That All the Lord's People were Prophets, a sermon for Pentecost Sunday, based on Numbers 11: 24-30 and Acts 2, May 28, 2023

I’ve mentioned before that I played baseball in high school. More precisely, I made the team. I wore a uniform. Did I play? Not all that often, but I loved baseball. Sometimes I feel like I could still take the field. I can hear the ball hitting my mitt. Still in my hands is the feeling of hitting a perfect line-drive over the shortstop’s head. While I didn’t play a whole lot for the Marietta Blue Devils, for several years, being a baseball player was part of my identity. I practiced year-round from age 8 to 18. When I wasn’t sitting the bench for the Marietta Blue Devils, I played for rec league teams around town. Buck Buchanan and my dad were our coaches. At Perry Park by the Civic Center or Oregon Park out Dallas Highway, starting in 3rd grade until I graduated high school, playing baseball was such a big part of my life that when it ended and I went to college, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Without daily practice, I had all this time on my hands. I also wrestled with my identity a little bit. If I didn’t play baseball, I wasn’t a baseball player, so what would I talk to my grandparents about? What would I do for exercise? For years after I stopped playing, I kept a bat and a glove in the trunk of my car. Why? I’d go to Braves games, and I wanted to take the field. In fact, one game at Turner Field, the Braves were down by double digits, and so the whole stadium had emptied out. With the guys I had played baseball with and now just watched baseball with, I moved down to nearly field level right behind first base. Watching the game, my friend and former 3rd baseman, Mike Waters, said, “Imagine how full this place would be right now if the Braves started the tradition of the announcer pulled a ticket stub out of a hat at the beginning of the 7th inning, and if he called your ticket number, you got to play right field for the rest of the game.” I still think that policy change would revolutionize major league baseball. On the other hand, baseball may not be your thing, so maybe you wouldn’t want to take the field for two innings. Maybe you’d be less likely to attend a game if the Braves had such a policy, but is there something that you used to do, that you used to love doing, and now you just watch other people do it? Take singing, for example. At some point, many of us hit this point where we get scared of someone else hearing our voice. Little kids don’t yet know what that’s like. Little kids just sing for the joy of it. When I was a young, child my grandmother baked me yeast rolls all the time because I’d sing to myself while I ate them. I loved them so much I just got lost in the joy of eating, and I would sing. That’s why I love our preschool so much. All those kids are like that. Go into a preschool classroom and ask them, “Can anyone in here sing?” It’s not like the back rows of this Sanctuary. Everyone in preschool can sing. Ask them, “Does anyone in here know how to play an instrument?” “Well, I play the triangle,” one will say. “What about an artist? Is anyone in here an artist?” “I’m an artist,” one will say, “I made a necklace out of macaroni noodles for my mom.” That’s how we are in preschool, but then something happens to us. A friend of mine in Tennessee bought himself a guitar. Everyone in and around Nashville dreams of being a country music star, and so Tennessee pawn shops are full of guitars. My friend James bought a guitar at a yard sale. He was looking through a pile of stuff, and lo and behold, there it was. He felt drawn to the six strings, tuned it up, taught himself a few cords, and took it to rehearsal with the praise band at his church. He was up there playing his heart out on his new guitar, feeling so good about how he was sounding with the drums and the bass, when the preacher told everyone to take a break. “James, who told you to come out here and play that guitar?” the preacher asked. James said, “Well, Pastor, I believe the Lord did.” “No, He didn’t,” the preacher said. Sooner or later, that happens to us all. We don’t make the cut for the college baseball team, and we finally give up our dreams of playing in the major leagues. Our big sister can’t tell whether we’ve painted a moose or a school bus, and we realize that the only gallery where our art will be displayed is our mother’s refrigerator. We realize we’re getting sideways glances as we sing our hearts out in church, and it seems as though while the Lord loves a joyful noise, not everybody else does. That’s life, so if you go into a middle school classroom and ask, “Can anyone in here sing?” “Does anyone in here play an instrument?” “Is anyone in here an artist?” Not as many people raise their hands. Likewise, on that Pentecost so long ago, we find our disciples just sitting around, not doing much of anything. Our second Scripture lesson began, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” What were they doing there? Why weren’t they out in the world preaching the gospel? Why aren’t they living their faith? I imagine those disciples, whom Jesus just left, as confused, self-conscious, and insecure. They don’t know if they can do it without Him. Had cellphones been invented, in that room, they would have all been playing Candy Crush. Killing time instead of living their faith. But oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets! Imagine the world if more people were out there living their faith. Tim Hammond was my Sunday school teachers years ago. He taught a Sunday School class for college kids with Jimmy Scarr. Tim and Jimmy didn’t plan too much of a lesson for this class; they never knew if anyone was going to be home from school to show up to their class. One Sunday, I was home from college. Whoever else was there with me, we were talking about what movies we’d seen lately. Then we asked Jimmy and Tim if they’d seen any good movies. Mr. Scarr said something like, “I haven’t seen a movie worth watching since Jimmy Stewart quit acting.” Then Tim said, “I don’t watch movies either. Never have. Why would I watch someone else live his life when I could be out living my own?” Can you believe that? I’ve carried that little piece of advice with me everywhere I’ve gone. This church sent me to Argentina as a missionary intern right before my senior year at Presbyterian College. People would ask me, “Why are you doing that?” I’d say, “Why would I watch someone else live his life when I could be out living my own?” I don’t know if Tim Hammond knew how much that saying meant to me. I don’t remember if I ever told him. If I did, I don’t think I told him in such a way that he truly understood just how much of a difference he made, and that’s how most of us are most of the time. We just have no idea how much of a difference we make or might make if we weren’t too self-conscious to speak up. Back to Jimmy Scar’s favorite actor: I hope you’ve seen Jimmy Stewart in the greatest Christmas movie ever made, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” If you haven’t, put living your own life on hold just this one time to watch it. It’s the most beautiful reminder that we are all the time underestimating our ability to make an impact. Sometimes we get beat down by the world, and we forget it’s even possible to make an impact. Sometimes we are like disciples who have lost their leader. Ashamed for having betrayed Him. Ashamed for having doubted Him. Worried that they’ll never be able to live up to the example that He set. That’s just where the Evil One wants us, on the sidelines, watching the world fall apart. He wants us quiet, afraid, and ashamed, behind closed doors, for once we get pushed out into the world and are freed to do something, the Holy Spirit uses us to set the world on fire. Do you know how powerful you are if you’re willing to be used by the Holy Spirit? Do you know what kind of a difference you can make if you’re willing to get up off the coach, turn off the TV, and get out into the world? I had the most amazing experience last week. Roy Vanderslice has been made the executor of his next-door neighbor’s estate. His neighbor was a private man. No one was invited in his house. His only interaction with the people in his neighborhood was to complain about their dogs relieving themselves in his grass. He was a curmudgeon and a bit of a hermit. Out of a determination to kill this man with kindness, Roy and Joan befriended him. They found out that he liked to make a little extra money, so they paid him to cut their grass for $20 a week. Later, they learned that he was living on a monthly check from the government and his veteran’s benefits, but to make ends meet he cut grass, and he had to sell aluminum cans to the recycling center. Had Roy and Joan been too self-conscious to walk into that man’s life, or had they taken the neighborhood’s word for it that the man was a lost cause, this neighbor would have died alone without anyone to help put his affairs in order. On this Memorial Day, remember him and consider with me the difference these two disciples made by simply being good neighbors. Consider the difference we can make when we dare to pick up the phone to have a meaningful conversation with an old friend or write a note and remember what a gift it is to open the mailbox and see that there’s something in there other than a stack of bills. Flora Speed’s funeral was last Thursday, and I asked the congregation there assembled, “If you ever received a card from Flora Speed, would you raise your hand?” There was a congregation of more than 500 people, and everyone that I could see held her hand up. My friends, we sometimes have no idea how hard life is for the people around us. Sometimes, we just have no earthly idea. We also have no earthly idea of how much of a difference we can make just by getting out of our houses and being willing to be used by the Holy Spirit. That’s the Pentecost message. my friends. We have been inside our houses for too long. We have watched too many movies and far too much of the evening news. Furthermore, we have downplayed the power of God to use us, and while we’ve been sitting on the sidelines, the world has been in need, so pick up the phone or get out of your house and walk down your sidewalk to see how God might use you. Life is this grand adventure if we’re willing to be filled with the Holy Spirit, if we’re willing to respond to the nudge that pushes us out of our comfort zone. Let the grace of God release you from the chains of shame and self-doubt, and may the world be set aflame once more by the fire of Pentecost. Amen.

He Ascended Into Heaven, a sermon based on Psalm 77 and Acts 1, preached on Ascension Sunday, May 21, 2023

As I said before, today is Ascension Sunday, which is a special holiday that our church recognizes every year. However, Ascension Sunday and Pentecost, which is next Sunday, are holidays not nearly as popular as Christmas or Easter. No one makes a special effort to attend church on Ascension Sunday, while there are those who attend only on Christmas and Easter. We call them CEO’s, “Christmas and Easter Only,” but it’s not the same on Ascension Sunday. It’s not that kind of a day at First Presbyterian Church. It’s one of the holy days we don’t think too much about. No one puts up a tree for Ascension Sunday. There are Easter-egg shaped Reese’s Cups, but nothing like that for Ascension Sunday. Still, today is a significant day that reminds us of a significant promise that God makes to us. Today, we remember that “He ascended into heaven,” a phrase we stand and affirm nearly every Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed, maybe without thinking too much about it. “He ascended into heaven,” we say, but what does that mean? “He ascended into heaven,” while His disciples were left standing there looking up. They watched as His body lifted off the ground, and they were still standing there staring into the heavens even after He was gone from their sight. I don’t think about this supernatural event described in our second Scripture lesson all that often, but it matters. Maybe none of us spends as much time thinking about His ascension as His birth at Christmas or His Resurrection at Easter, yet saying, “He ascended into heaven” matters for us, especially as we think about the moment when we will leave this earth, following Him to the place where He has gone already. He ascended into heaven, which is different from being raised from the dead. While we all know that Jesus was raised from the dead, celebrating the miracle of resurrection every Easter, more than one person in the Bible died and was brought back to life, to die again years later. Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, had a second funeral. The same is true of Dorcas, whom Peter raised from the dead in the book of Acts. On the other hand, Jesus ascended into heaven. There is no headstone with His name on it. Where does His body lie? It was never buried. No one made the call to Mayes Ward Dobbins to take His remains. He ascended into heaven. Up He went. He died on the cross, rose from the grave, and ascended into heaven, which is where we are going too. That He went from here to there is the assurance that we will follow where He leads. On this Ascension Sunday, what I want you to hear is that just as Moses led the people right through the sea, God is in the business of taking us from one shore to the other, from this earth to the New Heaven and New Earth. Just as He took the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, He will lead us by the hand from this place to that Golden Shore, but did you hear how they were acting while they walked from one side of the sea to the other in our first Scripture lesson? Did you hear it? When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. The very deep trembled. The clouds poured out water; the skies thundered; your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters. Yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Like a flock of what, I wonder? If there was that much thunder and rain, I imagine that Moses and Aaron led those people through the sea like a flock of wet and terrified sheep, who were all trembling and shaking from one side of the sea to the other. Think of them and remember that there is a divine promise to celebrate on Ascension Sunday and a human limitation to pay attention to. Today, we remember the divine promise that just as He ascended into heaven, and just as He sits at the right hand of the Father in the Kingdom of Heaven, so we will be there with Him for He will lead us from here to there. There’s also a human limitation: It’s hard for us to follow because following Him requires risk, trust, and change. We don’t like change. In fact, I hate it. While Moses and Aaron led the people like a flock of wet sheep from one side of the sea to the other, and it took hook, crook, and cattle prod to get them to move, I can imagine Hhhhhim leading us from this life that I love to that Golden Shore as looking something like me taking our dog, Junebug, across the railroad tracks. She’s so terrified of railroad tracks that we must pick her up and carry her over, and so I imagine that Jesus will have to carry me from here to there, so terrified am I at the thought of death. I don’t want to go. I don’t want anyone to go. Worse than the thought of my own passing is the thought of letting people I love go. Anything we can do to have more time with our loved ones we do, though by faith we believe that following Him to Heaven might solicit in us even more hope than following Moses and Aaron from one side of a sea to the other. It’s going to be good on the other side. That’s the promise. The way C.S. Lewis said it, we are “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” The sea shore is beyond our imagination, so we are tempted to continue with our mud pies, which we know, which we are comfortable with, but God has invited us to something better. Again and again, we come face to face with the promise of something better and the fear of letting go of what we have. Preschool graduation was last week. I wonder how many students would stay in our preschool forever if they could. They’ve learned their way around our church. They’ve walked through the halls. They know their teachers. They get plenty of snacks. Life is good in preschool. The thought of going from preschool to elementary school is a little scary, even though their teachers and their parents tell them how great it’s going to be. One graduate received a note in her little lunch box on her last day of First Presbyterian Church preschool from her mother. Her teacher read it to her, and then her teacher told me what it said. It said, “Dear Kate, the next time I write a note to you and put it in your lunch box, you’ll be in the cafeteria at Westside Elementary School.” Think about that. How many kids have trouble going from what they know to what they don’t know? How many adults have trouble going from what they know to what they don’t know? How many of us hold too tightly to the right now, while God promises us so much more? We must get better at letting go, lest we get stuck where we no longer belong. Growing up, one of my favorite books was Where the Red Fern Grows. A farm boy named Billy wants two good hounds to trap racoons, but his father can’t afford any, so Billy works hard and eventually saves enough money to order these two dogs, brother and sister, one named Old Dan and the other Little Ann. He trains these two hounds to tree racoons, which is the most exciting way to do it, though his grandfather taught him another way to catch racoons. To catch a racoon in a trap, all you have to do is drill a little hole in a log by a water source. At the bottom of the hole you drilled, place something shiny: mica or a piece of an old mirror. The racoon will reach his hand down into the hole, forming a fist around the shiny thing. Once his fist is formed, he can’t get his hand back out. All he must do to be free is let go of the shiny thing, while the racoon would rather hold on than let go and be set free. There is so much more than making mud pies in a back alleyway. There is so much more out there to learn beyond the walls of our preschool. There is so much that God has promised, but to follow Him to that further shore, we must push off from this one, let go of what we have now, be led through the parted sea, or walk the valley of the shadow of death. He ascended into heaven and will lead us there to be with Him, but listen to what the disciples did: As they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” This is such a funny image, the disciples standing around staring up into heaven, and so they are addressed with such a strange question. Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? That’s what the two men in robes asked them, and my translation of their question is: Why are you looking for Jesus in the place where He no longer is? They are still clinging to what they remember, and I get it. I think about some of the saints of this church who have gone on ahead of us. Do you remember Helen Jones? Helen Jones used to park her little red car right outside the glass front doors of our church. She would block my bike rack and park, just right out there. Once, the deacon holding the door told her she couldn’t park there. She threw him her keys and said, “You move it.” I stand and look at the place her car once was, but that’s not where she is now. Likewise, today, many of us look around this place, and everywhere you look, Flora Speed once was. Someone said that Dr. Jim Speed was the pastor here from 1972-1999, but he was married to Mother Theresa. She served food at Wednesday Night Supper. She was one of those who got Club 3:30, our afterschool program, started. She welcomed so many of us into this church. When we moved back here, she invited us over, and more than once, she fed my family and me on her back porch. She was a fixture here, but don’t look for her in these halls any longer. She is not here. For He ascended into heaven, and we all will follow Him there in our own time. Crossing that great sea, we will leave this place for a New Heaven and a New Earth, where all those who have gone on before will be waiting on that Golden Shore. Do not cling too tightly to this world. Do not cling so tightly to what is that you miss out on what will be. For He ascended into heaven, and we will follow Him there. Halleluiah. Amen.

If You Love Me, a sermon on John 14: 15-21 preached on May 14, 2023

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being back on the campus of Presbyterian College to take part in their graduation ceremony. It was first time I’d been back for any significant amount of time since Sara and I graduated there a few years ago. That place is packed full of memories. It was a gift to walk around and remember what my life as a college student was like. Back then, I couldn’t imagine myself as a husband, a father, and a pastor back here. The life I now live was only a dream back then. Yesterday, I walked past Georgia Dorm, where I lived when Sara and I first started dating. She once told me that I smelled like a mix of Old Spice deodorant and Georgia Dorm. The place had seeped into my pores. I also walked past the auditorium where accepted students’ orientation took place. Months before my first classes started, all the accepted students and their families were invited to the campus. Most of my classmates had either their mom or dad with them. A few had both. Me? I remember sitting there with Mom and Dad, my sister, and my brother, as well as my grandparents. Everyone else was there with one of their parents, maybe both, while I was having a family reunion. My grandparents were so proud of me that they wanted to be there. Making them proud was so easy. They kept a big, glass jug on their porch. Every time we sat out there, no matter who was visiting, my grandmother would talk about how amazed she was when I was a toddler because I filled the thing up with sticks from the yard one afternoon. How was that amazing? But that was my grandparents. I once shared a perfectly average term paper with my grandfather, and he suggested I submit it to the Harvard Business Journal. Much later, I had the chance to meet and have my picture taken with the Governor of Tennessee, Bill Haslam. As my grandfather moved from his home to assisted living, then to memory care, one thing about his room remained the same. That picture of me and the Governor was always on his bedside table. My grandparents were proud of me. And it was so easy to make them proud. All I had to do was get accepted to a college. It could have been any college. I wrote a mediocre term paper, and they thought I was brilliant. I had my picture taken with the governor, and they were sure I was on my way to moving into the governor’s mansion. Was it that way with you? Was it easy or is it easy to make your grandparents proud? I hope so. It can be different, though, with mothers. On this Mother’s Day, I think about how many mothers have this higher standard, and they must because being able to fill up a glass jug with sticks will not get you into a good college, and not every term paper is worthy of publication. Mothers have a different standard, and likely, some here never felt like they reached it. Some here may still be trying to make their mothers proud, though their standards are impossible to meet, but that’s not my main point this morning. The main point this morning is this: What does it take to make Jesus proud? In our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of John, He spells it out. This morning we read, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That’s clear enough, although perhaps you’ll agree that it is easier said than done, for keeping the commandments of the One who got Himself crucified is an inherently dangerous undertaking. Keeping the commandments of One who always told the truth in love may make us dangerously unpopular. While the church doesn’t always say it, this faith of ours is countercultural, even today, and doing the will of the One who ate all the time with the social outcasts, saying, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” comes with a cost. County Commissioner Keli Gambrill, who sits in the balcony of the Sanctuary most every Sunday at the 8:30 service, and is often the sole dissenting vote on the Cobb County Commission, recently shared with me a song that inspires her. The song goes like this: It’s such a strong temptation To live for man’s applause. But I don’t want to buy into the lie because I know that’s not a worthy cause. I’ll be content to serve an audience of one. Only his approval counts when all is said and done. And this is my prayer when my race is won. I want to hear well done from the audience of one. That’s the song she listens to when it seems like she’s in the minority. That’s the encouragement she needs to continue doing what she believes is right, and this is no easy thing, doing what you believe is right, because doing what you believe is right does not always bring with it applause or recognition. The applause and recognition of the world may not come to us by following in the footsteps of Jesus. Worse still, sometimes the applause and recognition of the world comes when we walk in the opposite direction from where Jesus leads. Make no mistake, the way of Jesus is countercultural. Making Him proud comes with a cost, and so while we may aspire to do what is right, too often we do what is easy. While we are called to stand for justice, too often we sit quietly, even while brothers and sisters suffer. While Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” don’t you dare reveal that you think differently than I do about those apartments being proposed by the Marietta market or I won’t talk to you anymore. Do you hear what I’m saying? The way to make Jesus proud is to obey His commandments, which can be summed up by this one simple word: love. Love. I’m not talking, though, about simple love. I’m talking about the kind of love that He embodied. The kind of love that cost Him His life. The kind of love that the Church has not offered to all people. The story goes that a parade went through downtown Atlanta after church one Sunday. One church saw the people coming and was handing out water to the parade goers. The other locked their doors and turned their backs. Did Jesus ever turn His back on anyone? Think back to Sunday School. On whom did Jesus turn His back? He was not a big fan of the self-righteous religious people. Are we more like them? Or are we more like the One we claim to follow? Meri Kate Marcum, who was our seminary intern last summer, is now on the church staff helping with food and fellowship. She preached a sermon for her preaching class last month and told this story: A young girl was just starting school and was required to go through something called “kindergarten screening.” The teachers asked her to count to 20, recite her A, B, C’s, identify shapes and colors, and even asked her to skip down the hallway. Then came the “life situation questions,” like “What do you do when you go outside, but it’s raining?” She answered, “You get a raincoat or an umbrella.” Then the teacher asked, “What do you do when you want to go into a room, but it’s dark.” Without missing a beat, this little girl said, “You hold someone’s hand.” Make Jesus proud this morning and ask yourself, “Whose hand could I be holding?” Which of God’s children is alone in a dark place? Might we go there to hold his hand? Who held your hand when you were afraid? Who held your hand when you were young? Did anyone love you so much that she let go? When I think about my mother, I want you to know that she was often hard on me. She wouldn’t accept Cs on my report card. If she thought I hadn’t washed the dishes well enough, she’d have me wash them again, and she always tried to do what was best for me, even if it was hard for her. The day she dropped me off at Presbyterian College, she went with me to some of the orientation meetings. This time it was just her. I wasn’t going to stand for the family reunion treatment again. After we moved boxes into my dorm room, we went to some of the meetings. All the other kids had their parents with them. It was meant to be a day-long affair, but right at lunch, while all the other kids’ parents were still milling around, she looked at me and said, “I’m about to start crying, and once I start, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop, so I’m leaving now. I love you so much.” Then she just left. I stood there and watched her go. On this mother’s day, I hope that, even if you didn’t have a mother who was as easy to please as my grandparents were, that you had a mother who loved you so much that she did the hard things of pushing you to do better, making you redo that which you hadn’t done right, and letting you go so that you could fly on your own, even when what she wanted to do was hold you close forever. If that was your mother, then maybe you know that making her proud is just living a happy and full life, which, according to the commandments of Jesus, comes from being pushed to love people well, especially when it isn’t easy. His commandments are not always easy nor convenient. Loving people well, especially loving well the people who have been pushed to the margins of our society, comes with a cost, but if we don’t live the life that He calls us to we will never have the abundant life that He promised. His call to us to love our neighbors and to pray for those who persecute us is the most countercultural thing we could ever do in this world where everyone is demonizing everyone else all the time. Just read about it in the local paper, as one side turns its back on the other, yet Jesus calls us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. We make Him proud when we work for understanding and sympathy in a world of division. We make Him proud when we choose to love and accept those who are rejected by the world. We make Him proud we listen to His voice over the applause of the crowd. And we may hear His voice even now because “I will not leave you orphaned,” is what He said. My friends, we may not always see Him, but I know He will keep this promise, and we will hear His voice. When it feels as though you are all alone, know that watching from the heavens is the audience of One, the One who truly matters. If you love Him, keep His commandments. Amen.

Leaving Home - preached at Presbyterian College Baccalaureate 2023

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 65: 17-25 and Acts 10: 24-34 Sermon title: Leaving Home Preached on May 12, 2023, Presbyterian College Baccalaureate I’ve titled this sermon, “Leaving Home.” Are ya’ll ready to leave? Have you learned what you came here to learn? Have you done what you came here to do? Are you ready to leave this place, which, maybe for the last few years, has felt like home? For me, coming here and being with you tonight, is a homecoming. I once sat where you are now. In my four years as a Presbyterian College student, I ate my meals in the Greenville Dining Hall. I played intramural sports. I made friends who became family. Here, I fell in love with a classmate named Sara Hernandez. She once said that I smelled like a mix of Old Spice deodorant and Georgia Dorm, and so you might say that this place became a part of me. It had seeped into my pores. It was home for four years. Then I left, as you are soon to do, and as you leave home to go out into the world, I call on you to reflect on what you will take with you from this place and what you are leaving behind. When you leave home, you can’t take everything with you. What will you take? What are you leaving behind? I’m talking about more than the valuables that you’ll load into a U-Haul trailer tomorrow or the couch that you’ll try to get rid of. I’m thinking now of the Apostle Paul, who said in 1st Corinthians 13: “When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” He left them behind. I’ve done the same. The student I fell in love with here, Sara Hernandez, we’ve now been married for 20 years, but for my relationship with her to start, I had to get a haircut. When we first met, I had long hair, which she wasn’t into, so while I was captivated by her every move, she didn’t pay much attention to me. Then one afternoon, I went to get a haircut from Danny Nelson (He was running an unlicensed barbershop in Georgia Dorm.), and as my auburn locks fell to the ground, I suddenly looked to Sara like someone worth taking seriously. Soon after I had left my long hair behind, on a Saturday night, she took me by the hand, led me from the Sigma Nu Fraternity house to the dugout on the baseball field, and kissed me. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I may take the memory of it to my grave. Only what did I have to leave behind? I haven’t had a full head of hair since, but my hair line is not the point. My point is that the journey you are on demands you leave home. You can’t have the bright future God intends, and you can’t become the person you are destined to become if you aren’t willing to be refined, if you aren’t willing to leave parts of yourself behind. Don’t forget that. Sacrifice is required for you to become who you are destined to become. My sophomore year, someone gifted me a pair of roller blades, which I wore on the day of a test into Dr. Peter Hobbie’s Old Testament class. I rolled into his class, took the test, rolled up to his desk to turn my test in, then a few days later, he handed it back with a red “C” at the top, alongside a note that said, “Come see me in my office.” Having been summoned, I sat down in front of his imposing desk on the second floor of Neville Hall, and he asked me one of the most important questions anyone has ever asked me, “When are you going to start taking seriously the gifts that God has given you?” At that time in my life, I didn’t know I had any gifts and skills. I had no idea what he was talking about, and so it was Dr. Peter Hobbie who could see who I might become if I were able to leave my rollerblades behind. For Peter, it was something like that. When Jesus first called him, he dropped his nets and left home. He left behind his identity as a fisherman in a small town in favor of becoming who God intended him to be, only think about what happened to Peter and remember that for him, it was no one-step process. When Jesus was arrested, Peter was the one who denied Him three times. He had the opportunity to stand by his Savior, to suffer alongside Him. Instead, he denied the Lord, and suffering from shame, he went back where he came from. After denying Jesus three times, in a sense, he went back home and back to fishing. The one who had dropped his nets and walked away from his fishing boat to go and fish for people hit this one, big bump in the road and, figuratively speaking, he goes back to live in his parents’ basement in Galilee, thinking to himself, “I almost did it. I almost became who He thought I could be. I was almost the Rock that Jesus said I’d be. I almost left home, but now I’m back where I started.” As you think about graduating from Presbyterian College, this place that may have started to feel like home, do you have that fear? If you don’t, your parents do. Your teachers do, for they have prepared you to take what you’ve learned here out into the world, but this process of leaving behind childish ways to become someone else, to become the one God calls you to be, the one this world needs you to be, is one that requires persistence. I left this place, diploma in hand, and landed a job cutting grass for a lawn maintenance company called Habersham Gardens. I drove the truck from mansion to mansion. One afternoon, I was finishing up a job with a crew in this woman’s driveway. She pointed me out to her children and whispered, just loud enough for me to hear, “That’s why you go to college kids, so you don’t have to do that for a living.” Now how did I get from that driveway to this pulpit? Not only did I leave home, but I kept on believing that I was on the way to some place even better, though it was all too unfamiliar. You are on your way from this place, which may have become so familiar that the smell of it has seeped into your pores, but you must leave because this place is not your destination. We are all on our way from one place to the New Creation, but the thing about the New Creation is that we don’t know what it will look like. All we know is that we must keep walking towards it, believing in it, until we get there, leaving the familiar in favor of the promise. So it was with Peter. After Jesus walked into his life calling him to leave home and become the Rock that Christ’s Church would be built upon, God placed in Peter’s life a man named Cornelius. What Peter knew about Cornelius was that he was Roman. In Peter’s mind, he was all wrong. He was uncircumcised, so he was impure. He ate the wrong food. He had grown up worshiping the wrong God. Peter wasn’t interested. However, in a dream, God told Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Now that was another drastic call to change his whole way of life. Peter had grown up eating certain foods. His mother told him how to live a pure and holy life, and that kind of lifestyle, the one full of convictions bred into him, had to be left behind. Why? Because God is always calling us away from those places that feel like home towards the New Creation. Therefore, leaving behind all that he had been raised to believe, he went to the house of Cornelius, and Peter began to proclaim, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” That’s a big deal, and it never would have happened had Peter stopped growing. It never would have happened had Peter not been ready to listen. It never would have happened had Peter settled into an earthly home, mistaking it for the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s what I have to say to you tonight. Tomorrow, you graduate from college, but your education is not complete. Tomorrow you’ll leave home to go out into the world, but don’t settle in, for the next place you go is not your destination. Tomorrow you will take an important step towards becoming the person God created you to be, but you still have work to do, and you must continue to listen to the people God places in your path who will help you along the way. For Peter, first it was Jesus. Then it was Cornelius. For me, here, it was Sara Hernandez, then Dr. Peter Hobbie. Since then, there’s been a hundred more, and just as many setbacks. The wisdom that I have to pass on as a 2002 religion major with a mediocre grade point average is this: God isn’t done with you. The diploma that you’ll receive tomorrow – get it framed. Hang it proudly, but never mistake your diploma for the sign that you’re complete because your education isn’t over, and your journey is just beginning. From this day forth, when you look at your diploma, may it remind you of all the people who got you where you are right now, all the people who made an impact, all the people who saw something in you that you couldn’t yet see for yourself. And keep looking for people who will help you along your path to the New Heavens and the New Earth, for while you must leave this place, you are on the way to something better. All that is required is that you continue leaving your old self behind, holding on to the promise that there are gifts inside of you that must be taken seriously. Gifts that the world outside this campus so badly needs. Leave this home and keep going. Leave your old self behind to become who God intends you to be. Walk towards the New Heaven and the New Earth, which is our eternal home.

The Shepherd and Guardian of Our Souls

Scripture Lessons: 1 Peter 2: 19-25 and John 10: 1-10 Sermon Title: The Shepherd and Guardian of Our Souls Preached on April 30, 2023 We always say the same thing on Sunday mornings after Scripture is read. We read the first and second Scripture lesson, then I say, “The Word of the Lord,” and you say, “Thanks be to God,” but sometimes I wonder if what I should ask after reading Scripture is, “Did you get all that?” and you all respond, “Well, it was a little confusing.” What does our second Scripture lesson mean? What is Jesus trying to tell us? This passage from the Gospel of John isn’t the only confusing passage of Scripture in the Bible. Many passages in the Bible are so hard to understand that faithful people have been wrestling with them for thousands of years, but this one that we read today from the Gospel of John is one those that owns it. In verse 6 we read, “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” Even those who heard it straight from the Savior’s mouth didn’t get it. You might ask, “If they didn’t understand, what hope do we have?” Well, I’m not sure I have it perfectly or completely, but I want to share with you a few things that I’ve learned after thinking about this passage all week and reading what different scholars have to say about it. First, in this passage from John, Jesus, as he often does, uses a metaphor to try and help us understand who He is. In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses around 10 different metaphors to help us understand who He is. He said, “I am the vine,” or “I am the resurrection and the life.” Cassie and I preached a sermon series on all of these “I am” sayings a couple years ago. We paid special attention to them because cracking the code on these metaphors is helpful in our journey to understand who Jesus is and what a relationship with Him means for our lives. I’m sure you remember from English class that a simile and a metaphor are both figures of speech that compare two unlike things. A simile uses the words “like” or “as.” A metaphor does not. Jesus uses metaphors to describe Himself, but in our second Scripture lesson for today, He is using two of them at the same time. Here in the Gospel of John, chapter 10, He is saying that He is the shepherd and the gate. He is both. What does that mean? How can that be? Let me try to tell you, using some more metaphors. Last week I went to the hospital, as your pastors often do. I went to visit a member of our church who is there. Because we go often, the hospital provides us with special ID cards that we present to the parking lot attendants. With these cards, pastors and clergy are granted special access into the hospital. The thinking is that we’ll be more likely to go and visit people if we don’t have to pay for parking, which is good for the hospital because it’s good for the patients. However, mine expired, and I’ve yet to locate the office where I can get it renewed. The office used to be in the basement down a long hallway. Now that they’ve renovated the hospital, I haven’t been able to find it after looking for more than a year, and this morning I ask you: What good is a special privilege if you can’t find your way to it? It’s no good, but this is the way life often seems. We are like sheep on one side of a fence or a wall. Maybe we know that there is a whole other world on the other side of that wall. Maybe we know that just on the other side there are special privileges, green pastures, and still waters, only where is the gate to get through? Where is the office to get my special card renewed? I need a gate to walk through, and I need a shepherd to show me the way. It’s been this way for most of my life. My life would be so much less were it not for kind people who showed me the way to the gates. Do you know what I mean by that? Have you ever felt boxed in or stuck? When you felt that feeling, did God send someone into your life to help you get from one side of a wall to the other? I was 8 years old, and we had just moved into Charlton Ford subdivision off Powder Springs Road. We moved there from Virginia Highlands like so many others who left Atlanta to come out here. For us, Marietta was the other side of a wall. Living inside the perimeter, we heard that on the other side of 285 were green lawns and swimming pools. My parents knew that if we moved out here, I’d have quiet streets on which to ride my bike. Behind our new house, there was a creek for me to play in. Only just days after moving in, there I was, the new kid in town, standing on the edge of the neighborhood swimming pool, watching a group of boys swimming together, feeling far too intimidated to try and break into their group. I had a giant pool float, shaped like an alligator. The minute I put it into the water, these boys commandeered it, so I just sat on the edge, as though there were an invisible wall between them and me that I couldn’t get over. There was no gate that I could see. I was stuck, and I needed a shepherd to show me the way. My mom, noticing my predicament, tried to help me find the way. She came over and made it sound so easy: “Just go play with them,” which I knew was never going to work. What does a mother know about breaking into a group of boys? She couldn’t help me. No one could. I was stuck on the side of the pool. Thanks be to God, up swam this blond-headed boy with a crew cut, who invited me to come swim. His name was Matt Buchanan. He became my best friend, and I’ll forever be grateful because he showed me the gate. He walked me through it. Later, his family even invited us to this church, so in more than one way, he was the gate and the shepherd. Have there been people in your life who did the same thing? Matt is just the first one I can remember. He wasn’t the first person who helped me get from one side of a wall to another, nor was he the last. You may be able to remember the name of one who did the same for you, and you may have even become such a person for someone else. In Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s part of recovery. The one who has found the way beyond his addiction is charged to go back and tell others where the gate is. He is supposed to tell someone that “there is a life beyond addiction, and I can show you the way.” That’s what Jesus does. However, the world is full of people who are not like Jesus. The world is full of people who were born on third base and think they’ve hit a triple. Do you know what I mean by that? That’s an expression from Columbia, Tennessee that I picked up while I was there, and I’m not sure it translates. What the expression means is that the world is full of people who have been led through the gate by the shepherd, but act like they made it from home plate to third all on their own. They’ve forgotten what it means to be stuck on the other side. They don’t remember that they were ever left outside in the cold, longing to be let in. They don’t remember how difficult it is to make it from the front doors to the sanctuary and down to the adult Sunday school rooms. Did you know that it’s hard to get around in this church? Our church has five different buildings, connected by winding hallways. Despite all the beautiful signage, it’s not always easy to get from one end to the other, and it’s hard when it seems like everyone else knows where she’s going. There are some of us who can make their way through this place blindfolded. I know the stairwells by their smell. I even know how to get up on the roof. I’ve been all around this place because I’ve been coming here since Matt Buchanan’s family invited us when I was 8 years old, but I needed him to show me around back then. We all need a shepherd to show us around, so that we know where all the gates are and where all the hallways lead, but have you been a good shepherd? Have you been showing people where the gate is so that they can get in here to become a part of this family of faith? That might sound like a small request, though, the more I read, the more I understand that finding a place in a congregation like this one may be a matter of life and death. Harvard University recently published the results of a study on loneliness in America, suggesting that 36% of all Americans, including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children, feel “serious loneliness,” which leads to a wide array of serious physical and emotional problems including depression, anxiety, heart disease, substance abuse, and domestic violence. Other reports on the subject have concluded that spending all day alone is as bad for your body as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and that seniors who suffer from loneliness have a 64% higher risk of dementia, making loneliness the pandemic that still rages waiting for a vaccine. However, we already have the antidote. The church has always had the cure to isolation, but how well are we showing people the gate into this community? Every one of us has needed a shepherd to show her the way to the gate, but as soon as we learn the way, it’s easy to forget that there are others left on the other side of the wall just hoping to find their way in. Will you go back to show them the way? The way through our halls? The way into this church? With a little help, it’s so easy that some can’t even believe it. They’ll ask me, “What does it take to become a member?” It’s like they’re wondering if they’ll have to give over their social security number or something. What does it take to become a member of this family of faith? All it takes is the acknowledgement that you can’t find your way on your own. That you’ve never been able to. That without Him, you’d be lost and alone on the other side of some high wall that seems to have no gate. All it takes to become a member of this church is to acknowledge that you are a sheep in need of a shepherd to show you the way because that’s all any of us is. We are simply a group of lost people who have been found. We are simply a herd of sheep who have a shepherd. We were once on the other side of a high wall, but the Shepherd led us to the gate, and we walked through. That’s all of who we are. We are simply those who have been led through the gate. All that is required is that we say “Thank you” by going back to let others through so that they might be here with us. We live in this world full of lonely people, so help someone find his way home. Show others the way, that they might enjoy the green pastures and the still waters of Abundant Life. Amen.