Hope

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 25: 1-10 and Jeremiah 33: 14-16 Sermon Title: Hope Preached on November 28, 2021 I’ve titled this sermon “hope,” which is a simple title. Just one word, but what is hope? How would you define it? What does it look like? What does it mean? It’s one of those words we often use, yet how do you put your finger on hope? Around this time of year, we use the word “hope” a lot. Out of the four Sundays of the season of Advent where we prepare ourselves for Christ’s coming, the theme of this Sunday, the first of four, is hope and so you heard the word in the Advent Candle Lighting, among other parts of the worship service. In addition to worship today, we often speak of hope in the context of Christmas morning: ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. That’s a happy and hopeful poem that we read this time of year, and we all know that the children hung their stockings by the chimney, because, while they didn’t know for sure, they hoped that St. Nicholas soon would be there to fill those stockings with something special. They hoped their Christmas wishes would be filled. They hoped for toys and candy. And their sense of hope is so strong it borders on certainty, for no child hangs her stocking by the chimney thinking that there’s just as much a chance that a family of mice will move in as Santa Clause filling their stocking with presents. Santa Clause saves kids from the dreadful outcome. He fulfills the hope of many, and it breaks all our hearts to think of any child to wake up without anything to open on Christmas morning. Why does that thought break our heart? Do we think toys are just that important? No. The thought breaks our hearts because hope is precious. Hope is the belief that tomorrow will be better than today. Hope is the thought that our wishes will come true. Hope is the idea of a dream fulfilled, a wish materialized, and what’s more tragic than a child whose hopes have been dashed? That’s what Santa is all about. Santa Clause brings presents, yes, but in so doing he preserves the hope of children. On this first Sunday of the Season of Advent, this Sunday when we light the candle of hope, I ask you: if Santa is there to preserve the hope of children, who is there to preserve the hope of grownups? Who’s there to save us from disappointment, cynicism, and despair? Like hope, despair is another word that we use but is hard to define. Author Brene Brown has a new book coming out this week, where she defines so many human emotions. She claims that most people are only able to label about three of their emotions: happiness, sadness, and anger, while, we humans can feel about 100 different emotions, including despair, which she defines as, the “feeling that life is too difficult.” Despair is not a fleeting feeling that work is just too hard or that a phone call too uncomfortable. You might label the emotions we feel in such circumstance as frustration or heartache. We get frustrated that we can’t put a new bike together or when we must sign up our kids for lacrosse and end up signing up ourselves (to share a real-life example of a time I felt frustrated). More than frustration, despair is the feeling that we just can’t make it and it stays and stays. Think about despair as the feeling that you feel when you have to wait for 45 minutes for your COVID booster, and as you’re waiting you get a phone call from your daughter, the ICU nurse, who tells you that she can’t come home for Thanksgiving, because while she hasn’t had a vacation in 18 months, has watched all her friends quit, is trying to care for 5 beds instead of 1, and is sick and tired of watching people who refused to be vaccinated die under her care needs to keep working through the holiday. That’s despair, that life is demanding too much of someone you love. Despair is the feeling that you feel when watch the news and a story about politicians squabbling over how to gerrymander is followed by a report of a local murder, then rising gas prices, and finally, turkey shortages. That’s despair, that life is getting worse and not better. Despair is something like how someone described raising twins. “It’s not twice as hard as having one child. It’s like treading water in a pool and someone hands you a couple of babies.” Not every parent raises twins, but every parent has felt like their life is just too much, and has wondered: how will I make it? That’s despair. Despair is the feeling that you feel when your country has been invaded, your king has been executed, your temple has been destroyed, you’ve been carted off to live in a foreign land, you used to be a doctor but now you peel potatoes, and you keep trying to get ahead but you’re tired of pushing so hard and you’re thinking of giving up because life is just too much. That’s who Jeremiah was writing to, for reality for the group of people the prophet Jeremiah addresses had been and continued to be absolutely heart breaking. It was so heart breaking that even a visit from Santa Clause wasn’t going to cut it, so, the prophet reminds the people about another who is on the way: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise, I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David. Jeremiah tells us about this righteous branch right after Jerusalem was destroyed, right after the Holy City was cut down like a tree by the Babylonian army who invaded in the year 587 BCE. The invasion was so massive, so complete, that the Temple was demolished, the king deposed, and so many of the survivors shipped off to live in exile. According to the prophet, Israel was a tree, a great tree rooted in a place, among a people, nurtured by God, only to be floored by the ax of Babylon. And like that tree, all around him people who survived were still falling by the ax of despair. How could they look to the future with hope? After such devastation, all they could imagine was that life would get worse. That having experienced such trauma, more would be on the way. The bad things happened and would surely keep happening. As Babylon invaded Jerusalem, the siege is said to have lasted for 30 months, and when the armies finally left, what remained of the great tree that was the Holy City? Only a stump. Only a stump was left, but as the smoke lifted and the dust settled this great prophet saw a shoot spring forth. Now that’s hope. For a fresh shoot is enough to convince us that tomorrow may yet be better than today, that old dreams may yet be fulfilled, that ancient promises might be kept. Can you see it? And think about it for just a moment. Think about how inevitable it is, really. We’ve all killed our fair share of houseplants, but have you ever had a plant that just wouldn’t die? For some reason, in high school, I explored the resiliency of plants for a couple science fair projects. Once I managed to get grass to grow upside down. The next year I attempted to study the negative effects of an oil spill using a couple pansies. I watered them with motor oil, only they wouldn’t die. I took pictures of them day after day for my presentation, yet they wouldn’t die, so I pulled their leaves off to prove my hypothesis, only I left the green leaves within the frame of the picture. You could still see the leaves in the picture I took and glued to my three paneled poster, and that’s how I earned a D on my project. Likewise, think about English Ivy. Or Kudzu. Think about shoots from a Bradford Pear stump. Hope is not fragile but inevitable. Hope is as inevitable as crabgrass in your lawn. It springs forth all around us. Can’t you see it? In our Second Scripture Lesson the Prophet reminds the Jewish people in exile, telling them that hope springs forth, yet this is hardly the only reminder or the only time the people needed to be reminded of hope. For thousands of years the Jewish people have faced such violence. They’ve been the targets of prejudice. They’ve been victimized again and again. The Temple which was destroyed by the Babylonians in the time of Jeremiah was rebuilt and dedicated again more than 2,000 years ago. The celebration of the Temple’s rededication is called Hanukkah, which begins tonight. So now I ask you: if God can rebuild a Temple, won’t he rebuild your life? What’s rebuilding a relationship compared to returning a people from exile? When candles are lit, do they not break the darkness? Does a shoot from a stump not defy the power of death? For death gives way to life. Despair flees at the sight of hope springing forth. Therefore I say, our tomorrows will be better than our yesterday’s. How do I know it? Look to the stump. New life springs forth! That’s hope and that’s Jesus. A new branch growing out from an old stump. A new baby growing inside an unmarried virgin. A hope that grows from nothing at all but rises to rule the world. This is Christmas. Not the dried-out tree that’s already losing needles in your living room. Not the trash can filled with crumpled paper after the presents have been opened. No, the righteous branch that springs up for David. And he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” So, as Christmas approaches, be ready to give up on giving up. Consider that feeling we all feel not just frustration but despair and look at how death will not have the final word for the light shines in the darkness, new shoots rise from old stumps, a baby will be born to the virgin. That’s our Lord, hope embodied. Persistent life even amid what appears to be death. Gather around his light and rejoice.

The King's Great-Grandmother

Scripture Lessons: Mark 12: 38-44 and Ruth 3: 1-5, and 4: 13-17 Sermon Title: The King’s Great Grandmother Preached on November 14, 2021 Do you remember your great-grandmother? I knew mine, just barely. My grandmother was the oldest of my great-grandmother’s children. I am the oldest of my great-grandmother’s great-grandchildren, so I was lucky enough to know her, even just barely before she died. I remember only a few things about her now: that she loved her poodles so much that she had their toenails painted, she had beautiful azaleas in her backyard, and she said the secret was fertilizing them with cow manure which she got right out of the cow pasture, and she made chicken and dumplings for me. Do you love chicken and dumplings? She made them better than any I’ve ever had. My mother learned how to cook them using my great-grandmother’s recipe. The water must boil hard before you put in the dumplings. That’s the trick, I remember. But this is the point: now I know that chicken and dumplings is a dish people made when there wasn’t anything else. It's one of those dishes that became popular during the Great Depression. You don’t need much to make it. Flour, water, what else? It tastes good, but people like my great-grandmother didn’t make it because it tasted good. If they’d had pasta or bread or pot roast, they wouldn’t have messed with chicken and dumplings. They made chicken and dumplings because they had children to feed while all they had to feed them was a chicken cercus, some flour, salt, and some lima beans. What about your great-grandmother? What about the King David’s great-grandmother? The story of Ruth, King David’s great-grandmother, is one of the most beautiful in the Bible, and it’s true. Do you know how I know Ruth’s story is true? It’s because you wouldn’t make it up this way. That’s how I know. Historians who make things up tell stories that make the king look good. Had the story of King David’s lineage been made up by a royal historian he would have told us that the king’s great-grandmother was a princess of noble origin. She’d never worked a day in her life. She certainly had no calluses on her hands from gleaning wheat in a field, and by no means had she ever lay down on a threshing floor. She was well born, wealthy, royal, and perfect. She positively was not a migrant who survived by her wits and her desperation. We know that the Bible is true because only the Bible would tell you what everyone else never talks about. Only the Bible would tell you that the greatest of Israel’s king’s is the great-grandson of a refugee. Only the Bible would tell you that in desperation she gleaned from the field. Only the Bible would take the time to tell you how this Ruth, this widowed, foreign, refugee is not only the great-grandmother of King David, but stands in the line of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of Creation. Do you hear what I’m saying? On this Kirkin of the Tartan Sunday, one of my favorite Sundays of the year. The only day of the year when I wear this kilt. I’ve never had it dry cleaned because I’ve only worn it four times before today. On this Kirkin of the Tartan Sunday we celebrate the Scottish Roots of the Presbyterian Church, for years ago the first Presbyterians came to this country from Scotland. They came searching for what they didn’t have back in the old country. They wanted freedom, and here, what did they find? They might not have gleaned for wheat in the field, but you know that they settled in places called Cabbage Towns, so prevalent was the smell of cooking cabbage, because they didn’t have anything else to eat. They took jobs in textile mills, even the children. They stacked the field stones into fences, like the ones back home. They kept their heads held high, though life pushed them down. Of course, some came over here from Scotland with plenty, but think for a second about your great-grandmother. What did she have? How did she live? How is your life today better because of sacrifices she made? Consider her faithfulness. The book of Ruth is named after Ruth. It’s not called the book of Boaz. That’s because Boaz isn’t the hero. The hero in David’s story and most every family’s history is a poor woman who kept going even though everything was taken away. We celebrate her today even if we forgot her name. Who was your great-grandmother? Who was David’s great-grandmother? Who are the great-grandmothers of this church? Did you know that there were only about 12 families, around 90 people, who collected their coins, sold a hog or two, went without, made a sacrifice, so that we could have our Sanctuary, built by the less than 100 of them to seat 400? That’s how many they said it would seat. And you can’t seat 400 of us in there. We’re talking about some malnourished fannies if 400 are going to be seated in those pews. But consider their sacrifice, consider their idealism, think about how they dreamed of a better life for us. On the other hand, what are we doing with it? Who are we? Are we heirs to their legacy? Do we honor their sacrifices? Sometimes I just don’t know if I do because I have more than my great-grandmother ever did. You could fit two of her houses inside our one. Now our dogs’ toenails aren’t painted, but we’re living high on the hog. We don’t need to make chicken and dumplings because there’s more than we need in our pantry. Yet, are we giving as much as she gave? Are we sacrificing as much as she sacrificed? Are we giving our great grandchildren as much as our great-grandmothers gave to us? Today is not only Kirkin of the Tartan Sunday. It’s also the day when we are all asked to think about what we’ll be giving to this church in the coming year. How much will it be? How much can we afford? Those are good questions. But here’s a better one: how much did your great-grandmother do for you? What did she sacrifice so that you could have a better life than she had? We keep telling the story of Ruth, it’s there in the Bible, so that we’ll all remember where we came from. King David is the decedent of a woman not so different from the lady who cleans our houses and the men who cut our grass. She didn’t speak the language, she didn’t have any papers, she was the most at risk, she was desperate and in danger, and without out her and what she was willing to do, there would be no King David. Without your great-grandmother where would you be? What did she sacrifice so that you could have a better life than she had? What all has been sacrificed so that we could have this church and the life we all live? And what might we give today, so that our great-grandchildren might have it even better. Our church is one of the pillars of this community. We’ve been here for nearly 200 years, but it’s up to us if we’ll be here for another 200. My friends, I’ve filled out our pledge card. It’s right here. We’re giving more than we did last year. Why? Because this is our church. This is the church of my wife and our children, and I’m going to give what I have, the breath God has put in my lungs, the strength of my words, and the dreams of my heart, that this church be a beacon of hope, a sanctuary for sinners, and light to the darkness for generations to come. What about you? Are you with me? Are you ready to take up the example set by our great-grandmothers? Then fill out your pledge card. Don’t worry so much about the amount. Remember the widow’s mite. Just make a commitment to give. For ours is a culture of fast-food fixes. We get hungry and reach for fried chicken, then to be happy our consumer culture sells us KFC for the soul. Let me tell you that despite what the commercials say, you’ll never be as happy as when you give to something bigger than yourself. The two best days for a boat owner are the day he bought it and the day he sold it. That’s because we keep and we spend and it leaves us empty, but when we give it fills us up. Take out your phone and use that QR code on the screen. Make a commitment to this church and carry on the tradition that is our inheritance. Amen.

These Words Are Trustworthy and True

Scripture Lessons: 1 John 3: 1-3 and Revelation 21: 1-6 Sermon Title: These Words Are Trustworthy and True Preached on November 7, 2021 Sometimes I get bogged down in thinking about how things used to be. And I don’t just mean the big things. I miss small things, like whenever I think about lunch on the Square, I think about how my two favorite restaurants: Jack’s New York Deli, which had the best French fries I’ve ever tasted, and the Butcher the Baker, whose meat and two sides gave even Mary Mac’s a run for her money, are gone, gone, gone. Then, every Monday morning I wake up and head down the driveway to get the Marietta Daily Journal. For some reason it just won’t click: the local paper is five days a week and not seven, now. And some of my favorite columnists aren’t in it anymore. It’s sad, is what it is. For when I take inventory of the present and notice what isn’t there, I often find myself looking longingly towards the past. The comfort that comes from remembering what’s gone is called nostalgia, and nostalgia can be good, so we might say that we’re lucky to be living in the 21st Century, because technology has enhanced our ability to remember the past beyond what our foremothers and forefathers could have imagined. Technology can’t bring back the French fries from Jack’s New York Deli, but yesterday we had a funeral for my grandfather. He died more than a year ago. My mother and her sister wanted to wait to gather the family, not wanting his funeral to turn into a super-spreader event. When we gathered yesterday, we looked at old pictures of him. The funeral home took all these pictures, set them to music, and made a slide show. Because of that I could see his smile again. His big old yellow tinted glasses. His shiny bald head. It’s so nice to have pictures, and we should take time to be thankful for them, because while human beings have been mourning the dead for generations upon generations, we are among the first in human history who can look at a picture and remember so vividly what the people we are missing looked like. I have an old picture of my grandfather when he was in his 20’s. People used to say that I looked like him, and I never saw it until I saw that picture. My grandmother kept all the family pictures in a big drawer in the kitchen. She was a labor and delivery nurse who never took the time to put any pictures in albums. She just threw them all, jumbled into this drawer. Maybe it would have been nice if she would have organized them a little better, even still, my grandfather didn’t know what his grandfather looked like. And today, our girls can just open their phone and magically, the pictures of so many of the people who love them are there for them to look at. It’s amazing. Even better though are old home movies or voicemails. There’s a beautiful book called, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close, about a boy who lost his father in the terrorist attacks on September 11th. His father was in one of the towers. He knew something was happening. He was scared, and he called home while his son was at school and his wife was at work, and he left a series of voicemails: The first one: Something happened, I’m OK. They’re telling us to stay where we are. I wanted to let you know that I’m OK and not to worry. Then the Second: Something is happening. I don’t know what it is. But something is happening. Again and again, his son would listen to these voicemails to hear his father’s voice. Again and again, his son would listen and remember the person he missed. But what’s so hard about the story is that his father called home a fifth time and his son was there to hear it ring, having been sent home from school. However, having heard the fear in his father’s voice from the first four voicemails, and seeing the news on TV, that fifth time the phone rings he’s too afraid to answer. It’s the fifth voicemail that he listens to most often, and this is the trap of nostalgia, for nostalgia is a look backward without a way forward. For this boy it’s memory and shame. Comfort and pain. It’s remembering and regretting. It brought his father back, in a sense. This man who was always there when he needed him. It brought him back, but it also reminded the boy how he felt like when his father needed him, and he couldn’t even pick up the phone. Today, on this All-Saint’s Sunday, we remember. I’ll read their names at the end of the service. We’ll remember who they were. The history committee has surely preserved so many pictures of their faces. We know them. They’re pictured in the church directory, and when their names are read the bell will toll. It’s a beautiful way to remember and honor the dead, however, while we also remember those who have died in the last year today, this service isn’t just about looking backward to see who was once here with us. This passage that we’ve read from the book of Revelation is a look into the future. It’s not nostalgia, but hope. It’s not where we’ve been but where we are going. What will come next. When we will see them again. And such a look into the future is a unique comfort that our religion offers, for everyone can remember, and technology enables us to be so good at looking backwards, but looking backwards, while comforting, can also leave you empty. There’s a country song called “Time Marches On.” It came out about 25 years ago, and this song tells the story of a nice little family, in the living room the little sister is in her crib, little brother is running around like a native American brave with feathers in his hair, mama is learning how to sow, daddy is relaxing listening to the radio as Hank Williams sings Kaw Liga and Dear John. But Time Marches On you see, so that soon little sister is worried about her appearance and washing her face with clear complexion soap, little brother is dressing like a hippy, dad is nowhere around, mama’s depressed, and if that weren’t bad enough time keeps marching on until daddy’s dead, mamas in the nursing home, and brother and sister are medicated just trying to hold it together. Now there’s no shortage of depressing country songs but this one takes the cake, and I’ve listened to this one so many times I know every word. However, you listen to a song like that, and it leaves you thinking that there’s more for us in the past than there is hope for the future. And there’s others. Harry Chapin who wrote “the cats in the cradle with the silver spoon,” a song that tells the story of a boy who grows up to be just like his daddy, an absentee father who only works and never has time to be a father. There’s even Bruce Springsteen, who is the coolest man to ever live in my opinion, but he also wrote: “Glory Days,” convincing generations of rock and roll fans that those High School years are the best years of your life so enjoy them, because it’s all downhill from there. Some would say that he’s right. That the most comfort comes from looking towards the past, but the hymns of our faith tell a different story. Just a moment ago we sang: My life flows on in endless song, Above earth’s lamentation. I hear the clear, though far off hymn That hails a new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm While to that rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is lord of heaven and earth, How can I keep from singing? That’s the Christian conviction. That we’re moving towards something better, not away from it. That we have hope for the future, not just nostalgia for the past. In this way, the Christian faith, is like driving a car. We have a little rearview mirror, and can look back to what’s behind us, but our foremost attention must be on what’s ahead: the hopeful future. And so while technology offers us a great big rearview mirror to relish in the past, Revelation says, “Keep your eyes on the road and look through the windshield.” See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them. They will be his peoples, And God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, For the first things have passed away. You might say, but these are only words. What is this based on? Can it really be so good? One of my favorite quotes of the Rev. Dr. Joan Gray who served this church as a pastor and served our denomination as Moderator of the General Assembly is, “What we don’t know, we make up, and what we make up is almost always worse than the truth.” What do we know about the future? To us, in this modern age, the future is not nearly so solid as the past. We have pictures of the past. There are no pictures of the future. However, while we can see the past we can’t go back there. While we can’t see the future, we are on our way there. And Revelation says that we must look to the future with hope, for the God who has been faithful to us in the past is waiting for us, changeless, as God has always been, in the future. The God who knit us together in our mother’s wombs Who walked beside us throughout all our days Is waiting for us. And in that place where God is waiting, we will have the chance to put right whatever regrets we have about the past. We will see those we miss face to face. And these words, this promise, I didn’t just make it up. I didn’t dream them on my ride to church this morning. No. These words are trustworthy and true. Thanks be to God. Amen.