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

June 24, 2018 Leave a Comment

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

June 17, 2018 Leave a Comment

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 – Grace, Gratitude, and Good Works – 1 Chronicles 17:16-27

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

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