Happy Are Those Who Do Not Follow the Advice of the Wicked, a sermon based on James 3: 13 - 4: 3, 7-8a, preached on October 13, 2024

The Bible frequently warns us about money. Did you know that? Look it up. Roughly 2,350 verses concern money in the Bible. Nearly 15% of everything Jesus spoke about related to money and our possessions. I guarantee you that less than 15% of my sermons mention money because money is uncomfortable to talk about. I don’t feel good preaching to you about money, for I assume that not a one of you woke up this morning and said, “We’ve got to get to church. It’s the stewardship season, so I bet Joe is going to tell us what to do with our money. I don’t want to miss that.” However, there are 39 parables in the Gospels. 11 out of the 39 are about money, which basically makes money and how we deal with possessions Jesus’ favorite subject, but why? Jesus wasn’t like the preachers we know who talk about money all the time. They have private jets, and they drive Bentleys, and I swore to myself a long time ago that I’d never become one of them; however, this morning I want to talk with you about money because I’ve learned something from our second Scripture lesson. I’ve learned something from talking with friends and family who are responding to the disaster in Western North Carolina. I’ve learned something from my own life and my own habits. It’s that money can’t buy happiness. I want you to be happy, so I want to talk with you about money this morning because our culture is obsessed with money, but money can’t buy happiness. Amy Sherwood gave me an article to read the week before last. It was an incredible article. I read it twice. In this article, the author was writing about our culture and how we used to spend time thinking and talking about how to live a good and meaningful life. Young people used to say things like, “I want to become a doctor so that I can help people.” Many still say that, but today, one might also hear a young student say, “I want to become a doctor so I can make a lot of money.” Why would anyone do that if money can’t make them happy? From the book of James in our second Scripture lesson, we read: Who is wise among you?” Do what they do. Who is living a meaningful, fulfilling, joyful life? Do what they do. Who is happy? And who is not just happy, but joyful? Who is satisfied? Think about them and do what they do. This is good advice, and so our first Scripture lesson basically said the same thing: Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked. Who is wicked? Who is unhappy? Who is on the brink of giving up and shutting down? Don’t do what they do. That’s basic, common-sense wisdom. Do what happy people are doing. Don’t do what miserable people are doing. Yet, if you watch our kids and the kind of people they’re trying to be like, you’ll see that we are not following that basic, common-sense wisdom, but the very opposite. Who do our kids want to be like? You can name them. They’re rich and famous, but are they happy? According to a study published in The Atlantic, compared to the general population, the musicians that our kids love and want to be like (think of Taylor Swift or Morgan Wallen), these big celebrity musicians who tour the country and have so many fans, they die young compared to the general population, and the leading cause of death is suicide. Who among you is wise? Do what they do. Who among you is miserable? Don’t do what they do. That’s what we’ve read in Scripture. That makes sense, but here’s the problem: Sometimes happy people confuse us. For example, my parents have happier in the last few weeks than they’ve been in years, even though a hurricane swept through their neighborhood. They live in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Until last Thursday, they haven’t had power. They’ve had no clean water. They’ve had spotty internet service. They live in an old cabin, and up until hurricane Helene and all this destruction, they didn’t know their neighbors, and so I assumed they’d want to come down here to stay with us. They refused, however, and I couldn’t understand why until I talked with my mom last Tuesday and she said, “We haven’t eaten a meal alone but once since all this happened. Every lunch and dinner, we either invite our neighbors over or they invite us over. We don’t have hot water, but some of our neighbors do. They don’t have power, but we have a gas range, so we have them over for dinner. They all bring a little something for us to share. We play cards by candlelight. We don’t want to leave. We’re having too much fun.” Now, I’m not trying to say that this disaster in Western North Carolina that also swept through Georgia is a good thing. I don’t believe the hurricane that swept through Florida is any good either. When people die it’s not good. It’s tragic, and I promise you, God was the first to weep over this devastation, and yet happiness is spreading among those who are serving because we were built to help each other. We were built to give of ourselves. We were built for generosity while the way of the world makes us selfish. Florrie Chastain Pate has been in Ashville as well. She lives there. She’s here visiting now, but she’s been helping people in Ashville for so long, feeding people in Ashville. She started a nonprofit organization that takes food from restaurants and conference centers and distributes it to hungry people in the city and out in the rural areas around Western North Carolina, so when the hurricane hit, she kept doing that same thing. She was driving a truck to those same communities, feeding hungry people in the wake of the storm, and people have supported her. Restaurants have cleaned out their freezers, and Ashville residents have siphoned gas from their trucks to give her fuel for hers. However, Flori also told us that there were people who had cars flattened by trees, who wouldn’t allow them to siphon off the gas. There were people with vacation homes who wouldn’t allow these kind people to go in to get the food out from those freezers before it rotted so that someone could eat it. You might say, someone that selfish should be punished. I say, they’re being punished already, for there is no more miserable person in this world than the one who thinks only of himself. There is wisdom from above, which says: Give it away. Share what you have. You might have less, yet you will have more joy because this is the way you were created to be. This is the way of Jesus. This is the way of salvation. This is the way of the happiest among us. What is this pledge card thing? What is this all about? Will the money I give go to buy Joe a private jet or a Bentley? I promise, it won’t. I’m not that kind of a preacher. I’m more interested in getting you a ticket out. This is a ticket out from the earthly misery we all find ourselves trapped in. Money cannot buy us out of the sadness and isolation that we too often feel, yet generosity can. With generosity comes joy. With giving, we receive. When we live as Jesus taught us, sharing what we have, we make our way to the gates of Heaven and the joy that our Creator intends us to have. So fill this thing out. Volunteer for Rise Against Hunger this afternoon. Give. Serve. And discover joy. Amen.

Those Who Are Generous Are Blessed, a sermon based on James 2: 1-17, preached on September 29, 2024

A few years ago, when I was just a newly-graduated seminary student, learning what it means to be a pastor and hoping to strengthen my interview skills, I ran into a well-respected veteran preacher, who had just retired from a large church in Manhattan. I asked him for advice. I asked him: “What should I be doing to improve my skills as a pastor?” and expected him to say something spiritual, like, “Young man, you need to dedicate yourself to the discipline of daily prayer and Bible study,” or maybe something practical, like, “Seminary didn’t teach you everything, so take a class in church administration.” Instead, he looked at the scuffed loafers on my feet and said, “Son, you need to shine your shoes.” That was his suggestion to the young pastor. It wasn’t spiritual advice. It wasn’t practical advice. You might say it was superficial advice, and yet I’ve passed that same advice on to as many people who would listen because if you want to be taken seriously in this world, you had better take seriously your appearance. Clothes makes the man, so the old saying goes. Or have you seen that Tide commercial with the man in a job interview who has a great big stain on his shirt? The stain is shouting so loudly that you can’t understand what this man is saying. Appearance matters. We are always judging each other based on outward appearance. This is the way of the world. Parents wonder why their children want to spend $60 on a water bottle. It’s because it’s not just a water bottle. It’s a status symbol. We are judged by how we dress and by the cars that we drive. We judge our neighbors according to the state of their front lawns or by the signs in their yards. Yet, our second Scripture lesson warns against that kind of behavior. From the book of James, we read: If a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? My friends, with this real-life example of how superficial we can all be, James prompts us to ask ourselves: Are we living like Christians, or do we just say that we’re Christians? Do we talk about grace, or do we live it? Jesus didn’t judge based on outward appearance, so why do we? Do you remember what the Pharisees said about Him? “Who is this that eats with sinners and outcasts?” That’s what they said because Jesus was different. He could see past the stain on a man’s shirt. He even went to Legion, the man who was chained up out in the graveyard, and saw him as a child of God. He did the same with the hemorrhaging woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. No one would go close to her, and yet Jesus turned and saw her. That’s because Jesus saw beneath their outward appearances, and Jesus has seen beneath our outward appearances, so if we say we are Christians, but we act more like Pharisees, then what good is our faith? That’s the big question that the book of James asks us. James says twice in our second Scripture lesson for today that faith without works is dead. Therefore, I ask you today, if we say we follow Jesus, but we don’t take the time to really love our neighbors equally, are we living our faith? No. If our faith has no flesh and bones then it’s not alive. It’s dead. Our intentions must turn to action. If we say we believe but don’t do what we believe, our faith isn’t worth anything. That’s a strong word, but it’s a good one. What I hear James saying to us today makes me think of “thoughts and prayers.” Do you know what I mean by “thoughts and prayers?” That’s a refrain that people use in the midst of disaster. After a school shooting or a hurricane, people will send their thoughts and prayers, yet a band called the Drive-By Truckers wrote a song about how we all respond with thoughts and prayers, yet if those thoughts and prayers never turn into action or policy change, “then I don’t need your thoughts and prayers”. That’s what James is talking about. Thoughts and prayers must turn to action. Our faith must live or it’s dead. If we don’t share the grace that we’ve received, do we truly know what grace is? Speaking of grace: Almighty God knows who we truly are and loves us anyway. Do you believe that? As a family, we’ve been watching a TV show called Young Sheldon. In an episode we watched last week, Sheldon’s mother, who is often pushed to the brink of sanity by her children, is sitting on a swing set crying and smoking a cigarette. If you saw the episode and if you knew what Sheldon had been up to, you’d understand why she’s crying and smoking that cigarette. If you knew what she had to put up with, you might have lit her cigarette and poured her a drink. That’s what her neighbor does. When the neighbor lady peeps over the fence and catches her smoking, she doesn’t judge her for crying or for smoking. Instead, she says, “Don’t smoke out here in the open where all the neighbors can see. Come on over to our henhouse where not even God can see, and let’s have a wine cooler… and bring those cigarettes.” Now, God can see what we do, even in the henhouse, only God doesn’t look down on us, dolling out condemnation, but grace. Having been loved, accepted, and forgiven by God, we would be hypocrites if we didn’t share the love, acceptance, and forgiveness that we have received with the people around us, regardless of the size of the gold hoops in their ears. Do you hear what I’m saying? Why show preferential treatment to those who are clean and upright, when God has shown love, acceptance, and forgiveness to you when you were neither clean nor upright? If you’ve received generosity, then be generous. If you’ve been forgiven, then forgive. If you know what grace means because you’ve needed it, then don’t be stingy with grace. Share it. Spread it around. Show kindness. Live empathy. I can’t help but do it. People will ask me sometimes, “What’s it like to be the pastor of the church you grew up in?” I tell them that they knew the truth about me and called me to be their pastor anyway. There are people here who remember me when I was 13 years old, sneaking out of confirmation class. There are people here who remember how I drove a car painted checkerboard. There are people here who had reason to judge me, but instead, offered me grace, and even though they knew I wasn’t perfect, they called me to be their pastor anyway. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what grace feels like? I’m not perfect. I’m far from it. You know that. I know that, and so I would be the king of all hypocrites if I didn’t share the grace that I have received. That’s what James is trying to say. If you know what grace is, if you’ve felt the love of God, if God’s salvation is a gift that you’ve received, if you believe it in your bones, then let it turn into action, for faith without works is dead. It’s not enough just to believe. We also must live what we believe. It’s not enough to stand up and to say the creed and to sing the hymns. We have to give those words some flesh and blood. We have to put our faith into action or it’s empty. Is your faith empty? My friends, this is not just the first sermon from the book of James. This is also the first sermon for the stewardship season, when I’ll be asking all of you to fill out a pledge card and to estimate your financial giving to First Presbyterian Church. If you want to put your faith into action, this is a good way to do it. If you want to take that step in sharing a portion of what you’ve received from God, this is the means to do it. If you’ve received generosity, then be generous. If you’ve been forgiven, then forgive. If you know what grace means because you’ve needed it, then don’t be stingy with grace. Share it. Spread it around. Those who are generous are blessed, and they know it, and so they don’t just talk about it. They live it. My parents and my wife, Sara’s, parents live in the path of that storm that swept through last Thursday. I was on the phone trying to get my parents to come down to stay with us. They’re in Hendersonville, and they don’t have power, but they live in this old cabin with a spring and gas appliances, so they’re having the time of their lives living in that old cabin as though it were the 1800’s. They think it’s great and won’t come down here. I wish they would, though. Sara’s parents have been staying with us since Friday, and I hope they’ll stay until the power is back on where they live. In fact, I’d be glad for them to stay a lot longer than that because it feels good to do something for those who have done so much for us. They could stay with us for the next 10 years, and we still wouldn’t have repaid them for all that they’ve done. C. S. Lewis said that our tithes and offering are something like that. The father gave his son $10 to go to the store so that this son could buy his father a present for Father’s Day. The son spent 9 dollars on himself and $1 on the present for his father. So it is with us. Even when we give God our full 10% pledge, it’s still nothing compared to what God has given us. If you know that you’ve been blessed by God, but you’ve never filled out a pledge card before, then do you really know it? Faith without works is dead. Those who are generous are blessed, and they know it. Amen.

Restoring Fortunes, a sermon based on Job 42: 1-6, 10-17, preached on September 22, 2024

There are some great videos on the internet of first-time drivers, but in these videos, it’s not the teenage drivers who are being recorded. It’s their nervous parents. Our daughter Lily showed me a video of a mother sitting in the passenger seat of her car. Her daughter was excited to be at the wheel, having just received her learner’s permit, yet her mother was nervous. She was clearly tense, but it was more than that. It might be more accurate to say that this mother presented as someone with generalized anxiety disorder. As her daughter moves towards a stop light, Mom reaches with her left arm to brace herself with the dashboard. Her right hand finds the grab handle above her door. She looked like she was expecting an explosion at any second. This is the way it often is. That’s how I was driving with our 15-year-old daughter, Lily. When Lily first got her learner’s permit, she asked me to ride with her around the neighborhood. I was nervous, but not because of how Lily was driving. Lily drove slowly and cautiously. She made full and complete stops at all stop signs. She looked both ways before moving into intersections. After the wave of anxiety passed through me, I was impressed, and she was proud, so when we made it back to the house after circling the neighborhood, she wanted to park my car in the driveway. That’s a challenge because our driveway snakes around the house. It’s a difficult driveway to back out of or to pull into, yet she was threading the needle. She navigated her way up the driveway, around our house. She pulled up right next to her mother’s car. Slowing down right in front of a brick retaining wall, which marks the raised bed of my garden, she wanted to bring the car to a full and complete stop, so she slammed on the gas. The front two wheels of the car were up on the raised bed of the garden. She yelped, then cried. I asked her to put the car in park and told her to hop out and go inside. I backed the car back off the raised bed of the garden. No real damage was done. I haven’t grown many tomatoes this season, but no real damage was done to the car, and wise parents tell me that it’s just this kind of hardship that all kids need to face as they’re learning to drive. A small mistake that doesn’t hurt anyone is just what every new driver needs as they learn to drive because such real-life suffering teaches a lesson that can’t be learned from the safety of a drivers ed classroom or a driving manual. I can’t teach her everything. Sometimes, she’s got to walk that lonesome valley on her own. This is the fourth sermon in a row based on the book of Job. Today, we read the ending of the book. Four weeks ago, we read the beginning, and what I want you to notice today is how Job changes. I want you to notice that the way Job parents his children changes. If you remember back to the beginning of the book before anything bad happened, Job was working overtime to protect his kids. We read in the first chapter: He would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” This is what Job always did. This is what every parent is tempted to do. I remember one afternoon when Lily was very young. I had read an article about the dangerous content on the internet, and so I called my grandfather and told him that I was thinking about having the internet disconnected from the house to protect little Lily from what all she might find there. He said, “While you’re at it, keep her from getting a library card because there are plenty of dangerous ideas in there as well, and maybe don’t send her to school or let her learn to read. Maybe just wrap her in bubble wrap. That should do it.” Do you get his point? My grandfather, knowing that resilience comes from making mistakes, facing temptation, and suffering, wanted me to help Lily learn to live in the world rather than protect her from it, which is where Job ends up at the end of the book. We just read that Job, had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Karen-happuch. Notice that the book of Job names the daughters and not the sons. That’s unusual. Then, here’s something even more unusual. We read: In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. Now, there are daughters named in the Bible. Sometimes, the Bible tells us the names of the girls, but never do the daughters inherit anything from their fathers. I can think of one other instance in Scripture where it happens. It’s in the book of Numbers, the account of the daughters of Zelophehad. Everyone knows about them, right? With this uncommon practice of preparing his children for his death by providing all his children an inheritance, what is the Bible trying to tell us? What changed in Job? What did he learn from suffering? From suffering, he learned that life doesn’t last forever and that hardship strengthened his relationship with God, so why overprotect them from it? Why not equip them to stand on their own? Will they make mistakes? Of course. Might they squander their inheritance on loose living? Sure. Think about what happened with the Prodigal Son, who squandered his inheritance and returned to the Father valuing his relationship with him. We can pray for them, but think about what happens when they pray on their own from the ash heap. There’s a beautiful story that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. tells about learning to pray. It was late one night in January of 1956. He couldn’t sleep, and so he got out of bed, went to sit at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee by his side. He said that he could feel the darkness of despair creeping towards him. A few weeks earlier, Rosa Parks had refused to move from her seat on a bus in Montgomery, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott. King, who had just turned 27 years old, was the leader of that boycott and had received an endless stream of death threats against him and his family ever since. He had reached a point when the forces standing against him seemed impossible to overcome. It was the middle of the night, and he was away from home. Had he been in Atlanta, he would have gone to see his father and would have asked his father to pray for him, but his father was too far away, and it was too late at night to call. King wrote: I was ready to give up… In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. [It was as though I had never prayed before.] I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth, and God will be at your side forever.’ Almost at once my fears were gone. My uncertainty disappeared and I was ready to face anything. My friends, Job is a book of the Bible in which the main character suffers. Suffering has so much to teach us. Suffering taught Dr. King to pray. That dark night of the soul set him free from his fear to stand up for righteousness. Yet his father would have spared him that suffering, just as I would have spared Lily from her first car accident. I want you to know that I asked Lily if I could tell that story about her first car accident. She told me, “You’ve already told everyone, so why not tell it in a sermon?” I’m not a perfect father. I wish I were, but I’m not. I’m not Jesus. Jesus is more than me, and I want our girls to know Him more than I want them to think that I’m perfect, and more than I want to protect them from every hardship that they may face. I want them to know that in the pit of hardship, they will not be alone. No matter how dark the shadow, His light will still shine. No matter how bad the mistake, no matter how deep the shame, His grace is for them. He is more than me, and as much as I want to protect our girls from everything, I won’t always be there, so I want them to have the inheritance of faith. Job gave his daughters an inheritance: an inheritance of gold that would help them, preserve them, and keep them. Yet, our inheritance is even greater than that, for our fist Scripture lessons tells us that our High Priest, is holy, blameless, undefiled, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other priests, He has no need for sacrifices, for He died once and for all. We are but humans. He has been made perfect forever. You may not meet Him when the sun is shining and the birds are chirping, and everything is just fine, but not every day will be like that. On those dark and stormy days, look, and you will find Him. The blessing of suffering is that while we are suffering, Jesus, and our need for Him, becomes clear, and Jesus is the most precious inheritance, the greatest fortune. Amen.

He Made His Peace with God, a sermon based on Job 38: 1-7 and 34-41, preached on September 15, 2024

Did you watch the debate last Tuesday? I doubt it would have occurred to me had the presidential debate not been last Tuesday, but because it was, and I was thinking about it on Wednesday morning, I realized that what we’re seeing in our second Scripture lesson is something like God’s counterpoint to Job’s opening statement. Last Sunday, we heard from Job. Having suffered a horrible tragedy, losing his children, watching his home and property go up in a cloud of dust, he bravely voiced his bitter complaint to the Almighty. That was last Sunday’s Scripture lesson. In today’s Scripture lesson, we’ve heard God’s counterpoint, and in every way, God’s counterpoint is overwhelming. Thinking of last Tuesday night, if this were a debate between Job and God, I have little doubt whom would be declared the winner. I can hear the political commentators offering their post-debate analysis as God wraps up His counterpoint. Behind a desk for the evening news, one political commentator might say: I know that Job’s been preparing his argument from the ash heap for days now, but God’s been preparing for this debate since the beginning of time. Then, another might chime in: Job was pretty into his emotions tonight. His words had feeling and passion, and he represents so many of the downtrodden that it’s impossible not to be moved by his words, yet when God speaks, He sounds like James Earl Jones, may he rest in peace, and that gives His argument an authority that rings throughout time and space. Here’s an important difference between the debate last Tuesday night and the debate we’re hearing unfold from the pages of Scripture: God isn’t trying to beat Job in this debate. God isn’t trying to win an election here. God is trying to help Job heal, for at the right time, healing from grief and trauma may mean lifting your eyes up from the misery of your ash heap to appreciate the majesty of God’s creation. We lift up our eyes from our suffering to the hills or the stars, the sunset or the sound of a baby’s laugh, to be moved by the power of God. God’s counterpoint is something like that: The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Who was it that swaddled the water of creation and set a limit to the sea? Have you commanded the sun to rise? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Can you comprehend the expanse of the earth, much less the universe? Do you know where snow comes from? Or what about something easier: like do you know where the mountain goats give birth? Or do you know why the ostrich has wings but can’t fly? The purpose of these questions is not just to put Job back in his place, but to help him see that there is more to life and more to God’s creation than his season of tragedy. Now, tragedy can’t be glossed over. God isn’t like the preacher at the funeral who tells everyone not to worry because now another angel has joined the choirs of Heaven. There’s a time for rejoicing in the promise of eternal life, and there’s a time for weeping over what’s been lost, and you can’t gloss over the heartbreak and maintain your mental health. You can’t deny the stark reality, for when we see suffering clearly, our own or the suffering of our neighbor, we can offer real compassion instead of empty platitudes. God isn’t offering Job the empty platitudes that his friends offered. God is better than that. I can imagine God being the first to weep with Job in that ash heap, for when our hearts break, God’s heart breaks as well. God has said nothing to Job until now, for in the ash heap, Job wouldn’t have been ready to hear what God has to say. I had a friend in Tennessee who told me that when he was child, his house burnt to the ground. The house his father built with his own two hands was there one day, and it was an ash heap the next. This friend of mine remembers how his father stood in that ash heap for one day and one night, not moving, not speaking, not eating, just standing, for we all must go down to the dust to acknowledge our hurt. There is no way around it. There is no denying anger or sadness. You can’t bury it nor can you drown it. You can’t go around the valley, you’ve got to go through it, yet after acknowledging our hurt, after sitting in the ashes of our despair, maybe after shouting out to God and voicing the injustice of it all, God lifts our heads to see that the world is bigger than our pain and, in our lives, there is not only sadness but also beauty. The heartbreak of the past need not rule our future, for there is more to life than ashes and despair. We can’t get stuck in the ash heap. I practice meditation a little bit. I’m not becoming a Buddhist or anything. I just downloaded an app on my phone that helps me relax and clear my head. According to an article published by the National Science Foundation, the average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. 80% are negative, and 95% are repetitive. Sometimes, what we need is to lift the needle from the record player so that the same thoughts stop cycling through our heads. Maybe not everyone in here remembers record players, so let me tell you something about them. Records are how people used to listen to music before all the music was on our phones. You used to have to go to a store to buy music. First, there were record stores. A record was this big, flat plate with grooves on it. If you left your record in a hot car, it became a salad bowl, and if you scratched your record, the needle of your record player might get stuck at a certain point, and it would just repeat the same part of that record again and again and again. Our minds will do the same thing. Our minds will fixate on the same thought again and again and again. We’ll ask ourselves, “Why did he have to die?” again and again and again, or “What should have happened?” again and again and again, and sometimes, the best thing that can happen is for someone to come along and hit the table so that the needle bounces and the record moves on to the next song, for Job’s tragedy is not the only track in the story of God’s great and glorious salvation epic. There is more than his sadness and more than his frustration. Yet once he’s fixated on it, once the needle has found that groove of suffering, those thoughts go through his mind again and again and again on repeat. Therefore, God speaks: Have you commanded the sun to rise? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Can you comprehend the expanse of the earth, much less the universe? Think about all that there is beyond the thoughts in your head. That’s a good thing to do: to get beyond your temporary suffering to consider the majesty of salvation. That’s why it can be good for grieving people to take a trip to the Grand Canyon. We took our kids there, and one of our daughters stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon and said, “This place has nothing on Kennesaw Mountain.” Most people don’t say that. Most people look down upon the Grand Canyon and think about how many years it’s taken for the river to wear that canyon down. Most people go to the Grand Canyon and think about how ancient our earth really is, how majestic is God’s creation, and how many ups and downs this world has seen. Acknowledge your sorrow but remember there is more to life than your sorrow. Can you get your mind off that groove? Lieutenant Dan couldn’t. Do you remember that guy? I can’t think of a scene in film or TV that makes me think of Job as much as Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump. Lieutenant Dan, who lost both his legs in Vietnam, straps himself to the mast of Forrest’s shrimp boat and faces down a hurricane. Do you remember? There’s rain and wind, and Lieutenant Dan is up there in the middle of it. Out of the whirlwind, God spoke, and the next day, having braved the storm, Lieutenant Dan jumps into the water and swims off into a peaceful sea. Then Forrest says, “He made his peace with God.” My friends, I don’t know why bad things happen. I’m not convinced that the Bible ever gives us a good answer to that question, but this I do know: There is more to life than our problems and our pain. God has not only provided us with suffering, but also with joy. Can you find joy? Can you see the joy that God has provided? You see, sometimes we heal from grief and injustice when we stop paying so much attention to the grief and the injustice. You who are downtrodden and heavy laden, look up in wonder at the majesty of creation. Consider with me the grace of God. Remember, not just your suffering, but the suffering of Jesus on our behalf. Remember salvation. Consider, not just the sufferings of this present age, but the promise of Heaven. As the sun is setting, look for the fingerprints of the One who will cause it to rise again. Rember the words of our choir’s anthem: Over my head, there is music. In the night’s deep darkness there is music in the air. I hear it when I’m praying, I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere. Indeed, there is. God is here. God is with us. Always and forever. Halleluiah. Amen.

It Could Not Have Been Worse, a sermon based on Psalm 22 and Job 23: 1-9, 16-17 preached on September 8, 2024

Traffic is the worst, isn’t it? Last week, I heard about one family in our church who drove to Indiana for Labor Day weekend. The worst leg of the journey was between Chattanooga and Nashville: bumper to bumper the whole way. It sounded like torture, and some of you drive in traffic like that every day. I can’t imagine. Not to brag, but when I’m riding my bike here to the church, it’s often like riding through a Norman Rockwell painting. Last Tuesday, it was that way. There was a breeze, and birds were chirping. I waved to some neighbors on our street. Then, I rode up Stewart, turned onto Maple, where people were walking their dogs, and parents were pushing strollers to our preschool. It was one of the most idyllic experiences of my life. Only then, I rode my bike through our west parking lot. Around 9:00 AM in our west lot, when parents are dropping their kids off for preschool, it’s like a miniature version of 285. The main parking lot isn’t big enough to handle all the parents dropping off their preschool students, and the cars can’t clog up Kennesaw Avenue, so parents and grandparents circle around our west lot on the other side of the bridge. A lot of cars circle up other there. It’s typically the most aggressive driving that I have to ride my bike through during my morning commute, but last Tuesday, it was worse than usual because blocking the line was a semi with a load of lumber. It was parked, while a forklift unloaded that lumber and tried to carry it through our parking lot and across Kennesaw to a house being renovated. I got off my bike, and when I walked past Suzanne, our assistant preschool director, I heard her say, “It’s always something.” So often it is. Neighbors use our parking lot, and I love that people make good use of our parking lot. It’s a ministry of this church, just providing such a large, open area for people to use. How many teenagers, learners permit in hand, have learned to drive in that great big parking lot? Some have learned to ride their bikes in that lot. On Saturdays, a farmer’s market sets up over there, and they bring their surplus to our food distribution ministry. As a church, it’s good to partner with others who are doing good in this community. When people call and want to use our space, we help. Marietta High School holds their AP exam testing here. In a couple weeks, all the school counselors from Marietta, Cobb, and a couple other school systems will hold a big meeting in Holland Hall. We’ve hosted Rotary, the Sheriff’s Department, the Police Department, we host community choirs and retired teachers’ events: all kinds of stuff, and so I can say with confidence that we would have been more than happy for one of our church’s neighbors to use our west parking lot to unload lumber for their home renovation. I would have asked that they not do it during preschool drop off, or those parents are going to kill you. However, I never had the chance to ask because they never called. Now, I get it, asking for things can be hard. Just talking to people can be hard. I was a shy kid. When I was 8 years old, my mom walked me into the Lawrence Street Rec for basketball practice, pointed out my coach, and told me to go over and introduce myself for my first practice with his team. When she came back to pick me up an hour later, I was standing right where she left me because I was too shy to go and introduce myself. I can still be that shy kid. When I have to have a difficult conversation with someone, it takes me a minute to psych myself up, and then it takes me a minute to recover. After a hard week of too many difficult conversations, I may go to the grocery store like I did last Friday, a little too thin-skinned to deal with one more person. Last Friday, our daughter Lily drove me to the grocery store, where we picked out all kinds of stuff. Sara gave us a list, but the new flavor of Pop-corners, nacho cheese, found their way into our buggy. Plus, Moon Drop grapes are in season. We had to have those, so in the check-out line, when the cashier asked us if we’d found everything that we needed, I said, “We found a lot more than what we needed,” then I waited for her to laugh… or smile… or something. Instead, she said, “I hear that same line at least 60 times a day.” Next time, I’m going to the self-checkout line. It can be hard to talk to people. Sometimes, it’s easier not to. After a week like the one we’ve just had and during a week like the one we’re headed into, we can’t just bottle up all the fear and all the anger. Let’s think about how to let some of it out. We’re in the book of Job again today. It’s the perfect book to read in the days after a school shooting and in the days before the anniversary of 9/11 because here, Job shows us what to do with our shattered expectations and some of our darkest feelings. For the month of September, each sermon will be based on a passage from the book of Job, and last Sunday, Cassie introduced us to Job beautifully by saying that Job stands at the boundary of religion and faith. Another way of saying the same thing is to say that in our second Scripture lesson, Job is stepping away from the routines and trappings of a religious life and into having a soul-bearing relationship with God. That’s the difference between religion, as Cassie was talking about it, and faith. Another way to say it is to say that there’s a difference between going to church, following along with liturgy, singing the hymns on a Sunday morning and learning what it really means to trust in Jesus in the midst of the storm. There’s a difference between wearing a cross, having religious home décor on the wall of your house so you look like a Christian and trusting God with your deepest fears and darkest emotions. Do you know what I’m saying? Religion is a box that we check when we’re filling out paperwork. Faith is a relationship, and relationships must weather disappointment and heartache. Sometimes, there is anger and misunderstanding that must be expressed, so when a reporter asked Ruth Bell Graham, who was married to that great preacher Billy Graham, if she had ever considered divorce, she responded: “Divorce? I never once considered divorce. However, I often considered murder.” What’s the difference between calling yourself a Christian and having a relationship with God? When you have a relationship with God, you open your mouth and let God know what you’re really feeling, even if what you are feeling is ugly, so we read in our second Scripture lesson that Job answered: My complaint is bitter; and God’s hand is heavy despite my groaning. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me. If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face! For Job, his whole world had fallen apart. His children were dead. His flocks of camels and goats were gone. His home had been destroyed. Things could not have been worse, and in our second Scripture lesson, he lets God know about it. Can you imagine? Friends, the last time I preached on this passage from the book of Job, it was 2021. We were in what was, for me, the darkest days of the pandemic. We were passed the time when we were all leaving our groceries in our cars. We were passed the time of thinking that everyone was going to die. We were in that point of the pandemic when some of us thought we needed to be careful and others of us were wondering if maybe the whole thing was a hoax, which meant that for people like me who were trying to lead organizations of mixed-opinioned individuals, it was the darkest days of the pandemic in 2021 because of the stress. I started having migraine headaches. I wasn’t sleeping a whole lot. This passage from Job was a difficult scripture lesson for me to wrestle with then because, despite Job’s honesty, if you would have asked me how I was doing in those stressful days of 2021, I would have said, “I’m doing fine.” Why? Because it takes a whole lot of faith to be honest when things are going badly. It takes a whole lot of faith in our relationships with God to let God know about our greatest vulnerabilities or our deepest pain, and so we say that the book of Job stands at the edge of religion and faith because in this book, Job trusts God with how he’s really doing. How’s he doing? Awful. Everything has fallen apart. If his boss had walked up to him in this moment, he might have lied. If his grandkids had walked up to him in that moment, he might have put on a brave face. Maybe that’s how we need to be around some people; however, we put on a brave face before God to our own detriment. Many who have reached that dark place in life must wrestle with a lie. They must wrestle with the lie that there’s nothing to be done and nothing to say, that no one wants to hear it, and no one really cares. Doubt that lie. Dismantle that lie with the truth that God will listen, for when we begin to open up about our fears, we live our courage, and when we trust God with our heartache, we live our faith. Our first Scripture lesson, undoubtably one of the most depressing, gut-wrenching psalms we could ever read, Psalm 22: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Where have you heard those words before? Jesus quotes this psalm while He’s being crucified because life for Jesus wasn’t perfect, yet He was perfect. He was perfectly faithful, and so in His darkest moment, He trusted God enough to reveal to Him His pain. If another school shooting has you broken hearted, or if the state of affairs in our nation and our world keeps you up at night, do not bottle up what you’re feeling. Instead, live your faith. Trust God with what you’re feeling. Let your Father in Heaven know. Trust Him with your hurt and your heartache. Doing so may not make all your problems go away. However, doing so will strengthen your relationship with Him, which will change everything. Amen.

In the Strength of His Power, a sermon based on Ephesians 6: 10-20, preached on August 25, 2024

“Put on the whole armor of God.” That’s stronger than how I end each worship service. When we get to the end of each worship service, I always say the same thing: As God’s own, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, and patience. Clothe yourselves is different from arm yourselves, but sometimes the world outside requires armor. People are fighting all kinds of battles every day. The great preacher Dr. Frank Harrington, who served the Lord at Peachtree Presbyterian Church, used to talk about how he was all the time fighting the battle of the bulge. He wasn’t talking about what happened on the Western Front during the winter of 1945. He was talking about how hard it was some mornings to button the top button on his white shirt. He was talking about the battle of temptation to avoid the potato chips and to go for the carrot sticks instead. He was talking about the belt he put on and the feeling he got when he ran out of holes. Just last week, I received a joke from Fran Hammond put out by “The Laughing Christian.” It said: I got on my bathroom scale this morning, and let me tell you, the full armor of God is heavy! Halleluia! In the days of the Ephesians and the Apostle Paul, the battle was different, but it was also the same. Each day, those Ephesian Christians walked out into a world in which their faith was tested and their identity was questioned. Likewise, we will all walk out of this worship service, going into a world where our patience will be tested, and it will happen the minute we try to turn out of our parking lot. We live in the world where sin and death, evil and hatred, envy and vanity still have power, and if we are to resist, some days it takes more than just clothing yourself with love. Some days, what you need is the belt of truth. Speaking of the battle of the bulge, whenever I put on a belt, I’m noticing the hole I used the last time I put that belt on. I wear the same belt often enough that I can tell which hole is my standard. Then there’s the hole one notch up that I use for the week after Thanksgiving. My friends, we are not living in exile in Babylon or under the power of the Roman Empire, thanks be to God, but we are living in a society so overrun with standards of unattainable beauty that girls are turning to anorexia and bulimia at younger and younger ages. If a little girl looks at her reflection in the mirror and says anything other than, “I am a beautiful child of God,” then she needs to add a belt of truth to her outfit. As you think about the armor of God this morning, think about what it takes to extinguish the arrows that come at us. Do you have your shield? Do you have your helmet? Have you put on your belt of truth so that you know who you are while living in a society that tells you you’re only as good as you look? This is what Christians have been doing for generations. We have maintained our conviction despite the world around us. Let me tell you about the Huguenots. Do you know anything about the Huguenots? About 500 years ago, John Calvin, the theologian, became so popular that Christians throughout Europe were reading what he had to say. He lived in Geneva, Switzerland, and there, those who followed his interpretation of Christianity were called Calvinists. In Scotland, they were called Presbyterians. And in France, they were called Huguenots. Many of those French Huguenots immigrated here and became some of the first Europeans to settle in Charleston, South Carolina. One of the oldest churches in that city of Charleston is the old Huguenot church, established in 1687, but not all of them left France. Other Huguenots stayed, and during World War II, when the Nazis invaded and took over the country, a small village of Huguenots wrestled with what they should do. How would they live their faith under Nazi occupation? How would they go on living without compromising their convictions? How would they survive without losing their souls? With the armor of God in mind, their pastor stood in the pulpit of that town occupied by the Nazis and said, “The responsibility of Christians is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences through the weapons of the Spirit.” In other words, put on the breastplate of righteousness, for they may have invaded our borders, they may be occupying our nation, their hatred and cruelty may surround us, but we can still defend the state of our hearts. That’s part of what a breastplate does. It guards your internal organs. It protects your heart, and those Huguenots, they couldn’t push back the Nazi tanks with their hunting rifles, yet with pure and loving hearts, they provided sanctuary to Jews all during the war, and by the time the war ended, the total number of Jews they had saved was over 5,000. “The responsibility of Christians is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences through the weapons of the Spirit.” “Put on the whole armor of God.” Wear that belt of truth. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. And lace up the sandals in preparation for the gospel of peace. That’s such an interesting phrase: lace up your sandals in preparation for the gospel of peace. I think it means that if your boots get too used to marching off to war, if your fingertips get too used to arguing on the internet, if your brain gets too good at criticizing, you won’t be ready for the dawn of peace. You might come home from the battlefield, the cease fire may be called, but if you’re too used to fighting a battle, you won’t be ready for peace. On the other hand, those Huguenots knew that the Nazi occupation wouldn’t last forever. They didn’t surrender nor give in, but they resisted. They were so rooted in the faith that they were like a tree whose trunk twisted by the wind, whose branches were battered, but remained standing once the hurricane passed. That’s the main thing about this armor of God. It’s not about winning the battle. It’s about standing firm until the battle is won, and Who is it who will win this battle for us? Who is it who’s always fighting on our side? For several years now, every day, I’ve been reading a morning devotional. I went through “Jesus Calling” a couple times. Do you know that one? I just moved from “Jesus Calling” to “Jesus Listens,” and last week in “Jesus Listens,” I read this line, that amid all the headlines we read each day, something most important is always left out by the journalists. We read the headlines of the conflict in the Middle East. We read about the desperation of the Palestinian people. We read about the plight of women in Afghanistan. We read about the upcoming presidential election. And we think we know who the major players are in all those conflicts, but unless we remember that in the midst of all of that, God is working His purpose out, we’ll never really know what’s going on out in the world. My friends, we don’t need to worry about the outcome of the battle, for the war is already won. We just can’t lose our souls in the midst of it. Don’t sacrifice your friendships. Don’t spend your time spreading the division. Put on that belt of truth, and the breastplate of righteousness, and the helmet of salvation, and lace up those sandals in preparation for the gospel of peace. Don’t take up your sword to fight the battle that He’s already winning. Notice with me that the sword in the whole armor of God isn’t a lethal weapon for us to wield. It’s the word of God. The sword is the word of God, but in the Bible, do you remember how Peter used his sword? Jesus was being arrested to be taken to His trial, where He’d be condemned and crucified. Peter thought Jesus needed him to defend Him, so he took out his sword and he cut off the ear of an enslaved man named Malchus. I think about that, and I remember how impulsive we all can be. We want to stand up and defend ourselves and our religion and our convictions, forgetting that Jesus doesn’t need us to fight for Him. He’s already won the victory. My friends, we are in the middle of a spiritual conflict that will not be solved with a political solution. Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the cosmic powers of this present darkness. That’s what the Bible says. So, we need to be, not Christians who are ready to lash out at our brothers and sisters, but mature Christians who are always wearing the armor of God. A great preacher named Oswald Chambers once said, “Spiritual maturity is going from being thin-skinned and hard-hearted to thick-skinned and soft-hearted.” Have you ever been around someone who was thin-skinned and hard-hearted? Of course you have. They’ve taken over the internet. However, the spiritually mature wear the armor of God to maintain a tender heart, open and compassionate. Wear that armor and be quick to listen, slow to judge. Don’t break under criticism but remember who you are. Be spiritually mature. May the state of your heart remain steady in spite of the chaos around you. Stand firm, knowing that the storm will pass, and that Christ will have the victory. Be strong in the strength of His power. Amen.

All God's Creatures Have a Place in the Choir, a sermon based on Ephesians 5: 15-20, preached on August 18, 2024

I once had the honor of preaching at a tiny Presbyterian church in South Georgia. I was a seminary student, preaching as a sub for their pastor, and that Sunday, the choir loft was empty, and there were 15 or 20 sitting in the pews. When we got to the choir anthem, those 15 or 20 sitting in the pews stood up, walked to the choir loft, and sang the anthem. All God’s creatures have a place in the choir. That’s what I titled this sermon, “All God’s Creatures Have a Place in the Choir,” but Dr. Jeffrey Meeks hasn’t had the chance to sign off on that title. I’m not sure that he would endorse the message that all God’s creatures have a place in the choir, for the truth is that not all God’s creatures can sing. While we can all make a joyful noise to the Lord, it’s not necessarily a pleasant noise, so while many a cross-stitched sampler has declared that all God’s creatures have a place in the choir, most people know better than to think that they can just walk into a choral group and sing. However, if you walked into a kindergarten classroom, they wouldn’t. I once heard a story about a teacher who walked into a classroom full of kindergarteners. She asked, “Who in here is an artist?” Those kids had just painted pictures that were hanging on the walls, and so every kid in there raised his or her hand. They had all donned smocks and had handled a paintbrush, so every one of them considered him or herself an artist. Then the teacher asked, “Who in here is a musician?” One kid raised his hand and said, “I can play the triangle.” Another, “I can play the maracas.” On they went. The classroom was full of musicians. Then she asked, “Who in here can sing?” Again, every hand shot up. Why? Because no one told them that they couldn’t, and they were all young enough to still be trying everything they could possibly try. That changes by the time we get to high school. By the time we get to high school, most of us specialize in one thing or another. I specialized in baseball. I gave up Boy Scouts and playing the trombone so that I could sit the bench for the Marietta Blue Devils. Last Sunday, I ran into the older brother of a team member I had played with. We talked about how his little brother could throw a fastball right by you. Our conversation was as though that Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days” had come to life. Do you know that song? It goes: I had a friend who was a big baseball player, back in high school. He could throw that speedball by you; make you look like a fool. Saw him the other night at this roadside bar. I was walking in; he was walking out. We went back inside, sat down, had a few drinks. But all he kept talking about, was Glory days. Well, they’ll pass you by, glory days. In the wink of a young girl’s eye, glory days. Glory days. That song is so good, maybe because it’s so true. Most of us who played sports in high school have taken up watching sports rather than playing sports, apart from pickleball, which everyone is playing these days. Think with me about the difference. Watching is not as life-giving as doing. Now, consider this verse from our second Scripture lesson: Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. You’ve likely heard this verse before, but don’t just interpret the obvious lesson of this verse. Visualize with me the old football player, sitting in front of a TV or in the stands, beer in hand, watching players on a field do the thing he used to do. Keep that image on the one hand and consider with me the second half of that sentence: Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves. Did you hear what the author of our second Scripture lesson did there? On the one hand is the old baseball player from the song who thinks all his best days are behind him, so he has a few drinks and reminisces on the bar stool, yet the alternative is to sing. Not listening to music but singing it. Not remembering the good old days but looking forward to tomorrow. My friends, most of us can’t play the sports we played in high school or college anymore, so we stop playing and start watching. That won’t work in here because Christianity is not a spectator sport. You don’t have to sing in the choir. You don’t have to preach the sermon or play the organ. These things are not for everybody, yet when you’re in here, you must sing. You must praise. You must lift up your voice because of all the seats in this room, not one of them is for the audience. Everyone in here is a participant in praising God, and when our hour of worship is over, the service begins. I’ve been reading this book that I’ve told you about. It’s a book titled, The Anxious Generation, and in it, the author, Jonathan Haidt, calls for all kinds of changes. He’s all for these changes that Marietta City Schools is already implementing, like those locked bags that kids put their cell phones in so they’re not distracted by them in class. Assistant Principal Anthony Booker, he told me this morning that it’s hard to implement, but it’s worth it because his students are talking to each other again. In addition to those locking bags for cell phones, Jonathan Haidt encourages no social media before the age of 16 and no smart phones before high school, but the big thing this guy encourages is to restore independence, free play, and responsibility to childhood. He says that our playgrounds are too safe to be any fun, and that we parents are so nervous about our kids getting hurt, that we haven’t given them chores or let them walk to school or ride the bus, and so our kids grow up without feeling the joy that comes from independence and having a purpose. According to Haidt, we all have two big human needs: community and purpose. We all need to be around people, which makes us feel loved, and we need to have the chance to do something that we love and that serves a higher purpose. That makes us feel like our lives have meaning. In other words, while washed-up old football players are sitting back drinking beer and watching the game, our kids are sitting back and looking at their phones, and the result is the same. We lack purpose. We lack community. We’re watching more than we are living, and Christianity is not a spectator sport. You don’t have to sing in the choir, but we all have a place here. We all have a part to sing and a gift to bring. Of all the seats in this room, not one of them is for the audience. Everyone in here is a participant in praising God, and when our hour of worship is over, the service begins, and when we serve, we are filled with the Spirit. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. You might know that groups of musicians from our church have been going around to retirement communities to sing. The group that went out the week before last went to Atherton Retirement Community one afternoon and sang songs like “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” That one’s not in our hymnal. To talk to some of these singers and to ask them why they’re doing it, I talked with Lynne Sloop abut it one afternoon, and she said that she loves doing this. It brings her joy. If you could see Amy Sherwood singing. She and Lynn were the first two to go out to sing as a part of this program, and they sang “Moon River” during lunch at Atherton on the birthday of our church’s oldest member, Betty Kuhnen. The Cobb County Sheriff’s department heard that they were doing it, and they brought flowers and made Betty an honorary sheriff’s deputy for the day. It was an amazing experience to witness, and it never would have happened if Amy and Lynne had grown used to listening to music rather than singing it. We listen to music too much, when we were created to sing. We watch people do the things that we are meant to do. We wait around, frustrated with the world, and we wish someone would come along to do something about it, when we were created for just such a time as this. My friends, let us sing to remind ourselves that our Glory Days are not behind us, but before us. Let us lift our voices to praise the One who has promised that ahead of us are brighter days, brighter than all the days we have known before. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O, what a foretaste of glory divine! Not an aftertaste, but a foretaste. Sing the wondrous love of Jesus. Sing his mercy and his grace. In the mansion bright and blessed, he’ll prepare for us a place. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be, If you want to be ready to rejoice when we make it there, you had better stop mumbling through the words now. Together, let us sing will full hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.