The Tongue of a Teacher

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 50: 4-9 and James 3: 1-12 Sermon Title: The Tongue of a Teacher Preached on September 12, 2021 Many years ago, in some far-off place, the town gossip was called to the church by the priest. He handed her a feather pillow and asked her to go to the church tower to empty it out, which she did. She stood in the tower and watched as the feathers were caught by the wind and swept through the streets. Then she returned to the priest with the empty pillowcase, and he asked her to go and collect all the feathers. Insisting that it was impossible, the priest then told her that her words are no different. “Once they leave your mouth they are beyond your control,” he said. “Doing good or evil, they are caught by the wind to be swept through the streets and can no more be collected again then the feathers of a pillow, so you must be careful what you say,” the priest said. The book of James reminds us of this same truth. “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” Why? Because words have power. As a bit guides a horse, As a rudder steers a ship, As a forest is set ablaze by a small fire, So, the tongue, a small member of the body, boasts of great exploits. Think about it. Did you see it in last Sunday’s paper? The Atlanta Journal Constitution told four stories of 9/11 twenty years later. After the planes hit the Twin Towers and we all were so desperately consumed with fear and anger, an Iranian American teenager named Jalal wrote in her Winnie the Pooh journal, “I hate those terrorists.” Only then, she heard the words of her classmates, her friend’s parents, her teachers, who made jokes about bombing the middle east back to the stone age to put an end to all those barbaric people, and she felt lumped in with the very people she hated. You remember. The FBI reported a spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes following 9/11. In Columbia, Tennessee where we lived before coming back here, someone burned the Mosque to the ground. This is the power of words. Words like Muslim or Arab. Spoken by the tongue of a teacher who misuses her words. It’s true. And that was a day that should really make us think about the power of words spoken by a teacher. Yesterday, on the 20th anniversary of September 11th, 2001, when what we thought would never happen did, so many names were read that it took more than two hours to read them all. The Marietta Kiwanis Club put up an American flag for each one at the base of Kennesaw Mountain. Each person who was killed when airplanes were turned to weapons by men who were told by their teachers that we were not humans, but infidels. This is the power of words. Words like infidel. Spoken by the tongue of a teacher. Such a word as that can make a student forget that people are people and that all life is sacred. Yet still today it happens again, for teachers still speak without wisdom or love. So, as hospitals fill up beyond capacity I ask you to remember how many told us that this virus isn’t even real, how the vaccine has microchips in it, or that it will make you vote for democrats. Just think about how someone got the rumors started, first that bleach will cure you, then that horse de-wormer will knock it out, and some people actually tried it. This is the power of words. Words like COVID-19. Spoken by the tongue of a teacher, that end up killing people. Therefore, teachers will be judged with greater strictness because people will do what they say, even when they’re wrong. James is harsh on this point. But James is right. Once the words are out of our mouths there’s no getting them back in, any more than toothpaste can be shoved back inside a toothpaste tube or feathers back into a pillow. Once the words are out of our mouths, they are swept up by the wind and take on a life of their own. And so, “The tongue is a fire,” the book of James says. “Sticks and stones will break your bones but words…” words set the world on fire. And the words we speak, reveal the state of our souls. James says that with the tongue: We bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can saltwater yield fresh. That’s just not how it works, so if your words set the world on fire, what is the state of your soul? If your words tear people down, how broken is your heart? If you don’t speak words of love, does Christ reside there within you? Do you know the expression, “if you don’t have anything nice to say come sit by me?” Sometimes we’re that way, and so James asks us as well as our teachers: Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Which will it be? Who are you? For if you’re both, expect them to lose trust in the well. This summer I started a family book club. This is a good thing to do if you want your children to hate you, make them read books during summer vacation, but I did it anyway. We all read three books together, just three. I researched good chapter books for 10- and 12-year-olds and came up with the list. Sara got the books from the library, and we read them together. The best was a book called, From the Desk of Zoey Washington, by Janae Marks. I highly recommend it, and I tell you about it now, in this context of how we use our words, because Zoey Washington really needed a friend, but she couldn’t trust the person who was supposed to be her best friend. She had decided to audition for a baking contest called the Kids Bake Challenge, and she wished she could talk to Trever about recipes, but she couldn’t. It’s the summer before seventh grade and she wanted to talk to Trever about what seventh grade would be like, but she couldn’t. Then she received a letter from her biological father who had never been a real presence in her life because he’d been arrested before she was born and was still in prison, but she couldn’t talk to Trever about it, because one day she stayed home sick from school and overheard Trever talking to some of his basketball friends about her, and it wasn’t good. Of course, this is how it is for us sometimes. We want acceptance, we feel pressure, so we yield saltwater. On the other hand, the Prophet Isaiah, in our First Scripture Lesson, testified to one who has been given the tongue of a teacher, “that he may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” How does he do it? Well, listen to what happened to him: He gave his back to those who struck him. His cheeks to those who pulled out his beard. He did not hide his face from insult and spitting. No, his face was set like flint, standing before our adversaries, confronting the evil doers, because you matter more to him than his own comfort. You matter more to him than his own advancement. You and your welling being matter more to him than his own wellbeing. Have you ever had a teacher like that? I told you already that yesterday the Marietta Kiwanis Club organized an event to remember all those who were killed September 11th, 2001. In addition to having a flag at the base of Kennesaw Mountain, each victim’s name was read. So many were the names that they took more than two hours to read them all. In a tragic way, this event testified to the terrible power that the tongue of a teacher wields. One teacher’s words can lead to the death of so many people that all their names can’t be read in two hours. It took two different readers just to get through the A’s. And those whose last name began with A weren’t just Adams or Abernathy, but Abdula and Anchundia. These were names that the Kiwanian’s practiced before they read, and my 5th grade teacher, Debbie McCracken was one of them. She pronounced each name so perfectly that it was as though she had said each one 1,000 times before, and this point is what I want to emphasize: While one teacher lumped them all together and called them all infidel, my teacher so honored each one as to practice saying their names. This wasn’t the first time, either. I wonder how many names she remembered in her years as a teacher. I don’t know, but she looked into my eyes yesterday and I knew that this teacher saw me. She said the 10-year-old boy she knew was still in there. “Maybe there’s less hair on his head, but he’s still in there.” You see, she saw me as a person, and she called me by name. This too is the power of words. Words like your name. Remembered and written on the heart of the teacher, said again and again, so that you know you are more than a number. You are not a tool to advance an agenda. You matter more than a vote, a dollar, or a favor, and your name is written on the heart of the God who chose to suffer for you, because it was better for Him to suffer than to conform to this broken world. Remember that. Remember that there is tremendous power in those words which remind us of each other’s humanity. Words like faith. Words like hope. Words like love. There is power enough in those words to change the world, and to set it on fire with the power of God. May it be so. Amen.

Doers of the Word

Scripture Lessons: Song of Solomon 2: 8-13 and James 1: 17-27 Sermon Title: Doers of the Word Preached on August 29, 2021 Have you ever imagined that you’d do one thing, like really give someone a piece of your mind, only to completely lose your nerve? My wife Sara and I watch TV together most every night, just an episode or two. A few weeks ago, we were watching a show where the main character tells her best friend, who’s recently divorced, exactly what she’s going to do the next time she runs into her friend’s ex-husband. Whe already had the speech prepared. Should it be in the grocery store, or in front of children on the playground, it doesn’t matter, young ears are just going to be exposed to some harsh language, because that man hurt her best friend, left her to take care of all those kids, and he’s going to get it. Well, two or three days later, there he is in the grocery store, only despite this woman’s intentions, she practically winds up inviting him over for dinner. Has it ever been that way with you? You imagine again and again, telling the man off. You rehearse the words. You’ve even practiced your speech in the mirror, but then you see him in the grocery store, and you somehow hear yourself saying, “It’s so good to see you, too. When are we going to get together?” Of course, sometimes it’s good that we keep our mouths shut, but our Second Scripture Lesson calls us to bridle our tongues, not to lose our nerve. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. We’re in the book of James today. We will be until the end of next month, and James pushes us, again and again, to be doers of the word, to put our faith into action. To work at following through on our best intentions. I like that about James, though it is a book not often celebrated by Presbyterians or many protestants. In fact, according to legend, the great 16th Century German reformer, Martin Luther, led his students out to the river with their Bibles, had them turn to the book of James, tear it out, and throw it into the water to be swept away, for he felt its emphasis on doing went against his deep conviction that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s approval. Grace alone saves us, he said again and again, and not our own works. Luther is right about that, of course. It is grace that saves us. We don’t do good to win God’s favor. We can never be so pure as to deserve salvation. God’s love for us is like all love. It is a free gift that we learn to accept and strive to be worthy of, not a title we work for. No, what we work for is approval and approval and love are not the same thing. Approval matters to us, though. You learn how much approval matters when you look into the mirror and know who you are, what you want, what you’re going to say, and where you’re going, but upon walking away from the mirror and out into the world, you forget what you were like because you want to be liked by someone else. Do you know what I’m talking about? Of course, you do. Luther was so led by his convictions to rip out pages of the Bible while we are often like teenagers who know themselves when they look in the mirror but forget themselves in the back seat of a car. This passage is also a good one for their parents, who, like me, put a facemask in their pockets before leaving the house with every intention of putting it on in any social situation, while I find myself scanning the group before taking it out of my pocket. Why? Back to Martin Luther. Martin Luther didn’t like the book of James. That’s true. Still, there’s a lot we can learn from him about putting our faith into action. During a plague someone asked him if it was OK to leave town and run away from the spreading disease to save himself, or if it was better to trust God and risk infection. This is what he said: I shall ask God to mercifully protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it… I shall avoid places where my presence is not needed, and so cause death by my negligence… If God should wish to take me, he will surely know where to find me, and I have done what he expected of me. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid person or place but will go freely. I’m so impressed with this response for a number of reasons. For one, it shows that there is a way to be faithful and to trust science, and for another, Luther is entirely focused on what he’s going to do and not on what anyone else is doing. He doesn’t leave town to save himself, nor does he cast blame. He’s focused on himself and what he’s going to do, and in this world that’s all we can count on. We can’t count on the government to do it for us. We can’t expect the schools to always get it right. As Luther put his intention in writing he was solely focused on what he was going to do, what he had decided, and, and then he walked away to be that person out in the world. That’s how it’s done. How did he do it? Where’s that kind of confidence come from? One more story about Martin Luther. Every morning he’d wake up and he’d splash water on his face and on his head, and he’d say to himself, remember that you were baptized. Remember that Christ called you by name, you are his, claimed and redeemed, washed in the water, set free, made worthy, called precious in God’s sight. Don’t worry about what they say. Don’t let the world defile you. Listen to what God says, and God says that you’re loved. Make God’s love, which you already have, matter more than the world’s approval, which you’ll never get. Do you know how important that is? Did you know that there’s no way you’ll ever make it if you can’t be who you are in the mirror out in the world? Some people need a little help doing it, and so one of the sayings of Narcotics Anonymous that I just learned from a new friend is: “Just for today I will have faith in someone who believes in me.” Just for today, I’m going to believe that I am worth loving and God already does. Just for today, I’m going to believe that I’m OK without their approval. Just for today, I’m going to take God’s word for it. That I am worthy. I am worth knowing. I am valued. I am beautiful. I am precious. I am capable. I am good, and I don’t need the approval of this world, for I am destined, not for this world, but the New Kingdom that’s coming. That’s what it takes. For if we don’t know that we have a valuable opinion how will we ever get the words out of our mouth. If we don’t know we have something to offer, how will we ever get out to really live. If we don’t know we’re worthy of love, how will we ever ask someone out on a date? Talking about meaning to get words out then losing our nerve, who here has ever meant to ask a girl out on a date only to wind up asking her about the weather? Last Sunday Erroll Eckford and Chris Harrison took the Middle School Youth Group to Mountasia. That’s a place to play putt-put out by Town Center Mall. Back in my day, if you really liked a girl, you invited her there to play putt-putt, and just thinking of that place brings back butterflies to my stomach. Do you remember the first time you asked a girl on a date? Or do you remember wanting a boy to ask you to play putt-putt? Do you remember what falling in love feels like? One of my favorite movies is Love Actually. In that movie is young boy named Sam who falls in love. His dad is relieved when he finds out that Sam has fallen in love, because he thought there was something really wrong with his son, for he’d not left his room in days or weeks. “I’m a little relieved, Sam” dad says, “I thought it would be something worse.” “Worse, than the total agony of being in love?” his son says. Do you know what he’s talking about? It’s painful because there’s risk involved in love. You know how you feel but you don’t know how she does. Your heart could break at any moment, but it also might leap like a gazelle. It’s a risky situation, and anxiety could keep you from saying anything at all. If you don’t know you’re someone special too, you probably won’t say anything. That’s the truth of the matter, and so, we notice in the Song of Solomon, our first Scripture Lesson, that the young man is standing behind the wall, “looking through the lattice.” Why is he hiding there instead of going to the door or stepping out into the open? Because he’s looked himself in the mirror, now he must decide what he’s going to do out in the world. Do you remember what that felt like? Living the Christian faith is not so different. What’s the call? To love your neighbor as yourself, which means doing something, not just wanting to do something. To turn away from your old life, which probably means turning away from some old friends, and requires you risk losing their approval. The whole Christian calling is a terribly risky thing, so find confidence in this: it’s a risk that God has taken first. Throughout the ages, there were many who thought that the Song of Solomon, a book of love poetry, had no place in the Bible. That it should be taken out as Martin Luther ripped out the book of James. It was saved, however, by the understanding that the young man who longs to pledge his love to the young woman is God. And who is the young woman? Who holds the young man’s tender heart in her hands? Who’s “yes” could have him leaping like a gazelle and who’s “no” would break him? She’s you. She’s me. Remember that. And with the confidence of one of God’s beloved, speak your truth, stand your ground, live your life, and remember who you are that you be not just a hearer of the word, but a doer. Amen.

Looking Back to Move Forward in Faith

Scripture Lessons: Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18 and Ephesians 6:10-20 Sermon Title: Looking Back to Move Forward in Faith Preached on August 22, 2021 Last Sunday the Atlanta Journal Constitution ran an article about CT Vivian’s ties. You know CT Vivian. He was a contemporary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He’s one of the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement, and his friends used to kid him for always dressing too nice. Even growing up during the Great Depression his mother and grandmother had him in tailored suits, and this habit lasted throughout his life. In fact, a men’s group he was involved in met every other month and the one rule was that when you came to the meeting you didn’t wear a tie, unless you were CT Vivian, so when he died at the age of 95 in 2020, his children had to decide what to do with all his ties. This is what they did. Along with a note and a picture, in a nice box, they sent them to his friends. The Rev. Jim Lawson, The Rev. Gerald Durley, The Rev. Alphonso Lyons Jr., poet Hank Stewart, author Michael Harvey, graphic artist Donald Bermundez, tech firm founder Noelle Adams, all of them told their CT Vivian tie stories in last Sunday’s paper and they all went something like this: “When I opened the package and saw the tie I remembered CT Vivian, all the times we talked, and how he made me feel special just by the way he was. Thinking of him and our friendship made me tear up and then when I felt the honor of having in my possession something that was once his, the tears really started coming. It’s probably the most meaningful gift I’ve ever received.” That’s powerful, isn’t it? I’m glad they didn’t just take the ties to Goodwill, aren’t you? Have you ever received a gift like that? I have. Andrew Hickman was my neighbor back in Tennessee. He lived just a few houses down, and the day we moved into our house there he showed up to welcome us to town. I had been pulling up carpet, so I was dusty and sweaty the first time we met. He introduced himself and said I looked like an old ally cat, which is what he still calls me. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon helping me pull up carpet. Andrew is the kind of guy who shows up ready for a job like that because he always keeps a pocketknife on him. It’s one his grandfather gave him. That day I noticed it and throughout our seven years as neighbors I saw that knife again and again. On the day we moved out of that house and here to Marietta he walked up, sat down next to me, and without saying a word placed that pocketknife in my hand. It’s one of the most meaningful gifts I’ve ever received. Have you ever received a gift like that? I hope you have. It happened to me again just last week. When I walked into my office upstairs there was a care bear sitting at my desk. You might know that we have a wonderful preschool here, and as I walk through to go to lunch during carpool, I get to know some of the kids. One of the most precious is a little girl named Kate, who is three years old. Last year she baked me cookies. Last week she let me borrow her care bear. It came with a note that said, “Dear Mr. Joe, you will love my pink baby. I love you. I have a flower on my dress. Please return pink baby today when you are done snuggling him. Love, Kate.” Have you ever received a gift like that? I know you have. Every year we give a gift like that to a group of 3rd graders. We just did it again this morning, although it’s not immediately clear that the gift of a Bible is just as significant as a tie from CT Vivian, a pocketknife from Andrew, or a pink baby from Kate. These Bibles we give them are brand new. They’re not the Bibles read by their grandparents. They weren’t held by their uncle the Sunday School teacher. They don’t have the notes in the margin from their mother. The connection, the intimate, precious connection, isn’t immediately obvious, so let me explain some. This morning we read: Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads the judges, and the officers of Israel. And Joshua said to all the people, “It is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the Land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed... Therefore, we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” Now remember that when Joshua said this, Moses, the one who led the people out of slavery in Egypt, had died and had been buried. Who from those days was still around after wandering through the desert for 40 years? You must conclude that many of people there assembled didn’t remember wandering in the wilderness at all, much less slavery in Egypt. They had been born in the Promised Land and that was all they knew. Likely there were others who had just joined the group as they traveled or once they broke ground, yet Joshua here connects all of them to those days which had come before. As a tie from CT Vivian connects those who wear it to the march from Selma Alabama or the great bus boycotts, these words from Joshua connect those who heard him speak that day to the historic struggle for freedom. His words root the young in the legacy that blessed them before they were born. This is the gift of Scripture. The promise of Scripture enables us to sing: This is my story, this is my song even if it happened to some long lost distant relative 25 generations removed. Even if this is the first time you are hearing about the great deliverance from slavery, you are an heir to the promise, a child of the Creator, a member of the household of God. You don’t have to have been there to inherit the legacy. You don’t have to have lived it to benefit from the struggle. You don’t have to be a blood relative to be a part of the family. You don’t have to have done it yourself to know that it can be done. Consider your personal Bible and hear me quote again, “It is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the Land of Egypt.” Let yourself feel those first-person pronouns, for we are not readers of history but heirs to the promise. This is our story. This is our song. That’s a powerful thing, isn’t it? It’s a gift is what it is. In the pages of those Bibles are the stories of our people. In those pages are the stories of fights won and battles lost, wayward women redeemed, arrogant men humbled, a father’s love and a brother’s hatred, stories of forgiveness, vengeance, good times celebrated, bad times that we made it through, and most of all, within those pages is the truth about a God who has been with us from the very beginning knitting us together in our mother’s wombs and who will be with us to welcome us through the pearly gates into the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s the truth. He never slumbers nor sleeps nor forsakes you. Why? Because you are his people. You are His child. Ask the little ones about it. They know. They sing: Jesus loves me this I know. How do you know it? For the Bible tells me so. I learned all about it here in this church. Mrs. Corley and her husband Jimmy were my Sunday School teachers. Mrs. Vivian Stephens taught us to sing. This is a song she passed on to me that I can still remember, and I hum it to myself from time to time: I am a promise, I am a possibility I am a promise, with a capital “P” I am a great big bundle of Potentiality Newly back here in Marietta, just a few years ago, I sang that song again with Bob and Vivian Stephens in their living room. She had the pages ready and the music at her piano. She looked at me and she said, “I knew it then. You were a promise, now you’re a reality,” and it made me cry then and it makes me cry now because there are things that people pass down that make all the difference. A tie. A pocketknife. A care bear. A song. The Bible you’ve been given. We carry things around with us and they help us keep going. Think about what your father kept on the top of his dresser or what your great-grandmother put in her young husband’s hand as he went off to fight in a war. The objects have power, not because the thing has power but because the person, the person who couldn’t be with them, somehow is. A janitor named Tom Kiefer started taking pictures of the items confiscated by Border Patrol on the border of the United States and Mexico. Those who journeyed up from Central or South America carried with them things like toothpaste, combs, and soap. Kids brought their toy cars. So many carried with them a pocket sized, blue New Testament from the Gideons. Why? It’s because there are moments in life when all you need to keep going is the reminder that you are not alone. You need a reminder that people, our people, have made it through hard times before, and somehow even they are still with us. Just as they kept going, we will keep going. Just as they persevered, we will persevere. Just as they ran their race in faith, so will we. But if you’re empty handed, how will you remember? If you don’t know the song you won’t be able to hum it to yourself when you need to be reminded, and if you don’t know the stories, you’ll think you’re facing hardship all on your own. That’s an actual fact. It’s been proven more than once that children who have grandparents and know their stories are more resilient than children who don’t. And I don’t have any data on this, but I’m still going out on this limb to say, that if you know that while David was running for his life, he was writing psalms and that when Jesus was on the cross, he quoted on of them, you’ll be more likely to sing your way through hardship. Not only that, but if you know that God made this earth and knit you together, than you’ll be less likely to throw yourself away. So, here’s the problem: many Bibles are collecting dust and too many Sundays School Classes are half full to nearly empty, which means that we are sending children out into an uncertain world defenseless. That there is armor for our children to wear, but they need us to suit them up, for the stories must be heard for them to do us or our children any good. The songs must be sung. The ties must be worn, the pocketknives must be used, and the care bares must be snuggled. The belt of truth must be fastened, the breastplate of righteousness must be put on. The shoes must be laced, the shield must be taken up, the helmet must be put on the quench the flaming arrows of hopelessness and discord. If we are to persevere, give yourself, give your children, every advantage. For the Word of God is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Amid all the changing words of this generation, there is truth. Despite all the misdirection and confusion, there is a road map. And no matter how alone we might sometimes feel, the Words of Scripture remind us all of this one life changing fact, this truth that enables us to make it through all the hard things: we are not alone. For God is ever by our side. Halleluiah! Amen.

Wisdom

Scripture Lessons: Proverbs 9: 1-6 and 1 Kings 2: 10-12; 3: 3-14 Sermon Title: Wisdom Preached on August 15, 2021 Wisdom. Both today’s scripture lessons are focused on wisdom, which you might say is the opposite of ignorance, and ignorance is a subject that Mark Twain liked to talk about. Here are just a few Mark Twain quotes on the subject: “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” “Few things are more irritating than when someone who is wrong is also very effective in making his point.” “Education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty.” But this is the best one: “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” As Mark Twain liked to talk about ignorance, many any pages of Scripture are dedicated to the theme of wisdom. In fact, it starts in the very beginning, in Genesis chapter 2 when the serpent tries to get Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Eve resists the serpent says, “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and [if you eat the forbidden fruit] you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” For years I’ve thought about this one phrase and if I could I’d like to offer a slight retranslation. I feel sure that what the snake means here is not that we’ll know good and evil but that we’ll think we will. In other words, the first sin, falling from grace is believing we can decide for ourselves what is good, or to use the words of Mark Twain, the first sin is the ignorance of knowing what ain’t so. Certainly, that’s true about us. We think we know when we don’t. When kids are allowed to eat as much candy as they think they want, often, vomit is the result, not happiness, but they think it will be happiness. Likewise, to some degree or another, I think that I can tell the difference between what will bring me joy and what will make me bored. That given the freedom, I’ll make the best choice for myself. That if I could just decide on my own, I’d make a better choice than anyone else could make for me. Yet, where has that gotten us? If only an upset stomach were the worst result of humanity’s determination to try and choose what is good and what is evil. We don’t know what is good. We think we do, which is the definition of ignorance. “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” What do we think we know? For one, we think that money will bring us happiness, yet think for just a moment about the happiest time of your life. Remember the best year of your marriage. Go back to that day when everything felt perfect. Maybe the sun was shining on your face as someone held you in their arms. Maybe it was raining, but you wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else because you were dry by the comfort of a fire with the only person who mattered. I have this memory of our first apartment. Sara and I were just home from our honeymoon, and we wanted to watch a TV show called Friends. We took the TV my grandparents had bought us as a wedding gift out of the box. Plugged it in, but we couldn’t pick up any channels, because they bought us a new, modern TV that didn’t come with an antenna. Now why didn’t they buy us a TV with an antenna. Probably because they assumed that we’d be able to afford cable. We couldn’t. I was working as a lawn maintenance man getting paid by the hour. Sara didn’t have a job yet. So, we drove to Target and splurged on a $15.00 antenna. I can still see the thing. I remember exactly what it looked like. In the parking lot of Target Sara said, “I’m going to have to get a job quick, because this nearly cleaned us out,” though all I could think was how lucky I was that my life had turned out this way. $15.00 cleared out our checking account yet I felt like I’d won the lottery. Meanwhile, how many of us think that money is going to make us happy? Seriously. How many have made making as much of it as possible the sole priority of their lives? George Morlan, a deacon and great leader in our church, left the early service saying, “Money does sometimes make me very happy. It makes me very happy to give it away.” Now, who told him that? Who told him that it is better to give than to receive? Does it seem strange that the one who knit us together in our mother’s wombs would also know what makes us happy? On the other hand, in the words of Christian author, Anne Lamott, many of us “learn through pain that some of the things we thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can’t find the door.” Some are boxed in by debt from trying to buy happiness. Others are stuck trying to squeeze joy from entertainment, distraction, pleasure, pain. So, I ask you, have you found what is good? Are you happy? If not, it’s only a matter of asking for help, for just as “ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so,” wisdom is knowing what you don’t know and doing something about it. Now, as I talk about wisdom and ignorance know that I don’t claim to be a particularly intelligent man. In fact, in 9th grade at Marietta High School, I failed Spanish. That’s not something that I’m proud of, but it’s true. That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention in class or do any of the homework. In 10th grade I took it again, and I remember my teacher, Senora Smitherman, telling me that the difference between the F that I made the first time and the A that I made in her class, was that in her class I was always the first to ask a question. Look again at King Solomon. “O Lord my God” he prayed, “You have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?” Did you hear all that? It’s a litany of reasons for why he shouldn’t be the king. He’s too young. He can’t even find his way our or his way back in. There are too many people. He has no understanding. And he’s not really sure that anyone is going to be able to govern this nation. But here’s the point: this is where wisdom always begins. Not with having the answers but realizing that you don’t and asking for them. That’s true. I googled “qualities of ignorant people.” That search took me right to an article written in 2018 by journalists Lisa Schonhaar and Gisela Wolf, who interviewed a group of experts on intelligence and found a list of five qualities that most ignorant people possess. 1. ignorant people blame others for their own mistakes. 2. Ignorant people always have to be right. 3. Ignorant people react to conflicts with anger and aggression, rather than with curiosity or careful listening. 4. Ignorant people ignore the needs and feelings of others. 5. Ignorant people think they are better than everyone else. On the other hand, - wise people are willing to admit that they make a mistake and are ready to learn from others. - wise people react to conflicts with curiosity and careful listening because they know that they’re sometimes wrong. - wise people don’t assume they know what’s going on in other peoples’ minds. - Wise people know that they’re not better than everyone else. What’s the common theme? There is foolishness in relying on yourself, insisting on your own way, and there is wisdom in asking other people for help. Therefore, as though she were a person, wisdom calls: “turn in here!” “Don’t think you can do this all on your own. Accept my invitation and listen to someone other than the voice in your own head.” Then there’s the last verse from the chapter we read from Proverbs, so loved by Greer Reeve’s mother, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Did you hear that? Lean not on our own understanding, because sometimes your own understanding is dead wrong. “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” Some people have paid a high price because what they were certain of proved not to be true. Occasionally, families will ask the preacher to pray with the body of their loved one who has died. Most vividly, I remember praying with the body of a man who took his own life. I was with him alone, but when I walked out after praying, Tony Sowell who ran the funeral home was waiting for me. He knew it would be a hard thing to do, and so while he let me pray by myself, he was there waiting for me after I had prayed. Walking out of the morgue Tony said to me, “the most tragic thing in the world is a man who treats a temporary problem with a permanent solution.” According to theologian CS Lewis, this is the devil’s greatest trick, convincing us that our passing pain or sorrow or desperation is not temporary but permanent. So, I say it again: “Ignorance is not not knowing. Ignorance is knowing what ain’t so.” If you are sure your pain is going to last forever, if you are sure there’s no way out, if you’re sure that no one loves you and you’ve ruined everything and there is no hope, you are dead wrong. Today, in this time of isolation, listen not to the voice in your head but to wisdom’s call. Lean not on your own understanding, but accept her invitation: Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight. Some will say that today we suffer from a difference of opinions. That’s not entirely true, for today so many are laying in hospital beds dying, because they have wagered their life on what isn’t so. Wisdom is calling. Please, listen. Amen.

O Absalom, My Son, My Son

Scripture Lessons: Ephesians 4: 25 – 5: 2, 2 Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33 Sermon Title: O Absalom, my son, my son! Preached on August 8, 2021 Last Sunday Rev. Cassie Waits preached a beautiful sermon focused on Absalom, one of King David’s sons. Leaving the worship service several members commented on how rarely anyone ever talks about Absalom, so I wanted to deal with him again today, specifically focusing on how King David talks about him. Scripture tells us a lot about King David. Probably there is considerably more written about David than any of us really want to know. In reading the Bible we see that David, not only defeated the giant, Goliath, but great up to be a man who abused his power, was corrupted by his status, and got so used to dealing harshly with his enemies that he seems to have forgotten that one of his enemies was his own son. Our Scripture Lesson ended with King David’s hauntingly emotional words of mourning: O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son! Just in this one verse King David refers to Absalom as his son four times. Before this verse Absalom is known by King David as “the young man,” as though the King barely knew him. Have you ever heard of something like this happening before? Have you ever been so mad at someone that you forgot how much you love them? Or have you ever noticed how easy it is for some people to do violence to or to speak harshly of whole groups of people, say the Jews, when they’re all lumped together, but when something happens so that one sees a member of this group as an individual, maybe they find out that their neighbor is Jewish, something changes. So, some say that they can’t stand millennials. Maybe even some people here would say that all millennials do is look at their phones. They can’t read a map. When you hear someone talk like that, ask them about their 25-year-old grandchildren and listen to how their attitude changes. Or consider how harsh sentencing for minors makes perfect sense until it’s your kid getting into trouble. It’s amazing, but it’s true. When we see people as people, we’re capable of incredible kindness and empathy. When we lump them all together and generalize, we’re capable of incredible evil. One of the most terrifying children’s movies I’ve ever seen (does that sound crazy, a terrifying children’s movie?) is called The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas. It’s the story of a father who oversees a German concentration camp. The camp is out in the country, so his family must leave their home in the city, his son must leave all his friends, and in his new home without any neighbors he’s lonely and bored. One day he wanders beyond the fence of the beautiful estate and discovers a barbed wire fence. On the other side of the fence is a boy, his same age, playing in the dirt, wearing stripped pajamas. Can you imagine where this story line is going? The German boy and the Jewish boy become friends. They eventually dig a small hole under the fence so that the German boy can go inside the fence to play. This is fine until all the children inside the fence are corralled for what they’re told is a shower. The German boy is pushed in with them, and his father must face the total depravity of what he’s been doing now for months as he searches through the bodies to find his son lying among them. “O Absalom, my son, my son!” His eyes were opened when it was too late. That’s how it was with King David. When he says, “O Absalom, my son, my son!” as though he’s seeing this war for what it really is for the very first time. Before that it was a rebel faction of his own citizens led by a young man who must be stopped. As he holds his boys head in his arms it’s senseless bloodshed, nothing more. Has it ever been this way with you? That the way you see changes. Instead of generalizing about a group of people, something happens, and you really see that they are just people. There’s an important book that was on Oprah’s book club list a couple years ago. It’s called, Sing, Unburied, Sing. It’s a hard book to read, for it tells the story of a broken family, a father incarcerated at Parchman prison, and his son, so full of innocence, though he’s treated as a criminal before he has the chance to even begin to understand who he was born to be. Pulled over on the side of the road, the police officer sees him as a threat, as a danger, and tells him repeatedly to put his hands over his head and to get down on the ground. Having heard this boy’s story, the reader sees him very differently, for the reader knows that he is only a boy, only a child, made a victim again and again, afraid of his own shadow, and protector of his baby sister. You see, everything can change depending on how much you allow yourself to see the humanity of the people who are being hurt. Everything changes when you know their story. Everything changes when it’s your son. “O Absalom, my son, my son!” All the fight goes out of King David when he realizes that it’s his son who’s dead, and he is the one who’s done it in trying to defend his place of power. You wonder what he would have changed had he been able to see it sooner, just as we all do. Once we begin to see people as people, maybe we ask: How could I have made that joke now that I know how much hurt it caused? How could I have thought that way? What’s true is that Scripture is always pushing us to see people more clearly, and more truly as people, always forcing us to ask: “how well do we love our neighbors as ourselves?” Truly, not always so well, but God always sees this way. To God, everybody is somebody and all children are previous. One of the most powerful sermons I’ve ever read is one preached by a preacher at his own son’s funeral. It was preached by William Sloan Coffin, and it begins: As almost all of you know, a week ago last Monday night, driving in a terrible storm, my son Alexander – who to his friends was a real day-brightener, and to his family “fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky” – my twenty-four-year-old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave. He goes on to say that his own heart is mending, thanks in large part to all those members of the church who have written letters and been present with him and his family. However, he points out one whose presence was less than helpful: When a person dies, there are many things that can be said, and there is at least one thing that should never be said. The night after Alex died, I was sitting in the living room of my sister’s house outside Boston, when the front door opened and in came a nice-looking middle-aged woman, carrying about eighteen quiches. When she saw me, she shook her head, then headed for the kitchen, saying sadly over her shoulder, “I just don’t understand the will of God.” Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her. “I’ll say you don’t, lady!” I spoke. (I knew the anger would do me good, and the instruction to her was long overdue.) I continued, “Do you think it was the will of God that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper of his, that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had had a couple of ‘frosties’ too many? Do you think it is God’s will that there are no streetlights along that stretch of road, and no guard rail separating the road and Boston Harbor?” Maybe you can relate. So often, in an attempt to bring comfort to the most horrible of situations, good, Christian people carrying quiches and casseroles don’t see people as people. They think with their heads more than they feel with their hearts, which is the opposite of what God always does, says the preacher: The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, “It is the will of God.” Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break. Did you hear that? “O Absalom, my son, my son!” The difference between God and David is not how much it hurt, but that God never forgot that it would. God was never just fighting a war. God was never just squashing an insurrection. With God there is only mourning in war time for every dead child on the battlefield is precious in his sight. That’s how we must learn to see. For our country and our community divides over different issues. We feel such strong feelings about the vaccine or whether or not to require a mask. Remember that everything changes when it’s our son on a ventilator. And when that’s the case, who cares about public opinion? Who cares about the middle ground? Who cares about what’s popular or objective? It’s just, “O Absalom, my son, my son!” and when we see that we finally start seeing clearly. In the same way, some talk objectively about marriage equality. We talk of family values and societal standards until it’s our child who tried to take his own life because he isn’t wired like everyone else. Everything changes when it’s our child’s life. “O Absalom, my son, my son!” When we see it that way, that’s when we start to see. When we remember that when one of our children dies, “God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break” we truly live out the Christian faith. As the first Scripture Lesson said, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us.” Remember that at school. Remember that at work. Remember that at home. Remember that when you look in the mirror. Be imitators of the one whose heart is the first to break. Amen.

I AM

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 3: 1-14 and John 18: 1-11 Sermon Title: I AM Preached on July 25, 2021 Most days when it’s nice out, and even sometimes when it’s not as nice, I ride my bike here to the church. When I get here, I park it in the bike rack right outside that Mike Clotfelter installed about four years ago now. Just having the option of riding a bike to work is a benefit of living close by that I’m grateful for, and this blessing only comes with a couple challenges: 1. how will I get home if it’s raining? 2. how do I survive ridding over the Harris Hines Bridge? One Monday morning I was riding here. I got to that bridge. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s the bridge right behind the church that takes Kennesaw over the 120 Loop. Going over that bridge is the part of the ride that scares me the most because the road narrows, people speed up to get over the railroad tracks, so I almost always illegally ride on the sidewalk. Well, that Monday there were two people walking on the sidewalk already. I first came up behind Ginny Brogan, a member here, who tolerated me as I squeezed past her on the narrow sidewalk. Up ahead was the other, a man I didn’t know. As I passed by him on my bike he said, just loud enough for me to hear, “You know it’s illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk.” I didn’t know this man, and his words struck me, so I thought about stopping to apologize or explain myself, only then the thought occurred to me, “what if he asks who I am and where I’m going”? How is it going to look to this man I’ve never met before, how is it going to reflect on this church, if I so blatantly disregard the standards of public safety on my way here? What if he said, “Well, I was thinking of going to visit First Presbyterian Church, but now that the preacher nearly pushed me off the sidewalk and into oncoming traffic, I think I’d rather not”? For that reason, I just kept ridding, but I still think about it. I still think about almost running this man off the sidewalk on my bicycle, because, while maybe it’s not as bad as cutting off someone’s ear, still, it is another instance where I must wonder how well the Gospel is being preached through the actions of those who call themselves Christians. Think about the slave Malchus. The Bible takes the time to give us his name, which is a sign of how important he is to remember. We just read: “Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus,” and he was doing nothing more than minding his own business, obeying his master’s wishes, so what did he think about the Prince of Peace when his right-hand man, Simon Peter, comes at him with a sword? How was the Gospel proclaimed in that moment? How was the Kingdom advanced? On whom has Christ built His church? Do you know that line? The first time Peter fully recognized Jesus for who he was he said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Excited, Jesus then said to him, “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” When Jesus makes this declaration it’s a spirit filled moment recorded in Scripture, and there’s even more to it if you can read Greek, the language the account was originally written in. In Greek the word for rock is Petros, or Peter. The name Peter just means rock, which is why Jesus names the man formally known as Simon “Peter.” His name says it all: “He is the Rock” Christ’s Church is built upon, but the rock cut off a man’s ear. What do you make of that? Another important play on words which I believe helps explain an important point is an easy one to miss in our Second Scripture Lesson, because this one hinges on our ability to read Hebrew. When the detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priest and the Pharisees were led by Judas with lanterns and torches and weapons, Jesus asked, “Whom are you looking for?” They said, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and Jesus said, “I AM.” That’s not what we read in English because a literal translation of the ancient language doesn’t make much sense, so just a moment ago we read Jesus’ response as, “I am he.” That’s not an exact translation. What I want you to know is that in our First Scripture Lesson, when Moses asks God, “Whom shall I say sent me,” and God says, “Tell them I AM sent you,” in our Second Scripture Lesson Jesus is quoting God because that’s who he is. As he’s being arrested he’s letting them know that he is the God of Abraham and Sarah, Miriam and Moses, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego. He’s the power behind the burning bush and the pillar of flames that led the people through the wilderness. Incarnate in human flesh, he is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the one who created this world, who still sustains it, and who works through human history to redeem it again and again and again. Bible scholars will tell you that here Jesus invokes the divine name, which explains why the intimidating band of armed men who had come to arrest him “stepped back and fell to the ground” before a collection of threadbare disciples led by the prince of peace. These soldiers and police officers kneel before him because they know that they are not God, but he just said he is. “I AM,” he said. So now I go back to Peter, who is the rock that Christ’s church is built upon. Did he really cut off a man’s ear? Yes, he did. Can you really build a church on Peter? Of course, you can, so long as Peter and everyone listening to him remembers that he’s not God. “I AM,” says Jesus. “I AM.” This is the final Sunday of an eight-week sermon series focused on the “I am,” statements of Jesus. Week after week we’ve focused on these phrases which Jesus uses to describe himself. This summer we’ve thought about how Jesus says, “I AM the bread of life. I AM the light of the world. I AM the gate, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth and the life,” and last Sunday, “I AM the vine.” Now we reach the 8th and final statement, which is just plain, “I AM.” To think about this one is a little bit harder. You have to reach a little bit further to understand what he means. Even scholars typically only deal with the first seven of these statements, but Rev. Cassie Waits who came up with this series and the idea for the ribbons added this eighth one, because saying, “I AM” also goes so far in Jesus’ effort to describe himself to us, and this description goes a long way in helping us understand who we are. With this statement Jesus is explicitly saying, “I am the same God who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and led the Hebrew people out of slavery” though what I want to focus on this Sunday is what’s implicit in this statement because it’s also as though Jesus is saying, “I am God, and you are not.” Do you know anyone who gets confused about that? Some people do. And so, I have a message for those members of a neighboring church who find themselves in the news week after week. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that Mount Bethel United Methodist Church is in the headlines. Some are disappointed in the pastor who is refusing to do what the bishop says. Others are disappointed in the bishop for making this move for reasons of church politics rather than for the wellbeing of the congregation. Both factions make a fair point, only here’s what’s most important for any frustrated church members to remember: neither the bishop nor the pastor is God. “I AM,” Jesus said. We must remember that. If we don’t we’ll stand to be disappointed again and again, for no human being can stand up to divine standards. We’re not perfect. “I AM,” Jesus said. We’re not always selfless, but “I AM” Jesus says. We’re not free from ambition, ego, narcissism, pride, or human error, though Jesus says, “I AM”. Plus, to quote the pastor who did our premarital counseling, “If you go looking for flaws in your partner you’re going to find them,” and that goes for your pastor, your doctor, your kids, yourself, your politicians, the CDC, the World Health Organization, CNN, the School Board, the Rotary Club, or anything else run by human beings. Some might ask, “Then who should we be listening to? Is it just eny, meany, miney, mo?” No. It’s “and he is it.” We aren’t perfect, but “I AM” he said. “I AM.” What do with that? I’ll tell you. Don’t confuse preachers and Jesus. Don’t confuse politicians and the Savior. Don’t confuse doctors and God. Don’t think that you’re more powerful than you are. You just aren’t that powerful, and neither is anybody else. Amazing things happen through you. That’s true. Still, we try too hard. We hold too tightly. We can’t let go. We deny our shortcomings. This week you were given a blue ribbon. Blue is the color of Mary, the mother of Jesus. I think about her and all she knew about her baby. How she knew that she wasn’t the one to put the world right. No, she wasn’t. “I AM,” Jesus said. That’s what I want you to write about this Sunday on your ribbon. What do you need his help with? There’s that country song, “Jesus take the wheel.” That’s not very good advice when it comes to driving a car, but there are so many moments where that’s the best advice in the world. Why? Because sometimes, with us, it’s impossible, while nothing will be impossible with the one who said, “I AM.” When you get down to it, who is he to you? Or who do you long that he would be? What is the thing you know you can’t do and long that he would help you with? What is the shortcoming that you have that you need his grace to fill? There’s been a million pages written to get down to this one essential theological reality that any child here could sing: We are weak, but he is strong. Give to the Lord your weakness. Being a Christian isn’t about perfection. If you want to be a Christian in your heart than kneel before him. Surrender. There comes a moment when we must stop thinking, “If I could just be the right person, if I could just get the right answer, if Id would just try harder or be better…” for Christ has built his Church on the rock of imperfect Peter, on the reality of our weakness, for our weakness points to his strength. Where are you weak? How can he help you? Moses said, “You can’t send me. I can’t speak,” yet what did God do through him? Write down your weakness on your ribbon, and just as Christ gave Malchus back his ear, so may his grace heal the wounds inflicted on the world by imperfect people just like us. Give to him your weakness. Write it down on your ribbon, and ay it become a foundation for his strength at work in your life. Amen.

I AM the Vine

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 5: 1-7 and John 15: 1-8 Sermon Title: I AM the Vine Preached on July 18, 2021 Have you ever heard of Cecil Collins? I learned about him last Tuesday from a Marietta Daily Journal article about Evander Holyfield. Evander Holyfield, world heavyweight champion boxer and Atlanta resident, mentioned him when talking with Cobb Chamber of Commerce Chair John Loud last Monday. Apparently, Cecil Collins is a white boy who Evander Holyfield just couldn’t beat. Holyfield was 10 or 11 the first time Cecil Collins beat him, and after the fight he went home crying ready to never box again. He said, “My mamma let me cry for about two minutes. After that, she asked, “What happened?” “I lost, and I quit,” he answered. Every kid goes through something like this, so every parent has been through this with their kids. Maybe what the kids don’t know is that at least some of the time we’d like to let you quit so we don’t have to drive you to practice, but we can’t let you do that, so Mrs. Holyfield made him go back to boxing. However, then Collins beat him again. This time it was his coach who talked him out of quitting. I guess Holyfield now knew better than to go straight to his mom, so he went to his coach instead. His coach said, “[Why are you quitting? You haven’t lost.] You lose when you stop. [You lose when] you don’t do it [any] more. Setback paves the way for comeback.” That’s good advice. Obviously Hollifield listened, and what I want to point out thinking of Cecil Collins, is that Holyfield grew up to beat not just Cecil Collins but 44 out of the 57 he faced as a professional boxer. He is today the only professional fighter to win the heavyweight championship four times surpassing the record set by Muhammad Ali, making him one of the greatest boxers of all time, and yet he also got pruned. Expect to be pruned. That’s one important point that this passage from the Gospel of John makes. Expect to be pruned and don’t mistake being pruned from being cut from the vine. “I AM the vine,” he said. This is the seventh sermon in a series of eight focusing on what Bible scholars call the “I AM” statements of Jesus. This is the seventh statement that Jesus uses to describe himself: “I AM the vine,” he said, “and you are the branches.” Even the branches that bear fruit must be pruned so that they can bear more fruit, and how important it becomes that we be able to tell the difference between being pruned and being cut off from the vine. Do you know anyone who has trouble telling the difference? If you know me than you know someone. How many times have I hit a bump in the road professionally and been ready to quit? How many times have I made a mistake and been too embarrassed to apologize, so I wanted to just quit on a person? How many times have I suffered and wondered if God had quit on me? We parents all make fun of our kids who sometimes act like it’s the end of the world when they’re disappointed. They don’t make the team and they act like their life is over. Someone breaks their heart, and they can’t leave their bedroom. They act like this because that’s how it feels, and it feels that way to their parents too, but enough bad things have happened to their parents for them to realize that bad things are normal. All the time bad things are happening to us. Day after day we must let go and move on. It’s not all tragic for every branch that bears fruit must be pruned to bear even more, and just because some parts of us are dying that doesn’t mean we are dying. That doesn’t mean we have to quit. That doesn’t mean it’s all over. A book I love is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was rejected by publishers 121 times and has since sold 5 million copies worldwide, and this is just one of many books that was famously rejected to go on to huge success. Author of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, who has sold 450 million books was rejected by her first 12 publishers. Stephen King threw his first book in the garbage, rejecting it himself. It was then rejected 30 times before being picked up by Doubleday Press and selling over 1 million copies. Then there’s Michael Jordan. Some say he’s the greatest basketball player who ever lived, but did you know that Michael Jordan didn’t make the high school varsity basketball team the first time he tried out? Now he says, “[That’s when it all started.] It all started when coach Pop Herring cut me [from the team].” After not making the team Jordan went home to cry, but years later, now a superstar on Jay Leno in 1997 he said, “Everybody goes through disappointments, it’s how you overcome those disappointments. I just wasn’t good enough. [Today I know that was] the best thing that could have happened to me: to get cut, because [getting cut] made me go back and get caught up with my skill level.” Now, I’m not the Michael Jordan of preaching, but I assure you, I’ve gotten better too, and so much of my improvement is a result of my failure. I was in a club for aspiring preachers in college and the club sponsor took me to the local retirement home to preach one Sunday morning. On the way back to campus the only good thing he could think to say was “you preached for 17 minutes. That was about the right amount of time.” I’ve been doing it like that ever since. Did you know that it’s OK to fail? That it’s good to be pruned? That you weren’t born perfect and so you must get better every day and every hour. Some of us go through life so afraid of criticism that we let it break us. Others of us go through life so hungry for praise that we avoid ever taking a risk. The parable makes this much plain: getting pruned is a part of life. Getting pruned helps us bear more fruit. Getting pruned doesn’t mean we’re cut off from the vine. “I AM the vine” he said. And do you know what else he said? “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” “I will be with you, even until the end of the age.” And according to the Apostle Paul: “Nothing will separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now that doesn’t mean you’re perfect. That doesn’t mean you don’t have more to learn. That doesn’t mean you should keep your car keys forever. That doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to apologize for. You do. I do. But we can apologize because doing something bad doesn’t mean we’re bad. Making a mistake doesn’t mean I’m a mistake. Failing a test doesn’t make me a failure. A rejection doesn’t disqualify me. It certainly doesn’t disqualify me from being loved. Who reminds you of that? Good parents remind kids of that all the time. Evander Holyfield’s mom wouldn’t let him quit. He got beat twice by Cecil Collins. After their third fight when Holyfield one, his mama gave him permission to quit boxing if he wanted to, but he kept going. Who has helped you keep going? Today you have a purple ribbon. Grapes are purple and we’re blessed with people who help us produce more of them. When we are pruned, we produce more. When we remember that we’re connected to the vine we produce more. Who has helped you remember that you’re still connected to the vine? I’d like for you to write their name on your purple ribbon, because it’s a miraculous thing they’ve done for us, isn’t it? Of course, there’s a time to quit. Some people in my life have helped me quit certain things. I was never going to be a heavy weight boxing champion. I was never going to make the Atlanta Braves. But I once tried to quit basketball in the middle of a game. I was 10 or 11 and I couldn’t make a shot. My Dad pulled me over to the side and said, “Did you know that the best players in the NBA miss half their shots?” That’s true. Did you know that while Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, he struck out over 13,000 times? Did you know that the first time Abraham Lincoln ran for political office he came in 8th? I’ve wanted to quit being a preacher a time or two and I’m very thankful to those people who wouldn’t let me. I told you already that I once preached a sermon where the only good thing about it was that it was brief. If you can’t be good, be brief, my preaching professor once said. I also once preached a good sermon and a mentor of mine said that she thought it had made God smile. That compliment makes me tear up just thinking of it, and had I quit I never would have heard it. Had I not been pruned I never would have heard it either. “I AM the vine,” he said, and being pruned once or twice does not cut us off from him. Who has reminded you of that? The whole nation of Israel was reminded of that by the Psalms and the Prophets. We read about it from our First Scripture Lesson: a vine who yielded wild grapes. This vine represents a people who failed. They failed to measure up, they turned away from who they were created to be. God expected justice from them but saw bloodshed instead. God expected righteousness, but instead heard the cry of the innocent suffering at the hands of the powerful. What the prophet is saying here is that the people deserved to be cut off. Not just pruned, but torn down, pulled up, and tilled under. What vineyard owner preserves a vine who produces wild grapes? Who sows bloodshed and abuses the weak? But our faith is not about what we deserve. Our faith is about a grace greater than all our sin. Who has reminded you of that? Who has remined you that by being pruned, you might still bear good fruit? That through hardship we might find a better way to be. That while he had reason to, Christ has not given up on His people yet, and by his grace we are invited to try and try and try again. Who has helped you remember that his love for you is as resilient as that vine in the yard that just won’t die and keeps coming back? Write their name down on your purple ribbon and give thanks to God for them. Amen.