Here I Am

Sermon Genesis 22:1-14 June 28, 2020 Ordinary Time

Here I Am

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying “Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?” And I said, “Here I am; send me!” 

These are the words of Isaiah as he answered the call of God in his life. Daniel L. Shutte captured these words in a hymn we sing with passion as we offer ourselves to God in service. We are moved by these words, we are lifted to a commitment of service full of compassion and profound faith when we sing these words with our strong voices. 

There is something about the response to God’s call, “Here I am.” that stirs us within when we hear it. And when we sing it, we mean it and are ready to go for God.

That is the repeated story of God in the lives of God’s people that began with Abraham. Twice God told Abraham, “Go!”

Each time it was to a place of uncertainty.

It was to a place with an unknown future.

It was a place that held his future in the balance.

Everything he had ever known,

everything he had ever trusted was put aside to answer the command, Go! 

When God sent Abraham from Haran to Canaan he left the land of his father Terah and went to the land God promised would be the land of his inheritance. It would be a land where he would have children as many as there were stars in the sky. It was 25 years from the time of God’s promise of children until the birth of Isaac. How long have any of us been willing to wait for God’s promises to be revealed?

Today in chapter 22 is the second time we read about God telling Abraham to Go!

Abraham responds with certainty, “Here I am!”

Again, he is sent to a place he does not know.

He is sent with his future hanging in the balance.

God has told him to take his son, his only son

(He sent his son Ishmael away so all he has now is Isaac),

to the mountain to offer him up as a burnt offering!

How can that be?

The future of the nation of God’s people rests in the offspring of Isaac!

Everything God is telling Abraham to do goes completely against the nature of God’s promises to him.

How could he dare follow through?

Yet, twice Abraham responds to the command to go with the faith , “God will provide.”

Somehow even though Abraham is uncertain of God’s command he knows that God will 

provide what is needed.

In the middle of the horror of the moment,

Abraham has faith that God will bring about the good.

in the middle of the walking

through the impending loss

of every hope,

of every dream,

of every scrap of truth of God’s promises,

Abraham holds on to the

covenant commitment he has with God.

Some people might call it blind faith. Others might say this is the faith that has been the root of the evil of cults that destroy the lives of people. Some people might say that God is cruel and capricious to send Abraham through a test like that. But, what is essential for us to hear through out this story is Abraham’s absolute conviction that God will set it all right.

Perhaps what’s also remarkable about this story is Abraham’s relationship with Isaac. Unlike the Christian understanding that Isaac was a boy of about 13, the Jewish commentators state that Isaac was anywhere between 30 and 37. I had one rabbi share in a study with other pastors that perhaps Isaac was 33 the same age we say Jesus was when he was an offering of a Father.

Isaac, we recognize is able and capable.

He asks the question about the lamb

and Abraham speaks again with

absolute faith that God will provide.

Isaac is a willing participant in faith with his father as he is bound to the altar. He doesn’t squirm, resist or tell his dad he’s crazy.

There is something about this moment of complete irrational behavior on the part of God and humanity that stirs us to hope there is another way.

Abraham trusts that God will provide but he is still uncertain at which point the hand of God will prevail and bring forth the lamb.

Most of us at this point would stop there

and lecture God for putting us in a moral and ethical predicament.

Most of us at this point would draw the line

and say human life is sacred (which it is!)

and argue with God about the

choices that we’ve been forced to make.

That God is not fair.

That God is unjust.

That God is crazy and cruel.

None of us wants to put the lives of others in harms way.

None of us wants to throw our future away.

None of us wants to turn our backs on the most precious of our existence.

But, what are some of the choices we feel we have been forced to make?

When are the times that our family or Biblical teachings about human life and our neighbor have been in conflict? It’s these very moments that the hand of God seems heaviest. Yet, it could be the moment of our greatest turning to see another way.

I’ve been reading excerpts from Senator John McCain’s book “Character is Destiny”. In his story about his experience as a POW in Vietnam he recalls a time with a fond memory.  He mentions that hate was one of the factors that helped them in warfare as well as to survive in prison. But, he said they needed faith more than they needed anything else. They had faith that no matter how bad things got they could rely on each other to get through it. They had faith in their country. They had faith in the power of support for one another. They had faith in the military to which they were giving their lives. They had faith in the traditions of honor and self respect for these were the strength to get them through whatever trials they would suffer. But, most of all they had faith in God. He said their faith in God was crucial in order to remain human and to feel the ever-presence of God with them.

There was moment at Christmas when he was standing staring at the heavens that a soldier cam up to him and stood by his side. He made a cross with the toe of his shoe. At that moment they both were staring at the cross in the dirt. The soldier immediately erased it and walked away. But, at that moment it was a turning point from hate. In that moment McCain said he saw the faith and humanity in his enemy. He said it was a faith that unites, a faith that bridges across divisions, a faith that reminds us all that we are sinners and saints alike, all children of God.

How have we managed to stay the course of faithfulness

to God when it seems that everything

we believe about ethics and morals

have been put to the test?

How do we stick to the path of righteousness for God’s name’s sake when we feel the world we have trusted is being ripped apart? How do we trust that God will provide for a future with sons and daughters as many as the stars are in the sky?

Perhaps, God’s message for us today is as it was of old.

Hear him calling in the night, answer ‘Here I am,”

and have faith that in all things and in all times God will provide.

God provides for us as we sing,

 as we live,

as we leave this earth

and go down to the dust,

God provides for us in all our conditions.

Jesus who died, who rose, who reigns is our Lord,

who calls us to come and follow him. Let us answer the call.

“Here I am”

Amen.  

Resources: NIB Volume I Genesis, Geneis by W. Sibley Towner, Pentateuch w/ Rashi’s commentary by Silberman, Character is Destiny by John McCain

Choose Today

Sermon Joshua 24:1, 13-28 June 21, 2020 Father’s Day

Choose Today

On this day across the country and the world, men are receiving hand written cards, coffee mugs, ties, t shirts, breakfast in bed and other treats to let them know how important they are to lives of the people who love them.

It is one way to affirm that in their life this man has made a difference to them.

Not all men are dads,

not all men are famous,

not all men are ‘the best ever’,

not all men are memorable.

But, we all remember a man in our life who was a change agent for our life.

Change Agent Men of the church!

Whether it was a teacher in elementary school,

or a coach in little league,

a scout leader,

a Sunday school teacher, a priest or a pastor;

a neighbor, or a waiter, a bank teller, or an accountant,

there is someone, some man, we have met who made an impact on our life.

With a few words, or a gesture,

or an action that man moved us

in way that moved our life to a new direction.

 “What counts in life is not the fact that we have lived. It is the difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” This quote is attributed to Nelson Mandela. There are men who have made proclamations that have moved us to follow and to make a vow also.

Perhaps, that’s why we have Joshua 24:15 hanging on plaques through our homes or on doilies and bookmarks. “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

This is a proclamation made by Joshua to the people gathered at Shechem.

These are Joshua’s words and while powerful and important, the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey would say) is where we find our challenge, our opportunity.

Joshua gathered the people, the leaders at Shechem. Shechem itself is an important place in the story of Israel. It appears six times in the history of the people of Israel. Shechem is the covenant making center. It is the place of a stone monument a large tree and an oral history of covenants between God and God’s people.

Joshua is about to die.

He gathers the people before him just before they go on their own way to their new inherited lands.

Joshua stands before them with a challenge to unite them before God.

He will not be going with them and so he sets himself apart.

He proclaims to them who he is and who God is to him.

He sets the bar high.

He makes clear to the people that before they separate one from the other they need to speak their truth with one voice.

Ecumenical Choir on Christian Unity, France 2005

His leadership sets the tone.

He reminds the people of God’s acts in their life.

He retells their history, their ancestry.

He goes down the list of names that are part of who they are.

He tells them this so they will retell the same ancestry and history in their different lands to the generations that follow.

“Choose today who you will serve” he challenges.

The hymn Once to Every Man and Nation is a powerful hymn written in 1845 to a people in a nation in upheaval, ready to make the most difficult choices of their lives.

Choices that would put brother against brother.

The words are haunting and full of truth.

“Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side; some great cause, some new decision, offering the bloom or blight, and the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light…yet ‘tis truth alone is strong; though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong, yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above his own.”

Times of war and strife have placed men in choices of life and death.

In Strasbourg, France there is a statue in the central park of a mother.

It looks much like the pieta.

It is a mother holding the bodies of two sons draped across her arms.

Monument aux Morts

It is a statue of the sons of the country who were caught in the moment to decide and each chose a different side for which to fight.

And this beautiful city understood and understands

to this day the difficult challenges that lay before men.

And so they honor their dead who fought on either side of the war.

We never know the future struggles we will face.

The people who have been the influence in our life

are the ones who shape us and our decisions.

Who are the people who have guided our feet?

Were their shoes too big for us?

When we remember those change agents

in our life we realize

they are the people

who pushed us,

who challenged us,

who gave us hard tasks,

and set high expectations.

That’s what allowed us to respond with the strength we needed to make those difficult choices and to stand firm. They believed in us enough to know that we would answer the call to say yes to the tough tasks ahead of us.

Joshua’s proclamation to the people and challenge was,

“Choose today who you will serve.”

He knew that following God was more than just listening for a sweet loving voice from God.

The God we serve who called us out of a life of darkness into a life of light is more than a fuzzball of sweetness,

this God we serve is a jealous God,

a stubborn God,

a God who gets angry,

a God who seeks after his own like the hound of heaven.

This God lifts the people out of the snares of danger with giant claws of an eagle and soars through the skies with them dangling in the air.

That’s a scary kind of God.

This is our God.

This is our God who calls for obedience and fear/awe.

These are words we have watered down in the church because they sound too autocratic. Yet, our yes to God comes with serious responsibility.

It comes with consequences.

When we make a vow of any kind, we are expected to live by it.

God made a vow to us to always love us.

We have the opportunity to respond to the challenge,

“Choose today who you will serve?”

Our God is full of stubborn love, relentless, and never letting go kind of love, with high expectations of following the commandments laid before us.

Commandments of loving neighbors, and enemies, of keeping holy sabbath, of not stealing or cheating, not lying or envying.

Those are a high calling that we forget God called us to obey, to revere, and to follow.

Three times the people responded to Joshua’s challenge and yelled out,

“The Lord our God we will serve and we will obey.”

And with this third response Joshua drew up the covenant before God and the people and sent them to their lands.

He was the change agent to stir them up

and to draw them out so they would stand ready

and proclaim God as their own.

We need people in our lives to do that to us.

People who challenge us, who draw us out,

who put us to the test so we can discover

the power of God within us to go forward in life.

We are never able to take the risks to be better, live better, if we haven’t had the example of someone who sets the tone, who reaches beyond themselves and claims us through their voice.

Today, on this Father’s Day,

let us be thankful to the men who were change agents in our lives.

Mike change agent-sailing arrival in Greece

Let us also answer the call of God who gave us his only Son, Jesus Christ, that whoever believes in him with have life abundant in this life and the next.

Tell us your stories, tell each other the stories, proclaim today who you will serve.

Be the man who will be the change agent for others from this day forward.

Amen.

Resources: NIB Volume II Joshua. Word Biblical Commentary. 

Pretzel Love.

Sermon Matthew 28:16-20 June 7, 2020 Trinity Sunday

Pretzel Love.

We don’t need the teachings of the church to help us get through,

we tell ourselves and others during the many upside moments of life.

We just need to know love, we say.

It’s just that simple, we say.

Yet, it’s through the teachings of the church that the practice of the simplicity of love takes form.

I just want us to all get along.

I just want us to love people.

I just want us to act neighborly to all people.

We think if we say it, practicing it well is going to just pop out of the air and we’ll all be singing kumbaya together.

But, we have to learn how to do this. And we have to learn why we do this, and we have to learn where we do this.

It begins with the great commission from Jesus in the final chapter of Matthew, and it continues with the teachings of the church about the relationships we have with God and with each other.

Today is Trinity Sunday, it’s a great gift for us to celebrate.

Do we believe it, yes.

Do we believe its important, yes.

Do we think about it all the time, can we explain it well, no. 

But, it gives us what we need to understand who we are and who we are part of.

“Something we all need in order to feel the fullness of life: It’s not only a sense that we belong on our planet, but also that we belong in other people’s lives-that we are loved, lovable, and capable of loving.” Fred Rogers said.

I think this is what the Trinitarian relationship teaches.

It gives us this as our how, why, and where.

In the fourth century the controversy of the Trinity shifted to the relationship of the members of the Trinity to each other.

“The Father is of the Son, as the Son is of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son.” This operation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in their relationship became essential to the church and the relationship among the saints. The basic baptismal formula that Jesus taught the disciples as he sent them out into the world, began in the first century and continues today. It is the baptismal formula utilized across all denominational lines.

God in relationship, divine, unified, mutual, is a relationship we can celebrate. Through Christ we learn we belong to God and through the power of the Holy Spirit we belong to each other, we become the church. We become brothers and sisters to one another sharing Christ’s love for ALL people.

We celebrate this gift of the Trinity today especially realizing how our ordinary routines of church, work, and school have been disrupted and we have a sense of disconnection.

In our alone time we can take our pretzel relationship of understanding about God and place our right arm on our left shoulder, our left arm on our right shoulder and give ourselves a hug realizing the power of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are within the pretzel shape hug we just gave and received.

We need the assurance of this love relationship for us to be able to reach out to others. “We love because God first loved us.”

Our relationships with others have been put to the test during this time.

Its’ not easy to have little ones under foot all day long. It’s not easy to have couples working from home and sharing desk space. Its not easy to feed everyone three full meals a day. It’s not easy to walk around the house and make room for each other when there are so many more hours we are sharing together under one roof.

Fred Rogers calls it a dance, “We are learning how relationships are like dances in which people try to find whatever happens to be the mutual rhythm in their lives.”

I think I’ve seen this dance in the morning routine in our kitchens. All trying to respect each other and yet trying to get our breakfast. I remember when our girls had different bus schedules and Mike a different work schedule but breakfast and our small square kitchen had to accommodate them all as they danced around each other getting the breakfast they wanted. It is a warm memory of a dance of life.

I like to look to the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in this beautiful heavenly dance together, each sharing a portion of the dance floor, giving way to one another as the need to presents itself.

In our human relationships the gift of mutuality is a dance, we dance together on the dance floor in partnership and in given moments of the dance we give way to one another as the steps of the dance show the need to lift up one or the other.

In our weakness we are lifted up by the strength of our brothers and sisters.

When we are on our feet we are able to lift up others.

It is our duty to be at work caring for those who have been robbed and lie in ditches in need of someone to care for them and put them on the road again.

Our lives are more intertwined by our behaviors toward one another than we could ever realize.

MLKjr said, “Our lives are tangled up with everyone else’s in ways beyond our knowing, “caught” in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny.”

Our future as the church,

as humans,

is toward a single garment of destiny.

And that is the great commission,

that all people come together

and are reconciled to God and to one another.

Yet, the fact that going out into the world to make disciples on our own, is not only impossible, but these days it seems reckless.

We can’t hug,

touch,

or breathe in anyone’s space.

How in the world can we go out and make disciples?

We do so in the same manner as those first disciples; Scared to death to do anything on their own, they were completely relying on the mercy and strength of God. (Thom Long)

We are not powerless,

nor are we disconnected from God.

Each time we wrap ourselves with the pretzel hug we are reminded that God is with us in our prayers and in our actions.

The strength of the teachings seared in our hearts gird us in our assurance to be motivated to go forth.

We are completely relying on the mercy and strength of God.

The days are coming very soon when some of us will be able to venture further, yet realizing many will still be apart.

With the unity of the Holy Spirit, the Son and the Father we are reminded of our unity.

We will not abandon one another as Christ did not abandon us with the promise of his presence forever.

Love will hold us and keep us.

There are days we feel as if it will all fall apart,

that we have no clue how,

what or where we are going or doing.

And that’s when once again we trust the teachings of the power of God within us through the relationship of the Trinity.

The words of the anthem Grace say it best, “Your will cannot lead me where you grace will not keep me, your hand will protect me. I rest in your care. Your eyes will watch over me, your love will forgive me, and when I am faltering, I still will find you there.”  

A pretzel hug of love to you!

Amen.

Resources: Feasting on the Word Year A-Thom Long; Quotes from Fred Rogers; Working Preacher Podcast (recorded in April); Practicing Our Faith Chapter 1 Craig Dykstra; Book of Confession PCUSA study edition

A House Full

Sermon Acts 2:1-21 (1-14) May 31, 2020 Pentecost yr A in the time of Covid19

A House Full

It is Pentecost Sunday.

It is the day we all gather together as the church from near and far.

It is the last hurrah before summer. It is the time of year when we celebrate graduates, from PreK, Kindergarten, fifth grade, eighth grade, high school and college. It is a time we celebrate our youth through confirmation as they enter into the voting rights of the church and become full participating members taking on responsibilities and offering their gifts.

It is the time of year we plan to leave our homes and head off on vacation to distant states, across the globe, to the beach, the mountains, the lakes and the national parks.

It is the time of year when summer sports take over, the swim teams, the little leagues, the travel teams, all keep our lives bustling and full of energy. Our houses are usually so full this time of year with the business of busyness. In the church this time of year on this Pentecost day we are full of excitement to celebrate the power of God alive in us through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And this year, it feels like none of that.

We’re not even together.

None of what I’ve mentioned has been possible.

It’s as if the breath of life has been taken out of us.

It’s as if the energy and enthusiasm of this time of year has been drained away from us.

The violence of the virus to steal our breath and

the violence of one man to steal the breath of another

have left us empty, hopeless, and alone.

We cry out to the Lord and ask, “When Lord, when?”

Where is your church now?

Where is your gathered people?

Where is your power?

We can’t breathe and you have left us alone.

We have nothing left.

And perhaps this year in our state of being we can understand being in the room with the disciples as if for the first time.

They were gathered in one place,

lost,

alone,

waiting,

uncertain about any future,

uncertain about life itself,

uncertain if the promises

they were given would really happen.

Fifty days from the resurrection they had been without Jesus. Ten days since his ascension and they had  no idea of what’s next. Of course they’d been told.

But, Jesus told them about his death and resurrection and that still came as a surprise to them. And now Jesus has told them about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Power of God within them to stir them and to equip them.

And even with all that information, it seemed impossible and it seemed unbelievable, and it seemed foolish.

Many of them in their house full of people sitting and waiting were just hoping to find a way to get their life back.

How could they find their old boats and start fishing again.

How could they get back to any of the things they did before?

And so on this Pentecost, just as promised, the Spirit shows up.

There was no mistaking the sound of the presence of the Spirit being poured out upon the people gathered there in Jerusalem.

There was the roar of the mighty wind, there was the rush of the breath of the Spirit.

All the noise and the force appearing to the crowd created an uprising of sound, a sound finally understood, a sound finally spoken and claimed and shared.

They were in one accord speaking of God and the presence with one another became the language they could all share and learn from.

All of a sudden through the breath of the Holy Spirit, the people of God moved into another mode of existence.

They became united in thought and united in purpose and united in action.

May we who are gathered together on this day, you in your rooms at home and we here (by the Spirit’s power we are all together) may we hear the rush of the mighty wind of Pentecost today!

May the Holy Spirit descend upon us as was done thousands of years ago and unite us through the language of understanding and the purpose of God’s love for all life.

May the Spirit fill our houses full of wonder and grace in every corner,

in every crack,

in every space,

may the power

of the presence

of the Holy Spirit with you all

be so incredibly noticed

that you too become full in your hearts,

your whole body be renewed

and refreshed

with new purpose and

new breath of life.

When I was a young mother living in our 10X50 trailer I remember reading about the Holy Spirit power to fill homes and hearts. So I walked through our home with a baby on my hip and started praying from one corner of the house to the other. “Enter our home, fill our lives, fill our spaces, fill all of every corner, every nook, with the power of your presence, so we may live and we may be guided by your love. Come Holy Spirit, come”

God gave us the Spirit to help us in our weakness, to release us from our timidity, and to give us the power to love, to be disciplined in the gifts poured out upon us for ministry. This is  not for personal gain but as the community of faith to further the truth of God’s love for all people. They are poured out upon us to guide us to refresh us to show us a new way of life that draws us all closer together. We may be shy, or introverts, but gives us the voice to speak.

As we read through the New Testament and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles we learn through their stories how the early church was open to so many new ways of being the church.

It was all brand new.

It was all something they had never done before.

It was all something they had to experiment with and be fluid in.

They almost seemed at ease in the way the Spirit guided them to new experiences.

There were so many variables in those days about the whats, wheres, hows, and whos of the day that the only thing they could do was to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to direct them.

As the church today in the last twelve weeks we have been faced with the same need to go back to the days of the early church. We had to learn fast how to be ‘live’ in worship.

We have had to look more than ever to the power of the Holy Spirit to direct and guide us. We have had to learn to accept the rush of the breath of the Spirit to fill our lungs and to open our ears to hear.

We are reminded again when we look to the early church the magnitude and scope of the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the disciples.

We’ve discovered that our houses are full. 2000+ years and we’re still here!

Yes, the church as then, is now in more than one place.

Our houses are full because the church is there.

Our houses are full because the energy is there,

the enthusiasm to discover and do and learn new ways is there.

Life has been fluid at every turn new

and refreshing ways of being have

found us united in hope and united in faith.

It doesn’t feel anything like Pentecosts of the past.

It doesn’t feel anything like the beginning of summer of the past.

But, today unlike any Pentecost we have ever known

the Holy Spirit is descending

upon us like fire and wind

can you see it,

can you hear it?

Look, listen, it will change us,

it will ignite us,

it will stir us to action,

it will get our house full

in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

Be alert, be open.

Swim team, little league, vacations will happen, they will come, not in the way we imagined, but they will come again.

The sound of laughter united together, united in purpose, united in life are emerging…

just listen…

God is here…

just listen…

the breath of life is here…

just listen…

like a mighty wind…

we are filled.

Praise to the Lord. Amen.

Resources: NIB Acts, How to be Filled by the Holy Spirit by AW Tozer, Feasting on the Word year A David Gushee, My old sermons 2015,2017.