imagine working for you at all. Would you like it here or there? Could you, would you? What would it mean for you to test out those waters and stretch yourself in faith.

A word of caution here: I’m not suggesting that anything goes, or that you’ll like everything. I’ve heard of homes where people take “no thank-you bites”; in my house you take the number of bites equal to your age before you see if you do or don’t like something. But here’s the thing – you don’t know until you try. And sometimes, especially if you know that it’s something that is good and healthy for you, it’s worth the discipline of trying.

Remember those babies who were given green beans? They survived. In fact, after gentle introduction and offering those green beans to the babies eight to ten days in a row, it appeared they got over their initial dislike of the vegetables. It just took time. Just over a week later, those babies were eating three times as much pureed green beans as they did on their first experience[vi]. Other studies have had similar findings, prompting the advice for parents to *gently* introduce new foods multiple times, a dozen or more even, rather than give up on a particular food after one refusal. Persistence, it seems, pays off a bit.

Maybe this is why Jesus spent almost 40 verses repeating himself about being the way in which God was revealed to the world. Maybe this is why he continued to teach using parables and sit with people in the synagogue and heal and perform miracles. He used every way possible to get the disciples and others who had gathered to understand what was going on and what God was about. And maybe of the best truths about the good news of Christ’s resurrection is that God isn’t done with the world yet. Jesus continues to move among us, surprising us and demonstrating God’s power in this world. Course after course, God delivers us the bread of life. Over and over it is offered to us, the feast of grace and wholeness, the transforming possibility of new life. We get a taste of it every time we gather together as God’s people; every time we come forward to this table.

This meal, known as Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, is also called the Eucharist, which simply means “thanksgiving.” It is our moment, as those who have experienced the gospel of the gospel, to come together and say, as the character does at the end of the book, “Thank you, thank you, Sam-I-Am!” It is a meal of grace, where we offer our praise to God. It is also a time when we get another taste of the good news God has to offer.

Through Jesus Christ, the feast has been prepared, and we are all invited. So may we not be so quick to protest; instead, may we dare to come and eat, to taste and see that the Lord our God is good. Amen.

~sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford, Heritage Presbyterian Church, July 7, 2019

 

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[i] Richard Manly Adams, Jr, “Exegetical Perspective: John 6:41-51,” Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 1, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015)

[ii] David W. Hull, “Homiletical Perspective: John 6:41-51,” Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 1, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015)

[iii] https://www.parentingscience.com/how-to-start-babies-on-solid-food.html; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18055673

[iv] James W. Kemp, The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss, (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2004)

[v] Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, (New York: Riverhead Trade, 2006), 256-57., as quoted by Margrey R. Devega, “Pastoral Perspective: John 6:41-51,” Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 1, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, editors (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015)

[vi] https://www.parentingscience.com/how-to-start-babies-on-solid-food.html; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18055673

Sunday’s Sermon – Powerless – 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

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Think of a time when your home lost power. In the summertime, these outages are hot, sticky, and frustrating. It disrupts every sense of normalcy we have about our lives, as we work on other arrangements, and mourn the loss of refrigerators and freezers full of food. As we have learned here about our new HVAC system, even a small blip in the power grid can prompt our new unit to shut off to protect the compressor – which is good for the longevity of the system, and less good when you have a hot sanctuary despite things looking like they are running properly on the thermostat. But more than just inconvenient, being without power is so hard because we realize how vulnerable we are to outside factors and sources. To play with the words a bit, we are “power-less,” both literally with the electricity outages, but also in other ways, unable to fully control the situation, forced into waiting it out and hoping for the best.  And no one likes to be powerless or weak.

Except maybe the Apostle Paul in today’s New Testament reading. His premise, on the surface, is a little ridiculous – weaknesses, Paul says, are good. In fact, that’s about what he will boast. He even goes so far as to add in the thorn in his side, persecutions and hardships to the list. It doesn’t make much sense, does it? Why on earth would we want to tell others about those places in our lives where we are imperfect? It goes against the very grain of our culture, which tells us to conceal our weaknesses, not boast about them. Focus on our strengths, minimize our shortcomings. Don’t admit when you don’t know the answer, just wing it. “Fake it ‘til you make it.” Nowhere in any of these words of advice are putting our weaknesses on display. After all, that would make us incredibly vulnerable, open to criticism, and frankly, less likely to succeed. Consider taking Paul’s advice on your next job interview. Go in and lay out all of your weaknesses, boast about the skills you lack. Probably won’t get you very far.

So what is Paul getting at? By the time this epistle was written, Paul already had a relationship with the church in Corinth. The church had been through challenges and complications, akin to many of the early churches, struggling with what it meant to live as a community of faith, particularly in circumstances where cultures and habits collided. But rather than focusing on these issues, this letter takes a different turn. Here he spends a lot of time defending his own position as an apostle. There’s a reason for this. Earlier he almost sarcastically mentions some “superapostles” who had been traveling around, teaching and preaching a gospel that differed slightly from Paul’s understanding. From the context of the letter, it seems that these leaders were asserting themselves in ways that Paul was not – from accepting financial support from the Corinthians for their ministry to simply being more charismatic in their visits. Rather than try to go “toe to toe” with these other leaders, Paul chooses another route: to use the perception of him as “wimpy” or “weak” as a strength.

This seems counter-intuitive to most of us. After all, if your authority as a leader is being threatened, why not defend yourself, pad that resume a bit if you have to, so that the church in Corinth will follow you? But Paul’s choice isn’t an oversight in church politics. He is a master rhetorician, and once again pushes his readers into considering something more. To understand it, we have to look more closely at what this weakness about which Paul boasts actually is. Theologian Karl Barth describes it in this way:

what is his weakness? Simply what remains of his Christian existence after it is stripped of the religious experience of which he could boast for good reason and in truth, but that means insults, hardships, persecutions, calamities for Christ’s sake (v. 10). There he sees the power of Christ dwelling in him; there he knows himself to be strong; there is what he boasts about[1].

For Paul, boasting about weakness is an entry point into boasting about God. Rather than taking an “I can do it all myself” attitude, allowing himself to be weak means that he is open to receiving help from someone far more powerful and strong – Jesus Christ. In essence, it is Paul getting out of the way of himself, out of the way of pride, so that God’s strength can be seen more clearly (see verse 9) and the church can get away from power struggles and spend time focusing more on faith development. In this text, he presents humility almost as hyperbole as one way of getting there.

Each week in worship, we follow this pattern as we expose our own weaknesses as Christ’s disciples. It’s called the prayer of confession. In these moments, both silently and together, we admit that we don’t have it all together. Most importantly, we invite God into the midst of our sinful places and ask for forgiveness, healing, and grace. We trust that God’s grace does prevail, that we are forgiven, and in response break out into songs of praise.This is the beautiful image of song revealed in the book of Revelation, and captured in the 19th century hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,” written by pastor and missionary Reginald Heber for use on Trinity Sunday. In it, all of creation celebrates the eternal power of the God, with voices united in endless praise.

Rather than rely on our own power, which we know to be limited, we rely on God’s, which we know to be infinite. In order to fully understand what God’s love and grace is all about, we have to get out of our own ways. To be “powerless” and “weak,” if you will, like Paul. We must do so with care, for there are some tempting and common traps that we can fall into if we take this boasting in weakness business too far.

First, we can get hung up on our list of weaknesses. Overachievers among us will be tempted to create a long list of imperfections about which to boast. If we have to be weak, we might as well be the best at it, right? In the movie Notting Hill, this activity even becomes a dinner party game, with the person who has the saddest story winning the last brownie in the pan. And it happens in real life, too. You all probably know someone in your life who always has to “one up” any story you tell. Good or bad, this person always seems to have had a life experience that’s just a touch more extreme than your story. If you share, for example, a physical weakness, such as back pain, this individual immediately jumps in with a story about how she threw out her back once, and it was ten times worse than what you had experienced. This is certainly boasting in weakness, but it’s not what Paul is talking about.

For Paul, the boasting is only a means of entry, a way of reminding ourselves who is really in charge in the world – God. So don’t get caught up in naming or proclaiming your weaknesses either. It’s not about you, after all. Instead, get caught up in inviting God into those places in your life. Boasting in weakness means flinging the doors to our weak places open and making space for God to work within us. Because when we get out of our own way, checking pride at the door, we are better able to dwell with Christ in an honest relationship that truly makes us strong.

Second, once we have our laundry list of imperfections, we can fall into the trap of using them as a cop-out for not acting in the world. We can say “oh, I’m weak. I can’t possibly do that. It’s just not in my skill set.” Eventually with this pattern, we wind up not doing anything at all.  God doesn’t promise to swoop in where we are weak and just fix things for us. I can’t simply say “I am a really slow runner and tire out quickly,” and then expect the Holy Spirit to do its thing and suddenly help me run a marathon. One of my favorite scenes from the movie Evan Almighty involves God, undercover as a fellow diner at a restaurant, speaking with Evan’s wife. She is lamenting how hard things are sometimes, and is looking for answers that don’t seem to be coming anytime soon. God, portrayed by Morgan Freeman, poses some questions back to her:

If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?[2]

Something similar could be said in the way God works through our weaknesses. When we admit them, does God simply come in and patch things up, or does God give us the opportunity to work on them, promising love and support through the Holy Spirit and through others, so that we can, with God’s help, be made strong? Our strength comes from God, who made heaven and earth, and each one of us in God’s own image. God has promised to continue to strengthen us in all we say and in all we do. God doesn’t promise that it will be easy, doesn’t assure us that we won’t be weak. Rather, God promises to be with us even in our weakness. And I believe God surrounds us with a great cloud of witnesses to help make that possible. Through Christ, we are assured that none of us have to endure hardship alone. Suffering is neither God’s design nor the end result.

Remember Paul’s complaining about the thorn in his side? His begging God to remove it? God’s reply is simple, “my grace is sufficient.” That grace comes from Jesus Christ, who conquers all. By grace, God sent Christ into the world, to walk with us, to strengthen us and show us how to live, to heal us, and most importantly, to save us. Elsewhere Paul writes to the Philippians “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). This is what makes us strong – not anything we do or don’t do, but God’s grace alone. It is a gift, ready and waiting for each one of us, if we can be so bold, so crazy, so ridiculously counter-cultural, to be like Paul and boast in our weaknesses, getting out of our own way so that Christ may dwell more fully within us and work for transformation and reconciliation in our lives and in the world. When we are grounded not in our own egos and agendas but in truly seeking to embody our Savior, it is then where we will find the power and strength to live into our calling as followers of Jesus.

This morning’s hymn doesn’t have a particularly unique story behind it as some of our others have this summer, but it does give voice to Paul’s words about our power coming from Christ and nothing else. “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” is known as the “National Anthem of Christendom.” It:

first appeared in the November 1779 issue of the Gospel Magazine, edited by August        Toplady, who wrote “Rock of Ages.” This text has been translated into almost every            language where Christianity is known; and wherever it is sung, it communicates the            spiritual needs of human hearts. One writer has said, “So long as there are Christians on       earth, it will continue to be sung; and after that, in heaven” [i].

So may we join our voices again with the saints and angels in heaven, giving God all glory, honor, and praise, and proclaiming with our lips the source of all our strength is indeed in Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us sing:

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford

July 8, 2018

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[1]                      Karl Barth, On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimination of Religion, trans. Garrett Green (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 92.

[2]                      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413099/quotes

[i]Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2012).

Sunday’s Sermon: Good Foundations – 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, Matthew 7:24-27

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I love home renovation shows. I’m a particular sucker for the Property Brothers. It’s fascinating to watch them transform spaces with facelifts that make them look and feel like totally new homes. Once you’ve watched a few episodes, you feel like an expert yourself, and learn to expect a few things along the way, like when renovating older homes, there will always be some surprises, from its asbestos under the tiles to knob and tube wiring. Recently in the competition series Brother vs Brother, both brothers discovered their projects had some considerable structural issues. Walls had to be completely rebuilt, and they poured more new foundation and footings for posts than either of them expected. Thousands of dollars and several days later, they could continue where they left off. It was definitely a set-back, but clear that he had no other option. Like many of these obstacles, the solutions are pretty straightforward: the “bones” and structure of the house have to be attended to in order for any further work to be safe and successful.

Good foundations matter. That is the theme carried in both of our scripture readings for today. In Matthew’s gospel, they come as words from Jesus himself at the end of the sermon on the mount. These chapters have outlined what it means to be a disciple, beginning with a list of blessings, the Beatitudes. They speak to the nuts and bolts of living out our lives of faith in relation to others, particularly those who are challenging to us. And then Jesus wraps it up with this final reminder that takes us almost back to the beginning. In order to be strong and faithful, his followers must ground themselves in the words he has spoken, just as a person builds a house on a rock. Inaction on these instructions are like building on sand. Things are going to shift, and the wind and rain will quickly cause its demise. It’s a pretty straightforward message about taking this lengthy hillside sermon not just to heart, but into tangible action as well.

As people of faith, our foundations should be in the promises from God; those outlined by Christ himself and those proclaimed throughout the entirety of scripture. They are the bedrocks of our faith that allow us to build our lives in a way that is shaped by our relationship with the Divine. These foundations are what many of our most loved hymns proclaim, distilling our faith into the critical aspects worth repeating in song to commit them to our memories. Some of these central promises are featured in the hymn How Firm a Foundation. In 1787, a British Baptist pastor named John Rippon published a church hymnal with an extensive collection of hymns to serve as an appendix to Dr Watt’s Psalms and Hymns, including this classic which was originally titled “Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises[i].” The author is unknown, but attributed a “K,” which most scholars assume references his Minister of Music, Robert Keene, who helped put the collection together. The seven original stanzas were based on various biblical promises from Scripture, including Isaiah 41:10, “do not fear, for I am with you”; Isaiah 43:2, “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you”; 2 Corinthians 12:9, “my grace is sufficient for you”; and Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Sound familiar? The hymn speaks them almost verbatim. Together, it serves as one hymnologist puts it, like “a sermon in verse[ii].” It’s not surprising that this hymn has become a favorite of Christians, including several notable American leaders including Teddy Roosevelt. It is a song that helps us cling to the promises of our faith and remind ourselves of where we are rooted. Singing about these foundations of faith provide us comfort in facing the storms, and the strength on which to build our responses to them.

Paul, master of mixing metaphors, takes on the illustration of building in 1 Corinthians 3 in relation to what it means to be the church. These verses speak to the importance of the urgency of constructing a church with integrity. The first step, of course, is to pay attention to the foundation, which can only be Jesus Christ. Keep in mind that in the early church, references to building would not have been about physical edifices. Paul wasn’t presenting a capital campaign. The word used for church in Greek, ekklesia, refers not to any kind of structure, but rather a gathering of people.

Paul’s architectural imagery serves to draw the Corinthians’ attention to the nature of their community . . . He calls the community to be self-reflective and to evaluate what they and their leaders are building[iii].

A lot of times we think about the early church as some sort of perfect utopian community of believers who all shared everything without any disagreement. The totality of Paul’s letters, particularly 1 Corinthians, quickly corrects us of this misnomer, and reminds us that from the beginning the church has wrestled with what it means to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. W. Michael Chittum reminds us this is still a challenge for us today:

Every Christian church, from the most liberal to the most conservative, makes the claim that it is based on the foundation of Jesus Christ, and many condemn and exclude those who disagree with their own particular theological interpretations. Do the differences in theological approaches by these differing churches constitute changing the foundation, or is it only a difference in the “stuff” constructed on the foundation? (see 1 Cor. 3:12-15)[iv]

I am struck by this every time I engage with Christians who aren’t from our particular denominational tradition, and even sometimes with whose who are as faithful to being Presbyterian as I am. This week, I had the joy of spending time with a new group of siblings in Christ at a gathering of the Cherokee County Ministerial Association. On Wednesday, 32 of us gathered for lunch, representing a variety of congregations and faith-based non-profits around the county. As introductions were made, part of me quickly felt like a fish out of water, with so many coming from more evangelical and non-denominational traditions. I admit my own bias was that I would not have much in common with those Christians, some of whom have traditions that don’t often embrace women as pastors, for example. But, as tends to happen with God, I was humbled and reminded to be open as the discussion began and the leader talked about the importance of a shared faith together and unity in Christ. He shared news of conversations happening around racial reconciliation in Cherokee County, and a shared worship event at the Woodstock Amphitheater on the evening of July 29th with over 25 churches already participating. We heard from a free medical clinic in Canton and their ministry of care to those who are uninsured or underinsured. In all of this, our common cause was not just to “do good,” but based in the foundation of being followers of Jesus Christ. It was a reminder that even with all of our differences (and there are some theological and practical ones that matter to me!), our foundation is the same. Sometimes, in a group of other Christians who see things differently, that can be a hard thing to say with confidence. We get caught up in the nuance. Maybe we should try to be more caught up in Jesus instead.

But even that might not free us from controversy. In the 4th century, theologians like Origen and Arius got into intense fighting with Athanasius and others regarding whether God the Father and God the Son were one and the same substance. Interestingly, this conversation was in part prompted by the Emperor Constantine’s attempts to unify and establish a single, approved Christian faith during his reign. In seminary, our church history professor shared with us a clever song designed to identify the complicated theological arguments, set to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialoadocius” from Mary Poppins, written by a former student named Dan Idzikowski, retitled “superchristological and homoousiosis.” Put in non-tongue-twisting terms, it was this work begun at the council of Nicea and continuing in additional conversations in Chalcedon and Constantinople that led to our understand of God being one substance but three persons existing in balance and inextricable relationship with one another. What we believe about Jesus Christ as the foundation certainly matters. And while difficult, I think those conversations matter, particularly for what it means to be the church, because they mean we are, as Paul hopes, paying attention to the foundation on which everything is built.

That is also part of the story behind another hymn “The Church’s One Foundation.” In the mid-1900s, the Church of England was embroiled in theological controversy of its own after a book was written by one of the influential Anglican bishops, John William Colenso, which attacked the historical accuracy of the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of what we know as the Old Testament. Pastor Samuel J. Stone was deeply bothered by this book.

Stone was known as a man of spotless character; he was chivalrous toward the weak and needy, yet he was a violent fighter for the conservative faith that was being so sternly attacked in his day. He refused to compromise one iota before Higher Criticism and the evolutionary philosophies that were becoming increasingly popular. A personal faith in the inspired Scriptures was enough for him . . . He wanted to combat the attacks of modern scholarship and liberalism which he felt would soon divide and destroy the church[v].

In response, then, he wrote a collection of 12 hymns, “Lyra of the Faithful,” all based on the Apostles’ Creed. “The Church’s One Foundation” was based on the Ninth Article of the Creed, which begins with the phrase “the holy catholic church” – catholic meaning universal. Stone was insistent that:

The unity of the Church must rest solely with a recognition of the Lordship of Christ as its head and not on the views and interpretations of men[vi].

Although I don’t agree with many of the finer points of Stone’s arguments, and am grateful for the work of scholars in theology and biblical interpretation that I believe has been guided by the Holy Spirit to move us forward, I agree wholeheartedly with his assertion that the foundation of the church must always remain in Jesus Christ. What we build on that foundation, the work of our communities of faith, will be tested and refined over time by God, just as Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians. Our theology matters because it impacts what is built upon it. Paying attention to the foundations, even things that might seem on the surface as no-brainers, like believing in Jesus Christ, bears implications for what structures become put on top of it. When we talk, then, about what it means to be the church, and how we “do ministry” together – whether it is a stewardship campaign or a slip and slide on the church lawn, a closet of clothing for people in need, or selections of hymns in worship, we have to think about the theology that undergirds these decisions. Part of our responsibility as the church is to make sure that whatever we are doing, we are doing on the foundation of our understanding of Jesus Christ as Lord.  The same is true for our lives beyond these walls; we must ground them in the foundations of Christ. If we lose sight of that, we have lost sight of the gospel. That’s why hymns, I think, are so important. They remind us to not lose what is most important, and they bring us back home again to the good news. They unite more than just our voices; they unite us in faith and in proclaiming that in the midst of all we might see differently, together we proclaim the same Lord, now and forever. Confident of that harmony which we share, let us stand and sing together:

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford

July 1, 2018

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[i] Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2011).

[ii] Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1982).

[iii] Melanie Johnson-Debaufre, “1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23: Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

[iv] W. Michael Chittum, “1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23: Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 1, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

[v] Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1982).

[vi] Osbeck.

Sunday’s Sermon – Grace, Gratitude, and Good Works – 1 Chronicles 17:16-27

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How would you define “grace”? It’s a theological word we throw around often, particularly in our Reformed Presbyterian tradition. It’s used repeatedly in our scriptures. You hear it in both my opening words and closing benediction each week, in keeping with the traditional greetings and closings used by the Apostle Paul. Professor and theologian Rolf A. Jacobson offers this definition:

The free gift in which God gives everything—eternal life, forgiveness, purpose, meaning—    to human beings, who respond by trying to earn it[i].

Grace is central to our understanding of salvation and who God is in relation to the world. It reminds us that we have a God who is merciful and slow to anger, who offers compassion and forgiveness instead of condemnation. Grace comes alongside love and is the means through which God accomplishes all things.

Throughout his letters to the early church Paul hones in on the importance of grace. Some of my favorite passages include those in Romans and the verses in Ephesians which we read a few moments ago. In Ephesians, Paul wishes to make it clear to the people that grace is a gift that brings us salvation. Our unity with God in Jesus Christ is not because of anything we have or have not done, our pedigree or geneology, or any particular turn of luck or accomplished skill. It is, as the reformers said, solo gratia, only grace that grants us this eternal status. Friends, this is good news. Because, as Paul also said in another letter, all of us have sinned and fall short of the grace of God. So, if you remember nothing else about grace, remember that it is a gift. It is not up to us to earn it; all we can do is respond to it.

These are the roots of the story John Newton, the author of the hymn Amazing Grace, who experienced grace in a dramatic way during a particularly stormy voyage in March of 1748. One night, a storm overtook the ship without any time to prepare, and Newton began to cry to the Lord.  The next day, in great peril, he cried to the Lord. He later wrote, “That tenth of March is a day much remembered by me; and I have never suffered it to pass unnoticed since the year 1748 – the Lord came from on high and delivered me out of deep waters[ii].” Newton was the captain of a slave-trading ship, and for the next several years he continued, trying to justify his work by seeking to improve conditions as much as possible, even holding public worship services for his hardened crew of thirty each Sunday.

You may have noticed in the stories of hymn backgrounds this summer that many of the authors experienced some sort of conversions, or had nefarious pasts. In this way, they are in good company with many of our biblical heroes, whose stories often reveal less desirable aspects of their lives. I think these stories remind us of God’s incredible ability to do amazing things with even imperfect people. And perhaps, it’s these imperfect people, so aware of their shortcomings, who are able to be more fully aware of God’s grace and its role in their lives. One biblical example of this is King David, who moves in the biblical story from shepherd boy to king with a lot of questionable choices along the way. But rather than focus on this past history, 1 Chronicles tells the life of David through an encouraging lens, leaving out the stories of his personal sin and failure and life before he became king, and instead focusing on the accomplishments he left behind for future generations, including his central focus on worship.

First Chronicles was written for Israelites living centuries after David . . . to help them get in touch with what Israel had once been and could become again[iii].

In short, Chronicles was written to help orient God’s people to respond to God’s grace and mercy, using David’s awareness of it as inspiration. Our text from today comes following David’s interactions with the prophet Nathan, who has guided him in understanding what God would have him do next. David had offered to build a temple for God, but Nathan delivers the message that God has something else in mind. David responds with this earnest and heartfelt prayer that model him as a humble ruler even in his success. He accepts the news from Nathan with meekness and thanksgiving. Rather than boast in God’s grace, David chooses to be grateful.

For both King David and John Newton, responding to God’s grace is about gratitude. It is an awareness of all that God has done, is doing, and will do, and an earnest desire to set their own interests aside in following God. Both men offer powerful prayers of thanksgiving, and because of God’s grace are able to find a new way in which to live in gratitude. Grace prompts us to say “thanks” to God. Each week in worship we confess our sins, and are reminded of this grace, and we respond with a song of thanksgiving to God – giving to God all the glory of this moment.

Grace also prepares us for discipleship. As our text from Ephesians reminds us, we are what God has made us, and God indeed has made us for a purpose – for good works. When we are aware of God’s grace, and lead lives marked by gratitude, we naturally will extend that grace and love to others with our actions. This is the intersection of good works and grace. Good works are not the way to grace, but the natural response to lives aware of its presence.

For John Newton, it changed his entire life path. Despite his efforts to improve his slave-trading ships, after several years he felt convicted of the inhuman aspects of this work and left the seas for dry land. At age 39, he was ordained by the Anglican Church and began his first pastorate in the little village of Olney, near Cambridge, England. During this time, he grew tired of the same old rote hymns provided in the Psalter, and sought to write new hymns that provided straightforward messages about scripture in ways that people could connect to, and so he began to write his own. That’s right, John Newton was responsible for many newfangled hymns. He collaborated with his friend and neighbor, William Cowper, and together they published a collection of 349 hymns in the Olney Hymns hymnal in 1779, with 282 of them by Newton[iv].

Among those were six stanzas of a hymn titled “Faith’s Review and Expectation,” based on Newton’s study of 1 Chronicles 17. It is the hymn later set to an early American folk melody which we know by its opening stanza, Amazing Grace.

John Newton’s contribution to faith communities in Olney and these hymns are certainly an impressive example of the impact that a recognition of God’s grace can have on one man. But the more compelling part of the story for me is what happened next in Newton’s ministry. Because leading lives in response to God’s grace is about much more than becoming a minister and writing good hymns. In the case of John Newton, grace led him to take a stand for something far more important. It is captured on his tombstone, which he himself wrote:

“John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and Libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the Faith he had long labored to destroy.”

After serving fifteen years in Olney, Newton became pastor of the influential St. Mary Woolnoth Church in London. During this period, he mentored several influential leaders and clergymen. Most notably, he established a strong relationship with William Wilberforce and other political leaders engaged in the crusade for the abolition of the slave trade. His experience as the captain of a slave-trading ship haunted him, but he also felt compelled by his experience of God’s grace to make changes for the good of the world. It is worth noting that the year of John Newton’s death, 1807, also marked the year the British Parliament finally abolished slavery through all its domain.

In 2006, the story of William Wilberforce’s crusade against the slave trade in the British Parliament was captured in a movie titled Amazing Grace. It is a compelling story about the struggles of leaders in the midst of tremendous changes, and it features several scenes in which Wilberforce engages with his mentor clergyman, John Newton. In one memorable scene, Newton notes the line from the hymn “was blind but now I see,” and notes the irony of how he, almost blind and late in life, had finally seen what was good and right all along, after years of being blind to the sins of which he was a part. Then Newton adds: “Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly. I’m a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” The driving force for him continued to be his faith and understanding of grace, and his willingness to do something with it.

The film also depicts William Wilberforce struggling with whether he should enter the ministry (like Newton) or go into politics. He makes a display in a card game after another player wagered a slave, returning to sing the first verse of Newton’s hymn. Later his friend, William Pitt urges him to make a decision, and asks him “do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord – or to change the world?”

While I understand the set-up in the film, I don’t think such an answer is either/or. In fact, a life marked by grace demands that we do both – praise the Lord (show our gratitude) AND seek to change the world, joining in the work of God’s kingdom that we were created for through Jesus Christ. Grace can and should prompt us to good works, to actions that make a difference in the world – not for our own gain, but for God’s.  In this way we become extensions of God’s gift of grace to others. This is the work of discipleship: becoming aware of God’s grace, giving thanks for it, and doing something because of it.

That is the work that our denomination’s General Assembly undertook this week, which you will hear about in more detail in just a few moments, and it is a challenge to all of us sitting here in the pews. Each week, we come together to celebrate God’s grace – through word, sacrament, prayers, and song. But it has to lead us somewhere, too. The book of James reminds us that “faith without works is dead.” The story of John Newton should, I think, inspire us to action. To root ourselves in an understanding of God’s love and mercy and reorient our lives in response. For him, that meant a total life shift and committing himself to a cause deeply grounded in a theology that we are all made equally in God’s image and should be treated in that way. This morning, I invite you to sing this hymn in praise to God, but also as a prayer asking for God’s guidance for the work that is yours to do, trusting that in word and song, the Holy Spirt can and will lead us into action. All because of a grace that is so amazing we cannot help but respond. Let us sing:

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
June 24, 2018

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[i] Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms, Rolf A. Jacobson, editor, (p. 99). Fortress Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2011).
[iii] NRSV Student Bible
[iv] Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1982)

Sunday’s Sermon – Faith Like a Child – Matthew 19:13-14

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Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be,
I learned in kindergarten.
I learned: share everything, play fair, don’t hit people, put things back where you found them, clean up your own mess, don’t take things that aren’t yours, say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody, wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder[i] . . .

This was the first essay of a collection of 50 published by author and minister Robert Fulghum in the now classic book in 1988, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller lists for almost two years. Its premise was simple; to consider those first lessons taught to us at the beginning of our education and consider how the world might be improved if adults adhered to the same basic rules as children. Even thirty years later, its message holds. So many things in our lives and world are based on the most basic of lessons we learned, or should have learned as children, particularly in regards to how to get along with one another. Have you ever sat in a room of presumed adults in conflict, and imagined it to be much like toddlers in a sandbox fighting over toys and flinging sand through the air, just waiting for them to throw a tantrum or cry because sand was in their eyes? I often want to reply to people with learning songs from Daniel Tiger, not just because they’re what we use in our house, but because they are so spot on. Sometimes, the best way we can grow into the kind of mature beings I believe we generally hope to be, is to remind ourselves that it doesn’t always have to be so complicated and dramatic. Sometimes it’s just going back to the basics.

I think the same is true for our lives of faith, and this week in our series want to spend a little time thinking about those songs of faith that we might assume are reserved only for children. They are the ones you will hear echoing in the hallway of the education building each week at the beginning of the Sunday School hour from our Praise Kids. If you pay close attention, you’ll catch snippets of them as Denise plays when the children come and go from the steps in worship. They’re what gets stuck in your head after a week of church camp or VBS, and chances are, if someone starts to sing one you know, you’ll jump right in:

Halle-lu, halle-lu, halle-lu, halle-lu-jah! (Praise Ye the Lord!)

Deep and Wide, Deep and Wide, (there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide)

The B-I-B-L-E (yes that’s the book for me! I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E!)

He’s got the whole world (in his hands!)

Zacchaeus was a wee little man, (a wee little man was he!)

This little light of mine, (I’m gonna let it shine!)

We could go on, couldn’t we? There are a ton of these little songs. At first it seems like it would be easier to come up with some simple summary or phrase, but let me tell you, putting things into such a concrete, clear way that it can easily be understood by a child is a huge task. Anyone who has ever explained anything to a child has likely experienced the following: you give your best, most heartfelt, most accurate explanation of something, and just as you are thinking about your triumph, you get a skeptical face who either 1) dismantles your entire argument in one sentence, or 2) asks the start of a never-ending question: “why?” To answer things for children, you really have to be on your toes. The same is true for these songs. They offer so much more than just a fun little tune or rhyme to teach to kids. They pack a theological punch. The writer of 1 Timothy encourages the young leader to not be dissuaded by his youth, and today I encourage us to not just dismiss those Sunday School children’s songs, because they are meant for the younger set. They provide a distillation of our faith that takes us back to the foundations of our faith. And taking them to heart, no matter our age, reminds us that we are all still children of God.

Children have a lot to teach us about faith. They approach God with a sense of wonder that many of us have lost as we have gotten older (and perhaps wiser) and have encountered the complexities of life. But don’t mistake a child’s wonder with simplicity. Children don’t have any less of the number of theological questions (Where is God? How big is God?) – they are just more comfortable living in the mystery of them. And they aren’t afraid to ask if they don’t know. In this way, they are profound theological thinkers, absorbing the facts and reasonable components of faith as presented, and also gazing into the distance of all the possibilities and ambiguities, and they hold those not in tension, but in harmony with each other. I wonder if this is the truest reflection of what it means to have faith.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus took time to welcome children – because they “get it” in ways that many of us adults just can’t.  That picture of Jesus’ welcome appears in all 3 of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), each with its own unique characteristics. In Matthew’s version, it is a gentler than the conflict found in other accounts; simple, but weighty[ii]. The theological meat of the story comes with the profound and counter-cultural claim that children are to be welcomed.  At the top of the list of reasons for why is the simple fact that Jesus himself said it and modeled it. He saw them, quieted his cranky disciples, and welcomed them into his presence. He laid hands on them, a sign of approval, of blessing, and of commissioning. Children belong, and perhaps the marker of how the world, the church, receives them, is an indicator of how well or not we are exhibiting the kingdom of God here and now. Biblical scholar Judith Gundry-Volf affirms that:

the Gospels teach more than how to make an adult world kinder and juster for children.[They] teach the reign of God as a children’s world, where children are the measure, where    the small are great and the great must become small[iii].

To the most vulnerable and weak, Jesus offers welcome. He exhibits signs of blessing and protection. As Olive Elaine Hinnant summarizes this moment:
He will keep little ones safe. They have a place to belong if the world does not seem to care[iv].
Sound familiar? She connects this story to the words of perhaps the most well-known children’s song of all: Jesus Loves Me.

These words were written first in 1860 by Anna Bartlett Warner, who collaborated regularly with her sister Susan to publish 18 of their combined 106 literary works. They were highly educated and deeply devoted Christian young women who lived along the Hudson River, and for many years taught Sunday School classes for the young cadets attending West Point. In fact, they are the only two civilians who are buried in the military cemetery there and were laid to rest with full military honors. Their writing careers came by necessity after their father died, and this particular song comes in a heartbreaking novel titled Say and Seal, a best-seller second only to Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the time, where the character Mr. Linden comforts a dying child, Johnny Fax, with the reminder that he is loved by Jesus, who watches over him. It is a poignant moment in the text that solidifies a foundation in faith that carries us not just through childhood singing but into the final moments of our lives as well. The poem inspired Dr. William B. Bradbury to compose music for it and add the chorus, which he presented in 1862 in his hymnal publication The Golden Shower. You may know some other hymns by Bradbury: “He Leadeth Me,” “Just as I am,” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer” are among those significant contributions he made to the development of early gospel hymnody in our country[v].

This hymn stands the test of time, and is loved by not just children in age, but by all children of God. It quickly gained universal appeal and is one of the most commonly taught first hymns by missionaries because of the central claim it makes to faith. It’s words bring us comfort about whose we are, those who have been claimed and loved by our Lord and Savior, who welcomes us in our most vulnerable state, and promises that even to us, the kingdom of God belongs. When we lay hold to this claim for ourselves, we find ourselves in the embrace of Jesus, who welcomes us as children, however we come, and who promises blessing and a place for us. Everything we need to know about our faith rests on this central claim in our lives, that Christ has claimed us as his own forever. To sing “Jesus Loves Me” is more than just repeating a childhood song – it is stating the core of our faith that enables us to love and serve Christ and each other. Our ability to do that, I think, lies in our willingness to have faith like a child and find our place in the kingdom of God. So may we sing this song of faith together, in humility and meekness of the one in whose presence we come, and in celebration and joy for the welcome we will find there:

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
June 17, 2018

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[i] Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, (1988).
[ii] Gary Neal Hansen, “Theological Perspective: Matthew 19:13-15,” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 2, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, Editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).
[iii] Judith Gundry-Volf, “Jesus and the Children: “To Such as These Belongs the Reign of God,”” Theology Today 56, no.4 (January 2000): 480, as quoted in Joseph R. Jeter, “Homiletical Perspective: Matthew 19:13-15,” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 2, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, Editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).
[iv] Olive Elaine Hinnant, “Pastoral Perspective: Matthew 19:13-15,” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 2, Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson, Editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).
[v] The background for this hymn comes from Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1982) and Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2011).

Sunday’s Sermon – Signs of Faithfulness

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This is Our Story, This is Our Song is the theme for our June/July sermon series.
Each week, we will explore some of the great hymns of our faith and reflect on their stories and the stories of scripture that they proclaim.

“Here I raise my Ebenezer” has got to be one of the most amusing or strange lines of all of the hymns in our hymnal. In the midst of a beautiful and stirring hymn, it sticks out like a sore thumb, unless we happen to know the Scripture reference from 1 Samuel 7, as Samuel marks a victory over the Philistines with a stone as a monument of sorts to God, recognizing God’s role and giving God credit for their triumphant outcome. The word in Hebrew literally means “stone of help,” and is meant to be a symbol of God’s faithfulness. In some hymnals you’ll find this verse re-translated to “here I raise to thee an altar,” to help better convey the meaning. For my tastes, though, I like keeping Ebenezer, for the richness of the word’s etymology and the opportunity it gives us to remind us that great hymns, like Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, are rooted deeply in our understanding of God’s words in the Bible.

The hymn was written by Robert Robinson. His story begins with heartbreak; his father died when he was eight and at age fourteen his mother sent him to England to apprentice as a barber. Instead, though, he got caught up with a rougher gang-like crowd that led him down a path of drinking and general mischief. At age 17, he and his friends decided to attend a meeting where the prominent evangelical theologian, George Whitefield, was preaching. Their purpose, of course, was to heckle, and “scoff at the poor deluded Methodists[i],” but what happened was quite the opposite. Robinson became convicted by the preaching on Matthew 3, with that sermon becoming a turning point in his life, leading to his enrollment in seminary 3 years later. By the time he was 23, he was serving at Calvinist Methodist Chapel in Norfolk, England and in 1758 he wrote a hymn for his sermon on Pentecost Sunday that was a prayer for the Holy Spirit to flood into our hearts with streams of mercy, enabling us to sing God’s praises and remain faithful[ii].

This hymn and it corresponding verse from 1 Samuel prompts us to consider the things in our lives that serve as reminders or witnesses to God’s help and faithfulness for us. For some, it is a place, like the stone gate that leads into Montreat, North Carolina, or stones that line the pathway of a labyrinth or walking trail; the rumble of the ocean waves or lapping of water against a boat. It might even be a literal church. These physical locations have a way of connecting us to the root of our faith. When all else seems lost or difficult, we can come back to these locations for a re-set. They are where we feel closest to God and can remind ourselves of God’s care for us and be at peace. For others, they might be symbols or tangible things we carry with us to remind us of our faith, such as a cross carried in our pocket or hanging around our neck. They could even be a literal stone – have you seen the ones that have a word inscribed on them? You can carry them with you as a reminder of that word of focus and reassurance. Early in my ministry, I received one as a gift from my spiritual director, during a tough time of transition when I wasn’t sure what the future would hold as my time with my first congregation came to an end. The word etched into the stone was “TRUST” and while it seemed ridiculous at first, I found that carrying it with me, in my pocket was calming. Whenever I felt unsure or unstable, I could reach into my pocket and find the rock, which would prompt me to pray and remember to trust God in the midst of my anxiety. It was not a panacea that made the difficulty of that time go away, but it was a way to remind myself that I was not in it alone. “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I come.”

In our lives of faith, it is helpful to have such signs and reminders of God’s presence along the way. When things are difficult, they are critical claims of faith that we cling to in order to have hope even in the midst of despair. That is the setting for the book of Lamentations, written around the end of the 6th century BCE as a poetic response to a national tragedy following Babylonian military assaults. Our passage this morning from chapter 3 is set within the third of five poems of the book, which cry out to God in the midst of intense pain, both for individuals and the community. These verses provide a brief point of hope, a break of light in the midst of darkness, which present a quiet and persistent confidence in God’s mercy even in the midst of bitter agony. As Beth Laneel Tanner notes:

the hope in God and God’s faithfulness is   anchored in the expression of loss and personal reflection on sin.

God is not just faithful; God is faithful in the toughest of times[iii].

Even if all seems lost, God is present and faithful. Lamentations bears witness to hope among the ruins of Jerusalem and our lives without sugar-coating or ignoring the real pain that exists. Like the poet, the weight of the world swirls around us as well. This week brought news of two celebrities who completed suicide, a sobering reminder of the deep pain some live with daily, even when everything on the outside might appear to be going well. Wildfires are raging in Colorado. Children have been separated from parents or lost in systems and people are being detained in tall kennel-like cages on cement floors with only lightweight space blankets for comfort. School children in a Massachusetts kindergarten classroom are learning a rhyme to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” about how to keep safe if they need to go into Lockdown mode because someone, likely an active shooter, has entered the building. Last Sunday, the Fuego Volcano in Guatemala suddenly erupted, sending pyroclastic flows – fast-moving, searingly hot clouds of volcanic ash and gases, down the mountainside at speeds faster than a jet plane. Entire communities were covered in moments. The death count is currently over 100 and will continue to climb as responders search through the disaster and as the volcano continues to be active. In the midst of these harsh realities, and those difficulties in our own lives, we might be tempted to ask “is God really faithful?”

My favorite Presbyterian Pastor, Fred Rogers, repeatedly said for us to look for the helpers when bad things happened. Put theologically, I think he was calling us to look for those who had raised Ebenezers, signs of faithfulness that God is at work. It is when we notice the first responders –  firefighters and officers – who reach out in compassion and love, even saving lives. It is when we see educators teaching in love and calming fears. It is when we see disaster workers around tables making plans not just for tangible relief of clean water and clothing, but also providing trauma counseling for those who have lost it all. It is when we hear about the suicide prevention line where people can call anytime to talk – just dial 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Or, if you are struggling and can’t talk but can text, the Crisis Text Line is available 24/7 by texting 741-741 to receive help. These are signs of God’s faithfulness and help, and they come in the everyday responses of people who care. They are the streams of mercy, shining through like rays of sunlight on the horizon. And they remind us we are not alone.

These signs are what captured the poet in Lamentations 3, who in the midst of despair, looked up, and noted in verse 23 that this love and mercy from God “never comes to an end; they are new every morning.” This verse resonated with another poet, Thomas Obediah Chisholm, who authored more than 1200 poems in the early 20th century. His life was a roller coaster of ups and downs, including bouts of serious illnesses and inconsistent employment that often left him struggling. He was a man of faith, who identified that throughout his life he had not had a large climactic moment, but instead took note of God’s presence in his life, little by little, morning by morning as he discovered new blessings from God. He sent some of his poems to his friend and musician William Runyan in 1923, who was inspired to put it to music, and the classic beloved hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” was born. It wasn’t an immediate hit, but was a favorite of Dr. Will Houghton of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, who adopted it as its unofficial theme song, and it became wildly popular worldwide in the 1950s when it was introduced by George Beverly Shea and the choirs at the Billy Graham Crusades.

Like the Ebenezer raised by Samuel, this hymn calls us to place our faith and hope in God, no matter what. It is not a naive belief that God will simply sweep in and fix it all, but a statement about who God is in relation to the world. As Martha Moore-Keish reminds us, it is a:

lively eschatological hope [that] is not escape from the troubles of this world, but stubborn insistence that God’s mercy will have the last word – and life lived defiantly in light of  that hope[iv].

To sing, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” is a refusal to accept the world as it is, but to instead place a sign of faithfulness at the feet of the one through whom all mercies come. It is a song desperately needed for those who had been through tough times, whether it was the Philistines or the Babylonians, or our own modern-day struggles, to remind ourselves where to place our hope. May we join together in singing it, allowing its light to break into our lives, and serve as a beacon of hope for us, resonating deep within our souls.  . . .

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
June 10, 2018

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[i]       Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories: The Inspiring True Stories Behind 101 Favorite Hymns, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1982).
[ii]     Robert J. Morgan, Then Sings My Soul: 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2011).
[iii]    Beth Laneel Tanner, “Lamentations 3:19-26, Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 4, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
[iv]    Martha L. Moore-Keish, “Lamentations 3:19-26, Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 4, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

Sunday’s Sermon – First Things First, Matthew 6:25-34; Deuteronomy 6:1-9

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This is Our Story, This is Our Song: Summer Sermon Series 2018 (week one)

129. That is the number of e-mails I returned to find this week in my church e-mail inbox. Full disclosure. I have not read them all. Not even close in fact, since I was only in the office one day. Alongside the “snail mail” and other notes on my desk, I had quite a bit stack up while I was gone. It wasn’t all together surprising, in fact the number of e-mails was less than I feared it might be. And here I thought it would be an easy time to get away. It seems that business is even true in the summertime, a season when deceptively we tend to think there is less to do. And yet, whether it’s ongoing work or planning a family trip or just figuring out when you can mow your yard in between rain drops, there seems to be just as much “stuff” in our lives to contend with. As I took a quick survey of the tasks at hand, I realized quickly that I needed to develop some sort of plan of attack if I was to accomplish anything. I remembered the all-to-true cliched question: How do you eat an elephant? (one bite at a time).

Toward the end of his sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gives similar advice. In previous verses (going back to chapter 5), Jesus has given his followers a primer for what it means to be a disciple, from caring for others to how to pray. Here, though, he provides some tactile instructions relating to their relationship with gaining and spending money. The disciples around him, and perhaps their culture in general too, seemed to be in a tizzy with worry. The details of logistics and genuine practical concerns consumed them. It makes sense. They left their livelihoods to follow this curious man, all that they had known and all that provided them security. But Jesus tells them not to worry. Just sit back, and “God will provide.” Taken at just face value, it seems to imply that we have no real responsibility for caring for the basic needs of ourselves or others. That seems to be a dangerous theological approach to living, and on that poses serious ethical questions of entitlement and leads us to a prosperity gospel in which those with enough faith get taken care of, and even are emboldened to ask for ludicrous things like like $54 million dollar jets; while those who struggling are categorized as simply not having enough faith, or worse, being loved less by God. That type of thinking seems pretty contradictory to the gospel message, the “good news” of our Lord and Savior, both in the 1st century and today.

Perhaps, then, we might look at this teaching from Christ as having another angle; similar to other parables and metaphors, it uses language that is more poetry than prose. As writer Douglas R. A. Hare notes:

“The birds of heaven” and “the lilies of the field” become larger than life. They are not models to be imitated but powerful symbols of God’s providential care . . .The rhetorical             development of these symbols draws our attention away from our frantic pursuit of the necessities of life to a calmer vision of God’s bountiful care in the natural world[i].

Such a focus might redirect our attention away from those things that keep us spinning toward a renewed understanding of an ever-present God who is engaged and active in our world. It is God stepping in to the most anxious moments in our life with a reassurance that it is going to be ok, because God’s got us in all of this, and through Jesus we are able to again see the big picture of what God has in mind for the world – namely, love and care for all of God’s creation.

Just over a week ago I had the amazing opportunity to attend an ecumenical preaching conference known as the Festival of Homiletics. This year it was held in Washington, D.C., and continued its tradition of bringing some of the best preachers and theologians of the Christian faith for inspiring sermons and reflections on the craft of preaching. As I have described it to some of you, it’s having those names on the spines of the books on my theological shelf come to life: Walter Brueggemann, Otis Moss, III, Anna Carter Florence, Richard Rohr, Diana Butler Bass, and more. They were inspiring and challenging and uplifting to more than 1500 of us preachers who gathered to consider how we might better proclaim the good news each week from the pulpit and in our lives as well. In addition to the Festival, another event happened in D.C. that week. On Thursday evening, I attended a worship service and prayer vigil with the Reclaiming Jesus movement. In association with the Sojourners, 23 elders from various denominations of the Christian faith gathered this Lent and reflected on the state of Christianity in our country and world. Through study, prayer, and conversation, they noted this:

We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of  moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our  churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake.

It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. We pray   that our nation will see Jesus’ words in us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35)[ii].

In response to the worry, and toil, and spinning of our world, these 23 elders put forth an incredible statement with 6 essential assertions of what it means to claim Jesus Christ as Lord. You can read the full statement, which is subtitled “A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis” at http://www.ReclaimingJesus.org. But here is a brief summary of its main confessions of faith:

  1. WE BELIEVE each human being is made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26).
  2. WE BELIEVE we are one body. In Christ, there is to be no oppression based on race, gender, identity, or class (Galatians 3:28).
  3. WE BELIEVE how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ himself. (Matthew 25: 31-46)
  4. WE BELIEVE that truth is morally central to our personal and public lives.
  5. WE BELIEVE that Christ’s way of leadership is servanthood, not domination.
  6. WE BELIEVE Jesus when he tells us to go into all nations making disciples (Matthew 28:18)[iii] 

It is a powerful statement of faith. It was even more incredible to hear so many leaders in the Christian faith speak to these statements, from Bishop Michael Curry (yes, the one who preached at the royal wedding) to Tony Campolo to the legendary James Forbes and more. As they spoke about each of these statements, a common theme emerged – this is what it means to say Jesus Christ is Lord. The biblical references from both the Old and New Testaments were rich, and the energy in the packed National City Church was brimming. As we professed our faith in word and song, at one point the more than 1,000 who were gathered joined in unison to repeat “Jesus Christ is Lord!” The crowd was diverse. It was far more than just us preacher folks, and included young and old, male and female, different cultural and social backgrounds, and many different denominations. I truly felt like I was in the presence of a great cloud of witnesses. That evening I was tremendously moved by the Spirit and incredibly aware of God’s presence that I couldn’t help but be re-energized for the work of a calling to ministry to proclaim such good news; and at the same time truly humbled by the enormity of the task and terrified I might not be able to do it, to do God, justice.

As I read the passage from Matthew upon my return, I wonder if that is the feeling the disciples might have had during the Sermon on the Mount. They had been given a high calling, an exciting one, and then suddenly be swept up in the worry that you might not be able to handle it. Then, the many practical reasons this is all going to blow up in your face start to come. How will you eat? What will you wear? What will people think about you if you just start talking all the time about Jesus?  Perhaps the disciples are also struck by the enormity of the task Jesus is presenting – spreading the good news of God’s love in revolutionary ways is HUGE. It is not something accomplished in one day. Or one lifetime. Or even twenty centuries. It is ongoing work, and such important work that it is bound to make faithful disciples worry if we are doing enough. To this, Jesus speaks words of calm, akin to his popular refrain, “Peace, be still.” Stop putting your energy into worry and toil, Jesus says, and instead focus on the one who has provided everything and still cares for you. Instead of just plowing through a to-do list of tasks, seek something else first – the kingdom of God. For followers of Jesus, that is the first bite we should take of the elephant of discipleship.

This is a simple instruction worth remembering. It might have even reminded those who were Jewish of the central prayer and instruction God gave to the people Israel as recorded in Deuteronomy 6, verses 4 and 5. It is known as the Shema, which means hearing or obeying, and reminds the people that the most important thing they can do as God’s own is to remember that God is God alone, and that we are to love God with all we’ve got. In fact, this is the call Jesus will refer to later in the gospel as the most important commandment. But he also echoes it, I think, in this portion of the sermon on the mount, particularly in verse 33 when followers are instructed to first seek the kingdom of God. Both of these, along with countless other reminders in Scripture, remind us that if we are to call ourselves children of God, and if we are to claim that we follow Jesus, we need to put first things first. And what comes first needs to be God.

In Deuteronomy, the people are instructed to repeat the shema, sharing them with children at home and away, and binding them literally to themselves, lest they forget their importance. I think one of the ways we as people of faith live into this instruction to carry our faith with us is through song. More than perhaps any other experience or practice of faith, music seems to stay with me. It gets stuck in my head and is what I can return to when things are tough. As the chorus from Blessed Assurance goes, “this is my story; this is my song!” The hymns and songs of our faith help proclaim our story, God’s story, in ways that stick with us and inspire us to lead compelling lives of faith that matter. Over the next two months, we will connect one or more of these great hymns to the stories of Scripture and learn a bit more about their background in the process.

This week is one of our most literal connections, with the popular hymn “Seek Ye First,” which directly quotes Matthew 6:33 from the King James Version. It was written by Karen Lafferty in the early 1970s. Shortly before then, Karen was putting her music degree to use as an entertainer in a nightclub in New Orleans. A friend came to visit her and reminded her of the importance of the Christian faith in which she had been raised, one she had paid less attention to in her search for herself as a young adult. Something shifted within her, and she moved to California and soon became involved with a community of young musicians at Calvary Chapel. What is now a major Christian music label, Maranatha! Music, was just getting its start in very informal ways, as this group tried to figure out how to serve God through music. One evening, after a Bible study on Matthew 6, Karen was struck by verse 33 and followed the trend of other musicians at the time by setting it to music, complete with an Alleluia descant[iv]. It became one of the hit songs on Maranatha! Music’s first album, Praise 1, with additional related verses from Scripture added at later dates. It continues to be in the majority of hymnals today and is one of the most well known modern songs of praise in the Christian faith[v]. While Lafferty’s ministry of music continued, as she now serves in mission with music internationally, this is considered her “one-hit-wonder.” The words, by design, are simple and reflective, almost a prayerful singing of the biblical text, but I believe the combination with the tune also captures the essence of the passage, a calming reassurance of God’s presence, and a commitment we each make as singers to put God first. As we proclaim our faith in song today, I invite you to consider this a prayer and an offering to God, and hope that this will be a song to carry you this week as you seek to follow Christ by putting God first. Together, let us claim God’s story, our story, in song:

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
June 3, 2018

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[i]      Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for teaching and preaching, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1993), 74.
[ii]     http://www.reclaimingjesus.org/
[iii]    Read the full statement and accompanying information at www.reclaimingjesus.org
[iv]    To hear Karen’s description of this story, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p9UN7DAmV4, accessed 6/2/18.
[v]     Additional descriptions of the hymn’s history can be found here: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-seek-ye-first and here: https://www.reformedworship.org/article/march-1990/seek-ye-first-interview-karen-lafferty. Both accessed 6/2/18.

Food Pantry

The Jay Weaver Emergency Food Pantry has suspended appointments at this time. We will offer a contact-free, emergency drive-up food pantry on Wednesdays, with a pre-registration form online found here.

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