Pushing the Date Back

Scripture Lessons: Romans 8: 26-39 and Genesis 29: 15-28 Sermon Title: Pushing the Date Back Preached on July 26, 2020 Last Tuesday was my 40th birthday. Just before, last Sunday morning, I walked outside to find 40 pink flamingoes, a handful of metal pigs, and a cardboard cut-out of my 18-year-old-self gracing our front yard. Apparently three members of our church staff woke up early on Sunday morning to surprise me, marking my 40th birthday the best birthday I’ve ever had. It was. Truly. From you I’ve received so many cards I haven’t been able to open them all. I was serenaded by Jeffrey and Gordon Meeks on the piano and violin, as well as Van Perlberg on the accordion. I’ve been so moved by the way you have marked this milestone birthday that I haven’t even been sad as I think about how different my 18-year-old body looks from my 40-year-old one. Sara had me go outside to stand next to my 18-year-old frame. As I compare my 40-year-old body to my 18-year-old body it’s clear that my 18-year-old stomach is flatter, my 18-year-old arms are more muscular, and my 18-year-old head has much more hair. So, looking at the cardboard cutout version of my old self has been cause for important reflection this week. Not only has it made me want to join a gym and to start using Rogaine, it’s also made me wonder, if I could go back to talk with my 18-year-old self, what would I say other “Enjoy that full head of hair while you have it?” Maybe I would say that, and, more importantly, I think I would also tell the 18 year old Joe Evans not to do anything too stupid as he galivants around Marietta, GA, because in just a few years he’s going to come back to become their pastor.” Honestly, I can think of many things I’d do differently. Only today I feel strongly that the best thing to tell my 18-year-old self would be, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, because everything is teaching you something. Everyone has something to tell you. Keep going and keep learning. Don’t avoid challenges and don’t have too many regrets, because somehow God is at work in all of it.” Do you believe that? I do. Or I do most of the time. Sometimes I fall into the thinking that it would be nice to have a time machine. That it would be wonderful to have a time machine that I might go back in time to tell my old self: “on that Mexico Mission trip, don’t let Jenny Pratt take a picture of you in an old cut-up t-shirt, jean shorts, and a cowboy hat. It will come back to haunt you.” That’s maybe what we’d like to do. Meanwhile we’re being shaped by all kinds of things and all kinds of people, and just as God’s purposes are advanced by the miracles, sometimes God takes the bad things and does something good out of them. The question our Scripture Lessons for today ask is: could God be at work in all of it? Has God used any number of both miracles and tragic events to shape and change us into the people we are today? My 18-year-old-self had not yet met Sara Hernandez who would become for him one of life’s greatest miracles, but neither had he seen planes fly into the Twin Towers. Neither had he learned much about disease or despair. Today, as we look back on our lives, can we be bold to see God at work in the bad people, like Laban, or the tragic events, like being tricked by him, to internalize Paul’s conviction from the book of Romans, “that all things work together for good”? That’s a tall order. That’s a great challenge. But in a time of global pandemic, this is the question we must be asking ourselves, because if we don’t dare to see God at work today, then God’s light may shine upon us without us noticing. We may miss out on important opportunities to grow in our faith. Back to Jacob. I know he might have told his 18-year-old self to avoid Laban, but his life would have been so different if he had. Thinking about Laban and the story of Jacob and Rachel in our Second Scripture Lesson, I’m glad that Jacob and Rachel didn’t come to me for their pre-marital counseling. Can you imagine? What a mess. Some of their relationship was typical enough. It started when he saw her. Maybe it was love at first sight. Immediately, he wanted to impress her, so he rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered her sheep for her. It’s the perfect beginning of a romance, and those of you who know what it is to fall in love can think back to what he did that first got your attention, or how when you saw her you would have lifted any number of stones to get her to look your way. Jacob and Rachel have their first kiss that very day. In Genesis chapter 29 Jacob kissed Rachel. Scripture tells us that when it happened Jacob “wept aloud.” It was as every first kiss should be. Then, before things go any farther Jacob goes to meet her father. Rachel’s father agrees to allow this relative stranger to marry his daughter when Jacob offers to work seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage. This is the part of the story where I can imagine Jacob wanting a time machine. He says, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” Then Laban said, “It is better that I should give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” Never mind that these two men are talking about this poor young woman like she’s a piece of property or an old Ford, a deal is struck. An agreement is made. Jacob is ready to do what he needs to do so he goes and does it, only we know it won’t be that easy, because it almost never is. In fact, these seven years make me think of what we were all told at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak: “Just stay at home for three or four weeks and this thing will be over.” Do you remember them telling us that? Then three or four weeks stretched out into three and four months. Now we’re being told we’re still not getting anywhere. Likewise, at the end of seven years Jacob goes to Laban to make good on their agreement and Laban gives him Leah. There’s always something that makes a marriage hard. There’s always something that must be overcome. But never in premarital counseling have I heard a couple say: “Pastor, the thing that makes our relationship complicated is that he’s already married to my sister.” Can you imagine? Had I been doing their premarital counseling I’d ask for clarification: “So, Jacob, you were tricked into marrying her sister, by your father-in-law?” “And you didn’t realize it wasn’t Rachel until the morning after?” “And you’re still married to Leah?” What are we to say about these things? Surely, we expect better of the heroes of the Bible. Surely, we expect better out of our family members. Surely, we expect more out of life, but it only gets worse, more twisted, more complicated, for at times, God’s people, regardless of the generation, all wonder to themselves, “God, why are you doing this to me?” No doubt, like Jacob, if we had a time machine and could go back to tell our 18-year-old selves something, some of us would go back to voice a warning: “I know she caught your eye but keep walking.” “I know he seems nice enough, but don’t trust him.” “I know it’s dark in the tent, but before you do anything, make sure she’s not your sister-in-law.” Likewise, there are plenty of things I would love to do over again and there are some people I would love to have avoided, but sometimes, in dealing with difficult issues we’re actually dealing with ourselves. It’s true. It’s true that Laban tricked Jacob, but who did Jacob trick? As we read the book of Genesis and consider Jacob’s character, we remember that before he met Rachel, he had already stolen his older brother’s inheritance. Therefore, I believe we must wonder if it might be that what Jacob hates most about Laban and his tricks is what Jacob hates most within himself. What he learns then in being tricked by Laban, is how he must have made his brother feel. What he learns in getting hurt is what hurt feels like. What he learns in having to put his life on hold is that life requires, we not just get by, but grow. Today, what I realize about this time of quarantine, is that as much as I want it to be over and as much as I wish it would have never happened; that as much as I might wish that someone could go back in time to stop that virus from ever spreading, what we Christians must be bold to do is to consider that in this moment, it’s as though God has hit the reset button on this nation. That in this moment, it’s as though God has hit the reset button on our lives. Before now, few among us had time for self-reflection. Few among us had the chance to consider, not only where we’ve been but where we’re going. In this moment when it seems most of us have plenty of time, turn off the TV and put down your phone for just a moment to ask yourself: “What is God trying to teach me today?” In looking at that cardboard cutout of my 18-year-old-self, I see that despite whatever mistakes I had made or was yet to make, because of that Mexico Mission Trip I was on when the picture was taken, I was already learning that the way toward a full and abundant life was marked, not by selfishness, but service. That the way toward happiness is a movement away from self and towards the other. That life is not to be lived by tricking people as Jacob tricked Esau or as Laban tricked Jacob, but in loving my neighbor as myself, regardless of who my neighbor is. In this self-centered, defensive, ego-driven culture of ours, God is giving us a chance to choose a new path. Don’t spend so much time wishing you could go back to change what has already happened that you forfeit your chance to start making a better future today. And know that as you grow and change, as you learn and live, God is with you fulfilling His promises. Halleluiah. Amen.

Saying Goodbye to Traditions

Scripture Lessons: Psalm and Mark 7: 1-23 Sermon Title: Saying Goodbye to Traditions Preached on July 18, 2020 In the midst of so much chaos, I’ve been finding a lot of comfort in food. Have you? Last Monday for dinner we did something different. Having bought whole catfish at Kroger, I breaded them with corn meal and fried them. We’re a chicken breast family, so catfish was a little out of the ordinary. However, something made me want to mix it up, even though I’d never fried catfish before. As a kid I’d seen my grandmother do it, so I knew it could be done. We’d often spend weekends in one of the rental cabins at a place just north of Clayton called Andy’s Trout Farm. Andy and his wife Betty, who my grandmother knew, had two or three ponds filled with trout, and what we’d do is use one of their cane poles and fish. It wasn’t fishing, strictly speaking. There wasn’t much sport in it. It was like there was more trout than water in those ponds, but it was a lot of fun for me, maybe not so much the fish. According to my Dad, we were all allowed to catch just one, as we had to pay by the pound. Sometimes my grandmother would let me catch hers. Then we’d carry the caught fish in our metal buckets back to Andy or Betty who would clean them and my grandmother would fry them up in a cast iron skillet back at the cabin which we’d rented. That’s as close to a recipe that I had to go on when frying our catfish last week. So, I got out our cast iron skillet, filled it with oil, dredged them in our corn meal, and fried our whole catfish until they were perfectly brown and crispy. My grandmother’s been gone for years, but cooking this way made me think of her, which was wonderful and comforting. That’s the magic of food. My brother recently wrote about it. He reviewed a book of poetry for a literary journal. In his review he said that this poet, described food in such a way as to turn the everyday meal “into sacrament.” Maybe you know what he’s talking about. I do. The Pharisees were good about that too. The Pharisees ate in such a way that the three daily meals reminded them of who God was and who they were. They never would have rushed through supper or eaten a meal in the car on the way to a meeting. There was no McDonald’s drive-through in ancient Israel. It would have gone out of business, for these holy people stopped everything to think about when the grain had been harvested, who raised the goat, and did the cook wash her hands before she fried it? It was all a way of worshiping God with each mouthful. They were doing more than filling their bellies but were connecting to something holy. So, what Jesus said to those Pharisees and scribes must have been so completely destabilizing that they felt as though they’d been hit upside the head by a cast iron skillet. They asked him: “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” Then he said to them, “You abandon the commandments of God and hold to human tradition.” Can you believe he said that? Here’s some advice: don’t invite Jesus over for dinner unless you’re ready. He would have suggested that I grill my catfish, or worse. He’s just the kind of a person who calls us away from our unexamined lives and makes us think uncomfortable thoughts. His refusal to accept the table manners of the religious authorities here in the Gospel of Mark reminds me of this story a woman named Marcy Lay once told me. Marcy Lay directed the church choir. She is a sage of a person. Wise and faithful. After a grueling debate over the color of poinsettias to decorate the Sanctuary of our church in Tennessee: white as it had been for years or new and risqué red, she told me about how in her family at holiday dinners someone had to cut the last three inches off the ham before cooking it. Not on the big side, but on the little side where the bone might stick out. Someone had to go through the trouble of cutting three of four inches off the ham before it could be cooked in her family. That’s just what everyone did, it was the family tradition, until somebody – it was probably her sister’s boyfriend or some other interloper – asked, “That’s silly. Why are you doing that?” No one had ever asked that question. You weren’t supposed to ask, and so no one was really prepared to give an answer. Fortunately, out of the uncomfortable silence, grandma piped up: “Years ago, the biggest pan I had was about four inches too short for the ham we bought at Christmas, so I just got into the habit of cutting off that end. I don’t know why you’re still doing it. That pan you have is plenty big enough to fit the whole thing.” Is that the way with any of the traditions in your house? Do you feel like you have to cook macaroni and cheese a certain way? Is it necessary to mash the potatoes rather than whip them? Or is your pre-thanksgiving meal tradition talking about that awful man Susie brought home for Christmas who asked all those stupid questions. “Thank goodness he’s not been back.” They asked him: “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “You abandon the commandments of God and hold to human tradition.” Do you know how hard it is to tell the difference? Do you know how difficult it is to let go of any routine in a world like this one? By now you’ve heard that our kids won’t be going back to school. I don’t know that I’ve ever looked forward to the tradition of back to school shopping, but not doing it is breaking my heart. This week our Cece was looking through masks to wear on her first day. Lily was supposed to start at the 6th Grade Academy. I don’t like how they grow up, but this feeling of not being able to watch them go through the milestones of life that they’re supposed to go through has me all tied up. I miss the traditions. I miss our routines. I miss how normal life felt. Surely, Jesus can understand that. Surely, He’s not unsympathetic to whatever suffering we feel, regardless of how minor or how major, only in a time like this one we must always remember that Jesus doesn’t care about human traditions. He cares about the Commandments of God. He cares, not nearly so much about getting things back to normal, as moving us towards the Kingdom, so even in a time such as this one when the last thing I want to think about is changing the semblance of a routine that I’ve managed to establish, Jesus pushes us to ask the question: are we abandoning the commandments of God to hold onto human tradition? Are we still cutting off the ends of our hams even though our pan is big enough for the whole thing? Are we risking our health and the health of our neighbors for some time-honored rituals, which in this moment just don’t make any good sense? Since the Marietta Daily Journal doesn’t run on Sundays or Mondays, my wife Sara very thoughtfully gave me a Sunday subscription to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I prefer to read my news rather than watch it on TV, and my Sundays have been disrupted enough already, so I’ve really missed my Sunday paper. I’ve been enjoying her gift. Then last Sunday there was a special note from the editor in the AJC: The first half of 2020 saw people across metro Atlanta face big challenges and do extraordinary things. Parents figured out how to do their jobs from home and guide their children’s education at the same time. Families worried about the health of their loved ones. Everyone made sacrifices with some being hit harder than others. Through all of this, many did their very best work, every day. I love this paragraph. I love it, as for one thing, it’s just important to stop and reflect on what’s happened over the past weeks and months, what we’ve done and what we’re capable of. I also believe that the AJC has it right: through all of this, many did their very best work, every day. That’s true of you. That’s true of our church. Last Sunday the most amazing thing happened. You’ve probably heard about it. Bill Fogerty turned 93 years old. Normally there would have been a party. Maybe we would have sung him happy birthday in here. Surely, we all would have shaken his hand or given him a hug to celebrate the gift from God that he is to this church. None of that could happen, but this did: his wonderful daughter Jean and her daughters sent out a message and organized a drive-by birthday party for him. And there were so many cars in this parade that we couldn’t all make it through the same traffic light. Once we got to his neighborhood we had to wait, causing a traffic jam. Then when we finally were all there, we all drove past to shout, “happy birthday” out the windows of our cars. Driving by I thought to myself, “This is what church is all about. This is what it means to be in a family of faith.” It couldn’t happen like it did before. It might not happen the way we remember for a very long time but remember this: Love is the same. We are still First Presbyterian Church. We are still, one holy people, who worship God together. We are still changing lives with faith, hope, and love – and no virus is ever going to stop that. In this strange and challenging season, when as soon as you’ve given everything you thought you could give and then are asked to sacrifice even more, do not cling so tightly to tradition, ritual, or what we’ve called normal that you go down with this temporal would which we’ve always known would fall away. Cling tightly this day, not to human tradition, but to the promises of God. For everything is changing, but God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.

Know Thyself

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 122 and Mark 6: 1-29 Sermon Title: Know Thyself Preached on July 12, 2020 Just before sitting down to really study this passage from the Gospel of Mark I was giving our children a lecture on self-esteem. Now that I’m home all the time, they suffer through a lot of my diatribes on any number of subjects. What inspired this one was Hamilton, the Broadway sensation now available on Disney-Plus. I was so excited about it that we watched it the day it was released. It seemed like everyone was talking about it, and Sara was telling us how the creator and star, Len Manual Miranda, was interviewed the same day by Terry Gross on NPR. “What was he like?” I asked. “A little arrogant,” she said. You might say that he has a right to be. After all the soundtrack which he wrote has been listened to more than 4 billion times. In 2016 the play won the Pulitzer Price as well as 16 Tony Awards, and Len Manual Miranda not only wrote it all, but he stars in it, both singing and dancing. He’s incredible and the show is incredible. However, to Sara, the right thing to say after being interviewed by Terry Gross is, “It’s truly been an honor,” while Len Manual Miranda ended the show by saying, “thanks, bye,” which is the way you hang up the phone with a telemarketer and is not the way you leave a Terry Gross interview. So, I understood why Sara thought he was arrogant, but our kids didn’t. “What is arrogant,” our children asked. That’s when I launched into my lecture. “Arrogance is thinking too highly of yourself. Arrogant people think they’re more important or more wonderful than they actually are,” I said. Then I nuanced this lecture they weren’t paying any attention to by saying, “Thinking you’re less important or less wonderful than you actually are can be just as bad. The best thing is having a good, solid, understanding of yourself. That way when you hear criticism it doesn’t crush you, but neither do you ignore it thinking you’re already perfect and can’t improve. What life takes is not low or high self-esteem, but knowing yourself, and you two are both absolutely wonderful.” That was my speech. Maybe they didn’t hear it all, but I hope they will sooner or later, because I don’t want them to let criticism or rejection crush them, nor do I want them to go foolishly through life as the president of their own fan club, for what life demands is that we know ourselves well enough to keep going. I remember well one teenage summer several years ago. My friend Dave Elliot and I decided to launch our own lawn service. We made flyers. It was very professional. And we walked all around his neighborhood placing these flyers in everyone’s mailbox. I remember his mother suggested we not put our names on the flyer for we didn’t have the best reputation. We were mostly known as teenage vagrants, and we only got one inquiry. It was from Jim and Flora Speed. Our pastor called and asked us to watch the dog while they were out of town, which we did faithfully, I think. Regardless, this was a short-lived business venture and we never tried anything like that again. One customer didn’t seem like success, so we quit trying. You won’t make it through life that way. Those who learn from experience and persevere on the other hand will. For example: Mormon missionaries. Do you remember back when Mitt Romney was running for president and the news was so interested in Mormonism? I remember these great news stories on the religion. One person asked, “Why are Mormons so successful in business?” And the expert, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints himself, said, “Well, if you had to leave home as a teenager and go knocking on dozens of doors a day, 99% of which were slammed in your face, you’d quickly learn what it takes to make it in this world.” In this lesson from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus tells his disciples to “get out there and keep going!” He sent them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts… He said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them” and keep going. That’s what it takes. You can’t let the rejections keep you down. You keep going. You keep testifying. You keep learning and getting better. You keep doing good even if it seems like the evil in the world is going to drown it out. That’s true of Discipleship and that’s true of life. This long reading from the Gospel of Mark started with Jesus in his hometown. They didn’t listen to him either. To them, he was just the carpenter’s son, but did he allow their perception of him to diminish his self-perception? Did he rethink his mission or his ministry? Did he hear them and say to himself, “You know what, maybe I’m not really the Son of God after all?” No he didn’t. That’s not what Jesus did. That’s what we do. Jesus is different. Jesus knows he’s a prophet even if his hometown doesn’t recognize it, but Herodias won’t feel like a queen until John the Baptist is dead. Our long Second Scripture Lesson could be divided up into three acts which work together to teach us an important lesson: In Act 1 Jesus is rejected by the citizens of his hometown, and he speaks that noteworthy phrase, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown.” In Act 2 the twelve disciples are sent out to minister far and wide and Jesus warns them not to let those who won’t listen get them down. Then in Act 3 we see what happens to those who don’t know themselves and who can’t accept themselves just as they are, but entertain foolish dreams of grandiosity. Who live and die according to public opinion. Who make bad choices, then work to silence the critics rather than learn something. For years now we’ve been warned of the dangers of low self-esteem, but here in the Gospel of Mark we see that those with a fragile sense of self, a bloated ego that can’t handle criticism in a healthy way, is so dangerous a person as to have the head of her critic served on a platter. That’s how dangerous a person who hides from the truth is. Herodias is dangerous because she has to kill someone to be OK with herself. Jesus isn’t like that. His hometown doesn’t recognize him for what and who he is. That’s OK. He tells his followers, “don’t expect everyone to listen to you. If they don’t like what you have to say, keep going! Their reaction cannot nullify the truth which is within you.” You see, Jesus is like John the Baptist, who speaks the truth, even though it might get him killed, because if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. And you will. John the Baptist always tells the truth. He can’t help it. He’s like your bathroom scale. According to Jenn Hobby, resident of Cobb County and featured personality on Star 94 FM, 76% of Americans have gained at least 16 pounds during the quarantine. Today you stand on it and it tells you how much you weigh. If you don’t like what it has to say you can kill your bathroom scale, that’s what Herodias did, but killing your scale won’t change your weight. That’s how the truth works. We don’t always like it, but it’s still the truth. Likewise, I don’t want the CORONA Virus to completely derail my life. I’m tired of it, but my options are: accept the limitations and precautions and get on with it or ignore everyone who tells me what I don’t want to hear but ignoring the truth won’t keep me from getting sick. We’re living in this very uncomfortable place right now. Everything’s hard. Life is hard. Everything has changed. Life is changing. What are we going to do about it? I’ll tell you what Herodias would do, but what about Jesus? Last week our neighbors told us that every time they are on a town hall meeting where the leaders are talking about all the changes which reopening demands, they play a drinking game. Every time someone says the word: pivot, they take a drink. The constant change and uncertainty is so overwhelming. There’s no question that the reality of our life currently is getting us all down, but it can’t keep up from living and moving and growing. What the Disciples learned as they went out into the world preaching the Gospel is that they didn’t have to control every outcome. They didn’t have to convince every sinner. They didn’t have to win every soul. They didn’t have to know what was going to happen every step of the way. You know why? Because that’s God’s job. And life today requires that we acknowledge who is God and who is not. What’s required of us today is not high self-esteem so that we think we’re the Queen of Israel or low self-esteem so that the weight of the world crushes us like a bug on the soul of my shoe. What we must possess today in this strange world is enough confidence to keep going and enough humility to let God work His purpose out. We don’t have to do that for Him. We couldn’t do it even if we tried. Let us simply run the race set before us. Let us walk without growing faint. Let us trust Him with all our tomorrows. And let us rejoice in His provision while there is breath in our lungs to praise His name. For His hometown might have mistaken him for a small-town boy, but I know who he is. You know who he is. He is almighty. He is redeeming this world even as we speak. He is standing in the breach and saving this world from sin. Now and forever more. Trust in him today, my friends. For his is worthy. Amen.

The Cost of Discipleship is a Pound of Bacon

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 89: 1-4 and Mark 5: 1-20 Sermon Title: The Cost of Discipleship is a Pound of Bacon Preached on July 5, 2020 One question rises above the others after reading this Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark: the pigs, Jesus? Did you have to kill the pigs? I love pretty much everything pig related. I love pork chops, pork BBQ, pork rinds, pork ribs, pork cracklings, pork chitlins, then all kinds of ham and any number of things cooked in pork fat. I can’t imagine a pork product that I wouldn’t eat. That may not be the most attractive quality about me, but it’s true. In fact, there was a man back in Tennessee named Ron Neil, who once introduced me as his preacher who would eat a door if it was greasy enough. So, in reading this passage from the Gospel of Mark I’m struck by the cost of discipleship. I do rejoice with the one man who was freed from his own personal hell, but I ask because we must ask: at what cost and at who’s expense? Consider the swineherds. I can understand why they asked Jesus to “leave their neighborhood” after he liberated one man while compromising everyone else’s way of life. But what this account from the Gospel of Mark does is shows us something important about our Lord which is in the fine print of all the songs we learned about him back in Sunday School. At small tables in little wooden chairs many of us were taught to sing: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so Little ones to him belong, we are weak, but he is strong. You know that one? What they didn’t tell us when they taught us to sing it is that Jesus love me and Jesus loves you just as much. So, if you are suffering, Jesus may do something which inconveniences me. Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. They are yellow, black, and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world. Do you remember singing that one? I do. But consider the implications. If all are precious in his sight but some are devalued in the sight of the world, something has to change. Something has to give. That’s just the way it is, and if you haven’t ever thought too much about it before, consider the pigs. And they weren’t even slaughtered. Did you notice that? They just ran off into the ocean. There was no BBQ dinner. There was no lard rendered. No hams were smoked. No chitlins were creek washed or stump whipped (do you have any idea what that means? That’s a little Tennessee talk for you). But back to the point: just off, into the ocean they went. These pigs and their precious flesh were wasted, like so much else which love might call us to let go of. These pigs are lost to the sea like so much else which had to die so that one of God’s beloved, might breathe free. Now, let me turn my attention away from the pigs and toward the child of God. There’s a lot about him in this passage. While Mark is this very short Gospel, it’s the shortest of the four, skipping right over the whole Christmas story which would have been at the beginning, and then at the end, where the other Gospel’s let us know a little more of how the story continues, it just ends once Jesus rises from the tomb, and yet this Gospel writer describes the plight of the man who calls himself Legion as though he were not writing the cliff-notes version of Matthew’s Gospel but Charles Dickens writing Great Expectations. Listen to this level of detail. From Mark we learn that: - He lived among the tombs - No one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain - He had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart - The shackles he broke in pieces - No one had the strength to subdue him - Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones - “My name is Legion,” he said to Jesus, “for we are many.” - Not one, but a legion of unclean spirits possessed this man. Why all these details? Because all the time we are blind to the plight of our brothers and sisters. In every society someone or some group of people ends us chained and dehumanized, living out of sight and out of mind, until someone or something opens enough eyes to the truth. From the time of Pharaoh in Egypt, we know that the Hebrew people labored under harsh taskmasters, but Pharaoh’s household didn’t have to think too much about it. Others alive today remember how their grandmother would not allow the name “Abraham Lincoln” to be spoken in her presence, because when those enslaved were freed her entire way of life had to change. Only President Lincoln once said that it was the hardship described by Harriet Beecher Stow in Uncle Tom’s Cabin which raised the conscience of the nation. What history tells us is that evil thrives when people are able to ignore the truth of their brother’s suffering. Certainly, that’s true today, as we turn a blind eye to all kinds of suffering that we’d never condone if it were happening to our sister, brother, mother or father. Take poverty for example. You know there’s poverty in Cobb County. I know it. Only a person like me doesn’t have to think too much about it until our church starts distributing free food and a line of hungry people shows up in our parking lot. 1100 pounds of milk, chicken, produce, and canned goods were given out at our church by our youth group in addition to the 2500 meals which went out that same week through the MUST Summer Lunch program. I got to be a part of it for the first time week before last. I was asking each car about how many people are in their family, because we wanted to give more food to a family of seven than a family of 4. I gave a number of tickets according to the number of family members. That was my job for the afternoon, which was the easiest job out there until it started to rain. Once it started to rain everyone else could gather under the overhang to do their jobs. I had to stand out there getting a little wet. As it was raining one woman rolled down her window. I asked her how many children were in her family. That was a hard question I had to ask because each time I heard the answer my eyes were opened to the reality of poverty right here in our neighborhood. This mother told me how many, then I gave her two tickets, and she offered me her umbrella. It makes all the difference in the world when we start to see all people as people and empathize with their suffering. Now if we do that – if we see a man in the rain as our brother, we might lose an umbrella. We might end up losing some bacon, or some statues, or some money, or some privileges, but we have to get better at recognizing all we stand to gain when we’re willing to let go of what we once thought was precious. Among other things, my grandfather taught me that. This week he died, so I’ve been thinking a lot about him. His death was a relief, in a sense, because death meant the end of this prolonged illness. He led a long, full life, but I’m also very sad. He’s always been there and now he’s not. In fact, he smoked for years and then he quit when I was little. I asked him about it once and he said, “Well, my daughter had a son and I wanted to be alive to watch him grow up.” When you think like that: What are cigarettes? What are umbrellas? What are pigs? What is privilege? What is wealth? What is anything, if in giving it up we might love someone better? When we gather around this table, we see such a profoundly different example to counter all the selfishness we’re exposed to, for here we remember the one who who gave up everything – his body and his blood –because nothing was more important to him than us. As you gather around his table today, remember all those who have given of themselves for you. Remember all those, your mother, your grandfather, certainly your Lord, who would have given up, not a pound of bacon, but a pound of their own flesh to give you life. Honor their love by following their example. Honor your faith by thinking less of yourself and more of your neighbor. And by the way: once someone asked him, “but who is my neighbor?” Let us all show the world that we know the answer. Amen.

A Vaccine Is Not Enough to Save Us

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 103: 6-14 and Mark 2: 1-22 Sermon Title: A Vaccine Is Not Enough to Save Us Preached on June 21, 2020 That was 22 whole verses I just read. I don’t know if that seemed like a long reading to you. It did kind of seem like a long reading to me, but that could just be because I’m used to reading only a few verses at a time, maybe half that many, so that my sermons are based on just one moment in Scripture rather than a chain of events. The benefit of basing a sermon on just a few verses or on one particular event in Scripture is that I can focus on just one thing. Like most husbands, that’s better for me. Because it’s impossible for me to multitask, I just focus on one thing at a time. One event in the life of Jesus or one small section of His teachings. Only, when we read several verses describing several moments in the life of Christ as we just did it’s possible to see significant similarities as Jesus moves from one healing to the next, and then to a statement about patches on clothes and new wine in old wineskins. Reading all these 22 verses at once, I see how the whole series of events works together, and for the first time I noticed the similarities between the healing of the paralytic in the first 12 verses of our reading and the healing of Levi in the next five. However, our Bible doesn’t call it the healing of Levi. The heading in my Bible has: “Jesus heals a paralytic” over verses 1-12 and “Jesus calls Levi” over verses 13-17, but what I want to focus on this morning is how Jesus deals with both of these men in a similar way, though we may think of them differently. While we call one of these events a “healing” and the other a “calling”, Jesus deals with them both the same way: by forgiving their sins. Just that may have something important to teach us about the way Christ is at work in the world for we mostly think of sin and sickness as two different things. We go one place to be healed from a physical issue and another for the kind of healing a tax collector might require, but in this series of events we see that Christ came to heal the corrupted soul and the paralyzed body. That our Lord prays for broken hearts no less fervently than he prays for those with blocked arteries. That he concerns himself with every disease which causes us pain, whether it be a virus that attacks our lungs or one that corrupts our society. So, while we sometimes see the physical as one thing and the spiritual as another, Jesus sees a link. You can tell, first of all, because when healing the paralyzed man Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” He didn’t lay his hands on him. He didn’t take his temperature or suggest a remedy. Nor did he take mud from the ground to rub on the man’s skin as he did for the blind man’s eyes at the pool of Siloam. Instead he says, “Son, your sins are forgiven” suggesting that the Savior knew that our bodies and our spirits are connected. That his spiritual sin had something to do with his physical condition. We don’t always think this way, or not all of us think this way. We mostly tend to think of maladies that effect our bodies as separate from the state of our souls. For example, just the other night I broke out in hives. I don’t like hives and I really don’t like how they keep me up itching until the Benadryl kicks-in. For the second time this summer I couldn’t sleep for some kind of allergic reaction. I told my doctor about it and he told me to check my diet. Then I told my friend Dr. Jeffrey Meeks about it and he told me to relax. Now those are two different responses. One from a medical doctor the other from a man with a doctorate in sacred music. So, which is it, diet or stress? Does the paralyzed man need a doctor or a savior? Do I need pills or prayer? For this moment in our country’s history, do we need Dr. Fauci or Pope Francis? The true answer is not either/or, for we are spiritual and physical beings. We suffer from conditions which require a liberation from disease and despair. We struggle with symptom and sinfulness. We are confined by physical and spiritual paralysis, and while what we all want, while what we all pray for today is a vaccine, a vaccine can’t fix everything. The way Jesus says it: “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise the patch pulls away from it… no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins.” Thinking of this teaching I say a vaccine is not all that’s needed to heal our nation, for this virus is not the only problem we are facing. In fact, you might agree that this time of quarantine is revealing so many problems in our society that the virus appears to be only the tip of the iceberg. Certainly, I’m praying for a vaccine. I’m sure you are too, but that’s not all we need. For as time goes on and quarantine continues what is revealed are just how many cures our society needs. Think about it: I’m tired of being isolated. I’m sure you are too? Only today I realize that many have been living in isolation far before this pandemic hit. We need a cure for loneliness. And I’m worried about our economy and job loss. I’m worried about all those kids who depended on school lunches. Certainly I’m grateful for the way our school system mobilized to deliver meals to kids in our community and I rejoice for the way our church has gotten involved in feeding people, but poverty and hunger are issues that ours, among the richest nations in the world, has struggled with for generations. We need a cure for poverty. This virus reveals so much brokenness, brokenness which has been there, it just wasn’t as obvious before, so in this long Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark what I hear is a call from the Lord to not just think about a patch, but a new garment, not new wine in old wine skins, but new wine in new wine skins, a more perfect union, a noble priesthood, a holy people, a new society overcoming the ills that are not new today, just harder to ignore. For we can’t go visit at the nursing home today, but it’s not as though there was a line out the door to visit our elders before. Home improvement retailers are reporting record sales as people who don’t have anything else to do tackle do-it-yourself projects, but if our concern is only with our own homes than where is our generosity? Protestors rally in the streets marching for an end to racism today, though it’s not as though this were a new problem. And the partisan divide seems greater than ever in Washington DC, only there’s no quick fix, no easy solution, because none of us know how to get along with people who think differently. From sea to shining sea, we all think we’re right and they’re wrong as cities, towns, and households across these states which were meant to be united are divided. Fixing our society is no patch job. A vaccine isn’t going to heal all that ails us. So, Christ goes to heal a paralyzed man by forgiving his sins, then he goes to a tax collector and changes his life. Levi, son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. Jesus came to him and he too “got up” and walked. Just as Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” this man was made clean and new. He walked away from a life of self-interest. He gave up his vocation where taking advantage of people was required. He stood up from the tax booth, and in so doing he gave up who he had been to become a disciple. Maybe like me you can see that our nation needs this kid of miraculous healing as much as we need a vaccine. No longer collecting debts, he invited the Lord and a bunch of other sinners into his house to feed them. No longer focused on what he might take but on what he might give, his table was open to all kinds of people. So many sinners and tax collectors were sitting in Levi’s home with Jesus and his disciples that when the Scribes of the Pharisees heard about it, they asked, “Why does he [Jesus] eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Based on what I know of Scribes and Pharisees I want to gently rephrase this statement: “Those who think they are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the self-righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” I rephrase that statement because I believe Jesus is saying that we’re all sick. We just don’t necessarily know it. We’re all sinners, we’re just afraid to admit it, but those who are ready to repent are ahead of the game. Are you ready to face the role that you play in our society’s brokenness? And are you ready to ask him for healing? Some would say that’s the only requirement of being a Christian. It’s not so unlike the requirement for entry into Alcoholics Anonymous. All you have to do to become a member is admit that you have a problem that you need help with, and so, all that’s required of us who would follow Jesus is to confess that we have a problem with sin that we cannot fix ourselves. It doesn’t matter how we got so sick. What matters is whether or not we’d let him make us well. The Psalmist wrote: as a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. That’s important in this culture of ours, where in the face of so much brokenness, there are those who double down on their innocence, deny their role in the problem, downplay its severity, blame someone else, or pretend they have it under control. That’s been me. I don’t know what I’m doing so I’ve been constantly looking for some assurance that I’m doing this right. That as a pastor and as I father I’m going to help us all get through to the otherside, but now I see that if I’ve been looking for assurance that I’m doing OK I’m looking for the wrong thing. For what we all must be looking for now is his open hand, calling us to take it and to follow. Precious Lord, take my hand; lead me on, help me stand; I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light; Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home. Some people have been pretending to be innocent and striving to be perfect for so long they don’t know how to do anything else. On this Father’s Day I want to remind you that your heavenly father, maybe unlike your earthly father, doesn’t reward perfection with love. That’s not even how love works. Take his hand this day and feel his love. Our God does not reject sinners but chases after them to eat with them. Just accept his love, for he gives it freely. Take his hand and be made new, that you might become a light in this sin sick world. Amen.

The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 91: 9-12 and Mark 1: 1-20 Sermon Title: The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God Preached on June 14, 2020 This is a strange time for me as a preacher. I say that, not hoping for sympathy, but because what I’m feeling now may be something close to what you’re feeling. Maybe like you, my relationships feel like their suffering because without seeing people I care about, physically, I can’t really tell where things stand, and I fill in what I don’t know with too much negative stuff. They say most of communication is none verbal. That’s why phone calls are imperfect, and emails are even worse. We understand and process between words which we hear with what we see. If we see them smile back at us, we know they’re happy. Or by watching as tears well up in their eyes we know more about what their feeling than words could ever tell us. Plus, we feel close to people when they touch us. We know we’re being understood based on all kinds of cues, but I’m here in this pulpit and I do an awful lot of talking. Only I’m talking without knowing how what I’m saying is being received. You might know how strange that is, or how less than ideal. What I typically do is I preach, and I look at your faces. I can tell when I’ve gone on for too long because someone has fallen asleep. I can tell when I’ve gone too far or not far enough because I’m reading your faces while I’m talking. You do the same thing. I wonder if the number one thing we all are missing, it’s certainly the number one thing that I’m missing right now is face to face. Face to face at the grocery store so we don’t have to tell people when we’re smiling beneath our facemask. Face to face with grandchildren. Face to face with our church family. Face to face is a human need and so, that’s what God does. We just read a long Scripture passage from the Gospel of Mark. Rev. Cassie Waits and I are the preachers for this month and next. She suggested we focus on the Gospel of Mark and I agreed. This is the first in a series six. Six sermons, six readings from the Gospel of Mark covering about the first half of this Gospel. We’ll cover a lot ground in these next several weeks and we just did today. The Scripture Lesson began with a clear title: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What we all know about Jesus is that he is God in flesh in blood, walking around, moving into our neighborhood, taking on the mortal coil, experiencing our joys and fears, suffering even. He’s not bystander to human existence, but in Christ our God takes human flesh. I don’t want to rush past this miracle though I know you’ve heard all about it many times before, because it’s just so earth-shattering and nearly unprecedented. There’s just not much else like it in the world of religion. Much of what we know of the religion of the Ancient Greeks is quite different. Did you ever see those old Greek myth movies? Jason and the Argonauts? A bunch of guys in beards and animal skins fighting off Claymation monsters? The way I remember it, just as in the ancient myths, the god’s in those movies had this place up in the clouds on Mt. Olympus and they could look down on the earth to watch the human dramas unfold. According to the myths, occasionally they’d come down, but what sticks with me from the movies was this portal they had to look into our lives. It was like their TV. It was reality TV before there was reality TV. Their window into our lives was on the floor. They moved the clouds to watch and be entertained, but how much could they really know of humans when watching from a distance? How much can anyone really know about anything when watching from a distance, so what does God do? God comes close. Incarnate in human form. Walking the earth in our shoes. Do you remember those stories inspired by this kind of incarnation? There’s the Prince and the Pauper where these two boys who look alike switch places. The prince finds out how hard it is to be a pauper and the pauper finds out that being the prince isn’t all sitting around eating cake. They’re both better for it. Why? Because when assumptions drive us, we get all messed up. A couple older gentlemen back in Tennessee once told me about the first time they met a yankee. When they were just young boys having never met one before, they threw rocks at him. Now, why would someone do that? How could someone do that? But when we don’t see people, we make stuff up, and what we make up is nearly all the time far worse than the truth. These two probably thought he had come to town like the Carpet Baggers they’d heard from their parents and grandparents. Imagine if we based all our impressions of people not on what we learned after meeting them, but on what we’d heard. I went to college with a Tennessean named Will who went to school up in Maine. The first people he met up there were surprised he wore shoes. Why? Because if your opinion of people from Eastern Tennessee is based on the Beverly Hillbillies, you’ll think all kinds of crazy stuff, so what does God do? Does he take someone’s word for it? Does he come to understand the human condition, based on what he can see through the clouds? No. Again and again, God draws near. God draws near to get to know us, and we must constantly allow our assumptions to die lest we see the world as full of enemies rather than brothers and sisters. After the girls are in bed Sara and I watch TV together. Right now, we’re watching a show called Poldark. It’s one of those Masterpiece Classics that also comes on PBS like Downton Abby. I find some of the Masterpiece shows to be a little slow, but that’s OK. I just take a nap while Sara watches. Poldark put me to sleep just a couple times, but only a couple times. The main character in this show is a British veteran of the American Revolution. This redcoat goes home to Cornwall to manage his family’s copper mine, and he gets into all these adventures. He’s like an 18th Century Rambo with a British accent, exceptional manners, and an enlightened mind. On the subject of war, Poldark tells his wife Demelza: “It’s horrible what men can do to other men once they’ve convinced themselves that their enemy is less than human.” I think about how police officers are being talked about today. Now I do stand with those who march peacefully, knowing that some bad officers have treated those in their care as less than human. And I don’t just know it. I’ve seen it. But any crowd or politician whose been convinced that all police officers are evil are promoting the same prejudice they’re protesting against. It’s horrible what people will do to each other once they’ve convinced themselves that their enemy or opponent or subject or family member is less than human. What if we all took the time to say to ourselves in the midst of our anger or frustration, “I don’t agree with this person: this liberal, this conservative, this protestor, this police officer and I wonder why they think the way they do?” What we all too often do instead, is assume we already know, saying to ourselves, “Oh, I know. They must be stupid.” What’s different about Jesus is this: He could have sat up in the clouds making assumptions. Instead, he took on our flesh to really understand. He just kept drawing closer and closer to us until he understood why we are all so broken and confused. Because he understood us all and why we do the things that we do, even from the cross he called out: “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.” In this Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Mark he even got baptized. Why? For what? “What sins did the Lord need to have washed away?” we ask. Only, that’s not the point. He’s taking on our condition. He’s baptized to be as we are and to do as we have. He just keeps coming closer and closer. He didn’t even keep his distance from Satan. Now that’s important, isn’t it? Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t include any details of what this encounter was like. Typically, I would say that being “in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan” sounds graphic enough, only now, after three months of isolation we might say: forty days? That’s nothing. Only, consider what happens to us after forty days or three weeks of isolation. What has happened to us after three weeks of only looking out on the world through our television screen or Facebook feed. Consider what happens to our view of the world when we aren’t apart of it? Consider what happens to how we think about people when we can’t see them or hear them or be with them face to face. How hard it is to get to know a person through email! How hard it is to ease a troubled relationship or work out a disagreement if you can’t see their face and really understand! For the past three months, we may as well have been up in the clouds, looking down, having no real understanding of the people we’re looking down on. When that’s the case it becomes all too easy to give up. Yet, Cindy Buchanan (member of our church and mother of my oldest friend, Matt) said it better than anyone: “The zombie movies convinced us that after months of a viral pandemic we’d all be eating each other. Only, when I actually see people, I see how much kindness there is in the world.” The tempter whispers in our ears: just give up on them. They’ll never get it. They’re not worth it. Jesus never did that. I just know he never did. Even after 40 days in the wilderness tempted by Satan himself, Jesus never gave up on the world or on us. After the temptation our Scripture Lesson’s last few verses described what he was doing. John had been arrested and he started proclaiming good news. Then, “he passed along the Sea of Galilee.” That’s all it says: “he passed along.” What do you think that means? I imagine he was whistling. Or enjoying the waves as they hit his feet. Then he looked up and saw two fishermen: Simon and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. I imagine Jesus thinking to himself, “I’ve always loved watching fishermen cast their nets into the sea. I wonder what else those two could catch… Follow me and I will make you fish for people,” he said to them. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. A few years ago, I got caught reading the Bible in a doctor’s waiting room. A man said to me, “I love to read the Bible too. It tells us what God is like and how we should be.” What is God like? God is like Jesus. Longing to know us. Always loving us. Saving all his harsh words for those religious authorities who cared more about rules and status than people. And how should we be? Not like them. Like him. Amen.

The God of Love and Peace Will Be With You

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 1: 1-4 and 2nd Corinthians 13: 11-13 Sermon Title: The God of Love and Peace Will Be With You Preached on June 5, 2020 One morning week before last I was walking our dogs around the block. I wasn’t exactly happy to be doing that, but it’s an important thing to do. Since being stuck inside our home all day myself, I have new sympathy for what their lives are like, so maybe it was more of an obligation than a joy to greet the morning by slowly walking around the block while our dogs smell every mailbox, stump, and branch, then dutifully picking up whatever they leave behind. Only about halfway the block around a woman hauling limbs from her front yard to the curb said something to me which changed the way I greeted that new day. I missed it the first time she said it, so I stopped, took my headphones out, to hear her say it again, “This is the day that the Lord has made!” Do you know that feeling of being stuck in an obligation or to be simply moving through the steps and all at once your eyes are open to how lucky you are? This was the perfect thing to hear someone say that morning. For one thing it reminded me that this was the day that the Lord has made. It was a beautiful morning and it was gift. It also evoked my awareness of the divine moving around us. But most of all it was so nice to hear someone say something that I knew exactly how to respond to. With a smile on my face I responded to this woman’s “This is the day that the Lord has made,” with my “Let us rejoice and be glad in it,” yet how many other times is it not nearly so easy to know what to say? I remember vividly standing in the foyer of our old house in Tennessee just a few years ago. Our two little girls stopping me in my tracks to ask, “I know that when we were tiny babies we were inside Mama’s tummy, but how did we get out?” Worse than that, have your children or grandchildren asked about the events of the past two weeks? The protests? Did they ask you if it was true that as George Floyd died, he called for his mother? Did they have trouble understanding why the police, who is called to help, had his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck? Or why his partner stood idly by as he said, “I can’t breathe”? Were they scared when they saw the damage done to the CNN Center just down I 75? What did the children of police officers think, should they have witnessed the video of squad cars burning? Or what did the parents of protestors think when they read the tweet: “When looting starts the shooting starts?” Then, how does anyone make sense of that picture of our President taken after the crowd was dispersed with gas and rubber bullets, standing in front of a church holding up a Bible? Where is God at work in all of this? What are we to say to anyone, much less our kids as they make sense out a world that all of us are having trouble making any sense of ourselves? An old friend of mine, Rev. Amos Disasa sat his son down to talk about race. Amos serves First Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas as their Senior Pastor. The two of us have a lot in common, though we don’t look alike. He was born in Ethiopia to Ethiopian parents, so race has played a subtle part in our friendship since we were classmates at Presbyterian College. Just after seminary the two of us spent several days in Montreat, North Carolina, for a conference of Presbyterian ministers. One night we went out for a beer at a bar called the Town Pump. Immediately, upon sitting down, it became obvious to me that this was a bar for locals, not out of town Presbyterian ministers, so I said to Amos, “I feel a little out of place.” Amos said to me, “Joe, do you see anyone else from Ethiopia in here?” Amos married a white woman from West Virginia. Their two children are of mixed race. Last Thursday Amos told the congregational of First Presbyterian in Dallas that in light of recent events he sat his 10-year-old son down to explain what’s been happening and what it means for him as a male with dark skin. “Your skin color will make some people uncomfortable. Some people will see your body as a threat,” he told his son. Then, thinking about George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, or any number of other unarmed African American men who have been killed recently, his son asked, “Can that happen to me?” His father said, “yes.” Then, his son’s second question was, “Can that happen to you?” Again, his father said, “yes.” Our children have asked me many difficult questions, but “where do babies come from” doesn’t come close to either of these. Among all the many difficult questions our children have asked me, they’ve never asked me to answer a question that I would have been so sad to answer truthfully as these two questions, but we all must say something about the events of the last two weeks. Only, where do we even begin? I wonder if where we ought to begin is with the words of our Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Or with those words which have marked the beginning of each school day for my children and your children: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Or those words which lady liberty holds precious sheilding Ellis Island: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Or with the dream Dr. King preached about 57 years ago before the Lincoln Monument: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. Even in these moments when the table of brotherhood has erupted in protests and riots with shielded police facing off with the crowds as democrats and republicans prove that truly anything can be made into a political issue, we turn to these words to remind us of who we’re intending to be. We turn to these words to remember again, that even if they don’t describe where we are, they do describe where we are going. And then we turn to the words of Scripture to remind us of who is with us on our journey. In our First Scripture Lesson, God spoke our world into existence. Some people think that these verses are trying to replace the Science text books, but I say they are trying to remind us of the power of our words. God spoke our world into existence. My friends, if we don’t like the way our world looks today, then know that our words have the power to create a new reality. So, we must remember again those words which gave birth to our nation and stand against those words which might take it all away and the violence that would burn it all down. Violence is how we lose ourselves, while words, beautiful words are how we find our way back. The words of Scripture testify to the reality that hovering over a formless void was the wind from God which swept over the face of the waters. When God spoke light into that darkness and as the Spirit swirled the waters of chaos into order, God spoke again saying that it was good. Don’t forget that He still does. God hasn’t given up on His creation. Neither can we. And he calls us to show the indifferent, the prejudiced, the polarizing, the power drunk, that a more ideal union is possible, that justice might roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. The Apostle Paul ends his second letter to the Church in Corinth saying, Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. This is a powerful way to end a letter. It’s a call to order and harmony. It’s a call to love. It’s a reminder to recognize God at work in our midst. And it is likely his great goodbye. How do we honor his memory or the memory of any of God’s saints if rather than agree with one another, we make our brothers and sisters our enemies? How do we follow the model of any who have loved us if we stop working for peace? How do we honor the memory of those who spilled their blood for the ideals of this nation is we turn to tyranny and chaos rather than love and the communion of the Holy Spirit? As Americans and as Christians, our persistent charge is to join the God of creation in forming a more perfect union, a more noble brotherhood, to continue on in the building of that city on a hill where all are valued, all are honored, and where all so truly matter. Let us never ignore the brokenness. Let us never silence the angry, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. Instead, let us listen to the lady who called me to recognize that this is the day that the Lord has made. Today, let us pray, let us listen, let us walk, let us dance, let us work for something better for our children, but above all else let us rejoice and be glad in this world our God is still creating, sustaining, and redeeming. Alleluia. Amen.