Speak with Boldness

Scripture Lessons: Esther 7: 1-6 and James 5: 13-20 Sermon Title: Speak with Boldness Preached on September 30, 2018 During seminary, as I trained to become a pastor, my first internship was at the old Georgia Baptist Hospital where I was to learn from their chaplains about visiting people in the hospital. By the time I was in seminary it had been renamed the Atlanta Medical Center, and once a week I was charged with visiting patients on the ICU floor, so I went from room to room, introducing myself to strangers and asking them about their personal struggles. It was a role I felt completely unqualified to fill. I couldn’t believe they just let me do that. I’d walk right in and meet people in the middle of whatever medical crisis they were facing. I’m sure it was the worst day of many of their lives. Then here I come. Sometimes they seemed to tolerate my efforts, other times they were glad to see me go. For me, all of it was terrifying, because I had in my mind an idea that these poor people might want to talk with me about the great theological issues of life. That one might ask me: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Or, “Why, young chaplain intern, is there suffering in the world?” Of course, it got worse after my friend Fred told me about his experience. He was called into a hospital room where a man had just died. He asked the man’s wife if he might pray with her and her sister, which Fred did. He asked God to comfort them in their time of grief, and gave thanks for this man’s life, but at the end of the prayer the man’s wife looked like she was expecting something more out of Fred, so she said, “Well, aren’t you going to try to raise him from the dead?” This story basically confirmed all my worst fears about visiting people in the hospital as a chaplain intern. However, in reality, the most I was ever asked to do beyond say a simple prayer, was to give someone a backrub, so thinking of Fred’s story on the one hand and the reality of what I was ever actually asked to do, I realize that my fears built up so much that I was nearly afraid to do anything at all. Do you remember as a child, being nervous about talking to your friend after he’d lost his grandmother? Were you nervous, wondering: What will I say? What if he cries? And were you so nervous that maybe you waited until the time had passed to say anything at all? I remember the pastor who preached my great uncle Jim’s funeral. He told the story of being a 9 or 10-year-old boy. His father had just died, and his house was full of people. So full that he couldn’t really make out much of it. His memory of the day was of a bunch of men and women wanting to say some words that would make this young boy feel better. The only vivid memory this preacher had of that sad day was climbing the steps, and as he did, someone took his hand and squeezed it. That was all – but that was all my Great Uncle Jim needed to do, for despite all the years that had passed between the day of his father’s funeral when he was a child and the day of my Great Uncle Jim’s death, that preacher, now retired, remembered that simple gesture which told him he wasn’t alone on one of the worst days of his life. You see – it is a scary thing to do what James is calling us to do. From this book of the Bible that we’ve been dealing with all month, I just read another passage with plain and clear instruction that pushes many of us beyond our comfort zones: Are there any among you suffering? Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” Doing such a thing as that sounds scary, but it’s only scary because our imagination can convince us that in the presence of our suffering or sick friend, we’re going to be asked to do some huge thing, and maybe we will – but more likely, they’ll never even remember what we said, they’ll only remember whether or not we were there. I remember going to visit Roy. He was on oxygen and rarely left the house, except to go and eat at the Red Lobster. His wife Dodie asked me to come over to bring him communion, but when I got there I walked in the house and realized I had forgotten the home communion set. Years later when I left that church to go to Tennessee, you know what Dodie gave me as a going away present? A home communion set. And when Roy died I called Dodie, even though by then I was serving a different church in a different state. I called just to tell her I was sorry. And she cried. Not because I knew the perfect thing to say but because I took the time to call. Think about that. Have you ever waited and waited to call a friend who is going through a time of chaos for fear of saying the wrong thing? That happens. People do say the wrong thing. We had a friend in Tennessee who didn’t know what to say to a mother who’d just lost her son. But she knew her son had played football for Alabama, so to fill in the silence she said to this grieving mother: “Roll Tide.” And that’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever said at a funeral. Worse to say are those empty platitudes like: “God must have needed another angel in the choir.” We say those kinds of things because we don’t know what else to say, but we have to remember how much power to heal there is in just showing up in an authentic and honest way. There is plenty of strength in standing before the power of death fortified with the truth of the Gospel and the truth of ourselves. We don’t have to know what to say. And we don’t have to know what to do – but we do have to show up. I remember when Joanne was dying. Hospice arranged for a nice hospital bed to be put in her dining room, so she wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs. Her husband slept on the coach in the next room, and even though it was Christmas time they hadn’t bothered with a tree, hadn’t really bothered with much of anything other than soaking up ever second that she had left. Her friends in the choir – they all wanted to do something, but Joanne and her husband didn’t want visitors, so one of them called and asked her husband just to open the windows in the dining room, and right outside those windows the choir, they sang Christmas carols. That’s an incredible thing, isn’t it? It really is. That’s what her church did for her. And a church is an incredible thing. Churches are just full of people, but life changing things happen here most every day when people have the courage to step out in faith as James implores. If you read your newsletter, and if you haven’t you should – there’s an article in there about a couple who’s moving to France to be closer to their daughter. The only problem is that their dog is too old to make the flight. Their daughter, a former church member, sent us a message, wondering if there was any way we could help place this dog in a home. The dog’s name is Charlie and Martie Moore adopted him, and the daughter who contacted us initially, she wrote me a note saying “Thank you so much for helping us find a home for Charlie. He is so happy with Martie. It was meant to be It has also meant a lot to my parents who have had a tough time with ALS and this gesture has given them some peace along the journey.” Consider that! The difference that can be made with such a simple act of kindness! Something else. There’s someone who’s been sliding a candy bar into my mailbox every Sunday. This morning it was a whole bag of York Peppermint Patties. I don’t know who it is that’s doing it, but it means so much to be thought of I don’t even know what to say. I suppose it’s a simple thing, but it doesn’t feel simple. It feels like somebody loves me, and that’s never small. Even in the face of evil – a simple act of authentic kindness is enough to defy the power of sin and death. Listen to this – we were in Boston this week. Flights on Southwest were just $50, so we decided to make the trip since the girls were out of school, and we like to show them parts of the world that expand their horizons. Boston is a city in a way that Marietta’s not. It’s big – so big that while Dr. Ken Farrah taught us to pray every time we hear the sirens of an ambulance back when he was our Sunday School teacher, in Boston you hear sirens so often you’re pretty much praying all the time, wondering what good a little prayer’s going to do. We walked the Freedom Trail, which was wonderful, and right next to the Freedom Trail is a noteworthy Holocaust memorial. One simple glass tower dedicated to each of the concentration camps, numbers on the outsides etched in the glass of all the people murdered at each one. The numbers reach to the sky, but on the inside of the tower, where you walk through, there are quotes from survivors. This one was especially profound: Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend. The world might make us feel small. Like our actions have no meaning. That there’s nothing really to be done. “Who am I to make a difference,” we’ve learned to ask. Surely that’s how it was with Esther. Who was she, but the Jewish girl who had somehow lucked out and made it into the palace. No one there knew she was a Jew, and they didn’t need to know, for if she hid her true identity she’d be spared from all the hardship her people faced living as an oppressed minority under the Persian Empire. This is how it is sometimes. Some people can pass, and they learn to get by. That was Esther. She was beautiful and so she was given a pass. The only price you have to pay when you get such a pass is always living with the fear of getting caught and accepting the reality that you can never really be yourself. Such a life teaches you to keep silent, pretend you’re not who you are, and look pretty doing it. Many women living in a man’s world know what this is like. Esther’s life was given value by the Emperor, not because of her mind or her talent, but because of the way she looked, so she knew to wake up every morning, put on her makeup, laugh at the Emperor’s jokes, and keep her authentic self covered up. None of this feels very good, but people do it all the time. However, the only father she had ever known needed her. Her people needed her, so she spoke out against the evil Haman to prevent a genocide. She took a risk and voiced her convictions. She risked her life and was honest about her identity – and look what happened? She saved her people. Of course, it must have been hard. Nearly impossible. To no longer hide, but to really show up with your truth. It’s not easy but doing so changes things, so while there will always be powerful men who benefit from the silence of women, the message from Scripture is clear – show up and “speak with boldness,” from the truth of your heart because within us all is the power to topple tyrants and change the world. We may not have the power to raise the dead – but within us is the power to testify to the God who can. Within us is the power to comfort a friend in grief, just by reaching out and squeezing his hand. To bring the promise of Christmas to a home in the valley of the Shadow of death. Within us is the power to bring peace along a difficult journey. The world may always be the kind of place where it feels prudent to keep silent. But Scripture is clear – Speak Up! Not with empty platitudes – but with the truth of your heart, for while it’s so easy just to keep quiet and to hope that trouble will pass like a storm cloud in the sky, better yet is to remember this: My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. With that James ends his letter – and with that he challenges us to begin living our lives with faith, hope, and love. Amen.

Draw Near to God and He Will Draw Near to You

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 1 and James 3: 13 – 4: 10 Sermon Title: Draw Near to God and God will Draw Near to You Preached on 9/23/18 One of my favorite restaurants in the whole world is the OK Café on the corner of West Paces Ferry and 41 right there just off I 75. I’ve eaten there so many times that I don’t need to look at the menu, and the menu hasn’t really changed since the first time I sat down in one of their red booths to eat. It’s one of those timeless places that hasn’t changed a whole lot, but I have, so part of the reason I love going to the OK Café is because it makes me think about all that’s changed in my life over the years I’ve been eating there. The memories I have of being 8 years old and going there with my Dad are just as important to me as the food. When I walk in I think of how much my mom likes their red zinger iced tea, or when right before they got married, Sara and I took my old friend Matt Buchanan and Jessica, who was then his fiancé, there for dinner. Now Matt and Jessica have a nearly teenage daughter. That’s the kind of big change that happens over the course of several years and going to the OK Café makes me think about all that. But even more so, the Chevron across the street from the OK Café makes me think about how things change, because right after graduating college, when Sara and I were first married, I worked for a lawn maintenance company, and pretty much every day we’d park near that Chevron, so we could eat lunch with all the other lawn maintenance crews at the picnic table in the back under a big magnolia tree. That picnic table is still there, and all these Atlanta landscape crews still stop to eat lunch right at that spot. So, when I went to the OK Café last week I stopped to buy gas at that Chevron, and there they all were. Nothing much has changed, but I’ve changed. Back in those days when I ate at that picnic table I was tan from working outside and I spoke Spanish all day to communicate with my crew, and once when I walked into that Chevron to buy a coke the guy at the register said to me, “Buenos dias.” Well, last week all the guy at the register said was, “Good morning,” and I was a little disappointed, but that’s to be expected because while it’s the same Chevron with the same picnic table under the same magnolia tree I’ve changed. I no longer fit into the world that I was once proud to belong to. Now that idea brings us to the matter at hand from the book of James. If you know what it’s like to change in such a way that you no longer fit into the world you once belonged to, either because you moved to the city and your friends back in the country think you talk like a yankee or because you got divorced and now your couple friends are weird about inviting you to dinner parties, use that feeling of no longer fitting into the world you once belonged to as a lens to really understand what James is trying to say to us today. It’s important to hold onto that feeling of no longer fitting in to where you once belonged because we Christians – now we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, so why are we still trying to fit in to this world that’s not our home any longer? We feel the drive to fit in – but should we? When in reality, we aren’t meant to fit in here anymore. Because of the life changing Gospel of Jesus Christ, something inside us has changed; “but,” as James says, “if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts,” then you are guided, not by heavenly wisdom, but by what is “earthly, unspiritual, devilish…” There are two ways. Two kinds of wisdom. One is of this world and the other is of the world to come. James demands that we ask ourselves, “which way are we choosing?” For: “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” James is sure that too much of the time our behavior makes us hypocrites. It just doesn’t make any sense for us to keep on living according to the customs of the earth when we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, but as James says, there are “cravings… at war within” us. We accept the standards of our society where everyone spends too much money, then we allow the reckless pursuit of wealth to trump our moral compass. We lay down with the dogs of reckless power, following their actions and listening to their every word, then wind up waking up with their fleas. We think we’re just watching the commercials for restless leg syndrome, but before we know it we’re talking to our doctor about it and she’s writing a prescription for some disease that we never knew existed. If anyone really has that restless leg syndrome I’m sorry for being a jerk about it. It sounds awful, but the point I want to make is that sometimes we are influenced in ways that we don’t even realize – because the fallen world that we don’t belong to anymore still influences the way we think and the way we act. There it all is in first half of verse 4 chapter 4: Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? The truth is that we have to change our ways. The change in our heart that comes with our Christian belief must also create a change in our actions. We must become as pilgrims on the earth that we might be prepared to settle in heaven, so James says to us: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Maybe you’d agree, that this does sound like exactly what we ought to do. But maybe you’re getting a little tired of all this preacher’s “should's” and “ought's.” That can be exhausting. You know, the thing about James that I don’t like is that at first, James makes me feel the same way as a trip to the dentist. It’s like he’s looking in my soul and saying, “Joe, you really ought to clean up in here.” And I should, but why? How? What’s so important in this long lecture that James gives us for these 5 chapters is that there’s joy to be found in following his advice. And you know that’s true, because trying to fit in to the world as we know it will ultimately make you miserable. I heard a story once about how hard it can be to please your father. The story is about the first female president of the United States. She called her dad and invited him to go to the inauguration. He told her that he didn’t have a ride to get there or a suit that fit any more, so he probably shouldn’t go. Well, the president to be wasn’t going to take that. She wanted her daddy there. She wanted him to be there, so he could be proud of what she’d accomplished, so she sent over a tailor to his house. Paid for his suit, sent a helicopter on inauguration day to pick him up. He rode to DC in that fancy helicopter, the secret service met him at the landing pad and escorted him right up to the front row where he could see his daughter put her hand on the Bible to be sworn in as President of the United States just as plain as day. But you know what her daddy said? He says to the guy sitting next to him, “You see that lady up there. She’s my daughter, but her brother played for Georgia.” You see – we can work hard to be somebody in the eyes of our earthly father, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll ever shine in his estimation. We can work hard to fit in at the high school, but as soon as you save up the money to buy whatever clothes you’re supposed to have the trend changes and you’re out again. In the same way – this world we live in – even the ones who make it to the top and have all the stuff that supposed to make someone happy – they’re miserable. You can read about it in US Weekly. So, the call from James is not a 5 chapter finger wagging lecture, but a mirror that we can hold up to this world that we’re trying to fit into. We worry about not being somebody in the eyes of the world, but no matter how hard we work – we might still wing up feeling empty, but to be somebody in the eyes of God. That’s like “soaring on the wings of eagles.” That’s like “running and not growing weary.” That’s like drinking the kind of water that satisfies. And you know what it takes to be somebody in the eyes of God according to our passage from James? All it takes is humility. For a long time now, every meeting of our youth group has ended with the whole group forming one big circle, so that together they sing the words of James chapter 4 verse 10: “Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” The version that we read from this morning translated the words just slightly differently, but the meaning is the same. Regardless of how you say it, all we have to do to draw near to God is face the fact that the way we’ve been doing it isn’t working. It’s just like how the first step towards going down the right path is walking into the gas station and asking for directions. We have to humble ourselves before the Lord, because those who aren’t willing to admit that they need a savior can’t benefit from the one that we have in Jesus Christ. We have to humble ourselves before the Lord, because until we’re willing to admit that we’re broken we can’t be mended. Until we’re ready to admit that we’re sick we can’t be healed. Until we’re ready to say we’re blind we’ll never see. Until we’re ready to say as the Prophet Isaiah said, “Lord, I’m a man with unclean lips living among a people with unclean lips,” the Lord can’t make us clean. But once we surrender, once we accept it – we wonder why for so long we’ve been laboring in vain. To say it as the psalm did in our first Scripture Lesson: Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, Or take the path that sinners tread, But their delight is in the law of the Lord, And on his law they meditate day and night. If we want to be like the trees planted by streams of water that this psalm talks about, we too have to be ready to admit that where we’ve been living and what we’ve grown used to is so much like a desert that the people of this world look everywhere for a drink that they’ll never find. We’ll never be able to buy our way to satisfaction no matter how much money we have. We’ll never be able to legislate our way to happiness no matter how much power we have. And we’ll never be able to medicate ourselves to joy no matter how many pills we take. You see – what the world makes promises, but it cannot deliver. There is only one source of living water. There is only one life giving stream and it runs through the city not made by human hands and that’s the place that we call home. If you want to go there with me, take stock of your actions. Take stock of your heart. Have you adopted the ways of the world – the habits that we mortals accept as normal behavior that you’re on your way to going down with it – or is your heart so changed that you’re preparing to live in a New Heaven and a New Earth where the lion lays down with the lamb and the Lord is there to wipe away the tears from our eyes that we might live in joy forever more? When I die I don’t want anyone to say that he sure was an upstanding citizen of the City of Marietta. I want them to say, “that Joe Evans was always a little weird, but that’s because he didn’t belong here. He was always preparing himself to live in the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God.” Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.

Taming the Tongue

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 50: 4-9 and James 3: 1-12 Sermon Title: Taming the Tongue Preached on September 16, 2018 This passage of Scripture that I’ve just read from the book of James reminds me of two quotes about the power of words – one from the great Jewish theologian, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, who said that “words create worlds.” That the stories that we hear and the words we let in create the world that we inhabit, so the child who is told that she is beautiful and brilliant is very different from the other who is told that she’ll never amount to anything, and this difference has less to do with genetics or opportunities than the story that each is told which informs how she sees herself. In the same way, those who find themselves sucked in to the 24-hour news cycle, can’t help but live in a world of fear and anxiety. The words we hear create the world we live in; for you may want to call the people who never watch the news “ignorant,” but you know what I call them? Happy. Likewise, a Scientist subscribing fully to the Big Bang Theory, believing that we humans are nothing more than the result of a random collision of forces millions of years ago, may also live as though her very life were but a random collision of forces without meaning or purpose. That happens, because the words we let in create the world that we inhabit Another option to living out the Big Bang of course, is that in addition to the Science that we learn, we Christians have the benefit of the Creation account in Genesis. The words of this account don’t nullify rational thought but compliment it with God’s story. So, we believe that God spoke, not randomly but on purpose, and all that we know was created, which then enables us to live in a world, not of random collisions, but of faith, hope, and love. It’s not so complicated. Rabbi Heschel’s point is simple enough – words matter. Another Christian theologian named Damayanthi Niles speaks of the importance of words as well, for she said that with our words we create stories that become the baskets we use to carry our relationships in. The words that we speak and the words that we hear create the stories that either hold us together or tear us apart, like how the story of grandma who always cooked our favorite yeast rolls will forever cast her as someone who we can trust, but the story of the grandfather who was invited to speak at the Boy Scout meeting but showed up drunk will forever cast him as one who cannot be depended on no matter how many times he apologized – for regardless of what he said, what James would add to our understanding of the power of words, is that when our words fail to materialize into our actions, the fabric that holds our relationships together frays and even breaks. You know this already, because you’ve seen what I’m talking about in action nearly every day of your life. Whether it be a parent, a teacher, or a president – when the people we trust lean too heavily on the phrase: “do as I say, not as I do,” we hear the words of a hypocrite. Likewise, a pastor who ignores you can’t show up one day out of the blue and bring you comfort. It won’t work. If you hear words of forgiveness preached by someone who you’ve seen yell at a waitress for bringing out the wrong drink order, you question the real state of his heart, for as James asks: “Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water?” No. That can’t happen. Either from your depths you produce living water, or you don’t. It doesn’t matter what you say if your actions reveal that the true state of your heart is that of a brackish cesspool. You know who has a good heart? Rev. Joe Brice. His gallbladder wasn’t so good, so he had it removed, but that guys heart can be a spring of living water. I know that because last Wednesday morning I got to hear Rev. Joe Brice preach a funeral, but it was a hard one to do, because neither one of us have been here very long, so Joe had to start this funeral sermon by acknowledging the fact that he’d only known Vera a short while; and, that in the time he’d known her, he knew she’d not been in her full stature, so his experience of her wasn’t enough to really express the fullness of her life. Joe just acknowledged all that. He said, “I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Vera very well. Just a brief time when she was hospitalized. But I have had the pleasure of learning so much about her from her family and friends. You know, some people ask me, “Isn’t what you do as a pastor so difficult, you know the hospital visits, the funeral services?” Yes, there are difficult aspects to this role” he said, “but mostly dealing with the Christians is the hard part, but there is such a deep joy that continually washes over me when I have the honor to walk sacred steps with people during the holiest times of their life journey.” After saying that he looked at the family: “It is a joy and an honor to be trusted with the stories of Vera’s life.” Then he told the stories – the stories that he collected from her children, grandchildren, and friends and he was able to tell them because he sat with them and listened. He also told the Gospel story – and together, all of that captured a woman; so, together at the funeral, we were all able to give thanks to God for her as we entrusted her to God’s care. It was a good funeral, even though Joe didn’t know her as well as he would have liked. He got to know her by listening to the stories that the family told. But have you ever been to the other kind where the preacher refers to the deceased by the wrong name? We use our words to weave the cloth that might hold us together, and these words can be so lifegiving that even at the grave we are inspired to rejoice singing our “Halleluiah’s” for by a preacher’s words we may be reminded of the great story that changes everything we know – the story of Christ’s redeeming death that brings new life – but then by a preacher’s actions, some are led to question everything they know. Words are so powerful. And when they are rendered empty by the speaker’s actions, they can cause a crisis of faith. Therefore, “not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters,” is what James says, “for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Think about that school teachers – the power that you actually wield is almost as great as the power that parents think you wield. And so, it is with preachers. I remember well going in to Dr. Jim Speed’s office just after High School graduation where I told him I planned to go on to Presbyterian College to major in religion, in preparation for studying to become a Presbyterian Minister. You know what he said? He said, “Be careful Joe, because you’re talking about getting involved in every person’s most important relationship. Between them and their God.” He’s exactly right about that, because when the person who preaches forgiveness betrays you it hurts in such a profound way, it does something to the world that the preacher’s words have testified to. It’s not just that the clergy is discredited, it’s that the faith he or she inspired in the people who listened is discredited. That’s happening now to our brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic church, but truly, this is something that happens everywhere, so I want to tell you something else Dr. Speed told me. It was right after I graduated seminary, and I drove up here to ask him the secret to being a pastor. The secret to being the pastor of a church that grew as much as this one did. You know what he said? “Don’t give me too much credit Joe. Marietta was growing then. Pretty much all I had to do was keep the doors open and avoid doing anything stupid.” That sounds easy, but you’d be surprised how hard I’ve worked to avoid doing anything stupid. As James said, “All of us make many mistakes,” so ultimately who is it that can be trusted completely? Who is the teacher who always deserves to be heard? Edith Foster read this passage from Isaiah: The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, That I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. The Lord God has opened my ear, And I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward, I gave my back to those who struck me, And my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. By his endurance and his steadfast love, we see that the Suffering Servant that the Prophet Isaiah describes not only has the tongue of a teacher but lives the life of one who deserves to be heard. And this Suffering Servant of Isaiah describes the Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks to us words of rebuke that we don’t want to hear and words of love that we fear we don’t deserve, and he speaks them both from a heart of faithful and undying devotion, from a heart that is the spring of Living Water. So, we preachers – if we only point to ourselves, any who listens will eventually be disappointed, for none of us a perfect – but those of us who testify to Him are worthy of being heard. There’s a preacher out in Denver named Nadia Boltz-Weber, and each time a new group of people joins the church that she serves, she says to them: “Sooner or later I’m going to disappoint you. That’s because I’m a human being and I can’t help it, but still, after I’ve disappointed you, you may be tempted to leave this church to go someplace else, only if you do that you’ll just find another human pastor who’s going to disappoint you there too. I encourage you instead, to stick it out, because in that moment when you realize your pastor isn’t perfect, you grow instead to trust in the Lord who is.” Among all the words of this present evil age, I charge you to be discerning. I get so tired of hearing about “fake news” because it’s not as though some news is fake and other news is true – it’s that all the news we hear is imperfect until we come face to face with the Good News. It’s what He says that can save us. So, if you listen to the news for two hours a day, red from the Gospel for four until you get straightened out. If your boss tells you you’re a loser, come to this baptismal font and hear the truth – that you’re a child of God. And if you hear words that make you hopeless, don’t you ever forget that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Amen.

No Partiality

Scripture Lessons: Proverbs 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23; and James 2: 1-17 Sermon Title: No Partiality Preached on September 9, 2018 Today is a special day at First Presbyterian Church. If you’re here for the first time, I’m so glad you’re here for this worship service and I hope you’ll come back again next week, but I feel like I have to tell you that it isn’t always like this. It’s always good to be here. Every Sunday it’s good to be here at First Presbyterian Church, but it isn’t always like this. This is a special Sunday because today we celebrate the Scottish roots of the Presbyterian church. These roots take us back to several moments in history. One in particular is August 17, 1560, when John Knox and five of his colleagues presented the first reformed confession of faith written in the English Language to the Parliament of Scotland. This was a pivotal moment, and we’ll use a portion of that very confession as our Affirmation of Faith later in the service. I want to point that out, because today is about more than kilts and bagpipes – it’s also about lessons learned from our ancestors. Today is about the faith passed down to us. But sometimes the faith part gets forgotten. That happens. Last weekend was a celebration of the Jewish roots of Temple Kol Emeth, a Synagogue over in East Cobb, but it wasn’t the lessons passed down or the faith passed down from one generation to the next that got the news coverage in the Marietta Daily Journal, no – it was the bagel eating contest. A man named Brandon “Da Garbage Disposal” Clark, originally from St. Louis, won the bagel eating contest by eating seven bagels in five minutes, which is amazing – but how much more amazing is the heritage and faith inherited by these Jewish people? The legacy passed down from their foremothers and forefathers of perseverance through all kinds of oppression – Nazi and otherwise. That there are more Jewish Nobel prize winners than any other ethnicity. Or consider the Scriptures that the Jewish people compiled that today make up most of the most important book ever written. It’s not that eating 7 bagels in five minutes isn’t impressive. It is – but there ought to be more to a celebration of Jewish heritage than that. And likewise, there’s more to this celebration of the Scottish roots of the Presbyterian Church than kilts. I like kilts, but I’m not even Scottish as far as I know. My family came here to Marietta from Virginia Highlands in 1986, and that’s about all the genealogical work I’ve done. But I’m not here because of genetics – I’m here because of their faith that I’ve inherited. While some can trace their roots to these great families represented by the tartans on display, this worship service today is so truly about what we all can learn from the people who passed down their faith to us. The likes of John Knox. I mentioned him before; he was a major figure in the Presbyterian Church. He was such a force that Mary, Queen of Scotts is often quoted as saying, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” In standing on his convictions he and many others were persecuted by both England and France and were sent to labor camps. They were punished for what they believed, but they persevered so that our Presbyterian tradition gained a strong foothold in Scotland, and that Presbyterian faith of John Knox crossed the Atlantic Ocean, so that there were more Presbyterian signers of the Declaration of Independence than any other religious group. By the early 1700’s Presbyterians had started Princeton University, and by the start of the Civil War, they had founded over a fourth of all the colleges in the United States. Skip ahead to World War II, and the most well-known preacher in the country was a Scottish born Presbyterian named Peter Marshall. At that time, he served New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and was the chaplain to Congress, but before that he was a student at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, and often visited this very church to preach and sing. As Peter Marshall was from Scotland, it was he who brought this tradition of Kirkin’ of the Tartan to America, where the tartans or flags of each family were brought into the church that they might be displayed and blessed by God. That’s where this worship service comes from. Peter Marshall brought it over, but this tradition that we follow in the worship service today first emerged in Scotland in the 18th Century, at a time where the signs of Scottish culture had been outlawed, and Scottish families could only celebrate their culture and identity in secret. Imagine that. To live in a land where you have to hide who you are. This worship service is founded on the Scottish tradition of celebrating their heritage in the presence of God after years of only celebrating in secret. So, here – when all tartans are raised, it’s the sign that all families, all peoples, all tribes or all nations and creeds - all were created by the God who spoke back at the dawn of time and called humanity to existence on the 6th day, then said, “it was very good.” This worship service calls us to remember again that God doesn’t make junk – and all of us stand today and receive our blessing, remembering that doing so is a privilege. That it is a privilege to raise a tartan and be blessed by God without any shame or fear of rejection for who we are and who were created to be. But it is a privilege that we now share. We said before: “we raise the tartans before Almighty God in gratitude for heritage and pray God’s blessing on His servant people in all lands.” That’s a powerful phrase: “God’s servant people in all lands,” but that’s what we said earlier in the service – and so we pray for God’s blessing not just on the MacDonalds, MacFarlane’s, MacGregor, and MacMillan, but also on the Smiths, the Hernandez’s, Abbasi’s and the Sing’s. We pray for God’s blessing on all tribes, remembering the Scotts who once were tempted to be ashamed of who they were created to be. And we Presbyterians, Scottish or not – today we stand together saying, “the Lord shows no partiality!” It’s just as Paul said it in his letter to the Galatians: There is no Jew or Greek, Slave or free, Male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And having believed it ourselves, after having received God’s blessings ourselves after generations of hiding who we are, now we have to put belief into action, for as James knows: “faith without works is dead”. Any Episcopal in here will know the way the Prayer Book echoes the same sentiment: That we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but also with our lives! Therefore, as we remember today those oppressed Scottish Presbyterians of long ago –how the English outlawed the bagpipes that they played, the kilts that they wore, and the Gaelic that they spoke, and how in this worship service their native tongue was blessed – we also must ask: who would we be to go out into the world criticizing the accents of our neighbors? You know what it’s like to feel ashamed of your accent? I was once in New York City and I told a guy I’m from Georgia. He said, “I know.” So, James asked all those who would look down a person because of how they appear: do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings, or an English accent, with fine clothes or in a mink coat – with money in his pocket or power at her disposal comes into this Great Hall, and we say: “Sit here in the place of honor,” but then say, “All rednecks and immigrants to the back” have we not become hypocrites? It’s a reminder like that one that our world needs more than kilts or a bagel eating contest, for discrimination touches every ethnicity. Racism has reared its ugly head throughout the ages. Just as they outlawed our bagpipes, they destroyed the drums of African slaves. Just as they forbid our kilts, so they cut the Cherokee’s hair. Just as they pressured the Scotts to Anglicize their language, not so long-ago Texas Governor Miriam Ferguson said: “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas school children,” and I don’t have to tell you how misguided such a statement is. But it’s just as misguided to allow such prejudice to continue without calling it wrong, knowing how it hurt our ancestors and defies the teachings of the Gospel. As the Scotts were oppressed, so we must fight racism today. That’s why we can’t sit idly by as children in headscarves are treated like terrorists. We can’t watch without asking questions as children who cross the border are treated as criminals. We can’t just keep quiet while men and women are abused because of who they love. And we can’t blindly dismiss the players and cheerleaders who kneel during the Anthem, even if it makes us mad, without first trying to understand what they’re kneeling for. If we enjoy God’s blessing today, celebrating our heritage in safety and freedom now, we must also work that all should have the privilege of being proud of who they are and where they come from, knowing who created, redeemed, and blesses them. Our God shows no partiality, and neither can we, because all are one in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

In a Mirror

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 4: 1-2 and 6-9, and James 1: 17-27 Sermon Title: In a Mirror Preached on September 2, 2018 James is a difficult book. We’re in it though. Now, we’re in it, and I want to stay in it for a few weeks because while it’s difficult, it’s good for us to take this book of the Bible seriously. That’s because James is a life-giving book of the Bible, but my Mom asked me a couple months ago about a good Sunday School Curriculum on the book of James for her class in North Carolina to use, and I told her to pick another book. I said: “Mom, you don’t want to get into James. It’s rough,” but we do need to hear it. It’s in the Bible for a reason. However – and this is true – Martin Luther, the great church reformer who started the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago took his students out to the river, where he instructed them to turn to the book of James in their Bibles, rip it out, and throw it into the water. Now why would he instruct his students to do that? Because this book can give you the idea that your salvation depends on your behavior. If you read James without thinking about God’s grace, this book can give you the idea that ours is a religion of morals and being good, and it’s not. Instead, ours is a religion of undeserved grace, for we believe that we are saved, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ has done on the Cross. We’re saved by his blood, not by our good behavior, that’s the essence of Christianity - but that doesn’t mean our behavior is irrelevant. So, we have to turn to James, because even if we are washed in the blood of the Lamb, that doesn’t mean we can go around acting crazy. Even if we are like Prodigal Sons and Daughters, returned home and welcomed with open arms despite our years of carousing, that doesn’t mean we should go back to loose living. Even though we were baptized in water, made heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, we still go out into the world – and the way we live may be the closest thing to a Bible that some people ever see – so James says to us - “be doers of the word, not merely hears who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.” You know what that means? That means that all the time I’m telling you to remember who you are, and I’m doing that for a good reason. “Remember always who you are,” I say at the end of every worship service, “for you are God’s own. As God’s own clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility and patience. Forgive each other, just as the Lord has forgiven you.” Why do I care so much about these words that I repeat them to you week after week? It’s because if we come into this room and hear that we’re God’s own, what good is it if we walk out of here and immediately forget? How does it sound if we talk and talk about forgiveness while we’re at church, but on going home we keep an account of grievances against our neighbor? How does it look if we are told to “clothe ourselves with kindness and humility”, but then go and speak to our waitress at the Red Lobster as though we were the Queen of England and she were the dirt under our shoe? That’s what they’d always remind us before we left on big trips in our old church bus back when I was in High School. You know the bus I’m talking about. It’s parked in the West Lot, and it may not run well enough to leave the West Lot for a while, but back then Mike Clotfelter and Tim Hammond would drive us in it all the way to Mexico. It says First Presbyterian Church right on the side, and back when it ran, that was a dangerous advertising opportunity – a bus with your church’s name on the side, filled with a bunch of teenagers. So, Dr. Speed would come and address us all – “Remember that where you go, you go representing our church and our Christian faith.” I remember him saying that to all of us like it was yesterday, and I also remember once that we parked in a McDonalds. This was back when McDonalds still had ashtrays and salt and pepper shakers on the table, and someone discovered that if you spun a quarter on the table just right, then while it was spinning you could slam down one of those shakers on top of it, and because the bottom was plastic the quarter would break through, all the salt or pepper would come out of the bottom and on to the table. This was one of those things that was a challenge to master. Teenagers like a challenge, and we didn’t have cell phones back then to keep us occupied, so we were bored and after eating we all were in the mood for a challenge, so we spun our quarters on the tables and busted every salt and pepper shaker in the restaurant. Then we climbed into the bus; right there on the side of it were the words “First Presbyterian Church of Marietta, GA,” then we had to climb right back out to apologize to the manager of the McDonald’s. But why would we do such a thing? Because to some degree or another, we are all like those “who look at themselves in a mirror; for we look at ourselves and, on going away, immediately forget what we were like.” So, I tell you to remember always who you are – and these words are so important that I say them at the end of every worship service, but these words and the way of life that goes with them are so profound, that sometimes I can’t get the words out of my mouth. Does that ever happen to you? The words get stuck? I learned something interesting about that last Wednesday. Last Wednesday I was listening to a radio show about Elvis Pressley, and how he would often forget the words to one of his most popular songs, “Are You Lonesome Tonight.” You know this one: Are you lonesome tonight Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memory stray To a brighter sunny day When I kissed you and called you sweetheart? You know these lines. They’re pretty easy to remember, and that was the part of the song that he could always get right, but then came the spoken verses where he wasn’t singing, just talking. Elvis was supposed to say: You know someone said that the world’s a stage And each must play a part Fate had me playing in love With you as my sweet heart Act one was when we met, I loved you at first glance You read your line so cleverly and never missed a cue Then came act two, you seemed to change, and you acted strange And why I’ll never know. Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. Now the stage is bare and I’m standing there With emptiness all around And if you won’t come back to me Then they can bring the curtain down. It was during this part where on at least 12 occasions Elvis went blank. He’d be live, on stage, in front of a crowd of people and he’d forget the words to this song that he’d sung thousands of times before. And here’s the interesting part – the very first time his mind went blank was right after Pricilla left him. You see, these words were like a mirror, and when he said them reality hit him like a ton of bricks. It will make you sad to hear the recordings. It will make you pity the King, but here’s the thing. When he got done singing those words that revealed the truth, he went right back to the same behavior that pushed Pricilla away in the first place. “For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look in a mirror, but on going away forget what they saw.” In the same way, when we worship God in this place, by confessing our sins and hearing words of forgiveness, it’s like we are holding up a mirror to ourselves. God holds up a mirror that tells us who we really are: namely, God’s own, sinning yet forgiven, fallen yet lifted up, broken yet healed, imperfect yet redeemed. There are moments in worship, like when we sing the words to Amazing Grace, where the truth of who we are in the eyes of God hits some people like a ton of bricks. Next time we sing it, you ought to put your hymnal down and look around at who has tears in their eyes. Some can’t make it through the first stanza, and why is that? Because we know that we were once blind, but now we see. We know that we were lost, but now we’re found. When we sing all that we see the truth of who we are – but what does it mean if we leave this place and go back to living the way we did before? Elvis stumbled right after saying words like – Honey, you lied when you said you loved me. Now the stage is bare and I’m standing there. And it was sad, but what did he do about it? Nothing. You see – obedience to the Law, it’s not about avoiding eternal punishment. No - It’s about putting love into action. My father-in-law does that – he doesn’t drive 15 miles under the speed limit because he’s scared of getting a ticket. He drives 15 miles under the speed limit, because when his granddaughters are in the back seat, he knows he’s carrying precious cargo. And parents do that too. We tell our daughters over and over again – probably 10 times a day - “You are so beautiful.” And they are, but I keep telling them that because I want to see them live like they know it. Raising their hand with confidence. Walking into school like they’re somebody, because that’s when it counts. They have to put their father’s love into action, not just when Daddy’s in front of them saying it, but when he’s not. That’s what we all have to do. Put the Father’s love for us into action. Because – we’ll all leave this church, and when we sit down at our table at the Red Lobster, everyone’s going to know where we’ve been. By the clothes that we wear everyone will know that we’ve been to church – but they’ll know that we are Christians, not by our clothes, but by our love. Amen.