Divine Things and Human Things

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 17: 1-7 and 15-16, Mark 8: 31-38 Sermon Title: Divine Things and Human Things Preached on February 25, 2018 I watched the Emoji Movie this last week. If you're a parent than you might be thinking, "what he means is that his kids watched the Emoji Movie while he looked at his phone or read a book or something," but that's not what I mean. What I mean is that I watched the Emoji Movie. One top critic reviewed this movie and wrote: "The film is boldly bad, yes, but also boldly boring." Another wrote: "Disregard that PG rating and keep your children far away from director Tony Leondis' vile animated faux-comedy." These are harsh words, and some would heed such warnings, but not me. No, after watching the first half of the movie with our daughters I had to tear myself away to get dressed and get to the church last Tuesday morning, so I watched the second half by myself Wednesday because I had a vested interested in finding out how the movie would end. Why? Why would I can so much about about a frowny face, that doesn't just want to frown. He also wants to laugh and cry. Because for some reason I could relate to him. I also started to care about the other main character. This princess emoji who ran away because she wanted to be an outlaw computer hacker emoji. Now, granted, none of this describes what anyone would call a good movie, but I have a feeling that every person in this room, whether she knows what an emoji is or not, has felt the pressure to be, not who she was created to be, but who everyone told her she was supposed to be. I'm working on that too. All the critics told me I would hate this movie, but I kind-of loved it, and that's what I want to preach about this morning. We live in a country where everyone is telling us what to think. And not just about movies. Even Russia is trying to tell us what to think, how to vote, and what to feel about our neighbors and our political candidates, and if we can't learn to think for ourselves, then there goes our democracy, our freedom, and our faith. There is a very real struggle at work in our world today. There is a very real struggle, as forces fight for control of our human hearts determining whether will we be ourselves, or will we lose ourselves to the pressures of conformity? To spoil the Emoji Movie, I'll tell you that despite the social pressure the frowny face gained the courage to cry and laugh out in public, and the princess got to be an outlaw because not every girl wants to be a princess, and in the end, the world changed, and everything turned out perfect. I suppose that's the happy ending we are all after, but getting there is a struggle. You heard what happened with Jesus. Last Sunday Rev. Joe Brice preached a beautiful sermon concerning Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. But the temptation didn't end there. After 40 Days in the desert with the devil tempting him to take power and seize control, to be someone other than who he knew in his heart he was meant to be, Jesus emerged from the desert only to be tempted by his friend. We read from the Gospel of Mark: Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Why? Because Peter didn't want Jesus to be that kind of messiah. Peter didn't want Jesus to upset all those people. Peter wanted a nice, quiet Messiah, who would be everyone's hero and who would one day retire with him to the beach and together Peter and Jesus could look back on all their years of ministry and Peter would say to his friend in the beach chair next to him, "Jesus, it's been a wonderful life, hasn't it?" Maybe there was a part of Jesus that wanted this kind of life too, so he must rebuke Peter just as he rebuked the devil back in the wilderness: "Get behind me, Satan! [he said to his friend] for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." Isn't it easy, to set your mind on human things? The Great Rev. Billy Graham died this week. One of his most famous quotes is: "My home is in heaven. I'm just passing through this world." But it's easy to get stuck in this world. Isn't it easy, to set your mind on human things? A Puritan prayer book that I love says it this way: "O Savior of Sinners, raise me above the smiles and frowns of the world, regarding it as a light thing to be judged by humans." Do you know anyone who needs to pray that prayer? I know I need it. Maybe you do too. And Poor Marco Rubio definitely needs a prayer like that one. Did you see him? I was hurting for Senator Rubio this week. It seems like he gets enough abuse with the President calling him "Little Marco," but it got worse. On Wednesday a student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida asked him if he'd stop accepting money from the NRA, and poor Senator Rubio. You don't need to have seen the video to imagine the face he was making, because he was making that face that we all make when we feel so trapped that we can't win for losing. We ask ourselves: "How will I even open my mouth, when I'm faced with mollifying one group of people but disappointing another?" How can I speak, when someone out there is about to walk out of this place and hate me forever based on how I answer? You know this struggle. It's a fool's errand but I've been that fool again and again and again, and I bet you have too. You lean one way and you're someone's hero but someone else's enemy - and it sure does feel like you're dying a slow death if you are unable to rise above the smiles and frowns of the world. If it's impossible for you to regard it as a light thing to be judged by humans, because your mind is set on human things. Jesus said to Peter: "you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things," and if that's the way we choose to live, then it's going to be nothing but torture from here on out. It was that way for me in my first year of ministry. I began my ministry at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church out in Lilburn, GA, and I was going to be everything to everybody even if it killed me. Someone asked me if I liked to listen to the Fish - that Christian radio station, and so I started to listen to it. A group wanted to start a Bible study, and so I helped them get it going, then another group wanted one, then another, and before long I was leading a Bible study every day of the week, listening to the Fish in the car. There was no place of solace. Basically, the hardest thing about my first year of ministry was that I was trying to be, not the pastor who I was, but the pastor who I thought they wanted me to be. Then one morning I woke up with a rash on my stomach. It started out red and itchy, and it wouldn't go away. Sara finally sent me to the doctor. He told me that is was hives, and that he could give me some medicine for it, but really it was just from stress and what I needed to do was find a way to relax. "You're a preacher, right?" my doctor asked. I told him that I was, and so he said again, "What you need to do is find a way to relax. Have you ever heard of prayer?" What is prayer, but the constant reminder that our identity comes not from humans but from God. That our primary relationship must be between us and our creator. To quote that great prayer for illumination: "Lord, among all the changing words of this generation, speak to us your eternal Word which does not change," because it is God's voice that must define us, not the whispers of the gossips or the pressure of the lobbyist. "Who do they say that I am?" Jesus asked his disciples. And the difference between him asking this question and us asking the same of ourselves is that he didn't really care who anybody said he was. Because he already knew. But what about Senator Rubio? If you're actions are tied to public opinion or interest group donations, can you really be free? And what about the accused shooter, Nikolas Cruz? If you have to murder the people who hurt your feelings, if you aren't man enough to voice your anger, then you are letting other people and your out of control emotions define who you are. We all have to slow down and think. Or better yet - we all have to slow down and listen - because in our baptism the Lord already told us who we are: "You are mine, my beloved, and with you I am well pleased." The difference between all of us and Jesus is that he never forgot it. He was always bold to believe it. And he never depended on humans to tell him who he was or how he should live. Let our prayer be: "O Savior of Sinners, raise me above the smiles and frowns of the world, regarding it as a light thing to be judged by humans." And may our song be like the hymn we sang at the 8:30 service: But if, forgetful, we should find your yoke is hard to bear; If worldly pressures fray the mind and love itself cannot unwind Its tangled skein of care; our inward life repair. For how will we make it to the Kingdom of Heaven, if we long for the approval of this broken world? We must set our minds, not on human things. But on divine things. Amen.

Be Reconciled

Scripture Reading: 2nd Corinthians 5: 20b - 6:2 Sermon Title: Be Reconciled Preached on 2/14/18 Ash Wednesday is a relatively new concept for Presbyterians. Of course, it's not new at all, it's ancient. But it occurs to me that Ash Wednesday still warrants an explanation. After this service if you go to Kroger someone may ask you about the smear on your forehead, and I want you to have a good answer. The Ash Wednesday ashes could be explained this way: "The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door…" These inhabitants, both men and women, busied themselves debating what should become of the woman who was to be released. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die," one shouted, but then the lock of the prison-door turned, and out came the condemned, Mistress Hester Prynne. "She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day;" having grown accustomed to the "grey twilight of a dungeon." "When the young woman - the mother of the child - stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. [For] on the breast of her gown.. appeared the letter A." Every English teacher knows that these words open The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorn and tells the story of a woman whose guilt was broadcast by the letter A embroidered on all her clothes. There, for everyone to see, was the sign of her sin. What then is this ash that we will soon have on our foreheads? It is our own scarlet letter - it is the symbol of our guilt, our sin, our mistakes, our failures. But here's the miraculous thing about Ash Wednesday - the miracle of this church and all those like it - we all wear our mark boldly, willingly for everyone at Kroger to see. My ashes will be the sign that I am guilty. Guilty by what I have said and by what I have left unsaid. Guilty by what I have done and by what I have left undone. Guilty, disobedient, prideful, selfish, distracted, judgmental, and just as deserving of punishment as every other Puritan assembled outside that prison door. Now consider that. Imagine if everyone who was guilty had a letter on their chest. That's Ash Wednesday. And, when everyone wears their scarlet letter, the symbols power changes. In here, all of us with our shame broadcast for all to see - it's not like the Puritan Settlement, the Middle School, or any other place where the ones who pretend to be innocent circle around the guilty like vultures, because in here we are all acknowledging the truth of who we are - that not one of us has the right to cast the first stone. These ashes help us to get the truth of what we know about ourselves deep down out in the open, the shame that lurks "in here" comes out, and once the truth is out we can stop pretending, we can stop fearing, shame loses its power when it's not kept a secret, and then we are all finally free to follow this great charge that Paul gives in 2nd Corinthians: "Be reconciled" he says. And "be reconciled" is so different from "be condemned" or "feel really guilty" or "you should be ashamed of yourself" because this charge from the Apostle Paul gets to the heart of what our God actually wants - for our God wants reconciliation. Not condemnation - reconciliation. Not shame - redemption. Not secrets - but open hearts. Tonight is about acknowledging sin, but it isn't about guilt. This isn't about shame. This service and these ashes are about confessing the stumbling block and putting back together the relationship that's been harmed by finally being real. Hiding our problems won't make them go away - so we wear this sign on our foreheads and say it plain: "I am a sinner, in need of forgiveness, and I'm ready today to accept the grace our God provides." Why wait? Why hide in the darkness any longer, when we can come into the light right now? That's what tonight is about. We read in 2nd Corinthians: "See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!" These ashes are the confession, that I have not been who I ought to have been, but I am ready to be made new, so this Lent I will give up what stands in my way. So, maybe I will give up Facebook. Then I will spend no more of my precious time searching for political comments that only fuel my anger and further wedge the divide between me and my relatives. Why give up chocolate when I could give up the bad habit that keeps me from reconciliation? If politics is dividing you and your sister - give up the news for these 40 Days of Lent. The world will still turn without you watching, but that chasm between you and her will only grow unless you change the conversation. Let us give up building up walls for Lent and spend this time that we have building bridges. Can we give up fear - anxiety - perfectionism, to really live the life that honors our father in heaven? Be reconciled to God. Give up what holds you back and divides you from the one sitting next to you - give up what keeps you from listening to the Good News and what distracts you from the Holy Spirit. Take out those earbuds and turn off the TV long enough to enjoy the world God created for you to enjoy. And if you do - your relationship with your Creator will be strengthened - and you will give God what God wants - not shame but reconciliation. Be reconciled to God. Open wide your heart - for in the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered for 40 Days in the Desert only to face a brutal death on the Cross, is the obvious sign that God's heart is open wide to you. Remove the stumbling block. Tear down the wall. Turn off the phone. Accept the grace and let it flow out of you. Be reconciled. Amen.

Down from the Mountain

Scripture Lessons: 2nd Kings 2: 1-12 and Mark 9: 2-9 Sermon title: Down from the Mountain Preached on 2/11/18 As I'm sure you've noticed by now, in addition to being Transfiguration Sunday, today is Scout Sunday. Some of the Scouts who meet here at our church began the service by bringing in the flags, and I am thankful to serve a church where Boy and Girl Scouts are invited to meet, where the Cub Scouts have their Pinewood Derby. It's wonderful. As I've mentioned before, I was once a Cub Scout. Carl Dimare was my Den leader. A few months ago, he gave me a picture of our den that he took during a camp-out at the Woodruff Scout Camp. It's on my desk. Den 11. My Dad and me standing right next to each other, and now I look more like him than the 8-year-old version of me. Participation in scouts was a family tradition of ours. Both my Dad and my younger brother are Eagle Scouts. When they were active here in Troop 252 my brother and several others who are members here today were signed up and ready to go on a big canoe trip up to the Boundary Waters. Those are the lakes that dot the border between Minnesota and Canada, and when my Dad wasn't able to go, I was invited to go in his place. This was a big deal for me. I was excited to go, but you know, the whole ride up there I'm starting to worry. I remember getting nervous about what life in the great outdoors was going to be like for a full 10-day span. And then they showed us what we were going to be eating and I got really nervous. But here's the thing about camping. Here's the thing about big trips in the great outdoors. It takes a little while to get used to it. You have to ease into a trip like this one. But once you're into it, day two or three, you start to forget that civilization even exists, and you say to yourself as you're watching the sun set, "I could just stay right out here for a while." "I could just paddle this canoe with my brother, Hal McClain, and all the others. Live on MRE's and Tang. We'll be just fine," I remember thinking that about day 3 or 4 of that trip watching the sun set. It seems like you hardly ever take the time to watch the sun set until you're camping, and as I did I felt like making a life for myself out there in the woods. Do you know that feeling? Not everyone does. Andrew McIntosh, our Youth Director, nuanced Henry David Thoreau this week. He said, "I went to the woods to live deliberately, and I deliberately went right back home to civilization." But if you know the feeling that I'm talking about then you can start to imagine what is going on in Peter's head, because just as it can be nice to be on a long canoe trip or to spend a week on the beach and away from it all, you can't stay up on top of a mountain. But Peter was ready to stay. I love this about Peter. Of course, everybody loves Peter, because Peter says the dumb thing that everyone else is thinking. "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." Isn't that surely what they were all thinking. There they were, up on top of this mountain, and at the top they see their teacher, their friend, transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white, and there appeared to them Elijah, the Great Prophet, with Moses who led the people out of slavery in Egypt. These heroes of the faith were talking to their Jesus, so of course, why not pitch a tent and stay there for a while? You know what I'm talking about. You have an amazing experience. You escape from the world for a little while and your spirit lifts. The Youth Group goes to Montreat, North Carolina for the big youth conference. It's a week full of these great worship services. Everyone meets in small groups composed of youth from all over, but the others in the small group start to feel like family. Then you go hike to the top of Lookout Mountain and somebody says, "I wish we could just stay here forever." Of course, you do. But you can't. Why? Because real life isn't lived up on a mountain. You have to come down from the mountain to really live. Let me tell you what I mean. Back in Columbia, TN, the night after Dylan Roof walked into Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church for a Bible study, then walked out a murderer, the pastors of the AME churches in Columbia, TN called on every pastor and every elected official to meet for a worship service at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church. It started about 7:00 in the evening. There were a lot of people there. I remember preaching, then going back to my pew to sing with everyone else. We sang one then another, and it was so hot that I felt like I was sweating through my suit jacket, but the Holy Spirit was in that place and everyone there could feel it. A few more pastors went to preach, then a man named Chris Poynter went to the pulpit. He was the Executive Director of the Boys and Girls Club and he told us that this worship service was a joyous event, that he hadn't felt so inspired since the pep rallies he went to back in High School. "But the game is tomorrow," he said, "it's not tonight that is going to change our community or our world, it's what we do tomorrow when we go back to the real world. How will we live then?" You see, you can't stay on the canoe trip. You can't just have a wonderful worship service and think that the daemon of racism is dead and gone. You have to come down from the mountain and back to the real world, because it's in the valley that life is lived. So, Peter, he can't make three dwellings. They can't just stay up there. No, they had to go down the mountain and as they were "coming down the mountain, [Jesus] ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead." Now this isn't the first time Jesus told them that he would die. In fact, Jesus had been telling them about how he would have to undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes. He had even told them before that he would be killed, and after three days rise again, but I bet you that this is the first time they believed him, because it's one thing for your friend to mention something of that gravity in conversation and it's another thing to see your friend transfigured before your eyes as he talks with Elijah and Moses. I believe the real reason Peter wanted to stay up on that mountain is because Peter now knew as Elisha the Prophet knew, that he would soon lose his friend whom he loved. Peter knew Jesus would go down that mountain and if he kept preaching and healing the way he had been preaching and healing, then he would be on his way to the Cross. You know this scared Peter, so he wanted to stay up on that mountain, and you know that's what Peter wanted because that's what we all want. To avoid the pain. To reduce the risk. To never lose the people we love. But Jesus knew that you can't live life on the mountain. Life is lived down in the valley, and so he goes down, because you can't be the Savior of the World if you're hiding from the world. You can't be the King of Kings if you never face your people. You can't live your life's purpose if you're afraid to live. Life is lived in the valley, and so we must take those mountain top experiences, those lessons that we learn from the woods, and we take all that back to our life in the valley because if we don't then we can't be a blessing to the world. And maybe it's hard. Risky. It's like the difference between singing in the shower and singing in front of people like all these good choir members do week after week. Or how well I preach my sermons when I'm practicing in my office. I have this lectern set up in front of a mirror, and man - you should hear me preach when there's no one there to listen. That's because everything is easier if it doesn't count, but if you want to make an impact on this world. If you want to live out your purpose on this earth. If you have a gift that you just have to share you have to come down from the mountain top to sing your song in the valley. That's life. So, that's what Jesus did. And that is what leads to his death. This reality is sobering, isn't it? And as it was true for him, so it's true for us. You can't just stay up on the mountain top. You can't live out in the woods no more than your four years of college should stretch out into 5 or 6. The point is to prepare you for life in the real world, not to avoid it. But the real world can kill you. You know what I'm talking about. Valentine's Day is this week. Wednesday. And Valentine's Day is risky. Say you pine for some young lady or young man. You dream about him or you imagine the day when she'll finally notice you, but do you say anything? No - if you say something she might reject you. But if you don't try you never know. The same is true of writing. Who knows how many great writers are out there who have yet to sit down and write a book. Who knows how many people have a story to tell but are afraid to tell it, because writing hurts. Many writers have offered some version of the great quote: "writing is easy, you just open a vein and bleed." Which is to say that you can't do it if you are unwilling to come down from the mountain where life is all possibility, and no one has to get hurt. To write you have to go down to the place where rejection and pain are both possible - but this is where life is lived. Life is lived in the valley - where there is risk. I learned earlier this week, that just before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I have a dream" speech, a white Presbyterian, Rev. Eugene Carson Blake spoke. He told the crowd assembled, "We Presbyterians have come to this Civil Rights Movement late, but we are here." And why were we late? Because walking into the valley, stepping away from what is and towards what could be, challenging the status quo, worrying our parents, speaking out on difficult issues - all of that is a risk that few people take because most of us are just fine building our tents up on the mountain top. But you know what Dr. King said. Not so long after he spoke in Washington DC with Rev. Blake, he said, "Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will." We Christians - we can't just be mountain top Christians. We can't just be Sunday Morning Christians. We must take the lessons that we learn here, the feelings that fill our souls here, the new life that we hope for here - and walk down the mountain side, out into Kennesaw Avenue and Church Street and our work place and our neighborhoods so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ be proclaimed. And yes, there's a risk. For when it comes to what matters, there is always risk. Then the question becomes, would you rather just play at being a Christian, or are you ready to follow him where he leads? Amen.