Water at Noon

Scripture Lessons: Exodus and John 4: 5-42 Sermon title: Water at Noon Preached on March 15, 2020 This is the second sermon in a group of four based on these long accounts from the Gospel of John. I just read from verse 5 to verse 42. Rarely would I read 37 verses at one time, but to get the full story we have to read the full story. So, this morning we have another moving and beautiful moment in the ministry of Jesus for our Second Scripture Lesson. It’s not so unlike the reading from last week, nor is it unlike the reading that will be for next week in the sense that, consistent with the entire Gospel of John, there is an ongoing theme of darkness and light, a highly developed character in this unnamed woman at the well, and there’s an important but subtle detail that the author includes which we shouldn’t over-look. You might remember that last Sunday the detail from the Gospel of John was that Nicodemus, a Pharisee and leader of the Jews, went to visit Jesus at night. “Why at night?” we wondered. I believe the Gospel of John tells us that he went at night because he didn’t want to be exposed. Had he been seen at the doorstep of Jesus he would have risked all kinds of things: rights, privileges, status, or relationships. He couldn’t go to visit this radical Savior during the day, because had he been seen with Jesus, he might have lost his place at the top of his religious order. He might even have been rejected by his community. What we know about this woman at the well based on one subtle detail is that she already has been. She had already lost so much. She had already been rejected. She had already fallen down the social ladder because of who she was and what she’d done. We know that because when Jesus was thirsty, he went to this well at noon, and she was the only one to meet him there. That’s the important but subtle detail. Noon. The Gospel of John tells us what time it was because the time tells us something about this woman. That Jesus went to the well when he was thirsty at noon is not surprising. What’s surprising is that this woman was there at that time of day. Prompted by the text, we must ask why, and I tell you, it’s because in the middle of the day, when the sun was at its highest was the time when no one else would be there. That means she’s like the woman who quit going to Weight Watchers and started just weighing-in in her bathroom because the numbers were going in the wrong direction at the weekly weigh-ins and she didn’t want everyone there to see that she was gaining weight instead of losing it. It means she’s like the man who kept being criticized for drinking too much at parties. Because he felt powerless to do anything about it he started drinking by himself at home. She’s like the prepper who got so fed up with the world and trying to fit into it that he got off the grid. What happened to this woman? Why was she at the well at noon? Well, having tried and failed, she finally gave up. They whispered behind her back, but she knew what they were saying. She’s the aunt, sister, or daughter who’s been married five times and has settled for a sixth because everyone says she’s trash and she started to believe them. Without enough pride to resist but enough to know she doesn’t have to be there when they say it, she started going to the well at noon. Now, this all happened about 2,000 years ago, but still, you probably know her because the same thing still happens all the time. Do you know the woman at the well? I feel sure that you do, because while now we drink water out of bottles instead of out of wells, we still push some people outside the circle, and those of us who are on the inside keep quiet because we know what will happen if we don’t. Nicodemus was that way. He went to Jesus at night because he didn’t want to end up like this woman at the well. Her story is a classic tragedy that’s been relived and retold again and again. From High School English Class you remember Hester Prynne with that scarlet letter “A” broadcasting her sin for all to see. Everyone in town knew her story. Everyone knew what she had done. Everyone knew everything about her. Even visitors to her town knew to keep their distance because of the scarlet letter “A” she was forced to where. Unlike Hester Prynne this woman at the well bore no obvious distinction. Maybe she assumed that Jesus was too thirsty to know he shouldn’t be asking her for anything. Maybe she thought he was too desperate to know it would hurt his reputation just to be seen with her. Still, there he was, by her side, at noon. What he said to her is funny: “Give me a drink.” You would think that Jesus would say “Please,” but he didn’t. “Give me a drink,” he said, which is a funny thing to ask of a person who was widely pitied and never needed. “Give me a drink,” is a funny thing to request from a woman who everyone talked about but no one wanted to be seen with. “Give me a drink,” is a radical request when you consider that if Moses could strike a rock with a stick and make water come out than Jesus could have snapped his fingers and Perrier would have fallen from the clouds. Still, to this woman, first of all he spoke, which was something, second of all he asked her for help, which was something else. I’ve been thinking and thinking about what Jesus does here, because I understand what’s going on with this woman more than I understand what was going on in the mind of the Son of God, and I think that’s because our society is pushing all of us into this place that the woman at the well found herself in. Right now, two words well describe our situation: isolation and fear. It’s hard to know what we, as the church should do in a situation like this one. Having watched the news last Thursday night, Rev. Cassie Waits called so we could talk about it. Together we began discussing what we should do about having church today. We talked about schools closing, even the NBA closing down. After talking with Cassie, I called some other staff members. I called Rev. Joe Brice, the Sage of Paulding County. After talking about quarantine and lowering the curve he told me that this was a good Sunday to preach the Gospel, because the isolation we’re all being pushed into this Sabbath Day isn’t so different from the isolation that society is always pushing us towards. He’s right. We need to gather, but it’s always a temptation to stay home. Not just now, that’s always a temptation. So also, we need our neighbors, but we’re always fearful about reaching out to them, whether they might carry the virus or not. We crave community, but shame and anxiety are always telling us we’ll be rejected. Then we don’t like how things are but we feel powerless to do anything about it. Even without the voluntary quarantine, the well is the place that our 21st Century was already driving us towards because social distancing isn’t anything new. Neither is it anything new for the future to feel so uncertain, nor is it a new feeling to feel like we must walk the lonesome valley by ourselves. Only wait and listen. Wait just a minute, for along comes Jesus saying, “Give me a drink.” For her, after that request, a theological discussion ensued. What their discussion came down to was that the Lord told the woman he knew who she was. He wasn’t talking with her because he was naïve. He knew where she had been, what she’d done, and how many men she’d been married to. He told her that he knew how she worshiped at the wrong place and was looking for salvation in the wrong places. She couldn’t hide anything from the people of her community because they already knew, and this new guy knew it all and went to her any way. It wasn’t because he was ignorant that he spoke to her. It was because he was different. Then she said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes he will proclaim all things to us.” Having already done that he said, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” After that the woman left her water jar and went back to the city, and listen to what she said, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” You know what changed with that announcement? The woman who had been all alone ran towards the city. The one who had nothing to offer brought her people the greatest news that’s ever been heard. And the Lord who came to the well thirsty, asking for water, never even got a sip. I feel sure that was just fine with Jesus, because he’s never so concerned with his own wellbeing so much as he’s concerned with the wellbeing of our whole world. For the Lord was thirsty, but he’s calling on us to offer to the world a sip of water, and like her we must be convinced that we have any right to do it. That’s why I wrote you last Friday. It’s because her life was changed. She became someone different. Not confined by what the world said about her but transformed by the power of Christ she became, not the one who everyone talked about, but one who changed her entire village by what she had to say. She wasn’t alone. Christ was with her. And she wasn’t powerless, but powerful. The change that happened within this woman at the well reminds me of the words of Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. I heard that quote in a movie Lily and I were watching yesterday morning. Hearing it I was reminded that Jesus is all the time interrupting our solitude, hopelessness, and fear to remind us that our most basic words and most simple efforts bring to the world faith, hope, and love. In these strange times, will you tell his story? Will you live his truth? Amen.

Seeking the Light by Night

Scripture Lessons: Numbers 21: 4-9 and John 3: 1-21 Sermon Title: Seeking the Light by Night Preached on March 8, 2020 This is the first of four Sundays where the Second Scripture Lesson is from the Gospel of John. As you know, each of the four Gospels tells us the same story, that of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, just in slightly different ways. The Gospel of John offers us a beautiful perspective all its own with developed characters like Nicodemus in today’s Second Scripture Lesson, as well as important but subtle details. For example: Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night. Why would the Gospel of John include this detail? It’s as though we’re meant to ask: Why did he go at night? Why was it that he went, not during the day when people would have seen him, but at night, when people wouldn’t have noticed? This detail is important, and it makes me think how people often do things at night that they would rather not be caught doing during the day. Now, what we do in private is not necessarily bad. Think about it. What do you do in private that you’re too self-conscious to do in the light of day? How many sing in the shower, but not in the choir? How many painters are among us who would have to be forced to put their artwork on the cover of the bulletin, not for lack of talent, but for some other reason. How many of you only paint or sing or dance when no one is looking? How many students only ask questions of the teacher once the class has left the room? How many are glad to talk about sports, economics, or movies with whomever, but will only speak of matters of the heart in private with those whom they trust? Nicodemus went to see Jesus at night. He wouldn’t have told his wife where he was going. He waited until he could just slip away. Why? Why was it at night that he went to see the Lord? The answer is there in Scripture: “Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.” That’s just one sentence but it’s plenty of information. I’ve been asking, why was it that a Pharisee named Nicodemus who was a leader of the Jews went to Jesus at night? That’s just one question which we need to ask. The more precise question is, if he went at night what was it that he stood to lose had someone seen him at the doorstep of the Lord? The answer to that question is obvious when you think about it, for a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews could no more go and see Jesus than an orthopedist could be seen in the office of a chiropractor. How would it look if Lindsey Graham or Lamar Alexander were spotted at a Bernie Sanders rally? It would look about the same as when we were introduced to Segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond’s African American daughter Essie Mae Washington. There are lines drawn to divide society. What we don’t always realize is that those lines often divide our own souls in two. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews, who snuck off to see Jesus, and he had to decide which version of himself would go out in the light of day the following morning. That’s how it is for so many of us. To me, the saddest place in Atlanta is a parking lot that overlooks Piedmont Park. When we were first married, we lived there. We had a small dog in a small apartment on Briarcliff. Sara and I would often take the dog on walks through Piedmont Park and we’d always park in this one parking lot where men sat waiting in their cars. I have an idea what they were waiting for, and I have an idea of the lives that they would leave the parking lot and go back to. They were probably bankers with families and wives. What were they doing in that parking lot then? Well, they were one person in the light of day and another in the shadow. They were one person when people were looking and another when they snuck off by themselves. Who were they truly? That’s one of the great questions of human existence. Another is: what would it take for them to be their shadow selves out in the light of day? You’ve seen that kind of coming out before, often after someone has had a few too many drinks. There’s a Latin expression: In vino veritas. Or “in wine lies the truth.” Another way to say it is, “I’m one drink away from telling everyone what I really think.” Social Scientists tell us that we’re not necessarily more honest because of what we’ve had to drink, we’re just less likely to process the consequences of our being honest. We’re not always honest. No, we’re not always honest with ourselves or our neighbors about who we truly are because our standing in the community sometimes matters more to us than even our own happiness. We worry about what people think, always. We worry about what people will say, most of the time. We worry about being exposed, constantly, because we don’t want to lose our place in our families, our churches, our clubs, or our neighborhoods. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of his people, but he was drawn to the light. He just couldn’t seek it out when people were looking. Why? That’s easy. He didn’t want to jeopardize his standing in the community. He didn’t want to lose his corner office, his pension fund, or his membership at the Pharisee Country Club with the best golf course that overlooks the Jordan River. It was at night then that he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Was that good enough? Was that honest enough? By saying this was he stepping out of the shadow enough to benefit from his proximity to the light? Maybe. Maybe not. Do you remember that movie, Dead Poets Society? It’s a great teacher movie. The teacher, Robin Williams, is the hero. I like it when the teacher is the hero. I prefer when the preacher is the hero, but I’m glad when the teacher is. What’s funny about this movie is that during the day the students at this school wear ties and jackets because they go to a fancy, all boys, private, boarding school where they are being prepared to live as upstanding socialites. A few of them, at night, sneak out of their dorms to read poetry. You can think of all kinds of things boys at a boarding school might sneak out at night to do, but this group sneaks out to read poetry. That’s what they did, and feeling some level of liberation from this experience, one of the members of the Dead Poet’s Society takes things farther than the rest of them. He doesn’t just read poetry at night while preparing to be like his father during the day. He wants to be who he is at night all the time and tries out for a play knowing that his father, who forbid his passion for acting, might find out. That’s a risky thing for a young man to do. It was. And this young man, in perusing this one thing, depending on how you look at it either lost everything or gained everything. Nicodemus was the same but he wasn’t a young man. On the cover of your bulletin is this perfect original painting of Nicodemus by our own Jeff Surace. In it, Nicodemus is an old man with a beard. He is as I imagine he was at the time of our Second Scripture Lesson. That’s the probable reality of the situation: an old man, experienced, respected, upstanding in the eyes of his people, sneaking out of his house to glimpse the light of the world. What that was costing him? Possibly everything. So, when Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” it must have made perfect sense while being completely confusing. Born. Did he say born? Nicodemus can’t again be born, can he? Nicodemus asked him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Every mother who ever read this has always thought: “Oh gosh I hope not.” But that’s not what Jesus means. This isn’t like the first time you were born, because it’s not the mother who’s in pain this time. It’s the child. The child who must be ready to step out into the light leaving behind his honors and titles, security and high standing, to become again like an infant dependent on the grace of his Savior. Counting the cost, Nicodemus had to ask, “How can these things be?” So, Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these [most basic] things? [Let me teach you something you should know already.] Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” We read about that serpent in the wilderness in our First Scripture Lesson. Moses had to raise up something that his people might step out from the shadow and be healed. In the same way Christ was willing to be raised up on a Cross himself that his people would live. That they might live finally giving up their relentless pursuit of trying to earn the love of the world, which we will never gain, to accept the love of God, which we don’t have to do anything for. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” There it is. Can you accept it? It’s different, because the world is always telling us what we must do to gain love. The world says that to be loved we must have money, power, status, and acceptance. On the other hand, God is always saying, “You already have it. Stop trying so hard. Just step out into the light.” The Great Reformer, Martin Luther, called that one verse the Gospel in miniature, because this is all you really need to know, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” You’ve heard it before but listen to this: it’s really all about light and darkness. “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light.” Why? Appearances. Power. Control. Because sin is not so different from the Corona virus. It thrives on denial and fear. It grows in the shadow. It thrives when people hide from the light of day. So, I charge you today to step out into the light, for he is everything he says he is and more. And love is yours if you’ll just accept it. Grace is yours. Forgiveness is yours. Just step out into the light and see that what you stand to lose is nothing compared with what you stand to gain. Amen.

From the Mountain to the Valley

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 24: 12-18 and Matthew 17: 1-9 Sermon Title: From the Mountain to the Valley Preached on February 23, 2020 Last week I had the great opportunity to spend some time in Montreat, North Carolina. Montreat was once the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in the South. It’s a special place for a lot of people for several reasons, but it’s special for this church because a lot of us went to either family camp, a youth conference, or some other conference there. Kelly Dewar, Janice Wolfe, and I were in Montreat last week to attend a small conference on Stewardship, but because it was Montreat it was also kind of a Presbyterian reunion. Janice and I were attending the second year of this conference so we were reuniting with the friends we had made last year. Kelly and I both went to Presbyterian College so we were catching up with other graduates of that same school. There were others we knew, and it seemed like even those we didn’t know, we at least knew someone whom they knew. I met Bill Sibley of Greenville, South Carolina, who I didn’t think I knew but then I learned he was married to our former pastor, Dr. Holland’s daughter, so there were all kinds of connections. That kind of connectional, reunion type environment is fun to be in because it feels like a family. And that kind of connectional environment is also a little dangerous, because some people remember things, I’d rather they forget. We were sitting at the dinner table with the Rev. Morgan Hay, pastor in Peachtree City, and her husband Robert. Kelly Dewar and I have known both of them since High School. Robert Hay Jr. now works for the Presbyterian Foundation, a financial institution which serves Presbyterian Churches, but more relevant to us, he is a child of this church. His father, Robert Hay Sr., was the Associate Pastor for Youth here, and if I were to name the top five people who shaped and changed me to become the person I am today, Rev. Robert Hay Sr. would be in that top five. That’s what I was telling the man sitting next to me as a way of explaining how Robert Hay Jr. and I knew each other. Then Robert said, “And if we were to look back on that time and name the top five kids from that youth group who we thought were least likely to become a Presbyterian minister, I’m not saying that Joe would be at the top of that list, but he would certainly be in it.” Like I said, the environment at Montreat kind of feels like family. There are people there who remember what I was like growing up and what I was like in college. In some ways since then I have changed, and it’s wonderful to remember those people who have helped me change. It’s a wonderful thing to have friendships that have lasted through those changes, so I’m thankful that Robert and I, who have known each other since we were teenagers, now can see and respect each other as adults, and the adults we knew then who nurtured us and helped us to grow up, see us now as peers and partners in ministry. That’s a big deal. It’s a gift, because not everyone who knows your past will ever let you live it down and not everyone loves you enough to help you change and really become who God created you to be. Our Scripture Lessons for this morning are all about that kind of change. The kind of change that is infused with profound love. From the beginning of his life, Moses was being shaped and changed by such love. You know the story. I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Even Moses started out as a basket case.” That’s true. He did. Born into a family of enslaved Hebrew people, Moses was placed in a basket by the mother who loved him so much that she made every effort that he be spared from an early death by the hand of his people’s oppressors. He floated down the river in that basket and was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. Through a series of other changes, twists and turns, he became a leader of his people. In today’s first Scripture Lesson he was up on a mountain with God for forty days and forty nights. Maybe you remember that he came down from the mountain changed by this experience as anyone would be. His skin was glowing because of his proximity to the God of love. Only then he had to interact with his people who had not changed for the better but had reverted back to the kind of idol worship they’d learned back in Egypt and wanted Moses to revert along with them. Do you have any friends like that? Friends who love you, only they won’t let you change. Their love drags you down with them. Thinking of Jesus, there was definitely something about him and his destiny that required him to grow and change, which sometimes made the people who loved him nervous in that same way. His family took a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem, but Jesus went missing because he had left his family to spend time with the learned teachers in their court. He needed to be with those teachers because of his love of God, but his biological family wanted him to come with them. All the time that’s how it was. He was coming into his own, changing every day, which sometimes required disappointing or worrying the people who cared about him. That’s life, however. Love changes us. Our journeys require change in us. When we change, sometimes the people who love us have to change along with us, and today is all about that kind of love. Today is Transfiguration Sunday. It’s the last Sunday of the Church Year before Lent begins on Wednesday. It’s a Sunday when everything changes for Jesus. He begins to look toward Jerusalem and his death. Before he does his disciples can see that something has changed. That God has changed him, and our bulletin cover illustrates it, but what does transfiguration mean? That prefix, “trans,” is a loaded one. Transfiguration, transformation, transubstantiation, there are all kinds of things that change right before our eyes in miraculous ways. The guidance from Scripture regarding change is this: love changes us, and if it’s love that changes us then go with it. Let me tell you what I mean. The Second Scripture Lesson we just read from the Gospel of Matthew tells of how Jesus walked up that mountain seeming to his disciples as fully human. Then at the top he proved himself fully divine. He was transfigured before them. In the case of Jesus this was so dramatic a change that it terrified the disciples who saw it. That’s understandable because every time someone changes before our eyes we treat it with awe and wonder, but also fear for what that change is going to mean. It’s Peter who I focus on in this Second Scripture Lesson. I love Peter. I’m sure you do too. It’s clear that he loves Jesus, but he also is very human, which makes him endearing. You remember how he walked out on the water but started to sink. Later he promised that he would never betray Jesus, but he denied him three times. Peter must have loved Jesus, because once he put it all together: that his friend Jesus really would go from that mountain top down into the valley where he would meet his death, he offered to build three dwellings, one for Jesus, one of Moses, one for Elijah. Why? Because Peter wanted to keep Jesus there. In seeing Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah Peter realized that this friend of his was far more than a normal prophet or teacher. In fact, he had been walking around with the very Son of God who had been one thing but now would become another. He would not just be preaching sermons and healing the sick. He would also be crushed under the harsh fist of Rome that he might rise again concurring sin and death. If that was his destiny you can understand why Peter wouldn’t want him to go through with it. Because Jesus was his friend you can understand why Peter wanted to keep Jesus in one of those dwellings where he could try and slow down some of the changes that were taking place. I imagine he was feeling like the mother who watches her son go off to college, knowing that when he comes back, he’s going to talk different, he’ll have new ideas in his head, and maybe he’ll even be embarrassed of the Appalachian home he was raised in. “Maybe you should just stay here,” she says. Or like the girl who hears that a boy wants to ask her twin sister to the dance but doesn’t yet have a date herself and fears her twin will move on without her. “Maybe we should just stay home and watch a movie instead of going to the dance,” she says. No one wants to lose their son, their sister, or their friend when change comes to them. That’s why we used to write in each other’s yearbooks, “don’t ever change.” We wrote that because sometimes love means wanting everything to stay the same. “Can’t we just stay here Jesus? I’ll build three dwellings. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” That’s the feeling parents feel when they want kids to stay where they are and as they are, close by, little, and safe. No one wants their kids getting too big for their britches. Do they? Or better yet, no parent wants their kids getting hurt. That sounds a lot like love. I saw a scene on a TV show on Netflix about teenagers that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. One of the teenagers realized that he’s not like his friends at school. He’s never felt exactly like the other boys he knew. In fact, he’s not sure exactly who he is. Still, he wants to go to the school dance and he wants to wear a head dress like the one his West African mother wears to church, along with eye liner and lip stick. Walking out the door dressed this way his father clearly doesn’t want him to go to the dance. Still his son rushed out. His father rushes toward him and says, “I don’t want you to go like this because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt.” His son says, “But dad, this is who I am.” The father must decide what to do. What would love have him do in this world full of change and transformation, hatred and fear? After a pregnant pause the father finally says, “How is it that my son could be so brave?” Was Jesus brave? Yes. Was he loving? Yes. Was it love for God and his people that caused him to change up on that mountain top and to come down from it ready to face his death? Absolutely. “Why can’t we just stay here Jesus? I’ll build three dwelling places, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter asked. Why can’t we stay here? We all ask. It’s because sometimes love demands that we change, and if it’s love that’s calling us to be transformed than we must be bold to listen. I enjoyed so much an article that came from Dr. Nelson Price this morning in the paper. Dr. Price was quoting all the statistical data on demographic changes in our county. We are more diverse than ever, but less religious. Why? 1.4% of our county is Presbyterian. And I bet most of them only come to church on Christmas and Easter. Why is that? Is it because God has called us down from the mountain and into the valley that we might make his love for all people plain, but we still busy ourselves building dwelling places? Could it be that God calls us to be shaped and changed by love, but we resist it? Could it be that love is transforming us, but we want to stay the same? If so, we have a friend in Peter, but like him, we must listen to the voice of God. According to Dr. Price, “change is the only constant in life,” and according to my father-in-law, it was love which transfigured Jesus, and it is love which must transfigure us. Even if it’s in the valley that he will be beaten and nailed to a cross. Still Christ went and we must go. Why? Because “Love is being committed to the growth of another.” That’s how a man named Bob, who led our conference defined it, and I think he’s right. While sometimes love looks like being committed to making sure that nothing ever changes, no one ever gets hurt, and the one we love stays right by our side that’s not always love. Sometimes that’s control. Today is Transfiguration Sunday. I’ve seen transfiguring love. I saw it in my mother on the day she dropped me off at college. She left all of a sudden saying, “If I stay another moment I’m going to start crying and I don’t know when I’ll stop, so I’m leaving.” I’ve seen it in a husband whose heart was breaking as he told his suffering wife it was OK for her to go. I’ve seen it in Jesus who went down from the mountain to the valley that you and I might live. Amen.

Choose Life

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 and Matthew 5: 21-37 Sermon Title: Choose Life Preached on February 16, 2020 Scripture is easy to misunderstand. I don’t understand a lot of the Bible, but there are parts that I do understand, other parts that I’m trying to understand, but there are many who misunderstand most of it and that’s probably because misunderstanding is easy to do. It might be easier to misunderstand than it is to understand. That’s how it is with people, so why not with Scripture? When we encounter strong moral admonitions like that of the two Scripture Lessons we’ve just read, it’s possible to misunderstand the intention of our Father in Heaven just as children misunderstand the intentions of their parents on earth. Parents, has it ever been the case for you, that when attempting to save your children from harm, self-inflicted or otherwise, they’ve reacted as though you were not trying to save them at all, but instead, as though you were trying to ruin their lives? Last Sunday afternoon we were on the way to the Cub Scout Troop 252 Blue and Gold Banquet. That’s an annual event for our Scout troop which celebrates the birth of scouting. Because our Scout Troop, like many others, has gone co-ed, our 8-year-old daughter Cece has joined the troop that both my brother and I were in, and which our father, Cece’s grandfather served as a leader. While Sara went to the grocery store, I took both girls to the Blue and Gold Banquet along with our covered dish, but coming out of the house they beat me to the car. Locking the door to the house then walking towards the car I could see that Lily, who is now old enough to sit in the front seat, was there in the front seat, already buckled, and when I opened the door, I found Cece, though only 8-years-old, in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t see her until I opened the door because she was lying down so that her feet could reach the pedals. From that position she said, “Daddy, I’m tall enough to reach the peddles. Why don’t you let me drive us to the church?” That’s a fair question. I responded with a couple fair answers: 1. Because you don’t know how to drive 2. Because if you’re laying down in the driver’s seat to touch the pedals you can’t see over the steering wheel 3. Because you don’t have a driver’s license and so it’s illegal for you to drive the car These are only three of the logical reasons why I couldn’t allow Cece to drive us to the Blue and Gold Banquet. A more emotional one: Because I love you and don’t want you to wreak this car and get hurt. Regardless, my logic was met with complete and utter indignation by both of them. Our children reacted to me as though I had suddenly mandated that no children in the Evans household would ever be allowed to eat, smile, or drink water again. Though I was standing on the moral high ground they lashed out at me, saying: “Gosh Dad! You never let us do anything!” Consider that experience and reflect for a moment on your relationship with God. Or think for a moment about someone else’s relationship with God. It is a common thing to begin our prayers, “Our Father,” and so also, it is a common thing for us and many others to encounter God’s law with the same indignation as children to their parents. “Why should I let God tell me what to do,” some say, as though the Father’s intention were to keep us from happiness or fun rather than ensure that we enjoy the benefits of an abundant life. Too many have rejected the Church because they believe that a life of fulfilment will be found outside of it, and too many inside the Church validate such an assumption by living miserable lives that no sane person would ever want to imitate. Last Sunday Jesi Allers preached a beautiful and vulnerable sermon on Jesus’ command that we be salt and light. I remember talking with my barber about the passage as few years ago. He told me that salt is good so we need to be salt. “Without it, food tastes boring, and I sure have been to some boring churches.” Why would Jesus tell us to be salt? Why would Moses tell us that in God’s law is life? Then considering today’s Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew: why would Jesus call us to watch, not just our actions but our thoughts? Some say it’s because God doesn’t want us to have any fun, but I say it’s because God wants us to choose life and not death. The Choir just sang so beautifully: “If you love him, keep his commandments,” but don’t forget, it’s because He loves us that He gave them. God’s intention in giving us rules to live by is not to rain on our parade but is simply to ensure that we avoid hurting ourselves and the people around us. God gives commands for the same reason that loving parents stop their 8-year-olds from driving the car. It is for love that God does it. Still, so many, when reading a list of moral admonitions like the ones we’ve just read from the Gospel of Matthew, would say, “Why follow those rules? I’d rather live a little!” Live a little? As though a life of sin were a life of freedom. As though a life indulging the flesh led to fulfillment. As though breaking the rules insured happiness, when in fact, to quote the worst hymn to sing but my favorite one to quote: We are not free when we’re confined to every wish that sweeps the mind, but free when freely we accept the sacred bounds that must be kept. And what are those sacred bounds? We just read them. These moral admonitions from the very mouth of our Lord do not abolish the law but fulfil it. His word for us today is one that requires self-examination, change, and repentance, for Christ does not just call us to refrain from murder, but even the thought of it! It’s true. He does. Is there forgiveness in our Lord? Of course. Is there love? Absolutely. In him is all compassion and goodness, for he is one who loves us too much to allow us to stay as we are. As he opens the car door of our inner thoughts to see us trying to drive without seeing over the steering wheel of our lives he says simply, “Get out of the front seat and listen to what I have to say.” “Your thoughts are dangerous,” he says. That’s the point of this entire Second Scripture Lesson, and when we really think about it, we know he’s right. They are. Our thoughts are dangerous. I’ve been using an app on my phone to meditate every morning. In addition to reading a short devotional, then praying through my personal list and the list that Rev. Joe Brice provides, I use this guided meditation app to spend time in the presence of God in quiet for too often my prayers are too much talking and not enough listening. The guided meditation suggested to me last week that I notice my thoughts, then label them. That I think about what I’m thinking about. That’s a strange concept, but it’s helped me. If I’m at home and my mind has wandered, just noticing what that thought was about tells me something. So, I ask myself, was that thought about my children, my wife, my parents, or much more likely, my church? In labeling my thoughts I begin to notice where my mind is, for my mind is not always in the same place as my body, nor are my thoughts always bringing me closer to the people right beside me. I was thinking about changing the title to this sermon to more accurately reflect what I’m trying to say this morning, and so I came up with the alternative title: “your phone is from the devil.” I don’t really think that. Not exactly anyway. Because your phone, like so many other things: money, guns, anger, sex – can be used for good or for evil, depending on how you use it. The intention of course is to provide connection, and indeed it does. Because of technology and the power of the internet our worship service reaches all the way to our friend Kay and her family in Australia, but sitting next to my wife on the couch, my phone can also take me right back to my study at the church, it can distract me from my family with Facebook where bridges are burnt between me and all my Facebook friends once I learn how they really think, it can threaten my most important relationships because my phone can take me anywhere and it can show me anything. Be careful with that thing. Why? Because if you’re mad at someone you need to go and tell them why your mad, you don’t need to vent on Facebook. God created us to love and put us in relationships. God gave us feelings of attraction, sexual and otherwise, and if you get used to watching other people through pornography you won’t be able to do it right with the person who you’re supposed to be doing it with. What did Jesus say? He quoted Moses and the Law. Moses said, “You shall not murder.” Good. Don’t. But don’t think about murdering people all day either because hate will rot you out from the inside. Moses said, “Don’t commit adultery,” and he was right. Don’t. But thinking about adultery all day is going to mess you up too. Then, “it was also said, ‘whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” OK, but if you think you can end a relationship with a piece of paper then you’re crazy, because the hate you feel towards him or the resentment you feel towards her will still hurt your kids even after the separation. They can feel it. Watch your thoughts. But have you ever been afraid that God was watching them? I have. And whether you think of God as a loving father or a judgmental one matters tremendously in this way, for whether God wants to help us change that we’d have joy or wants to see our thoughts so that He can judge us and reject us makes all the difference in the world. Know this then: Jesus isn’t talking about thoughts because he’s a member of the thought police. Jesus isn’t calling us to look inside our heads so we’ll be consumed by guilt or shame. Jesus doesn’t call us to monitor what we’re thinking so we’ll know whether we are among the righteous or the unrighteous. Instead, he gives us these instructions because the choice is always ours: abundant life or death and like Moses, he calls us to choose life. Stop worrying about what other people are doing and recognize where your thoughts are leading you. Just stop. That’s what this is about. Just stop hating, lusting, gossiping, coveting, and being jealous, and live. So often our society points fingers at the ones who dance during the Super Bowl. Don’t worry about how they dance or what they wear. They can’t hurt you. Worry about the thoughts in your head, because they can. It’s time to stop worrying about who can go in which bathroom and what happens in other people’s bedrooms, because Christ calls us to consider what happens in our own bathrooms, our own bedrooms, and in between our own ears. Everyone knows that the grown-ups in Washington can’t get along, but don’t worry so much about it that you fail to worry about how what you say about them is affecting your relationship with your friends and your family. What matters so much to Jesus here is how we get along with the people we actually know, not how we view the people we see on TV. “I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement… So, when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift and go; be reconciled [!]” And if you do, you will live. Choose life. Amen.

Leaving Father Zebedee

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 9: 1-4 and Matthew 4: 12-23 Sermon title: “Leaving Father Zebedee” Preached on January 26, 2020 There are several good questions to ask when you first read this Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew. I think the first one that I ask is, “what was it about Jesus?” These four fishermen – they just stopped and followed. How did they know it was him? How did they know Jesus was someone who was worth following? There are some good explanations. We’re not unfamiliar with the leadership quality called “command presence.” Command presence is this quality, a quality that’s not easy to define exactly – it’s one of those “you know it when you see it” things. Looking back at history - George Washington must have had it. As a man over six feet tall in the late 18th Century he was always the tallest man in the room. He was known to be the best horsemen as well, and when he barked an order most people fell in line – he had command presence. The same could be said of others like General Patton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Jim Speed, or my wife Sara Evans. What was it about Jesus? Was he tall? Was he commanding? Could he persuade a crowd with the truth of his words and the sound of his voice? Dr. Roger Nishioka thinks that it’s something more than that when it comes to Jesus. He was a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary while I was there. He’s a big name in the Presbyterian Church, and in a commentary on this passage Dr. Nishioka quoted his father who said, “We are imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a lifetime, we will find each other.” What was it then about Jesus? According to Nishioka it is like those newborn baby seals numbering in the hundreds or the thousands on a single beach, these beaches are packed with all these baby seals who all look alike, but as their mothers return from the ocean with their catch the pups find the mothers or the mothers find their pups because from the moment of birth, “the sound and scent of the pup are imprinted in the mother’s memory, and the sound and scent of the mother are imprinted in the pup’s.” Could it be then that even before we are born we are imprinted with the memory of God, so that when we hear his voice we just know to follow? I think that must be how it is, and so, St. Augustine was so bold to write at the beginning of his Confession that “Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.” For him, even while his childhood and young adulthood was spent wandering so far that he was at first rendered ineligible for baptism for they said, “He was a great sinner for so small a boy” – still Augustine found no satisfaction in the pleasures of the world, but only found peace by resting in the Lord, for when we hear his voice we hear the call of home. Or to put it as GK Chesterton does in his great poem of Christ’s birth in the manger: There fared a mother driven forth Out of an inn to roam; In the place where she was homeless All men are at home. For men are homesick in their homes, And strangers under the sun, And they lay their heads in a foreign land Whenever the day is done. To an open house in the evening Home shall men come, To an older place than Eden And a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star, To the things that cannot be and that are, To the place where God was homeless And all men are at home. What then did these fishermen see in Jesus as he wandered up the beach? What did they sense in his demeaner? What did they hear in his voice? They heard a voice they had always known but couldn’t place and they saw a man they recognized but whose name they could not remember, for they had always known him and yet they hadn’t met and they knew to follow though they could not have told you why. The words of the Prophet Isaiah that made up our 1st Scripture Lesson is quoted again in the 2nd claiming that seeing him is as “the people who sat in darkness” seeing a great light – “for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” That was Jesus you see, and when you’ve seen him and when you’ve heard him you just know. Meeting him is like looking into the eyes of your new born child – she’s breathing her first breaths and yet you recognize her face somehow. You don’t need explanation – for the truth isn’t so hard to recognize when you hear it. It’s like water to the thirsty, like water to the thirsty who didn’t even know that they were thirsty, for in him is the satisfaction for our deepest need. Bind our wandering hearts to thee, we sing, because our hearts find no rest until they rest in him for we are imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a lifetime, we will find each other and when we do we will finally be at home. He found those four…. and they followed. Perhaps this is where there is sometimes a difference between them and us. I want to argue that we would have known it was him as they did, because the imprint of our creator is inside us just as it was inside them. We know his voice when we hear it, but the question is: would we have followed? It’s not whether we would have recognized him. You would have and so would I, but would we have followed? Think for a moment about what these fishermen had to leave behind. In becoming his first disciples, what were they willing to give up? Verse 18: “As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” What were they willing to give up? What did they leave behind? Their nets, their livelihood, all that they had known, their trade, their heritage, their people, their home, their family – and poor old father Zebedee is left in that boat. I say that when you hear the voice of God you know it, but are we able to get up and follow? That’s a big part of the challenge of being a Christian today – preachers like me make it too easy. Someone will ask me what are the requirements of church membership and I’m just so glad they’re interested I don’t ask them to do a thing – “Just join the church, please!”. But here’s the truth – if you want a new life in Christ, you must leave the old life behind. In Chapter 10 of Matthew Jesus says it himself, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” What then is the cost of discipleship – what do you have to give up to really follow him? Back in Tennessee, in an African Methodist Episcopal Church we sang about it once. The Presbyterian Church I served there started a relationship with Bethel Chapel AME and for our third joint worship service, the service began with a song that was easy to learn but profound in its message. It went like this: Victory is mine Victory is mine Victory today is mine. I’ll tell Satan Get thee behind Victory today is mine. We sang that until we got it. It took the Presbyterian a little while, but we got it. When we did the Music Director at Bethel Chapel AME changed the words a little bit and we sang: Happiness is mine Happiness is mine Happiness today is mine The part of this hymn that I want to emphasize here which struck me so profoundly is that for happiness to be mine I must “tell Satan, get thee behind.” To inherit the gifts of God To have the joy he intends To follow where he leads, we must leave our nets, leave our old life, maybe even leave our father behind because even the people we love can hold us back from enjoying the majesty of New Life. What becomes clear from this passage from the Gospel of Matthew is that recognizing Jesus is one thing but leaving behind what must be left is another. And perhaps, when you consider how clear Jesus is about the cost, how upfront this story is about what must be left behind, you’ll see that those who are worth following never gloss over the fine print. You remember well the words: “It’s not what this country can do for you – it’s what you can do for this country.” There’s a cost. “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” That’s a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He died in a Nazi Concentration Camp. Why? Because following Jesus is risky. Going along with the crowd is not discipleship. Falling in line with the powers that be is not the same as obedience to the Gospel, for the one we follow was tried, condemned, and crucified by those who would rather maintain their power than hear the truth. This religion of ours; it costs something. Joy is the Father’s intention, but to have it some things must be left behind. What have you been asked to leave behind? Nets. Fathers. Bad habits. Old dreams. Hatred, hypocrisy, appearances, ego, or public opinion. Whatever it is and no matter how hard it is to let go, know this – “this present time [is] not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” So, do not cling too tightly to the present, to what you have, for we have been called by the Savior to something better. Go tell Satan, “get thee behind” for I have heard his voice and I want to follow where he leads. Amen.

Getting Out of the Way

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 49: 1-7 and John 1: 29-42 Sermon Title: Getting Out of the Way Preached on January 19, 2020 Last Thursday afternoon I saw something remarkable. Remarkable things happen and I’m thankful when I notice them. Our daughter Lily was the one who pointed this one out. We were walking with her friend Julia, leaving the church after helping out at Club 3:30, our afterschool program. Once she pointed it out, we all stopped dead in our tracks because walking across the Harris Hines Memorial Bridge was a pink dog. That’s right. A pink dog. The woman walking the dog saw us gawking but just kept strolling normally as though she were walking a normal dog. She wasn’t. That dog was pink, and we caught up to her to ask her about it. Once we caught up, we could tell that this pink dog belongs to Maggie, daughter of Janet Lewis. Maggie just wanted to give her dog a pink mohawk, only the dog moved while she was dying it so Maggie ended up dying her whole dog pink, which is something that never once occurred to me to do. I’ve never thought of dying my dog’s hair, but Maggie has. Isn’t that remarkable? It’s so important to stop and notice when you see something remarkable. The most remarkable sight that anyone has ever seen walked up to John the Baptist and John the Baptist stopped to notice. Last Sunday we focused on John the Baptist just as we do today, but this week is different. Last week we read a Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew that described John’s willingness to step forward to baptize Jesus. John hesitated, not feeling worthy of baptizing Jesus. In stepping forward and answering the call to baptize the Lord in the Jordan, John models a courage that we need to have too for God calls on us all to step forward. However, while John the Baptist had the courage to step forward even though he felt unworthy, what we see in today’s Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of John is that he also had the wisdom to step back in awe and wonder. Last week he stepped forward to do something. This week he gets out of the way. We must be able to do both possessing the wisdom to know which we should do at any given time. Not everyone has that kind of wisdom, but people must know how to step back. If they don’t, they can be very annoying to be around. There are some people in this world who don’t know when to step forward to speak, but at the same time there are plenty of people who don’t know when to stop talking. There are some people in this world who never try, but there are plenty of other people who try too hard. There are some people in this world who don’t know how to accept praise, who have no capacity to receive a compliment, but there are so many others who never step back to give others their due, serving as the president of their own fan club, wanting all the good news to be about them. Do you know anyone like that? Of course you do, because while there are people who have trouble stepping forward, there are others who don’t know how to step back, so consider John again today. Last Sunday we saw how he stepped up to ministry when he was called on. Today we see that he also steps back for when he saw Jesus coming toward him, he points away from himself to declare: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” In thinking about John’s example now for two weeks in a row I realize that I don’t always have the courage or the nerve to step forward. Neither do I always have the wisdom or humility to step back. A funny thing about being a preacher is that you stand at the door as everyone leaves the service. The reason we do this is to greet you, the members of the congregation, and to connect with you as your pastors. An added bonus is that we also become those who receive all the compliments. You are such a gracious group of people, and you so generously tell me when the choir sang so beautifully, when the flowers looked just perfect, even when the floors are clean. Regardless of whom should receive the compliment I am often the one who receives them. Do you know what I always say? “Thank you.” I guess there’s nothing else I could say. Only consider for a moment just how many hands go into crafting this worship service. Someone must print the bulletins, another hands them out. There are speakers and microphones which have been maintained and controlled from up in the sound booth. Music is played on the organ, prayers have been written and proofread, hymns sung. There are too many parts of this worship service for any one person to take credit for. Plus, all of what goes on here is empty without the Holy Spirit, yet I am the one who says, “Thank you.” That doesn’t make any sense; however, this is so often the way it is. Consider all the people you know who never step back to thank those whose shoulders they stand on. How many quarterbacks bask in the limelight without thanking those who blocked for them? How many dig into their meal without giving thanks to God from whom all blessings flow and for the hands who prepared the food? How many hours in a day do we spend looking at our phones when pink dogs are walking by? We wake up to scarlet sunrises. We sleep under a galaxy of stars, and still some spend so much time navel gazing that they would have failed to take notice of even “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” I’m as guilty as anybody. The church I served in Lilburn was facing a financial crisis, which they emerged from. They went from a massive forecasted budget deficit to a large financial surplus. When I left that church for First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, TN, a former college president, Dr. Herold Pryor had heard this story from my resume. At a meet and greet with the entire congregation present he asked me down in the Fellowship Hall what I had done to achieve such a success. Sarcastically I said, “well, I’m a financial genius.” Of course, that isn’t true. I’m not a financial genius. Still, it was on my resume because it’s hard to explain when the God of miracles acts and it’s easy for humans to take the credit. We all want to be the somebody who can fix it or did fix it. We see problems and we pressure leaders to do something about them. If a leader of this country were to say, “Well, I’ve prayed about unemployment and I trust that God will do something about it” she’d never get elected because it seems passive to step back and point to the heavens. No one wants to admit that they can’t do it. No wants to admit that they can’t help. For we’re all the time pretending we have it all together, so it’s time we learned from John that having it all together is not what’s required. I think about the Rev. Billy Graham. You know he preached across the country and the world asking us to do this one thing: “Will you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” Who knows how many lives he changed just by asking this one question? Who knows how many faced their end without fear because of their answer? But we must not think for a minute that this is a simple request, for acknowledging Christ as Lord and Savior requires accepting that we cannot save ourselves. That’s a hard thing to do. Don’t think it’s not, for we all fall into the trap of believing that we’re doing pretty well on our own. That we just need to work a little bit harder. That we can hold it all together if we just wake up a little earlier. So, listen to this. Someone once asked Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, who was a Presbyterian, if she’d ever considered divorce. She said, “Oh no. Absolutely not. However, I’ve often considered murder.” That’s a funny story, but I tell it because it’s also a liberating one. Don’t look to the mere mortal. Look to the One all the great preachers, mere mortals themselves, have pointed towards, because everyone is need of His grace. Everyone. That Prayer of Confession in your bulletin: do you know who it comes from? Me. Do you know where I gain inspiration for those prayer? My sin. So maybe some of these prayers don’t all fit your life, but don’t go through that thing like a checklist. Because these are my confessions, I worry that they don’t always fit your life, only don’t look at that prayer and think through it like this: Together we prayed: We confess that we have not sought your face, but I worry that someone might have added to their prayer, “well God, maybe Joe hasn’t but I’ve been seeking your face.” Then we continued Focused on ourselves we look past your presence and the needs of others, and maybe someone looked heavenward self-satisfied saying, “All good there.” Then finally the prayer continued, Rather than sing the praise of our redeemer, we take center stage. Did any of you pray, “Lord, I’m good here too, but we have some work to do on our preacher”? Some of us read through the prayer of confession on Sunday morning and use it as a nice, weekly, internal audit. Only that’s not the point, because while we all want to be good, while we all want to be innocent, the prayer of confession invites us to face our faults so that we can receive his grace. That’s the truth. I know doing so is a lot to ask. We don’t want to ask for help. No one does. No one likes the truth that we are broken and need His healing. We like to teach and don’t want to be taught. Knowing how stubborn we can all be, recognize the strength it took for John the Baptist who “saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”” It’s not me. It’s him. I can’t do it, but he can. I cannot hold it together, and here is one who holds the whole world in his hands. I am not good, but he is so good. A counselor once said it to me this way: sometimes we must stop trying to fill our own cup, to see that he has already filled it. We must step back from our problems to see him answer our prayers. We struggle to be worthy, because we want to be loved but step back, because you are already. Get out of the way and allow him to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Amen.

Called But Not Qualified

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 42: 1-9 and Matthew 3: 13-17 Sermon Title: Called but not Qualified Preached on January 12, 2020 Last Thursday was a special night for me. Having been nominated by Jim Kerr, I was honored to be named among the top twenty under 40 in Cobb County. They gave me a fancy glass trophy and had me walk across the stage, while several members of our congregation who were in attendance cheered, which made me feel very special. But as the other names were called and all their accomplishments were listed, I started to feel a little out of place. At the end of the ceremony before cocktails on the roof of the Strand Theater, I bumped into Trevor Beemon, executive director of Cobb Landmarks and the William Root House and also one of the 20 under 40. We agreed that we both felt like imposters. “I mean, a guy who was on TV on The Voice was up there,” he said, noting that we had been grouped with truly incredible people. Well, I ran into that guy who was on The Voice in the stair well. I told him I was honored to be included in this group with him, and he said, “Oh man. I felt so out of place. I had to go up on the stage right after that lady who is the South-East’s top building contractor, who also happens to be a helicopter commander. I’m just a singer!” That made me feel better, because I guess, we all feel unworthy at times. Look at John the Baptist. Our Scripture Lesson begins: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” The author of the book of Matthew tells us that John would have prevented him, and I can understand that because getting called on by God to do something so incredible is a terrifying thing. Being called on by God to do anything important is terrifying, because it makes us all, even John the Baptist, feel unworthy. I’ll never forget how our neighbor back in Tennessee, a great Episcopalian named Kile Patrick, called his wife Connie just to say, “I just had the most incredible thought. If my cell phone rang and the caller ID said that it was God calling, would I pick up?” Not everybody would. Not everybody does. Think about it. Isn’t it an overwhelming thought that God would call on you or me to do something for him? So, just about every time it happens the one who’s called on hesitates. The Lord appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush and Moses says: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh.” The Lord woke young Jeremiah from sleep in the Temple and Jeremiah says: “Wait a minute. I am only a boy.” The Lord calls Isaiah and Isaiah says: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” The phone rings and God is calling but not many people are ready to pick it up so also Jesus came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him, and John would have prevented him asking, “who am I to be baptized by you?” Isn’t that what we all ask? Who am I to serve the church as an Elder? Who am I to be a Deacon? Who am I to teach? Who am I to comfort those who mourn? Who am I to preach? How do any of us respond to the honor of being called, and yet we must play our part for Christianity is not a spectator sport, though sometimes we treat it like it is. Sometimes we walk into this sanctuary, and because there are seats out there, there’s a platform up here, it’s easy to fall into the misconception that this place is something like a theater. In a theater, there are three basic stations, there are three basic roles. There’s the audience, the actors on the stage and then there’s the director who is back behind the curtain. That’s true in so many places we go. At a dance recital, there are the dancers on the stage, the instructors are behind the curtain helping them along, and the parents and grandparents are loving every minute of it in the audience. But this sanctuary is different. Every Church is different, because when we are bold to see God at work and when we are courageous enough to answer the call, the whole world is different. According to the great Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, in the sanctuary God is the audience, you are the ones on stage, and it is the job of those of us who stand up here to direct you in your performance of praise and worship. How then is it if someone falls asleep in the back? To God it is the same as if a dancer fell asleep on stage. Christianity, like life, is not a spectator sport, though some treat it as though it were. Some are called on but don’t pick up the phone. They don’t feel worthy, they don’t feel able, they don’t have the time, though the Lord calls on humans to take on divine work just as Jesus called on John at the Jordan. John doesn’t feel worthy to do so. Neither do I. We sing to worship God in here, but why would God want to hear us sing? It sounds strange that God would need our voices, maybe because we don’t know that God uses them, but let me tell you something, God does. I was at a funeral last Thursday. Many of you were there too. Our choir sang. At the reception Mayor Tumlin walked up to me and he said, “That choir is amazing. And to think that all those people would show up to sing on a Thursday at 2:00.” Why did they do that? Maybe some of them asked themselves the same question: “Why should I show up to sing when there is work to do, and laundry to fold, and what difference will it make any way?” These are the questions that we ask, while God calls us to lift up our voices because it is the music which points to the truth that we cannot comprehend. It is the choir who lifts up the faint hearted. For the presence of mere mortals brings comfort to the broken hearted. Do you know that? It’s true. God calls us. God uses us. But like John we hesitate, saying, “I’m not worthy.” Take heart then, because God doesn’t call perfect people. God doesn’t call the qualified. God qualifies the called. Christianity, like life, is no spectator sport, and just as Jesus called on John to baptize him in the Jordan, so also you and I are called on every single time a baby is baptized here. You are not to watch as I sprinkle that water on her head – you are to participate, making promises to everyone who is baptized here “to receive the child into the life of the church” and to “support and encourage her through prayer and example to be faithful in Christian Discipleship.” You and I have been called because we have a job to do. Now that I’ve explained it this way you might be thinking what John was thinking and wishing that you hadn’t made the promises that you made, but hear what Jesus said to John, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Isn’t it a miracle, an amazing miracle, that all righteousness is fulfilled with the help of a human’s hands? That a church is called on to teach a child about the grace of God? This is God’s way – the divine inviting the human, not to stand by and watch, but to play a part. Consider for just a moment how many human beings played their part in loving you so that you became the person you are today. I was standing there with Mayor Tumlin as he was celebrating our choir. Then he noticed Victoria Chastain standing there handing out glasses of water. “Is that the kind of job I have to look forward to as an ex-mayor of the city of Marietta?” he asked. They both laughed and across the room a woman looked at me and walked over. She looked me in the eye and said, “Can you remember who I am?” I said, “Of course I can. You’re Mrs. Peterson! My teacher!” She said, “Well, yes, but it’s Mrs. Pickett.” And I said, “Of course, Mrs. Pickett, my third-grade teacher.” She said, “Well, it was fifth grade, but yes.” We talked for a while, and she told me she wished she could go dig up some of the things I wrote when I was in her class at Hickory Hills Elementary school, and the thing I wanted to say but couldn’t is that she loved how I wrote and I remember. She bound up our writing in little books, and she asked me to read mine to the whole school at an assembly. My book was called the Swamp Monster, and she loved it, and it made me feel so good that my teacher loved it. My parents meant to be there when I read it to the school, but they got mixed up about the time, and when I cried because they weren’t there Mrs. Pickett gave me a hug and it meant the whole world. Or it might have been my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Peterson. Regardless, my point is this: there are people who made all the difference to me. Some of them are here right now, because God uses mortals to participate in the divine story that is changing us and the world. Jesus called on John to baptize him in the Jordan, just as he calls on you, just as he calls on me. We may not be qualified, but we are called, so say yes. Amen.