Psalm 22:1-5

Colossians 3:12-17

Luke 17:11-19             BUILDING GOD’S HOUSE

          It was just over a year ago that we moved into this building.  It was actually the 15^th of August, 2008, and we held our first worship service on Sunday, August 17^th.  It was a small group that morning.  But those of you who were here may remember that we began with a procession.  We carried in some symbols of the things that we Presbyterians consider essential to worship.  We brought in a pitcher of water and poured it into the baptism font…remembering that we enter God’s family through the grace of baptism.  We carried in the pulpit Bible…remembering that week after week we discover and rediscover our center in the Word of God.  And we brought bread and wine to remind us that we find spiritual nourishment through God’s presence.  Font, pulpit, and table are the three essential elements in our worship services.

          We studied and thought and prayed and talked about how we would set up this sanctuary, so that it would bear witness to what we believe about God and about worship.  And since then…we have worshipped…every Sunday and on special occasions, re-living traditions carried from our previous buildings, and creating new ones to celebrate God’s continued faithfulness. 

          It seems like much of our energy in the last year has been spent in re-making this building to meet our needs more fully.  My office was moved from the basement to the main floor where it would be more accessible.  We removed a stair way and installed in elevator to remove a significant barrier to inclusion.  We moved some pews from the back of the sanctuary to make room for more fellowship time.  We added, and then removed an organ.  A new secretary’s office, just inside the front door makes much more sense than one hidden in the back corner of the basement.  We’ve just completed a handicap accessible bathroom, filled some holes, painted some walls, and begun polishing the floors.  We planted pot-fulls of flowers, added new signs, and hung flags and banners that help tell others and remind ourselves about who we are.  We upgraded the kitchen so that the city would let us feed people.  We re-built a room to create a food pantry office and storage for the food.  It’s been a busy year.

          And today we celebrate.  God has been good to us in our transition.  There is new life.  There is continued ministry.  There remains a clear sense of who we are and what God has called us to be and do.

There are more plans for the building.  A new, much more efficient heating system will be up and running in a few weeks.  We are hopeful that a new and much more suitable organ will be gracing our sanctuary in a few weeks.  The marble floors will be polished, more walls will be painted, the artwork will finally be hung.

But as I was thinking about this celebration today, I kept remembering a passage from Psalm 22:3.  “[God] is enthroned on the praises of Israel.”  This is one of the few times when I actually prefer the King James Version… “[God] inhabits the praise of his people.”

God doesn’t live in a building.  God didn’t live at 15 Grove Street.  And God doesn’t live at 112 Washington Place.  God is enthroned on our praise.  God’s home is built when we sing, and give thanks, and remember God’s goodness.  So, in the midst of all of our time and attention to this space, we need to remember that our real work is to praise God.

We’ve done a lot of that in this past year.  The choir is helping us to do a lot more of it today!  Every hungry person that we feed, every time we sing, and worship, and share communion and fellowship…we are building God’s dwelling place…we are making God’s habitation more beautiful and giving a wonderful gift back to the Creator who has given so much to us.

I couldn’t remember where the verse from the Psalms was when I went looking for it.  I knew that in one of the Psalms declared that God was enthroned on the praises of Israel… I knew that it was in the Psalms that God inhabited the praise of his people…and so I went looking for it.  Never would I have guessed that it was Psalm 22.  We usually read Psalm 22 on Good Friday.  It doesn’t sound like the sort of Psalm that would be filled with praise.  Instead, it begins with a wrenching question:  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  It was David’s lament over the death of his infant son.  It was quoted by Jesus on the cross.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from helping me…I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but find no rest.”

AND YET…You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.”

They say that there are no atheists in foxholes.  It is in the toughest times that we turn to God.  David and Jesus did not deny God’s presence.  They just needed to know that God was there.  Why is that?  Why is it that we somehow find it easier to pay attention to God when things go wrong?  Author Lewis Smedes writes that, “We wait for that extreme moment because we’re so short-sighted. You know, we ask: Where is God when you’re sick? We don’t ask if there’s an epidemic of health! There’s a marvelous epidemic of good things happening. And we don’t say, "how come?" [We ask, “How come bad things happen to good people?”.  Why don’t we ask,] How come good things happen to people that aren’t all that great?”

Let’s remember to spend our time and energy paying attention to the good things around us.  When we do that…we makes God’s dwelling place more beautiful.  In our epistle lesson this morning, Paul urges us to “clothe [ourselves] with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…[forgive one another, love one another, teach one another, and, “with gratitude in [our] hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

The Rev. Arthur Cribbs writes, “Being thankful is not only reserved for good times in our lives. Our true power comes when we give thanks for all circumstances, including tough times. The amazing grace of God is that gratitude shifts perspective. We see, feel, and experience things quite differently when we authentically and openly say, “Thank you” in tough times.

“I have a pain in my lower back. Doctors have told me will stay with me for the rest of my life. It is a pain for which I give thanks. It reminds me of the night I went through a windshield in a head-on automobile collision in Nigeria, West Africa. For a long time whenever I closed my eyes I could see the flash of bright lights and I could hear the crashing sound of metal from those cars.

“The pain in my back reminds me I am still alive after that accident on the highway between Ibadan and Lagos commonly known as “Blood Alley.” I thank God for the pain and the moment that separated my past from the new life since that eventful evening. Saying “thanks” in tough times is not easy but it is always necessary.”

Jesus healed ten lepers.  Only one…the outsider…remembered to turn around and say “thank you”.  Perhaps the others felt entitled.  Perhaps the others felt that God owed them the good stuff.  We need to remember that God doesn’t owe us.  We owe God.  God loves us before we deserve it.  God reaches out to find us when we are lost…God offers forgiveness and newness day by day.  God guides us a protects us…pours out an epidemic of health…and gives good things to people who aren’t that great.

I hope that our response today and every day is a thank you…a heart filled with gratitude and praise…that will help provide the throne for the God who loves us and deserves only the best.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Sunday, August 13

Eph. 4:25-5:2, John 6:41-51                      SPEAKING IN LOVE

      James Mouw writes that in the mid-1600s, Puritans and the Quakers were engaged in angry theological debates.  Both groups were centered in Christ.  Both groups were “outsiders”, reacting against the established state Church of England.  But their writing about each other was vicious.  The great Puritan preacher Richard Baxter wrote a pamphlet in which he lumped the Quakers with "drunkards, swearers, whoremongers…sensual wretches" and other "miserable creatures." And then -- just in case he had not yet insulted them enough -- he insisted that Quakers are no better than "Papists.” 

The Quaker leader James Naylor announced that he was compelled "by the Spirit of Jesus Christ" to respond to these harsh accusations. He proceeded to characterize his Puritan opponent as a "Serpent," a "Liar," and "Child of the Devil," a "Cursed Hypocrite," and a "Dumb Dog."

Mouw goes on to observe that, “this is strong stuff. What makes it especially sad is that the angry talk often makes it difficult to get to the real issues. The debate between the Puritans and the Quakers was actually a rather interesting and helpful one. Both parties engaged in some serious biblical exposition [over the role of women and the role of the Holy Spirit] ; if the heavy rhetoric were removed, the discussion could easily appear to have been a friendly argument between Christians who had some important things to talk about. But I doubt that either group heard the helpful things the other side was saying. Too much angry rhetoric was in the air.

Things haven’t changed much in the following 350 years.  We still have a hard time disagreeing with one another when it comes to issues of faith.  Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq, Protestants and Catholics in northern Ireland, Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives, or “liberal” and “conservative” Presbyterians in the U. S. all believe that they are right and the other side is not just wrong…but led by the Devil himself. 

One problem is that the rhetoric gets in the way of conversation…and understanding…and in the way of God’s Spirit.

I think that God has something different in mind.   When the Apostle Paul writes some rules for Christians to live by in his letter to the Ephesians, he says, among other things, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.  Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil...let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.  Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.   Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

I think that often our words are not “fragrant offerings and sacrifices to God.”  Instead, they become weapons that separate us from one another and get in the way of God’s ability to work in our midst and in the world.  Instead of allowing for differences, instead of becoming avenues of grace, we use words as weapons to prove our own superiority, set ourselves apart or above, and inflict all sorts of hurt on those around us.

Sometimes that in unintentional.  Someone misunderstands us, hears what we say through a filter of language or culture or experience…and our words have the unintended consequence of causing hurt.  But at other times, most of us are guilty of purposefully trying to cause hurt and division, skewing the facts to our own advantage, and trying to annihilate our opponents.

But in the church, we aren’t…or we shouldn’t be…opponents.  We are all children of God… loved and saved by the same Jesus…who probably have some differences of opinion.  But are those differences enough to beat one another up in public?  What sort of witness does that give to the person and work of Jesus?  How does that sort of anger or divisiveness allow for the movement and work of God’s Spirit in our midst?

    In our passage from John’s gospel this morning,  people complained about Jesus.  They were ready to believe the worst.  They talked to each other instead of listening to him.  They focused on a few words that offended them, and missed the point entirely.  How often do we do that?  What are you going to talk about when you go home today?  The Scripture?  The presence of God?   Or are you going to focus on the typo in the bulletin?  The one wrong note on the piano?  Someone’s dress, or perfume or annoying  habit?

Jesus responded differently.  He didn’t try to destroy his detractors.  He didn’t try to incite his followers.  Instead, he simply observes that, “no one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me.”  Let’s just move on…and let God’s Spirit do the work.  Jesus had more important things to do than worry about destroying his enemies.  He knew that God would sort it all out in the end.  Instead, he offered a way of grace and peace.

What’s going to build people up?  What’s going to offer hope instead of pain?  How can our words heal instead of hurt?

It is said that “the average person spends one-fifth of his or her life talking? That's what the statistics say. If all of our words were put into print, the result would be this: a single day's words would fill a 50-page book, while in a year's time the average person's words would fill 132 books of 200 pages each! Among all those words there are bound to be some spoken in anger, carelessness, or haste.”

A challenge I read recently asked, “If someone paid you ten cents for every kind word you said about people, and collected five cents for every unkind word, would you be rich or poor?”

Our words have a powerful effect on the lives of others.  I read the story of Mary this week.  She grew upknowing that she was different from the other kids, and she hated it. She was born with a cleft palate and had to bear the jokes and stares of cruel children who teased her non-stop about her misshaped lip, crooked nose, and garbled speech.

With all the teasing, Mary grew up hating the fact that she was "different". She was convinced that no one, outside her family, could ever love her ... until she entered Mrs. Leonard's class. Mrs. Leonard had a warm smile, a round face, and shiny brown hair. While everyone in her class liked her, Mary came to love Mrs. Leonard.

In the 1950's, it was common for teachers to give their children an annual hearing test. However, in Mary's case, in addition to her cleft palate, she was barely able to hear out of one ear. Determined not to let the other children have another "difference" to point out, she would cheat on the test each year. The "whisper test" was given by having a child walk to the classroom door, turn sideways, close one ear with a finger, and then repeat something which the teacher whispered.

Mary turned her bad ear towards her teacher and pretended to cover her good ear. She knew that teachers would often say things like, "The sky is blue," or "What color are your shoes?" But not on that day. Surely, God put seven words in Mrs. Leonard's mouth that changed Mary's life forever. When the "Whisper test" came, Mary heard the words: "I wish you were my little girl."

What sort of words do we speak?  Do we join with the throng that feared Jesus and his teaching, and so tried to turn his followers against him by murmuring about him in public?  Are we like the Quakers and Puritans calling each other names and poisoning the air with our words?  Or do our lives begin to heal as we lift up one another, encourage one another, and reach out in God’s love to those who hurt us…because they are hurting themselves?

Let your words be words of healing.  Let your words build up those around you.  Let your words bring the love of God to others as you offer grace and goodness.

 Sunday, May 14

Acts 8:26-40

John 15:1-8             GRAFTED, GROWING, AND BEARING FRUIT

           It seems to me that God never takes the easy way out.  The book of John is organized around a series of “I Am” statements that Jesus made as he taught.  “I am the light of the world.”  “I am the bread of life.”  “I am the good shepherd.”  And this morning we hear, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

          Sheep and vineyards were things that would have been common experience to all of the people in Jesus’ time.  Using these examples helped bring his teaching to life.  Everyone knew that the shepherd had a tough, miserable job, and that sheep were contrary creatures who took an extraordinary amount of care.  Two shepherds in my congregation in Readington used to say that the only thing dumber than a sheep is someone who would own them!  When Jesus likens us to sheep, he isn’t giving us much of a compliment.  My own experience with grapevines makes me think the Jesus wasn’t really offering much of a compliment here, either.

          When I moved into the manse in Michigan, several years ago, the back of the lot was bordered by a grapevine.  The gardener in me was thrilled.  I had visions of an abundance of grapes for snacking and cooking.  It was obvious that the previous residents didn’t have much interest in the grapes.  They simply chopped the vines to the ground each spring and then let hem run wild.  I would do better.

          I armed myself with books, learned a new vocabulary, and practiced pruning techniques.  I learned that grapevines are usually grafted onto the roots of wild grapes.  Wild grape plants don’t produce the best fruit, but they have strong root systems that provide wonderful nourishment.  The domesticated varieties are carefully grafted to these root systems so that we can have the best of both worlds.

          Jesus taught that we human beings have the best potential when we are grafted onto the best root system.  Jesus invites us to be grafted onto his vine.  God is willing and able to give us the best possible nourishment and a root system that will allow us to thrive.

          Grafting is a relatively simple procedure when the gardener knows what he or she is doing.  The grafted branch can’t do it alone, but a master gardener can quickly make the correct cuts and tie a new branch into an existing vine.  God is the master gardener who will do that for us.  All we need do is accept the good news that Jesus Christ has been crucified and raised to new life in order to restore us to God.  When we respond in faith to that announcement, we discover that we have been attached to the “roots” of Jesus.  We find strength and nourishment in him.

          But, as I said at the outset, God never takes the easy way.  Grafting is only the first step in producing grapes.  The first spring I lived in that manse in Michigan, I chopped down all the suckers that sprang up from the roots and watched as the good, grafted branches began to grow.  I chose the most promising shoots and trained them up the supports that had been built with care.  The first year took a lot of pruning.  I ended up with branches about four feet tall and four lateral shoots that each extended horizontally about 4 feet.  I had managed to create the beginnings of a good framework.  But not a single grape was produced that first year.  The severe pruning had arrested the development of the fruit.  But all of the books promised that things would change next year.  It was a good beginning.

          Jesus tells us that we human beings are pruned by Gold in much the same way that a farmer prunes the grapevines.  When we are grafted onto the vine of Jesus, the Master Gardener prunes our lives.  Old habits give way to new life.  We learn a new set of values.  We need to immerse ourselves in God and in the stories of  God’s people as we learn who God is and what we are called to be and do.  Some of our lessons are painful.  Change is never easy.  But there is a purpose behind God’s pruning in our lives. 

          A good friend of mine was a campus minister.  He was young, single, faithful, and seemed to have his life together.  He was a great musician, and the two things that he treasured in his life were his guitar and his new Camaro.  One night, someone ran a stop sign and plowed into his Camero.  He wasn’t hurt, but the car was totaled and the guitar was smashed.  Later Mark was able to admit that the car and the guitar had become so important to him that they were getting in the way of his relationship with God.  So God did some pruning.  It was a wake up call for Mark and helped re-direct his life again.

          All of my experiences…the good and the bad…have been used by God to lead me into a deeper understanding of God’s presence and purpose in my life.  It has been the tough times….those times when I was faced with the loss of a loved one, a financial crisis, doubts about the direction of my life or the purpose of God… that God was most completely with me.  I have known God most intimately in those moments when I was so lost that there was no one else to turn to and nowhere else to go.  Those are times of pruning.

          But the pain is never without purpose.  I pruned those grape vines and expected to eat grapes.  The second summer came.  The vines grew and they were trained along the supports.  In late spring, there were blossoms.  And bugs.  And blight.

          A few grapes managed to appear and began to mature.  I fertilized.  I composted.  I watched carefully.  And in the fall, the birds harvested the grapes about two days before I was planning to pick them.  There was nothing left.

          The third summer brought the same work, the same frustrations, the same pestilence.  I fought back with more pesticides, more fungicides.  The grapes grew in beautiful bunches.  Netting over the vines kept the birds away, but the neighborhood children beat us to the punch.  The vines were picked clean by others who had been watching and waiting.  Three years of hard work, investment, and no fruit!  No wonder our predecessors had given up.

          When Jesus calls us branches on the vine, he is telling us that we take a lot of work.  There is much that can go wrong.  God, the Master Gardener, needs to be constantly attentive.  Grapevines seem to be the “sheep” of the plant kingdom.

          God gives attention.  God has grafted us into the vine of his Son.  God nurtures us, watches us, prunes us.  And there is a reason for all of this.  God expects us to produce fruit.

          Our lesson from Acts gives us an idea about the fruit that should fill our lives.  Philip is a man who has been touched and transformed by Jesus.  He has been grafted onto the vine.  And his life was filled with the fruit of the Spirit.

          Philip listened to the direction of God.  He let God set the agenda.  And we have much to learn from his example.  Philip felt led by God to travel the road south of Jerusalem.  He encountered a man who was sitting in a chariot reading from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.  He asked a simple question.  “Do you understand what you are reading?”

          “How can I?” came the answer.  “I can’t understand this alone.  I need someone to help me.”  And so he and Philip began to talk.  The passage in question referred to the suffering that the Messiah would undergo.  This was a passage that Philip understood.  Jesus had spent time teaching him about these words.  And so Philip shared what he had been taught.  Before the conversation was ended, the Ethiopian had confessed his belief in Jesus and asked to be baptized.

          Philip’s life bore fruit.  He did nothing more than listen to the leading of God and in the process he found an opportunity to tell what he had experienced.

          Philip’s story was simple.  He had encountered Jesus and he shared what he knew with someone else who was asking questions.  That is what God asks of us.  We are called to share what we know…and to continue learning so that we can share more.

          Tending vines in hard work.  At the end of all of that hard work is the expectation that there will be an enjoyable result.

          God has invested much in us.  God has gifted us in countless ways.  And God asks us to take his good news out into our community and our world and allow others the opportunity to discover God’s gifts.

          We have been grafted onto the vine.  We are encouraged to grow in faith and maturity.  And we are given a purpose…to bear fruit so that God’s kingdom might be proclaimed to a new generation.