Psalm 111 January 28, 2018

Psalm 111
1 Praise the Lord!
I thank the Lord with all my heart
in the company of those who do right, in the congregation.
2 The works of the Lord are magnificent;
they are treasured by all who desire them.
3 God’s deeds are majestic and glorious.
God’s righteousness stands forever.
4 God is famous for God’s wondrous works.
The Lord is full of mercy and compassion.
5 God gives food to those who honor God.
God remembers God’s covenant forever.
6 God proclaimed God’s powerful deeds to God’s people
and gave them what had belonged to other nations.
7 God’s handiwork is honesty and justice;
all God’s rules are trustworthy—
8 they are established always and forever:
they are fulfilled with truth and right doing.
9 God sent redemption for God’s people;
God commanded that God’s covenant last forever.
Holy and awesome is God’s name!
10 Fear of the Lord is where wisdom begins;
sure knowledge is for all who keep God’s laws.
God’s praise lasts forever!

SERMON (PASTOR)
Our job, not just as Presbyterians, but as Christians is to love our neighbor as our selves and love our God.

This is a dangerous text to show up in the Lectionary at a time like this.
It is dangerous to look at these ancient Hebrew scriptures praising God’s covenant.
It is dangerous because that covenant, has been interpreted, as God’s gift of land and progeny to the Hebrew people.
It is dangerous because, historically, that that particular land, is what we now know as Israel/Palestine, and that particular progeny was for the Israeli people to flourish over that land.

It is a dangerous scripture when the, “The Presbyterian Church [PC(USA)], has had a longstanding deep concern for Israel-Palestine for many reasons, including its place in Christian self-understanding and the prominent role the United States has taken there. Since 1949, the Church has taken public positions on the situation, supporting Israel as a safe homeland for Jews but also calling for just treatment for Palestinians, including Palestinian refugees. In later times, the PCUSA has recognized the right and power of Palestinian people to self-determination by political expression, based upon full civil liberties for all. ” Moreover, this is a dangerous scripture when your pastor is headed to the “Holy Land,” on sabbatical as a Christian pilgrim. Is my religious tourism just or does it exacerbate the divide, as well as ignore U.S. relations with the divided area?

This is a dangerous text to show up in the Lectionary at a time like this; in a time when the U.S.’s leadership has decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, at a time when U.S. Aid to Palestine has been threatened. This Psalm is a dangerous text when 128 countries and the United Nations rejected the decision to recognize a different capital. It is a dangerous scripture when Palestinian Christian leaders have rejected the administration's decision, describing it as (that word) “dangerous” and “insulting” to the sacredness of Jerusalem for both Christians and Muslims.

Paramountly, this is a dangerous text when people are, and have been, dying over this conflict for since before the time this Pslam was written.

This is a dangerous scripture, and it is our scripture, and we, as Christians get to deal with it. So how do we do that? Very carefully.

1. We pray.
2. We read the text.
3. We look at the scripture in it’s original context.
1. What was it’s intent?
2. We look at what it tells us about people and the created world then and now.
3. We look at what the scripture tells us about God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit, divinity.
4. We ask if there have been developments in science or general knowledge which help us better understand this scripture.
4. Then we look at the Old Testament with a Christian lens: What does our understanding of Christ, and the Golden Rule help us to understand about this scripture?
5. What does our tradition say?
6. Then we apply it to today, to ourselves as individuals, to our community, and to the wider world.
7. We then lay the newspaper next to the Bible and we ask how they speak to one another.

That is a lot all at once, so lets break that down.

Firstly, notice the word, “we.” We read scripture together; we study it together. You are given the upcoming scriptures in your newsletter and weekly blast. Then reading and then studying the scriptures to be used in worship is the main purpose of Lectionary Bible Study. It is also the reason we gather as a community for worship. We gather to praise God, we seek to better understand God, and to experience God in our midst. The word We is essential to Biblical Interpretation.

1. First, We pray.
1. We pray and pray a lot,
2. there are prayers before picking scriptures, there are prayers before Bible Study, before writing sermons, there are prayers before the liturgist and I walk up to the front of the church, there are prayers before preaching, there are prayers before the Word is read. These are called Prayers for Illumination.
3. We pray that the Spirit might use our hearts and minds to Illumine God’s Word, and bring the Word of God to God’s people. We pray humbly that our words and thoughts not be about us, but about God.
4. I invite you to pray this prayer as you get ready for worship, as you get in the car, as you enter the sanctuary, as you listen to the scriptures and the sermon, as we pray throughout worship, as we go out into the world, etc. We pray for for God to help us interpret.
2. Secondly, we read the scripture.
1. We read different translations. I read to you the Common English Bible, which is seen as the best to be able to hear and understand the scripture’s intended meaning, while remaining accurate to the original Greek and Hebrew, in which the Bible was first written. You have in your pews, the New Revised Standard Version, which is also known for accuracy. At Lectionary Bible Study, we also read other versions and translations.
2. Today you have an example of the Hebrew acrostic psalm form on the front of your bulletin; this allows you in the congregation to see the scripture in yet another way. Secondly, to interpret scripture, we read the scripture.
3. Thirdly, we look at third at the scripture in it’s historical context.
1. We ask when was it written? Who wrote it? To whom were they writing? What was their intent? What practices or beliefs were common at the time that might help our understanding? How does geography both physical and political influence the scripture?
1. In this case, here are some things we know about Psalms.
1. Psalms are a collection of prayers and songs composed throughout Israel’s history.
2. The date of composition varies from psalm to psalm and is in most cases impossible to determine.
3. Some psalms were probably composed fairly early in Israel’s history.
4. Many may have been composed after the exile.
5. Some psalms changed over time, as like in a game of telephone.
6. Although many of the psalms are associated in their headings with David, who may have written some of them, the authorship of the individual psalms is unknown.
2. Here are some things we know about Psalm 111,
1. although an individual voice gives thanks, the psalm focuses on the wonderful deeds of God for the people rather than the particular way in which God has helped an individual.
2. We know historically that when Covenant is mentioned we can look at that same word in other Psalms to better glean its meaning, in Psalm 105.8–10 God is mindful of God’s covenant forever, of the word that God commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that God made with Abraham, God’s sworn promise to Isaac, which God confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.” We can look at Psalm, 106.45 “For their sake God remembered God’s covenant, and showed compassion according to the abundance of God steadfast love.” From these two scriptures we know that the Hebrew people believed God gave them the land of Canaan, for 1,000 generations, around 20,000 to 25,000 years if each generation is about 25 years, so from 5 BCE in the five centuries when the Psalms were written + 25,000 years of. That said, if this is read metaphorically, 1000 years could mean forever.
3. If I look at the Psalm verses, “God remembers God’s covenant forever. God proclaimed God’s powerful deeds to God’s people and gave them what had belonged to other nations.” I tend to wonder if this was written by a Hebrew in exile. If I were in exile I would want a God who’s covenant is forever. If so that would mean I would be returned to my land (land that the Psalmist describes as belonging to other nations).
4. I think this desire of people to have a homeland continues today. A Psalm describing that covenant would be encouraging to the people of that time as well as today.
5. I believe For the community to praise the steadfastness of God despite their exile is what the Psalmist was trying to convey.
6. What does this scripture tell us about God? When we look at what this scripture tells us about God, we can see God’s steadfastness. But is God’s steadfastness and God’s covenant to a particular land and a particular people? Is God’s steadfastness only to Israel and to the Land of Canaan?
7. We look at Psalm 111 with a Christian lens, What does our understanding of Christ and the Golden Rule help us to understand about this scripture?
1. As Christians, when we lay the Golden Rule, Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself, over this interpretation of God, it is hard to reconcile a God who wants us to love our neighbor as ourself with a God who promises a particular land and progeny to just one people.
2. If we look at Jesus and the parable of the Good Samaritan, which he told when someone asked him, “Who is my neighbor,” we can see Jesus saying that our neighbor is often the person who believes the most differently than us, the person we shun, or oppress.
3. When I read this scripture with the lens of the Golden Rule, and in comparison with scriptures such as the Good Samaritan, I do not believe that God has a chosen people whom God rewards. I believe all people are chosen and all people God seeks to reward.
4. So then I look back at this scripture and say, so What part of this is a result of the context of the author, and what part is the Word of God. I believe the Psalmist’s context of being a Hebrew is exile makes him blind to the inclusiveness of God. Yet, the ability to praise God even in exile, and know that God is with him is profound. I believe this is one way God is speaking through this scripture.
8. So, it is important to apply this scripture to today, and to ourselves as individuals, and to our community.
1. We point the finger at ourselves before we start to point it outward. I ask what are the ways I have felt in exile? I was once not invited back to a camp I loved, my favorite place on earth. I have lived in a bunch of different places and even growing up with parents as New Yorkers in Texas, I never quite felt like a belonged in that state, or any of them. Even in my seventh year in Baker I still am suspect because I didn’t graduate from here, much less have generations of family who came over on the Oregon Trail. I certainly have felt like an exile and to praise God in those moments takes a courage I do not always have, especially those times I have felt alone in foreign lands.
2. Then, when having our own understanding, and hopefully some compassion, we look outward, we ask what are the ways people are in exile? as individuals, I believe each person has had times where they felt like the other, not included, maybe because of the clothes they wore, their accent, their religion, the color of their skin, the things they were not good at, or because they excelled at something. Would it be hard to praise God in those times? How might we learn from the courage of the Psalmist?
3. Metaphor
4. Then we ask, Are their ways our community exiles, or we are in exile in our community? We in Baker haven’t had a Women’s March, or a Pride Parade, and people tend to think that our lack of diversity means racism isn’t an issue, rather than our lack of diversity being an issue in and of itself, these are way’s people may feel exiled in Baker. The lines between the haves and the have nots are drawn very sharply in this community, might this be another version of exile. Ownership of land is a huge subject in our community, what does the scripture have to say to us about that? Where might God’s promise of steadfastness be needed here in Baker?
5. Then understanding our own context we look at the world. What might this scripture say to the places where cultures and peoples draw lines and boundaries? How might it speak to those in a customs line? How might is speak to those who speak Spanish, or Chinese, or Russian? How might it speak to those of different ages.
6. Finally, what happens when we lay the newspaper next to the Bible and we ask how they speak to one another.
1. I look at that Land of Canaan and see that it is the same as the current Palestine-Israel. I can’t help but think about both those groups feeling a sort of exile from their homeland even in their homeland. The land they believed God promised to them. The land where I also will go to see to better understand my own faith
2. . When I look at the scripture, I do not believe that God is promising this land to the Israeli people. Because I am a Christian, I believe God has promised it to us all. I believe as a Christian that all land is promised to us all. I believe that God seeks the flourishing of all people.
9. So what does this scripture have to tell us today?

When I read this scripture, I look at those dangerous verses,
“God remembers God’s covenant forever.
God proclaimed God’s powerful deeds to God’s people
and gave them what had belonged to other nations.”

And I don’t see them as dangerous words anymore. I see them as liberating words. Words that get us out of the mess of, mine and theirs, and into the beauty of, ours, all of ours together. Maybe this is what God is telling the people in exile. Not that what was theirs and what was others will be returned to them, but that that there will be unity and sharing beyond their human imagination. That this is God’s covenant to God’s people for 1,000 generations.

And I think that is what God does, God can take a dangerous scripture, a scripture that has been used for violence and hatred, and allow us to find peace and unity in those same words. God’s word is a different kind of dangerous, lay this interpretation over the news, and there are a lot of people who are not going to like what it suggests, but we have a dangerous God, one who fights with peace, and justice and unity for all and that is the covenant we are to remember in exile.

https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/news/pfjp_two_state_final_w_map.pdf
https://www.pcusa.org/news/2016/2/29/pcusa-policy-committee-issues-new-report-israel-pa/
https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/news/pfjp_two_state_final_w_map.pdf

Psalm 62 January 24, 2018

Psalm 62.5-12, Common English Bible (CEB)

5 Oh, I must find rest in God only,

    because my hope comes from God!

6 Only God is my rock and my salvation—

    my stronghold!—I will not be shaken.

7 My deliverance and glory depend on God.

    God is my strong rock.

    My refuge is in God.

8 All you people: Trust in God at all times!

    Pour out your hearts before God!

    God is our refuge! Selah

9 Human beings are nothing but a breath.

    Human beings are nothing but lies.

    They don’t even register on a scale;

    taken all together they are lighter than a breath!

10 Don’t trust in violence;

    don’t set false hopes in robbery.

When wealth bears fruit,

    don’t set your heart on it.

11 God has spoken one thing—

    make it two things—

    that I myself have heard:

    that strength belongs to God,

12     and faithful love comes from you, my Lord—

    and that you will repay

    everyone according to their deeds.

SERMON (PASTOR)

I was with a mom this week when an e-mail went out saying, 

“Brooklyn Elementary was placed in Lockdown at approximately 11:22 this morning. Law enforcement have determined the building is safe and secure. Students and staff are safe. The building has returned to regular instructional schedule.” 

The mom sighed, visibly bothered, 

“This is one thing I hate about public-school (rather than homeschooling). I try to explain things to my third grader, but how do I explain this? I don’t want my child to have to go through these drills and false alarms. School shootings are unlikely but the psychological outcomes aren’t. Did you know, a few years ago Brooklyn had these emergency beeper things, like the elderly wear for falls, and the school had at least three false alarms, where the police came in - guns drawn, and all it was was someone carrying books that pressed against the beeper, or things like that.”

“It’s not new either,” I quipped, “my parents tell stories of hiding under their desk preparing for an nuclear attack, which, my dad sadistically jokes, weren’t going to be much help when the school, the desk, and the kid were exterminated. But didn’t kids also hide in the cold war in bunkers and stuff? I think it has been going on forever. I remember drills as a kid. The Fire Department coming and telling us Stop, Drop and Roll which I don’t think is a thing anymore. We also had a tornado once in second grade. Seven years old, they lined us up, sitting crosslegged, in the hallway faces to the wall. I remember the kid next to me was crying, and the teacher was telling us to, “stop crying,” which of course makes it worse. I turned to that little boy and asked, “Why are you crying?” and I remember him saying, “We are never going to see our parents again.” Then I started bawling, and the teacher was still telling us not to cry, which made it worse, because I didn’t want to break the rules. When it was all over and we went outside, there were just a couple trees bent in half. A couple trees, for all that, but I still remember it.” 

My friend said, “that was bad classroom management in the hallway, the teacher should have just had you play Heads-Up-Seven-Up.”  “That is the worst idea ever, I said, “Go put your head down, close your eyes, and be completely silent while the wind is ripping around you. That is bad classroom management, much less Heads-Up-Seven-Up, that game should never exist, it’s a popularity contest and a shunned contest; I was never picked my entire childhood.” but that’s another story. “Maybe it would have been better to turn up the music as loud as possible and have a dance party in the hallway while there was a tornado outside. It was concrete block building, if those things started to fall we were going to get hurt anyway, sitting against the wall, or dancing between it. I am sure there are multiple reasons why dance parties are bad classroom management, but it has to be a better response to fear and danger than sitting with our faces to the wall.”

These kind of things tend to be my response to fear. I had a similarly flippant response at Synod, a Regional Presbyterian Meeting, when the denomination put a bunch of pastors and church elders through ALICE, Active Shooter Response Training. The trainer was telling pastors and congregants to throw hymnals and Bible’s at active shooters, and I quipped that statistically, training pastors on how to help families take keys away from older congregants who had lost their vision would save more lives. We were more likely to die on the way to church! I felt like the bulked up, former officer, who bragged about his gun arsenal, was attempting to make the room fearful, and I watched the anxiety of pastors escalate as their job was changed from pastor to protector. 

Similarly after the church shooting in Texas, a congregant ask how I was doing, and I wasn’t sure why, “oh, because this shooting happened at a church.” I hadn’t been worried about that. What I had thought of was how all those Texans would want to bring their guns to church, and how having handguns in the sanctuary would vastly chasten my preaching. It would be like professors without tenure, pastors who had to weigh out prophesy against a impulsive angry bullet. I imagined it like the statistic that guns in a household were more likely to be used for domestic violence than against an intruder. In response to that shooting, the Baker Police Department sent a nice letter that they were offering training the next day for pastors on how to prepare and respond to such a threat. But I had already had training, not the ALICE one, the one called seminary. I knew that Bibles were not weapons, that they worked better if you read them rather than threw them, that hymnals worked better for singing, and that in the face of fear, we do not face the wall, but we as Christians dance. 

That is what this scripture is about, 

Oh, I must find rest in God only,

    because my hope comes from God!

6 Only God is my rock and my salvation—

    my stronghold!—I will not be shaken.

7 My deliverance and glory depend on God.

    God is my strong rock.

    My refuge is in God.

8 All you people: Trust in God at all times!

    Pour out your hearts before God!

    God is our refuge! Selah

This scripture isn’t saying that there are not horrible things of which to be afraid. It acknowledges there are horrible terrible realities, but it reminds us that which is greater.

We have something bigger than all the shootings, the drills, and the daily news. We have something stronger than even concrete block walls, or Cold War Bunkers, we have a God who is our rock, our stronghold. We have a Spirit who doesn’t sit cross-legged and cry. We have a Spirit who is dancing in the hallway. We have a Christ who was a different sort of king, not one of violence but of a salvific cross.

Here is an example, a few weeks ago, a prayer was lifted for the impending threat of nuclear war, and as there sometimes is during prayer requests, there was a collective feeling in the room of agreement, as if the prayer named what we worshipers were feeling. Our fear barometer was high, and what we did was collectively respond, “Lord Hear Our Prayer,” we lifted up and named that there was something greater, stronger, bigger than our fear. Then this week I read the news that North Korea is sending athletes to the Olympics. There may be a tornado of wild leaders out there, and the threat is real, but Spirit is dancing, and skiing, and skating, and celebrating a coming together of countries. 

Here’s another example, after talking to this mom, and being handed this scripture I got to thinking about how do we weigh the reality of danger with the promise of our faith? So I called some of our principals. The year after Brooklyn’s false alarms, Gwen O’Neal said they were not going to do any drills; those kids had had enough. Now those same kids are at Nanette’s Lehman’s school and the particularly vulnerable ones she makes, “Special Agents,” and comes and whispers in their ears that they are going to have a drill. And that they are going to be just fine but she needs them to help lead by following the teachers directions. Molly Smith described the different ways the school responds to different threats, in order to keep school functioning and kids safe. Likewise, Phil Anderson, at Brooklyn, went to each classroom and asked every teacher which kids seemed particularly affected by the false alarm, it was over thirty, and he and his staff called every each and every one of those parents to follow through. Our principals are not going to let fear win. They aren’t saying that there are not things worth fearing, but they are showing that we respond to fear something greater, in this case the strength to care. 

And I think we can learn something from them, and from this scripture about what we let win, what we let control us, what we herald. Letting God win might look like turning off the news which plays into our fears. It might look like reading a top ten list of what we need to know. It might look like spending as much time in quiet prayer as we do listening to talk radio. It might look like singing hymns. It might look like dancing in the hallway. It might look like being here in this space, with these people, once a week, to be reminded that it is more than us, we are merely breath, it is more than this life, it is more than our strength, our power, our violence, but there is a power far greater at work alive and dancing among us. Let us Rejoice.

Psalm 139, January 14, 2018

Rev. Katy Nicole

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Psalm 139.1–6, 13–18, Pg. 577

Lord, you have examined me.
You know me.
You know when I sit down and when I stand up.
Even from far away, you comprehend my plans.
You study my traveling and resting.
You are thoroughly familiar with all my ways.
There isn’t a word on my tongue, Lord, that you don’t already know completely.
You surround me—front and back.
You put your hand on me.
That kind of knowledge is too much for me; it’s so high above me that I can’t fathom it.

You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.
I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
My bones weren’t hidden from you when I was being put together in a secret place, when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened.
God, your plans are incomprehensible to me!
Their total number is countless!
If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand!
If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you.

SERMON (PASTOR) 

I had a best friend once tell me that she loved to watch me tie my shoes, “It’s as if you are still learning, saying, with each pass of the lace, the pneumonic, the rabbit goes around the tree and through the hole,” It was true, my fine-motor skills were not my strong suit, buttons, connecting zippers at the bottom, yielded the same kind of slow and steady intensional pace. Another friend, half exasperated, wanting to get out of a tent, as I sat at the entrance door putting on each sneaker, once said, “Katy, you are the pokey-est person I know.” Or, my first year skiing, on the chair lift, with Liz and her daughter Magnolia, I watched Liz clip Magnolia’s helmet, shove her gloves a little further up, and wipe her goggles clean. “Can I call you Momma-Liz too?” I asked raising my gloves for the shoving. It seemed Liz could do everything even with her winter gear on. “As long as I can call you Daisy,” she quipped in good humor, thinking of the most helpless sounding name she knew…I imagine God like these close friends. The ones who know you for your idiosyncrasies and love them, because they are you…even when they are a hassle. The friends who tease you, in the best way, about your neurocies. That way that allows you to not have to take yourself so seriously around them, the way that makes you smile because even your most self-conscious peccadilloes are embraced. I have a phrase I sometimes say which is, “To be teased is to be known, and to be known is to be loved.” I would love to hear all the things God would tease me about; I would never stop laughing, and my laugh itself would be one of them, and it would feel so good to be lovingly teased by God. All the times God has watched me tie my shoes. All the buttons with which I have struggled. All the zippers that it takes me an exorbitant time to connect. My perplexing at the conundrum of winter accessories. It makes me smile thinking of all that God would notice, that no one else even ever has, because God was there….God was there when somehow my hands were being formed, and became goofy double joined fingers which stand like chunk chess pieces, a hook in the top half and a protrusion at each bottom. God was there when, sleeping as a child, I moved them above my head, as if playing an unknown instrument of air. God was there when my elementary handwriting changed every other sentence, and when in sixth grade I began a thorough practice, and by seminary, my Greek memorization was atrocious, but my slow deliberate lettering was finally immaculate. God would laugh, I would smile, God knows me. 

And God knows you. God doesn’t just know the big stuff, or the bad stuff you wish no one knew, but God knows the stuff you wish someone saw, and the things you don’t even know about yourself. Can you imagine it? God is like your calendar, your day-planner, your calorie-counter, your fit-bit, your sleep-cycle ap., your alarm, your meal times, and snack times, you hidden away for emergencies stash of peanuts or chocolate times, and your stash is out hangry times, and bed times, and past bed times, and early to bed times, and cycling times, and your cry at commercials times, and your stressed out times, and you over welcomed with joy times, and every time you stub your toe times, and every time you notice a bird, or a bug, or a wildflower time, or your sick times, or your well times, or the times you forget the word for such and such, and gave yourself such a hard time over it, and God didn’t even mind even that you forgot in the first place, and in fact, God loved you for it, because it was you, or there is too, that thing you do that God so delights in, you know,…that thing. Revel in that thing for a moment. God totally is.

I know one you as a congregation do. I think God delights every time one of you makes a googly-eyed, or silly, or aww-isn’t-that-cute face, at a kid or a baby in this congregation. And you love them, especially the little ones, perhaps even more, when they are doing that thing about which their parents get a lil’ embarrassed. We loved Kyra hoisting May off the ground; I miss Coleman’s skeptical furrowed brow; or the little one who came back from the Children’s Sermon on Christmas Eve saying, “Well, that wasn’t funny,” or Kennedy’s faces that totally were. We looked forward to Alex’s outbursts, or Sloan singing along. We don’t forget Avery’s apprehension and Nora’s embrace at their baptism. Or Luke Rembold grown child of the church just beams at Jake and Silas who have the offering down, as Luke and his brother Jed used to do. I think God delights in this congregation in the way your cup runs over with pride at our youth, when they read scripture, or preach so bravely, or come back from college and jump in to help, or Evan Bigler coming on his own, becoming baptized and then a faithful ordained elder. These youth and these kids cannot even fathom how much you love each and every one of them. And you know what, God loves you like that. At every thing you do. The things which would make your mother roll over in her grave, and the things which would make your father beam down in pride. God knows you like that. God loves you like that. Yes, God even loves you for that too. and that, and that, um humm and that. 

So what does this mean? We as a culture have taken God’s omnipresence to be like Santa, “Making a list and checking it twice, going to find out who’s naughty or nice,” but what if instead God’s omnipresence means, that you are more loved than you could ever fathom, by someone who knows you more completely than you know yourself, more completely than your closest friends, more completely than your spouse, your family, your kids, your teenagers who often believe they know all your shortcomings, your siblings. I just spent a week with my sister, she knows me. We were in a room together; Diana knew when I sat down, when I got up, when I blew my nose, when I coughed, when I woke up randomly and couldn’t sleep, when I went back to sleep for an hour and a half at 7:00 and then was cranky when her alarm went off at a reasonable time. Diana knows me, but God, God knows me even more. God is cracking up at me getting cranky (any church member who has been on a trip with me probably is right now too) like how Annalea says, “Your not a morning person, your not a night owl, strictly daylight.” Yeah God is cracking up, God knows us, God loves us. God loves you all the time, even when you are cranky. There is not one thing you can do that will stop that. 

There is nothing you can do to stop God from noticing, and nothing, nothing you can do to stop God from LOVING!!! Not even the worst thing you have ever done….God loves you even in that moment. Maybe God’s heart was breaking but God didn’t stop loving you. Didn’t stop being with you. Would not let you go. Still will not let you go. Is sitting right beside you, God puts God’s hand on yours, “Nothing my child, nothing child of God,” just the same as you would tell any one of these kids we call our own. “Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you.” And you haven’t. I think of Andy Ferns, who struggles heavily with addiction, I think of how I have never heard any one of you ever tell a bad story about him, instead you talk about how smart he was and is and tell stories, stories which relay, “Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you.” I think of Cameron McCallister, who openly struggles with depression, you tell a really funny story about him in school saying he hated his teacher Ginger Rembold, and how Ginger didn’t even react, “Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you,” and how later he felt horrible, but you all knew it was just a thing he was going through and loved him anyway and because of it. You tell stories of the super reserved, well mannered, Peter Clarke once getting in a fight during a Christmas play with the Episcopals and you tell it because it is so funny because it is the last thing you would ever imagine Peter Clarke ever doing, “Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you.” Ditto Elliot Averett might be agnostic or an atheist, you really don’t know, or frankly care, and it’s great because the stories you tell about him are about Mock Trial, and his letters to the editor that you had to read with a dictionary, and just how smart he is, “Nothing you can do will ever make me stop loving you.” Not loving these children of the church never even crossed your mind. It doesn’t cross God’s mind either, whether is it a child of the church, you sitting in the pews, or me up front. 

And, yeah,…you tell stories of your pastors, Al Fry who sounded like Darth Vader when he breathed into the mic. Susan Barnes who held a sex-ed retreat for the youth that sounded like the most awkward retreat ever. And…I have asked what mine will be, Luke said in preaching it will be the phrase, “I wonder,” and in life, Kate Averett said, “You will probably be remembered as the pastor that went out.” I pray, and I know, “Nothing I can do will ever make you stop loving me.” I learned that my first year after I got divorced and you kept me around then and you still keep my name in your prayers now. Even us adults get grace sometimes too, and you as a congregation give it so much, and God, God gives it even more. And God gives it to you. 

But the hard part is to give it to yourself. To see yourself with a modicum of the eyes that God does. The eyes of a a loving congregant, who has anticipated your coming, who misses your furrowed brow, or remembers the way you reached out or were scared when you were baptized, or who has watched your grow and has loved you since before you can remember, and is so proud of you, and tells the best stories of you, even in your darkest most ashamed hour, that God delights in you, in every ounce of your being, especially that thing you do, yeah, that one, and the gazillion you don’t even know, because even at the end of God’s counting, God is there there, loving you. Amen.

January 7, 2018 Matthew 2:1–12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, 

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, 

“In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” 

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time 

when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, 

“Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Isaiah 60.1 - 6

Arise, shine; for your light has come, 

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 

For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; 

but the Lord will arise upon you, and the Lord’s glory will appear over you. 

Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 

Lift up your eyes and look around; 

they all gather together, they come to you; 

your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. 

Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, 

because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. 

A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. 

They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. 

 

********

I don’t believe in a God of plans, but I believe in God of prophecy and promise. 

I don’t think our steps are set out before we take them, but I believe in ever unfolding paths laid to traverse. 

And let me tell you about these paths: 

For the people of Isaiah, they have walked in great darkness. 

They have been oppressed in, and exiled from, their own land, 

the rod of the oppressor has been strong over and against them, 

and yet Isaiah can see the path amidst the darkness, his eyes have adjusted to what God is unfolding. 

Arise, shine, for your light has come!

 

They have woken in the night and begun to walk

and the dawn is creeping in making the way quick, bright, and beautiful

To they who felt forgotten and alone the Lord has arisen upon them, and like the heat of the midday sun it appears over them.

The Nation to which they return has been redeemed, and the exiles walk toward their homeland.

Kings honor the brightness of this new dawn.

Isaiah tells those that have remained under the oppressor

“Lift up your eyes and look around; 

they all gather together, they come to you; 

and I imagine them peering out the window at this new down 

and seeing on the horizon bands of lost relatives returning home. 

Isaiah tells them, 

your sons shall come from far away, 

and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. 

Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, 

because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, 

the wealth of the nations shall come to you.”

They are returned the wealth that is family, 

and the goods which were once stolen from them. 

Isaiah extorts, 

“A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. and They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. 

And for a people who have seen deep darkness, and been given light and abundance,

their wealth is but to be retuned as offering to God who returned them. 

This is the path Isaiah foretold,

the people may walk in it’s bounty and grace. 

This path is a prophesy, and a promise,

and the people long ago chose to walk in it’s light.

The wise men too have walked a path.

they walked along, those three years between the year of our Lord and the moment they came to the place where the child lay. 

Three years following star, 

three years with their camels and their gifts. 

Three years leaving everything they had in search of a mystery, in search of a true king,

and when they found that the star had stopped, after three long years, they were overwhelmed with joy.

On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother;

and they knelt down and paid him homage.

After walking so long, they came to kneel

Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, 

which they had carried miles and miles under the star. 

They too followed a prophesy, and a promise, and an ever unfolding path. 

We too are given paths, promises and prophesy, 

and if we look and pay attention, like Isaiah we can see God’s abundance laid out before us to adorn our steps,

these paths shine 

they are

Long-haul trucker’s hammered chrome doors reflecting headlights in the sunset, 

they are powdered-sugar-snow dusting shortbread yellow grass, 

they are brooding expenses of watercolor winter sky, 

they are hearths of burgundy willow spiring in creek-beds, 

They are the Dutch Fork roofs of red barns and their copula steeples, 

they are cold black streams bordered by glazes of white ice, 

they are the resilient erect posture of thistle 

and the luminescence of the waning full moon still turning the snow under gray skies blue. 

And in the distance, the end of an inversion, a horizon line of its own, still lighter blue fading to emerald and golden.

These are our paths, 

So too are the paths of feeling known, 

the first real question an old friend asks on a trip home that makes miles and time disappear into the space between face-to-face words, 

these paths are listening to the delicate dance of aging and remaining youthful shared over tuna sandwiches (and sauerkraut salad),

these paths are the sharp clicking gravel that gets caught in the grooves of my sneaker as if the rock forced into pavement wanted to announce its opinion about the discussed relationship when what really but needs attention is the nail in her sacrificial wrist, 

these paths are two women singing together in two chairs with a acoustic guitar

these paths also are the quiet company we keep in cards and visits and little comical e-mails as a presents to the grieving, 

these paths are the perfection of a child singing, Silent Night once the candles are lit, 

these paths are the old-home-week that happens for families in the sanctuary aisle afterward and the solidarity of singles in the Advent prior, and the peace of it being over with New Year’s coming to declare it not stay too long and Epiphany finally closing the season’s door with the reminder to kneel down, pay homage and offer our gifts.

We are given paths, which God lays out, paths of prophesy and promise,

paths that may seem too dark to traverse

but if trust in the prophet, if we follow the star, 

we will find our way to a radiant dawn, 

we will find our way home, 

and welcome loves ones back,

and we will find the child, who is king.

So may we,

Arise, shine; for your light has come, 

Lift up your eyes and look around;