The Darkness Did Not Overcome It

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 52: 7-10 and John 1: 1-14 Sermon title: The Darkness Did Not Overcome It Preached on December 25th, 2022 What I just read as our second Scripture lesson is the Gospel of John’s version of the Christmas Story. It’s different from Luke’s version, which I read last night. Luke’s version of the Christmas story has shepherds. Matthew’s gospel has the magi or wise men. John’s account is different. In John’s account of the Christmas story, there is no manger, no shepherds, no wise men, no angel, no pregnant Mary, no worried Joseph, no baby Jesus, and certainly no Santa Clause. What there is instead is the light and the darkness. This light has been shining since the beginning: before the earth was called forth from the void, before the mountains called up from the deep, since that time before life dawned and long before we humans were granted dominion. In those passing eons, despite the heat of summer and the cold of winter, despite death and war, extinction and holocaust, this light never went out, but shown through all that darkness. That’s what’s there in John’s Christmas story. Unlike Matthew or Luke, John’s gospel focuses on light and darkness. Inspired by this version of the Christmas story, I invite you to think with me about how the light shines in the darkness, and how the darkness did not, nor will it ever, overcome the light. It was there on the first Christmas of World War I, though it was a hellish time for Alfred Dougan Chater and every soldier who found himself on the battlefront that Christmas morning. Chater was a second lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, and he woke that morning in a freezing, muddy trench less than 100 yards from the German lines in West Flanders, Belgium. The bloodiest fighting had briefly ended in a stalemate. Corpses littered the deadly no man’s land, which separated the two sides along the Western Front. Yet that Christmas morning, Chater saw, all along that 20-mile stretch of the Western Front, unarmed German troops climbing over the parapets and walking toward the British side, simply to shake hands and exchange Christmas greetings. This miracle, this light shining in the darkness, is called the Christmas truce, and is likely the largest spontaneous truce in modern history. It resulted in a day of shared cigars, good cheer, chocolate, and, in more than one place, a game of soccer in the middle of a battlefield. According to historians, no one pre-arranged anything. It just happened. How? I’ll tell you. The light shines in the darkness. Now of course, there was one German who refused to play soccer on that battlefield. He thought the truce was disgraceful. His name was Adolf Hitler, and his dedication to the darkness is so legendary that most people consider him to be one of the vilest humans ever to have walked the earth. Yet, even in his concentration camps, the light was shining, though there was tremendous, suffocating darkness. The first Christmas Eve behind the barbed wire of Auschwitz, the SS set up a Christmas tree with electric lights and called all the prisoners to gather around it, for they had placed corpses under the tree as a warning to the living. The next year, Pope Pius XII gave a Christmas Eve proclamation in German, and despite freezing temperatures, all prisoners were required to listen. Forty-two succumbed to the cold, dying of exposure. Others suffered nervous breakdowns. How many spirits were broken? Yet in cell block ten, which housed Polish prisoners, the singing of carols began not long after. Like the waves of the sea came the illuminating words, “God is born, the powers tremble.” The powers will always tremble. No matter how merciless. No matter how compassionless. No matter how strong. For the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. It’s true. On Christmas Eve 1944, when the days of the Third Reich were numbered, the prisoner priest Father Grohs de Rosenburg celebrated midnight mass. Women in Birkenau prepared 200 gifts for children fashioned from rags. One dressed up as St. Nicholas and passed them out. In one month, those who survived would gain their freedom, for on January 27th, 1945, the light broke through the darkness, which it always does. It's true. You have heard about all the darkness that surrounds us today: war, disease, poverty, and discord. However, in Kansas City, there is a man who makes it his Christmas tradition to slip $100 bills into strangers’ pockets, handing out between $100,000 and $200,000 every year. In Michigan, there’s a man named Chad Rose who gives away Christmas trees. Inspired by his example, a woman in Grand Rapids named Ann offered to donate ornaments for all of Chad’s trees. Likewise, Grammy-award-winning singer, Beyoncé, surprised Walmart shoppers in Boston by buying their merchandise for them. In Colorado, a homeless man bought a Barbie and a Hot Wheels set for two kids in need, then went back later to buy another kid a bike, saying, “This is probably going to be my last Christmas. I’m no one, so I might as well make some little kid happy. It took my losing everything to realize that I’m happier now in my life than when I had big money.” Stories like that are everywhere. They’re here. For the last two nights, members of our church drove homeless families in our church’s vans to an emergency shelter because the MUST shelter was already full. Our Kroger has been giving away Christmas trees since Thursday. Yesterday, Elizabeth Lisle took her farm torch to melt ice in our parking lot so those who came to Christmas Eve services wouldn’t slip and fall. I tell you, therefore, that the light shines every day, and the darkness will not, cannot, overcome it. How do I know? I’ve seen it myself. I was a prison chaplain one summer years ago. It was the Metro State Women’s prison, and there I was sent to the floor where all the inmates who suffered mental illness lived. They were the lowest of the low, constantly taken advantage of. They were pushed around and had little to brighten their days, yet when I walked into their common room, one of the women stood and asked to sing. From that hopeless place, she sang out: Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home, when Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is he. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free. For his eye is on the sparrow, And I know he watches me. My friends, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not, will not, cannot overcome it. That’s the Christmas message that every one of us needs to hear. Some days are so bright and full and hopeful, but one little shadow cast along my path strikes fear in my heart and takes the wind from my sails. Some days that’s all it takes. One little disappointment. One little inconvenience. One little word of whining and complaining, but imagine with me what it took for those soldiers, so aware of the darkness of war, to walk out into no man’s land that Christmas morning during World War I. Imagine with me the faith it took to go from being shot at to playing soccer. Imagine the faith it took to stare down the barrel of a rifle and to see the soldiers on the other side as enemies one day, then to realize that they are brothers, made of the same flesh and blood, the next. That’s the miracle of Christmas, not only to hear that the light shines in the darkness, but to live knowing that it’s true. For if they could play soccer on a battlefield and sing Christmas carols in a concentration camp; if some man is slipping $100 bills into peoples’ pockets, and if a woman can sing “His Eye Is On The Sparrow” while locked up behind bars, then you and I can hardly walk out the doors of this church afraid of the darkness any longer, so I charge you to live trusting in the light, my friends. The light is shining, so pay no more homage to the shadow. Pray for the sick, knowing that death is not the end. Offer kindness to strangers without doubting their intensions. Walk boldly into this new day, not as the cynics do, fearful, cautious, expecting things to fall apart, but as the saints in light would have us do: full of expectation, trusting that the light will soon enough break through the storm clouds overhead. The darkness in this world isn’t going to overcome anything, but it sure will consume our minds if we let it. It sure will consume our thoughts, and suck hope right out of our souls if we give it that kind of power over us. Christ has conquered sin and death, so pay attention, not to the shadow, but to his light which casts out the shadow from our midst. That’s what Christmas is all about. The light that shines in the darkness, which has come into our world. Watch for the light and remember that the darkness, its days are numbered. Halleluiah. Amen.

Mary's Treasure

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 9: 2-7 and Luke 2: 1-20 Sermon Title: Mary’s Treasure Preached on December 24, 2022 This is Christmas Eve, which is the high point of the year for many of us. It’s a wonderful night. An important night. Especially for kids, tonight is the most anticipated night of the entire year because of one jolly man who I hope will be making a visit to your house. However, if in your house there are kids who are sure that tonight is all about Santa Clause, I want them to know that Santa is not whom tonight is all about. Santa Clause is not the most important person we think of on Christmas Eve. That spot in our house is reserved for Cousin Eddie. Do you know Cousin Eddie? Giving Clark an update on his daughter, he says, “She falls down a well; her eyes go crossed. Get’s kicked by a mule. They go back.” When Grandpa wants a kiss from the grandkids, he warns, “Better take a rain check on that. He’s got a lip fungus they ain’t identified yet.” Cousin Eddie is the greatest character in the greatest Christmas movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In our house, we watch it every year. Some years, we watch it twice because we love it. I just bought Sara and the girls t-shirts that say, “Save the neck for me, Clark,” which is what he says as the turkey is being carved. I love Cousin Eddie, and nothing gets to the heart of what this night is all about so well as considering how the Christ Child was born for him and all the Cousin Eddies of the world. We know that’s true because on this night so long ago, there were kings and princes sleeping in-between silk sheets under high, vaulted ceilings, but the angels did not nudge them awake to tell them the news of the Christ Child’s birth. There were scholars up late pondering the great questions of the age, but the angels left them to their contemplations. That night long ago, there were saints meditating, priests praying, and preachers preaching who missed hearing the angels’ message on that first Christmas Eve, for while the angels could have gone to the rich, the powerful, the great, the holy, or the strong, they went to a field in the country to announce the birth of the Savior to shepherds. Now if you know anything about shepherds, then you know that the angels going to the shepherds is extraordinary. It’s one of those truly strange realities that has become commonplace. We’re so used to hearing it, we don’t even realize how strange it is: that the angels going to the shepherds is upside down. It’s something like how we park in driveways and drive on parkways. It’s an incredibly strange feature of the Christmas story that we’ve heard about so often that we’ve made it sound inevitable, but don’t skip right over this little detail. I ask you to stop and think about it. The angels went to the shepherds even though they were the Cousin Eddies of long ago. It’s true. They lived with animals in fields under the stars, so imagine them. How did they look? How did they dress? How did they smell? Imagine what high society people did when they saw the shepherds walking into town. Archeologists have dug up the back yards of mansions in the Roman Empire, and there they’ve found statues of shepherds. Wealthy people had shepherd statues displayed on their patios. These exaggerated depictions of them, with missing teeth, rags for clothes, and matted hair decorated the space so people could laugh at their backwardness, for in the ancient world, they were the class of people everyone was allowed to make fun of. They were the punch line because they didn’t talk right. They were considered rude and ignorant. Uncouth and foolish. Illiterate and unclean. Had the Snuffy Smith comic run back then, Ma and Pa Smith would have been shepherds instead of hillbillies. Had National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation been made in the dark days of the Roman Empire when Jesus was born in a manger, Cousin Eddie would have parked a herd of sheep in Clark’s front yard rather than pulling that RV into his driveway. They were the lowest of the low. They were the cast aside and forgotten, yet when Almighty God sent out the announcement that the Savior of the World was born, an angel went to the shepherds. Why? Because some people can see miracles. Cousin Eddie knows exactly how blessed Clark Griswold is. However, Clark Griswold is too busy and too distracted to notice. He was too preoccupied with getting his Christmas bonus to notice how much he had already. He was so obsessed with getting the lights on his house to work that he had no time to notice that the light of the world was born. In the words of Clark’s wife, his expectations for every holiday are so blown out of proportion that no family has any hope of living up to what he’s aiming for, and even as he was surrounded by plenty, he was so focused on what he didn’t have that he ignored the miracles all around him. He dreams of a swimming pool while Cousin Eddie lives in a tenement on wheels. He has a wife who adores him, yet he’s consumed with loathing for his neighbors. He invites a house full of people to come spend Christmas with him and then spends all his time outside. To put things over the top, Cousin Eddie shows up. Cousin Eddie wasn’t supposed to show up. He’s the last person you want in your house when you have blown out of proportion Christmas expectations. When you’re working for your own version of perfection, you’re monitoring the perimeter for disappointments. When you have an unrealistic idea in your head, every shortcoming takes up real estate in your mind. When you’re working for more, the miracles you have already are not on your radar, so Clark would have been blind to the angels, deaf to their message, while Cousin Eddie can see what Clark cannot. That’s the truth. It’s the tragedy of those of us who so fill up the manger with Christmas cards, Christmas cookies, ornately decorated Christmas trees, and perfectly prepared Christmas dinners. We fill up the manger with so much that there’s no more room left for baby Jesus. Some of us have worked so hard to get tonight just right that all we can see is what’s out of place and whose behavior is falling short of our ideal. On this Christmas Eve just like any other Christmas Eve, there are those of us who are so surrounded by miracles that they can’t even see them all, while out in the world are shepherds who heard the angels’ voices because their world is so dark that the light shines more brightly. Disappointments were so commonplace to the shepherds that a miracle caused them to stop and pay attention. Then they dropped everything to go and see. Did you hear all that? The shepherds heard what the angels said, and then they dropped what they were doing to go and see the Christ Child. That’s an important example for us to follow. It’s an important lesson for busy, preoccupied people to learn because this Christmas, like every Christmas before and every Christmas after, the key to sucking the marrow from this momentous occasion is recognizing the miracle that God brings us. That might sound obvious; however, on Christmas, not everyone can see the miracles. Those who can’t stop working on the Christmas lights may miss the reality that the Light of the World has come. Those who can’t stop tinkering on Christmas dinner may be too distracted to realize the One who comes to offer us His very body and blood. Those who are obsessed with giving the perfect gifts wrapped with perfect bows may miss out on the Gift that our God is bringing us tonight. My friends, as the shepherds dropped what they were doing to go and see the Christ Child, I want you to know that now is the time to stop working for perfect. If we could get life perfect, there would be no need for the Christ Child to be born. Now is the time to stop what you’re doing to open your eyes to the miracles that are surrounding you right now. That’s the point of all of this. The Christ Child is born to save us from ourselves. Look around you and notice the miracles. If you have family in your house, consider the gift you’ve been given. I don’t just mean the members of your family that you get along with and who actually help clean up after the meal. Think about all of them. Who is the Cousin Eddie in your family? In our family, it was Uncle Al. Al baked the turkey with the bag of giblets still in it one year. That grossed us all out. He’d always complain about how my parents’ trash can was too small. “How you going to fit anything in there, George?” he’d always ask my dad. What did Al know about Christmas? He didn’t help to clean up after the meal. We tried to keep him out of the kitchen before and after given the giblet incident. But he could see what we had. Can you see? Can you see what you have? Christmas doesn’t come because we work so hard and get it perfect. Christmas comes regardless of our preparation. We take notice when we stop working so hard. Take notice, my friends. Listen. Thousands of years ago, the God who created this world saw fit to be born in a manager so that we would finally get it, so that we would finally understand just how much He loves us and wants to know who we are. He’s coming, even if the turkey comes out so dry you can’t eat it. He’s coming, even if the cat ends up wrapped up in one of the presents. He’s coming, even if your dog goes nosing through the garbage, the tree goes up in flames, and the Christmas bonus doesn’t come through. The Light of the World is coming. Love incarnate. Mary’s treasure for all humankind. Halleluiah. Amen.

The Holy Highway

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 146: 5-10 and Isaiah 35: 1-10 Sermon Title: The Holy Highway Preached on December 11, 2022 I titled this sermon “The Holy Highway,” and when I came up with this title, I wasn’t thinking of 285. You might call that the unholy highway, or the parking lot that surrounds the city of Atlanta. 285, 75, 85, Powder Springs, Whitlock, and even Church Street can be wastelands of frustrated people trying to get somewhere fast, yet often not moving at all. That’s why traffic is frustrating. When people are stuck in traffic, they have some place to get to and can’t get there, but the worse thing is people who have given up on getting there. We leave work to get home. In between is traffic, which is frustrating, but the worse thing is having a home you’re in no hurry to get to. In the same way, we graduate to get to a career. Maybe in between is a dead-end job and a stint with mom and dad, which can be frustrating, yet people get stuck in those in-between places. Some even give up on getting where they set off for. Shawshank Redemption is a movie about that. There’s a character named Red who became the man who can get things like posters and cigarettes from the outside world into the prison, and he takes pride in his status while giving up on parole. Another, who raises an orphaned crow, is released after 40 years of living behind bars. Once he’s out, he fantasizes about committing a crime so that he can get arrested and go back to the prison, which has become a place where he feels safe. Because the main character never stops working for freedom, unlike them, he never completely settles in. He keeps his hopes up, which can kill you to watch because his hopes are dashed again and again. His closest friend, Red, encourages him to give up on trying and to accept that his life isn’t going to get any better because he’s stuck in prison, but what happens to people who give up on trying to get out? There is something worse than traffic. When people are stuck in traffic, they are frustrated because they have some place to get to. The worse thing is when we give up on getting there, which is an easy thing to do. It happens to all of us. Every couple fights. The marriage counselors tell us not to let an argument go until the next day. Don’t go to sleep during an argument. Work it out right then. Why? You can hit pause on an argument and leave it unresolved, neither here nor there. Neither here nor there is not a fight or a resolution. It’s just quiet awkwardness. Some people can’t stand that kind of ambiguity. They want to know where things stand. One such woman, who felt her long-term boyfriend was taking too long to pop the question, finally said, “Either do something or get off the pot.” That wasn’t very romantic, but it was brave. Others who find themselves in an in-between place just make the best of it, so I have a memory of a traffic jam on the connector where a man got out of his car, took a charcoal grill out of his trunk, and started cooking hamburgers. If you’re stuck somewhere, why not make the best of it? Why not do as the prophet Jeremiah said: “seek the welfare of whatever city” we find ourselves in? We weren’t meant to do that forever, of course, because we are destined for a homeland. We were not created to spend our days in exile. We can’t put down roots in the middle of mediocre, neither good nor bad. We are destined for joy. We were created for more. We have a reason to hope so don’t stop moving. Don’t stop looking. Don’t stop trying. Don’t stop caring. Don’t stop hoping for better until you’ve made it to better, for sooner or later, the barriers are going to come down. When they do, you need to be ready to go. That’s the promise of Scripture. The barriers that keep us frustrated are coming down. You remember how John the Baptist said it: Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth. The barriers we hit on the way to something better will be knocked down. One day, the disappointments that have sapped our hope will evaporate. Soon and very soon, the desert waste you’re stuck in will blossom and bloom to become the Holy Highway to the place you were always meant to be. That’s the message of our second Scripture lesson from the book of Isaiah. Like so much of the Bible, the prophet points us back to the desert, which, in Scripture, is the main in-between place where people got stuck. The Israelites wandered in it for 40 years after leaving slavery in Egypt. Yet, they never stopped calling themselves Israelites. There are people who live their entire lives in deserts. We call them Bedouins or nomads. Surely 40 years wandering in the desert would have qualified them as nomads. I know you must live in Marietta for more than that to consider yourself a real Marietta resident, but imagine the desert isn’t like that. 40 years in the desert is enough time to consider yourself a resident. A nomad. A Bedouin. Not an Israelite. Israelite refers to a place on the other side. Israelite refers to Israel, and so from Scripture we know that they never got so used to the desert that they forgot about the Promised Land. Don’t you forget about the Promised Land. Maybe you say, “I haven’t,” or “How could I?” If a man will pull out a charcoal grill after an hour of traffic to start making burgers, we will all get used to heartbreak and give up on love. We will all get used to isolation and give up on community. We will all get used to wasting time and will give up on living with purpose. Therefore, we must not get used to the pain or start working to manage our expectations. We can’t settle for that in-between any more than we can take up residency in a traffic jam. Soon and very soon, the traffic jam will become the Holy Highway. That’s the promise. No more roadblocks. No more red tape. The desert shall rejoice and blossom. The burning sand shall become a pool. The redeemed shall walk there, and everlasting joy will be upon their heads as they walk to Zion. This is the Holy Highway. The Peach Pass to joy. That’s what’s coming, so don’t settle in if you’re not where you want to be. My dad is getting closer and closer to retirement. He’s spending a lot of time playing pickle ball, so last week our girls bought their grandfather a coffee mug that says, “contains the tears of my pickle ball opponents.” That’s the perfect gift, but my father was not born to play pickle ball. My father was born for joy. You were born for joy. The Son of God who bridges heaven and earth will be born in a manger, and he will lead us by the hand down the Holy Highway from where we are now to where we long to be. That’s the promise, and it’s the promise whether we are on the way from work to home, graduation to living our life’s purpose, from isolation to community, or from life to death. Back in Tennessee, I went to visit a woman named Mrs. Cotham. Mrs. Cotham was in hospice. I went to visit her and asked her if she was afraid. “I’m not afraid of death,” she said. “It’s what happens in between now and then that scares me.” The in between is scary. Don’t settle in, though, and don’t be afraid. This Advent, may our prayer be like that of the great Episcopal priest Thomas Merton, who was bold to pray: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. [Yet I do know this,] you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. “Do not fear, for I am with you,” says the Lord, walking beside you on the Holy Highway from where you are now to joy. Halleluiah. Amen.

Let Us Walk In the Light of the Lord

Scripture Lessons: Romans 13: 11-14 and Isaiah 2: 1-5 Sermon Title: Let Us Walk in the Light of the Lord Preached on 11/27/22 Have you ever been wrong? Wrong about a person? Wrong about a deep conviction? Wrong about directions? What if we, as a society, as a culture, as a nation, have it wrong? Looking backwards, it’s easy to see that not all society’s convictions stand the test of time. For example, up until around six hundred years ago, more or less the entire human population was sure that a ship that sailed too far west would fall off the face of the earth. A typical way to treat illness up until the beginning of the 20th century was bloodletting. More recently, in the 1920s, Lucky Strike cigarettes ran an ad celebrating how 20,679 physicians say, “Luckies are less irritating” and will protect your throat against your winter cough. They were wrong about that, just plain wrong. Today, on the first Sunday of the season of Advent, as preparation for Christmas begins in full force, I want to introduce you to the way that Church prepares for the birth of our Savior. During the season we call Advent, a time of expectation and preparation for the birth and second coming of Jesus, the Church gets ready by examining human assumptions, by placing convictions under the microscope. Advent is an opportunity for us to ask ourselves: What if we have it wrong? Speaking of having it wrong, when I was in high school, my algebra teacher swore up and down that we would use the stuff she was teaching someday. Maybe you use algebra every day, but I’m still waiting. Not all of what we believe to be true is; yet we are all capable of being stubborn. We operate under untested hypotheses. We get stuck in false assumptions and become rooted in baseless convictions. Advent is a season when we are invited to ask ourselves: What if we have it wrong? What if we really don’t know where we are going? What if what we thought was true wasn’t? We ask ourselves such questions during Advent because Jesus is coming, the only One who has ever gotten it all right. The rest of us are capable of getting it wrong, so in our first Scripture lesson from Romans, the Apostle Paul calls us to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light… Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” What does he mean by all that? He means that there is something in our flesh that keeps us from admitting when we are wrong even though we often are. Call it pride. Call it stubbornness. Call it whatever you want but know that there is this thing that keeps men from stopping to ask for directions when they’re lost and prevents women from apologizing when they were wrong, believing they must always be right. I know a woman who was so sure that her husband was overreacting that she made him walk from the parking garage to the emergency room. She wasn’t going to pay for valet parking when he was just being dramatic. Well, right before they took him for quadruple bypass surgery, she felt pretty bad about that. What do you feel pretty bad about? When were you wrong? When did you gratify the desires of your stubborn flesh but should have stepped under the true light of humility. That’s where Jesus leads us: to humility. His very birth assures us that if we could save ourselves, He wouldn’t have needed to be born to show us the way, so let Him show you the way. Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord. On this warm November morning, while snowflake lights shine from the lamp posts, and trees are decorated with ornaments, remember that: Out of Zion shall go forth instruction, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, And shall arbitrate for many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks. For generations, the prophets have looked forward to such a day. Generation after generation has spoken of the day when the weapons of war will become the tools for peace. So ingrained is this image in the global consciousness that a statue stands outside the United Nations of a giant man, hammer in his right hand. The sword in his left is being flattened into a plow to prepare the soil for a new harvest. A harvest of peace. A new day of harmony. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? How can we prepare ourselves for such a day? How can we get ready for His coming? We must practice listening for the truth in a world where many have stopped listening. We must learn new ways of doing things in a world where many are stuck in old habits. Back to algebra. In the words of my friend Mickey Buchanan, “Math got really hard when they mixed in the alphabet.” Algebra was hard, so I expected the worksheet our teacher handed out to us as we entered class one morning to be difficult. I sat down and diligently began working like all my classmates did. I went from problem to problem all the way to the end and thought I had done alright, but then the teacher wrote the answers on the board, and I got every single question wrong. That was a new low, and the teacher seemed to be able to read my face and the faces of my classmates. She asked, “Did anyone answer these questions correctly?” Only one girl raised her hand. We all looked at her wondering what she knew that we didn’t. The teacher smiled at her, then simply said to the rest of us, “Go back and read the directions.” I did, and there, right at the top of the page, it clearly stated, “After you solve the equation, add 10 to your answer.” Now, before, I said that I’d never used anything I learned in algebra. That’s not entirely true because that day my teacher said: “Never start an assignment without reading the directions.” What are our directions? Forgive one another. How often? As many as seven times? Peter asked. Jesus said, “not seven, but seventy-seven times.” Those are the directions. What else did He tell us? He told us to love one another. What about the people who get on our nerves though? Jesus said, “You have heard it said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Those are the directions. What about the people everyone else turns their backs on? Can we go and do likewise? December 1st is World AIDS day. A good friend of mine who sends me an inspirational verse of Scripture every Sunday morning and has for the last five years is HIV positive. Since 1993 when he first tested positive, he’s felt rejected by the Church and even members of his own family, yet he remembers Jesus, Who in Scripture, again and again, reaches out to touch the outcast, the leper, the rejected, and those considered unclean. Jesus reaches out to touch them. He moved toward every outcast of society. Is that what we’ve been doing, or have we been leaving God’s people out in the cold? Follow the directions, or you’ll get lost. Do you ever feel lost? If so, remember that the moral of every great Christmas movie is the same: It’s not too late to change. It’s not too late to stop and ask for directions. It’s not too late to apologize. It’s not too late to admit that we have it wrong. That’s what Ebenezer Scrooge did. Money left him cold and lonely, but it wasn’t too late for him, nor was it too late for the Grinch’s heart to grow three sizes, and don’t even get me started on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Cousin Eddie, who gets everything wrong, is the one who leads to everything turning out all right because not the boss nor Clarke has it all sorted out. No one does, and that’s OK, especially this time of year, because the thing that sets Christians apart is not that we get it right. It’s that we believe the One who got it perfect is coming, and we need only listen to His directions. Are you ready to listen? Are you listening for truth, hope, and joy? Emmanuel: God in human form is coming. Prepare yourself for His birth by letting go of old, handed-down prejudice and hatred. Discard old convictions. Put them out on the street with your Amazon shipping containers and wave goodbye. What we always thought was true may be holding us back from following Him today. Invite Him into your heart to teach you a new way to be. Let us walk in the light of the Lord. Amen.

Leaving Home

Scripture Lessons: 2nd Thessalonians 3: 6-13 and Isaiah 65: 17-25 Sermon Title: Leaving Home Preached on 11/13/22 Today is a special day for us. It’s a special day for our church. The Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, nor the non-denominational churches have anything like this. We are the church with roots in Scotland, so here we are with bag pipes and drums. I’m wearing a kilt, even though my family’s Welsh. A couple years ago after this service, we were out to lunch with Jim and Martha Goodlet. I was still in this kilt, and an actual Scottish immigrant (He had only been in this country for a few months.) asked me where I was from. “We came to Marietta from Virginia Highlands,” I told him. He wasn’t very impressed, but that’s the truth. We moved out here from that Atlanta neighborhood when I was a kid. We moved to Marietta right after our house was broken into, which happened just after my dad’s car was broken into. We left our home in the city to come here, which quickly became home, and today, wearing tartans from a land across the sea, we remember the long line of people who left their homeland in the hope of having a better life, many of them leaving home under much harsher circumstances than mine. For example, Peter Marshall, the great Presbyterian minister who brought this tradition of Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan to America, left a poverty-stricken coal-mining community called Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire. Though it was his home, there, his prospects were dismal. He spent his days working in the mines. At night, he took classes. In 1927, a cousin offered to pay his way to the United States. Upon arrival, he enrolled in Columbia Theological Seminary, just down the road. While in Atlanta, he met Catherine Wood, who was then a student at Agnes Scott. While they were students, the two of them made their way to our church. He preached in our sanctuary and sang with the seminary’s choir. After graduation, he was called to New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. to be their pastor. While there, he gained national notoriety as one of the great preachers and was appointed as chaplain to the Senate. His sermons were published and sent out across the country. He was a voice of hope during World War II. After his death, a movie was made about him, A Man Called Peter, staring Richard Todd. Last week, I asked our children who they thought would play me in a movie. Lily said, “the actor who played McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy,” and Cece said, “probably my basketball coach.” Why, Cece? “Because yesterday she ate a whole bag of chicken by herself, just like you would do.” Well, Google Richard Todd. That’s who played Peter Marshall. I’ll be played by Cece’s basketball coach. Not only was Peter Marshall played by a bright-eyed and square-jawed actor, but he could just plain preach. With his sermons, he encouraged this entire nation, yet he never forgot where he came from nor did he forget where we are going. From Scotland, he brought with him this tradition of raising tartans, honoring families, and celebrating heritage. He never lost hope during those war-torn years. As he preached sermon after sermon and prayed prayer after prayer, even while he watched the Nazi army march through nation after nation, he never lost hope. He stayed rooted in the Gospel, where God tells us where we are going. I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; For the former things shall not be remembered, says the Lord. Today, as we remember those who crossed the sea hoping for something better, as we turn to the Gospel, which promises that something better is on the way, I ask you: Do you ever feel like some are giving up on a brighter future? Do you ever feel like people are losing hope? Now, sometimes I feel discouraged, and I feel the shadows come. Yet when I do, I remember. I remember those who love me. I pray to the God who holds my future. I get up off the couch. I put down the remote. I recognize that sometimes the problem is not the world but my frame of mind. One afternoon, an old man was sitting at a gas station near the city limits of town. A moving truck pulled in. The driver got out to gas up the truck, and the old man asked him, “Where are you coming from?” The driver said, “We hated to leave. It was a wonderful place for our kids, full of friends that were so hard to say goodbye to.” The old man said, “Well, you’re going to love this place. It’s just like where you’re coming from.” The driver got back in his truck, waved to the man, and was hopeful about his new home. Then another moving truck pulled into the gas station. The driver got out to gas up the truck, and the old man asked him, “Where you coming from?” The driver said, “The worst place ever! I’m so glad to be shaking the dust of that one-horse town from our shoes. What’s this place like?” The old man said, “I’m sorry to tell you, but this town is just like where you’re coming from.” Sometimes, our problem is not with the world, but with our frame of mind. Just as it takes hope to sail across the Atlantic, just as it takes hope to leave home or march in the streets, so it takes hope for us to get up off the couch and out into the world to live our faith, or better yet, getting out into the world to live our faith is what reveals hope to us all over again. My friends, if you’re losing hope in a brighter future, but you’re stuck at home on the couch, maybe the problem is your state of mind. If you’ve forgotten what God has in store, then maybe you just need to get up and out of the house. If those incessant campaign ads are driving you crazy, then turn them off. Maybe the world is not the problem. Maybe the world is just waiting – waiting on you. Therefore, in our first Scripture lesson, the Apostle Paul wrote: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. Those living in idleness are mere busybodies. Such a person we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly. Brothers and sisters do not be weary in doing what is right. If you ever grow weary in doing what is right, remember the Scottish ancestors who fought to the death for something better, for they would rather die than surrender. That’s the significance of this sword to my left. It’s here to remind us of the many who wielded such great swords to protect their families. They had to protect their families, for Scotland was invaded again and again, probably by my people from Wales. For years if not generations, the Scottish highlanders had to defend their way of life and their homeland. They would not accept defeat. Regardless of the obstacles ahead, they remained hopeful. They held true to faith, and they fought for a better future. What future are you working towards? Last Friday, I read a wonderful article written by an army combat veteran, Garrett Cathcart. He spoke of how it means something to him on Veterans Day when someone takes the time to say, “Thank you for your service.” Over the years, he’s learned to say, “It was my honor [to serve], and you’re worth it.” However, while “Thank you for your service” is a meaningful recognition, his new mission is to inspire fellow citizen to serve in their communities, for When we serve in our communities, we make them stronger and more resilient. When we build stronger communities, we build a stronger country. When we volunteer to deliver meals, mentor a young person, clean up a park, or help a neighbor in need, we build stronger relationships. On the other hand, when we sit in our homes watching the world burn, when we complain about our neighbors without getting to know them, when we give up before we’ve gotten started, the social fabric tears, and the light of hope flickers within our hearts. My friends, when we are isolated, the evil one has us right where he wants us. When we give up on hope, we only make his job easier. Therefore, listen to the truth. Listen to the promise: I am about to create new heavens and a new earth. For the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. No more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress. When you call, I will answer, while you are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox. No one shall hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord. A new heaven and a new earth await. Do not settle for life here and now. Prepare your hearts for something better. Step out into the future with faith. Nurture hope within your spirit. Set your eyes on that land across the shore and let us walk towards it together. Amen.

Our Inheritance Among the Saints

Scripture Lessons: Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18 and Ephesians 1: 11-23 Sermon title: Our Inheritance Among the Saints Preached on 11/6/22 I’ve heard it said that there is no sweeter sound to any person than the sound of her own name. We love to be recognized and called by name. Elaine Brennan, Doug Carter, Carol Davis, Ralph Farrar. What does it mean to you to hear those names today? We call today All Saint’s Sunday. I will read from the list of names in your bulletin. We call by name the 19 members of our church who died since last year’s All Saints Sunday, and when I say: Jeri Field, Claude Gilstrap, Tim Hammond, what do you feel? Michael Hill, Lon Jenkins, Margaret Lawless, Jim Lyle. When I say these names what do you think of? Loss? Love? Grief? Surely, but also hope. For today, as we remember the friends, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives we’ve lost, we go so far as to call them “saints,” believing that while their earthly life is over, they have not disappeared. They are not lost, nor are they gone. Instead, they remain. They remain in our hearts even while they dwell in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the Lord, there we will meet them when our time comes. This morning, among the others, when I say Hayden McLean, Mark McNabb, Andrew Peterson, Ted Ramsey, Wanda Reese, you’ll hear the bell toll. A member of the family will be invited forward to collect a white rose. When that happens, I ask you to think, not just about what has ended, but what has begun, what will last forever, and what has yet to come because, my friends, we gather today, not just to say their names or to grieve the loss, but to remember them for the gift of God that they were and to remember again what we have always known: that by rising from the grave, Christ opened the way to eternal life, and having been baptized in His name, Bill Rohner, Joan Ward, Woody Wollesen, will be united with Him in His resurrection. Here in this place, where they worshiped beside us, we remember that today. Here, in the church, where many of them were baptized or married, we remember. Here was the funeral and here we remember that death has lost its sting. This church is one of the places we come and feel close to them again, like my grandmother’s closet. My grandmother, Peggy Bivens, died 10 years ago. After her funeral, I walked into her closet. It felt like part of her was still in there, and it makes sense that a part of her would still be there in her closest as her clothes were important to her. Growing up, I’d unload her luggage from the trunk when she came to visit. She packed three or four bags whether she was staying for a week or just the afternoon. If we left the house, she’d change, so I’d be walking with her in the mall or a restaurant. She’d be wearing animal print with a giant golden belt-buckle shaped like an elephant, and people would stop her just to compliment her outfit. Very rarely did she dress down. Once, I saw her in a sweatsuit, and I remember her apologizing for it. One Christmas Eve, late at night, I saw her in her bathrobe without her makeup: It was the only time I ever saw her before she had drawn on her eyebrows. That was a surprise. Yet, more than that, much more than that, I carry with me today, not only these memories, but a million memories. The memories accumulate in making me who I am, for all her life, I was the recipient of her pride. Every nurse she worked with for the 50 years she worked in labor and delivery at Roper Hospital recognized me. They had all been forced to admire my most recent photographs and had to hear all about whatever mediocre achievement of mine she wanted to tell them about. I never felt like I had done anything to deserve her being so proud of me. As a matter a fact, I know I hadn’t done anything to deserve her being so proud of me, so her pride often embarrassed me because I couldn’t understand what it was about me that she thought was worth bragging about. She would be there to watch my baseball games, even though I rarely played. She would make the six-hour trip just to watch my middle school band performances, even though I was fourth chair trombone. I remember new student orientation at Presbyterian College. All the new students were there with one or two parents. I, on the other hand, was there with both my parents and two grandparents. I couldn’t understand it then. I was embarrassed, but today such pride as hers provides me a framework to understand God’s grace. In our second Scripture lesson, the Apostle Paul refers to the inheritance. This is an inheritance not unlike other inheritances given and not earned, and the One who gave it, He gave it not because we did anything or we could have done anything, yet in Christ, we have riches, a glorious inheritance among the saints. It is not deserved but comes to us by grace and the love of Christ, who said to the crucified man next to Him, “Today you’ll be with me in paradise.” For generations, people have been mulling over this statement. How could a thief who deserved to be punished go right to Heaven along with Jesus? That’s the wrong question. The better one is this: How could I, a sinner, be so loved by God that He would lay down His life for me? Have you ever asked yourself that question? I have. That question reminds me of one of the most embarrassing things my grandmother ever did. She took a picture of me in my baseball uniform and had it turned into a baseball card at a photo shop. Then, she had it blown up to poster size. She gave it to me for my birthday. Then, later, when we went to visit, she drove me by the photo shop where she had it made. There I was hanging in the front window. She thought it was wonderful. I said, “But you know, I’m second string.” Not to her. Not to Him. None of us are second string to Him. That’s our inheritance. It’s grace. It’s not earned. It’s like my grandmother’s love. God’s love is like the love of the one whom loved you beyond measure, beyond logic, beyond your understanding. That’s what the love of God is like. In our first Scripture lesson from Daniel, we heard it the way we too often think of it. We think of death as this great judgement, so Daniel woke up from his dream terrified. That’s not how Paul tells it. That’s not how I believe it will be. I say death is more like this: A young boy fell asleep on the way to his grandmother’s house in the backseat of his parents’ car. When they reached their destination, his dad, who was driving, gently pulled into the driveway, cut the engine as his grandmother came out to greet them. Not wanting to wake the boy, his father lifted him out of the backseat and carried him into the house. He laid the boy down in the bed his grandmother had prepared, and the next morning, having fallen asleep in one place, he woke up in another. This is our inheritance. This is their inheritance. Halleluiah. Amen.

According to the Grace of Our God

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 1: 10-18 and 2 Thessalonians 1: 1-4, 11-12 Sermon Title: According to the Grace of Our God Preached on 10/30/22 Inspired by that reading from 2nd Thessalonians, I’m focused today on grace, even though we just heard a very angry word from the Prophet Isaiah in our first Scripture lesson. Our beadle read this passage from Isaiah, where God is saying to the people: I cannot endure your solemn assemblies. My soul hates your festivals. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. [So], when you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Why would God say these things? [Because our] hands are full of blood [God explains]. [Because we must] wash [ourselves]; make [ourselves] clean; remove [our] evil deeds from before [God’s] eyes. Learn to do justice, rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan, plead for the widow. On and on, God says to us through the Prophet Isaiah: “If you expect me to listen to you, you’re going to have to do better.” What does such a message of judgement have to do with grace? Let me tell you that there is a difference between grace and cheap grace. Have you ever heard that term before? Cheap grace? The great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a hero worthy of celebrating today, on this Sunday we call Reformation Sunday, wrote that: Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. On the other hand: Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. It is costly because it cost a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. In other words, cheap grace is accepting that God loves us despite our imperfection, which is true, God does, but not being afraid of doing something about the imperfection. Cheap grace is settling for mediocre. It’s entitlement. It’s going to bed without ever flossing your teeth. Speaking of dental hygiene, the last time I went to the dentist, the hygienist asked me if I had been flossing. I told her that I had just flossed last night, which was true. I had. I had not flossed the night before that nor the night before that. Immediately upon walking into the dentist office, I wanted to hide what I haven’t been doing. I was taking comfort in what I had going for me: the strong teeth I inherited from my dad and the fact that I brush them twice a day. So what if I floss sparingly? So what? Why hide what is broken from one who can help us? Why rely on what we’re doing right while ignoring what could be better? If we’re saved by grace, we can’t be afraid of sin. Sin is holding us back from abundant life, and grace can give us the confidence to deal with it without fear of condemnation. Everyone fears condemnation, so we hide what needs to be healed. We must get over that. That’s why, in this place, we try to work against the tendency to hide what is broken by standing together to boldly confess, and we do it Sunday after Sunday. This morning we said before God and one another: Imagining that you are weak, I confide in my own strength. Imagining that you are distant, the worries of the world threaten to undo me. Imagining evil’s power is greater than yours, I tremble before the prince of darkness. I write these prayers each Sunday I preach. People ask me where I get the inspiration to write the Prayer of Confession Sunday after Sunday, and I tell them, “I just look in the mirror and try to be honest with myself about what I’m struggling with,” and in this prayer, you can see what I’m struggling with: confiding in my own strength instead of relying on God’s power. That’s a bad habit. Bruce and Fran Myers gave me a plaque that says, “Pray First,” quoting Philippians: “Don’t worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all he has done.” That plaque is such a good reminder for me. I love it because when I face a trial, my first inclination is to try and fix it myself. I confide in my own strength, which is foolish. I worry over everything. I tremble before the evil in the world, rather than asking God for help. That’s what confession is. It’s asking God for help. Today, I get the truth of my struggle out in the open. That’s hard to do, but it’s also wonderful because when I tell God the truth, His grace washes over me. Grace is what enables confession. We can confess because we trust in God’s grace. When we rely on God’s grace, we just might gain the courage to be honest about what’s broken inside us. That’s something we must do as individual Christians, and that’s something that we must do as a church, so Paul wrote our second Scripture lesson to the church in Thessalonica saying: We always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what Paul wrote, but how? How are we to be made worthy of God’s call? How might we live according to the grace of our God? We must remember that God is ever ready to forgive, but we must be ready to confess. We must look in the mirror and remember that we are simultaneously saints and sinners, inheriting a legacy from our foreparents, which is both their virtue and their sin. Can we hold onto the virtue while confessing the sin? Of course we can, and we can do it by following Martin Luther’s example. Today, on this Reformation Sunday, we remember Martin Luther, who in Germany more than 500 years ago, broke from the Roman Catholic Church. In doing so, he tried to hold onto what was virtuous in his tradition. He valued the Scripture the Church gave him, and he felt connected to God through the sacraments. On the one hand, the Church gave him gifts, yet he hated the idolatry the Church passed down to him on the other. That was the sin he was trying to get rid of. He didn’t deny that it was sin. He faced it. He called it by name. Boldy, he wrote that the Church was guilty of idolatry, and he nailed what he wrote right on the side of the church door in Whittenburg, Germany, getting sin out in the open. We are called to do the same thing by examining ourselves and the patterns our foreparents passed down to us, for we cheapen grace when we never deal with sin. We punish ourselves when we never confess. We sell ourselves short if we never examine the way we live or the tradition we inherit. On this Reformation Sunday, I remind you that God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. Instead, God calls us to rely on His grace, and so, we examine the history of our church founded by 12 families in 1835 just as Martin Luther looked on his. From them, what do we keep? What sin do we confess? On the one hand, our foreparents deserve our admiration. The first members of this church broke ground when this was a frontier town. Later, just 96 of them built a sanctuary to seat 400. Many dispute that number saying, “You can’t fit 400 people in that sanctuary.” Given the size of rear ends in 1854, you could. Yet while we are called to follow the example of that handful of people who built a sanctuary to sit 400, we must also remember that most likely in 1854, the ones who laid the bricks, plastered the walls, and raised the steeple were among the oppressed people who labored without pay. That’s their sin. What do we do with their sin? We take the virtue and confess the sin. We confess that what they did was wrong, and we promise to learn from their mistakes, knowing that grace, costly grace, enables us to look ourselves in the mirror, honest about what is good and what must be better. Part of Reformation Sunday is freely admitting that about our heritage: Not all of it was perfect. We are not perfect either. For this reason, Martin Luther confessed that the idolatry he inherited was sinful. We confess that slavery was sinful, and not all of what we inherit is worth holding onto. Speaking of inheritance, last week, which has been full of funerals, I heard Ken Farrar tell a story about his father, Ralph. On a long car ride, his dad, Ralph, once told his son, “Ken, I’m afraid you’re not going to inherit much from me, and I’m sorry about that.” To that, Ken said, “From you, Dad, I’ve inherited character, integrity, strength, yes, your temper, but also your heart and especially your faith.” Hearing him say that got me thinking about my own father, from whom I’ve inherited good teeth and a hair line. He also has a heart of compassion, which I’ll always aspire to. Like all of us, my father had to think about what he would inherit from his father. There was a lot he let go of and tried to do differently than his father did. Growing up in Atlanta, my dad was the kid in the scout troop whose father never showed up, yet to me, he became the father who was always there. He was at every baseball game, and he led my scout troop. My friends, today we stand in a long line of Christians. We stand in that great line of faithful men and women, but as we think of them, let us remember that faithfulness is well embodied by those who live according to the grace of God and know how to confess and be changed. We are not perfect, so let us wash ourselves and be made clean. Let us remove evil deeds from our lives. Let us learn to do justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow, and while we’re at it, let us floss our teeth. Let us live according to the grace of our God. Amen.