Advent 1B - Sermon based upon Psalm 42 & Matthew 1:18-2:12
Good morning and welcome to Advent. This is a season of expectancy and preparation. A season of joy, hope, and promise. And given the themes of our advent devotional and sermon series, it is also a season of faith, peace, new life, and love.
You’re going to notice a pattern in the coming weeks that lead us all the way through Christmas. Each week’s theme that goes with the devotional is going to be lifted up in worship in multiple ways. The devotional theme is The True Gifts of Christmas: The Journey to Bethlehem. The music, prayers, liturgy, and even scriptures will go along with the weekly theme. Each week we'll have a Psalm that captures the emotional experience of the theme and a Gospel passage that tells the story.
But for now, we’re here on the first week of Advent. We enter with the theme of faith and the story told in Matthew about Jesus's conception and birth. If ever there was a story of faith in God, this is it.
Here we have a young unmarried woman who finds out she's going to have a very special baby. The scripture tells us that her fience doesn't want to disgrace her but he's still going to “quietly dismiss her.” After transformative encounters, they both believe in God’s will for this child move forward to have the baby.
From the Luke story of Jesus’ birth we also know that they had to make a journey to Bethlehem for census and taxation. That must have been horrible. Can you imagine setting out on a donkey, a man and a 9 month pregnant woman, in a time when life was so much more treacherous than it is now?
And even after Jesus is born, King Herod sends spies so that he can plot against the young Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us. But they too had a transformative experience rooted in joy and did the right thing to protect this child.
And our Psalm this morning is also a true story of faith. It is about the fear and anxiety we experience when we can’t quite feel God’s closeness to us. We want to lash out as the Psalmist does with “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” But just as with Mary and Joseph, the Psalmist remembers “hope in God.”
These are some pretty powerful scriptures if we pause to let them capture our feelings and imagination. So, what do they have to tell us on this first Sunday of Advent?
Well, I think one of the messages is that just because we’re journeying faithfully doesn’t mean that it’s smooth sailing. It’s often an anxiety and fear filled path. Even Joseph was going to leave Mary because he couldn’t understand how God’s plan for Mary included him and I imagine he felt a lot of social pressure as well.
How often are our lives like that? Maybe it’s that we know what the right thing is to do but we feel the pressure and embarrassment of what others are saying around us. Or sometimes it’s that we are not sure how we fit into God’s plan. Or sometimes it’s more a feeling like the Psalmist had of wondering where God is in all this and how to remain faithful while it feels so dark. When faced with loss, uncertainty, and other things that raise our fear level, our lives, just like Mary and Joseph’s are filled with moments that make our faithful walk forward feel more like a burdensome trudge.
Whether it’s the journey of the PNC in search of a pastor or the daily work it takes to make relationships last, we are ALL journeying… and sometimes it’s a tough one. But here’s where the story turns.
God reassures Joseph of his part in all this. Then God protects Jesus from Herod. God even touches the wise men and they go on a different path. Hope and joy healed them from their worries, doubt, and uncertainty. In the case of the wise men, quite literally, the story tells us that they were overwhelmed by joy.
I think this is the real heart of our scripture lesson for today. We worry and struggle in uncertainty quite often. And it becomes a cycle that just gets worse if left to our own devices. The more we worry, the more we drag ourselves down. The more we drag ourselves down, the more we fret about digging back out of the hole of fear, grief, and depression. The more we fret about those things, the more ashamed we feel. And the more ashamed we feel… well, that’s just a terrible spiral downward.
But God’s support and love for us is never wrapped up in fear or shame or overly burdensome toil. God reaches out to us with hope and joy offering us help to put one foot in front of the other and continue our faithful journey. That support comes in all kinds of forms. In the case of Joseph, it came in the form of messenger from God and I imagine it also came in the form of support from people around him and most especially from Mary. For the wise men, they found support from God to do the right thing through an intense sense of joy at the witness of a phenomenon in nature right before meeting Jesus. And while most of us don’t have an experience of meeting and angel, I know that all of us have met messengers from God or had experiences that coincided with special event that invigorated our faith.
See, this is what faith is about, whether it’s during the season of Advent or any other time. We are on a journey and each and every day is another opportunity to keep moving forward toward the hope and promise of God while being open to the nurturing support God gives us.
Now, I’m not trying to make this sound easy. I’ll give you a deeply personal example. All my life, even as a little child, I’ve struggled with depression. It seems to be genetic because most of my family struggles with it. Depression has gripped me in ways that I’ve often felt forgotten by God. The way depression chokes off the light is painful. And after feeling the emptiness and darkness months on end, I’ve even thought that it wasn’t that God had forgotten me. I’ve felt that God must be punishing or cursing me. Now logically, I know that isn’t the case. But depression is an illness that tells us lies about ourselves, others, and God.
Having struggled with this illness for most of my 37 years, I can tell you quite a few things about finding God in the darkness and what faith looks like when you barely have the energy to get out of bed. But I can also tell you that faith cannot be stifled or destroyed by darkness, fear, worry, doubt, and uncertainty.
Just like Mary and Joseph, I have found God’s support every step of the way. Just when I thought I couldn’t bear the isolation any longer, God has sent messengers that reminded me who and who’s I am. God has placed people in my life to help me when I couldn’t help myself. When I needed a jolt to point me in the right direction, God has shown me great joy through phenomenon in nature. God has called me forward in love all along the way.
God’s nurturing love and my faith in that love have helped me journey forward every step of the way. In fact, you’ve even been part of God’s work in my life. As you know, I’m a chaplain and I work night shift at Children’s Memorial Hospital. Working night shift is more than a choice. It’s a metaphor for my experience with God. Because I’ve had to work so hard to find God in the long nights of depression, I want to be part of God’s light to others in the night. I never thought I’d work in a church because I thought my place was in the darkness.
But being here with you has shown me that God calls me into the light as well. The way you’ve encouraged me and the relationships I’ve built here have shown me new paths in my own faith journey. My faithful journey is not only that of holding people in the night but also that of proclaiming God’s radiance in the light and you’ve been the ones who’ve helped cultivate that in me and show me God’s way for which I’ll always be grateful.
Now I didn’t tell you all that to spew out my own story. I told you about my journey because I believe it speaks to the struggles we’ve all had. Advent, holidays, faith, journeys, family, church… all of these things are precious but they also stir in us anxiety and fear about the unknown. But God is with us, each and every one of us. God is speaking and leading and calling us every step of the way.
Sisters and brothers, as we move forward in Advent, may we have faith that God is alive and well in all areas of our lives. Even when it feels scary or burdensome, God is with us, offering us support wrapped in love rather than fear. Our job is to keep putting one foot in front of the other on this journey taking the next step in faith and being open to all the ways God is supporting us. Emmanuel, God with us… We welcome you! Amen
Showing posts with label strength. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strength. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Our Refuge and Strength
Trinity A – a sermon based upon Psalm 46
Good morning. It is a true joy to be with you today on this Trinity Sunday where we celebrate that Christians are bad mathematicians or have a different kind of math… a math that says that 1 Father + 1 Son + 1 Holy Spirit = One Big God.
Okay, I figured that joke would either reveal that you were asleep or that I am a geek but I couldn’t help myself. The fact that we set aside a day to consider the Triune God, Trinity Sunday is an interesting thing to me. We definitely spend time talking about God, Jesus, and the Spirit. And we give a gentle nod to the fact that they are intertwined. But do we really stop to stand in awe of how amazingly God’s love, Christ’s redemption, and the Spirit’s creative energy works in and around us and with each other?
Today is probably a good day to do that because last week we talked about a pretty tough calling to keep reaching out even when we don’t understand other parts of the Body of Christ. And this week I said we’d look into our refuge, nurture, and growth together within a community of faith. And that’s what we’re going to do.
Today’s Psalm starts with a phrase familiar to many of us: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” This Psalm shows a great deal of trust and hope on our part in a God that is ever present and truly helpful in our daily lives. But is it just trust and hope? Could it be the Psalmist’s experience that first brought these words to song and then to paper? Could it be that for all our struggles to feel God’s presence, we still have a powerful experiences of and a deep knowledge of God?
I suspect so and on this day, the day of the church picnic where we share in the joy of fellowship, there is no better time to look at our experiences of each other and God in our midst. So, let’s look deeper at this Psalm and more closely at this community.
The 46th Psalm is broken into 3 different sections. The first looks at the turbulence of the earth. The second considers the unrest of people and nations. Finally the third upholds experience of God in being still and recognizing God’s works.
On first look you may think, now what does that have to do with our refuge, nurture, and growth together within a community of faith? Well, there are lots of ways to look at this Psalm. If we were soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, we may be looking at it for what it says about God’s dealings in political matters. And if we lived in earthquake ravaged Haiti or tornado torn Joplin, MO, we might center in on God’s work of creation in spite of the ebb and flow of nature and destruction. But for today, let’s look at it from right here… from this community of faith.
See, we know what it’s like for the “waters roar” and the land to tremble. The recent floods and storms have reminded us just how fragile our things of human design are. And if we look back in time, we need not go too far to see the damage wrought by nature. We also know what it’s like for the nations to roar and put our sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, grandchildren, parents and loved ones in harm’s way. But in the big times, the everyday times, and all the in between times, how do we know that God is our refuge and our strength?
Well, if you’ll indulge me, I think I have a unique prespective on this question. I’ve been helping in worship at First Pres consistently for over a year now and a few times before that over 2 years. But I’ve not been here for worship only. I’ve talked with many of you during coffee hour. I’ve sat in some of your homes to grieve. We’ve run into one another at local festivals or stores. Even as recently as last week, we’ve shared in the joy of baptisms and new members. You’ve reached out to me and to one another and much much more. And all along I’ve been watching. I’m a people watcher and you’ve given me plenty to take in.
See, during times of looking for a new pastor, some churches spend thousands of dollars on a consultant that comes in and studies a congregation to then give them a report telling them what was observed. But as someone who loves and cares about you, I’m going to tell you for free what I’ve seen.
In you, I have seen that there are more ways for the waters and nations to roar than just literal ones. The very foundations of many of your lives have been rocked by things that happened in your life or the lives of those around you. Unthinkable deaths, illnesses too scary to talk about with more than a few people, losses that leave you questioning how to cope and how to support one another have swept through in the past year just as they do in all years.
But I listened to your words to one another. I heard you say things like, “I don’t know what to say to make it better but I am here for you” or “I am grateful I have you around me to help us through this.” I also watched your actions. You sent cards, shared rides, offered meals, and shared with one another. You have been that beautiful interplay of God’s love, Christ’s healing, and the Sprit’s binding that one another need. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
However, I’ve been watching during more than just the crisis moments. I’ve watched the everyday times and if you ask me, the true measure of a community is not only in how well they rise to the occasion of crisis but what they do day in and day out. I see that you love to learn and grow.
You have church school, Sunday night conversations, Tuesday evening studies, VBS, and other special events. And those events are not just about growing intellectually or spiritually but they are also about the time spent with one another in seeking and learning together.
I also have watched you in stewardship. I’ve overheard conversations of concern about how to deal with financial issues with integrity. I’ve witnessed the birth and development of new gifts and callings such as when I overheard one of you talk about something that needed to be fixed and then you realized that maybe it was your calling to fix it. And the coffee hour helpers, greeters, ushers, flower arrangers, table setters, dish washers, meal cookers, baked good donators (and eaters), liturgy helpers, prayers, and so much more can’t even begin to be calculated when you start to look at stewardship. This congregation loves to do things for one another and for each other and it’s awe inspiring to stand back and see. “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
But all that I’ve named has been about the “doing” not about the “being.” The most meaningful things I can name about First Presbyterian as a congregation are about “being.” For example, everyone is interested in the search for a new pastor. And whether it’s the conversations I know are taking place in the PNC or the ones in the pews, those conversations are ongoing. Debate, vision, disagreement, and hope get tangled with practical concerns. And you know what? They should be messy or we’re not faithfully and fully seeking God’s guidance. But at the core of all the outward swirling and energy is a deep seeded desire to be together.
And this “being” goes further than just looking for a new pastor. In the past year, I’ve come up with a theory about this church that I’ve shared with many of you. The theory comes from why I think it is that you have a history of being so vibrant in times without a pastor when many congregations collapse. My belief is that your liveliness and growth comes from your deep knowledge that YOU are the Church, not some person standing here. You know that WE are the body of Christ using all kinds of different gifts and I suspect that some of those gifts come out even more during times without consistent pastoral leadership.
Faith like that can’t be bottled and it can’t be taught. But it can be cultivated by relationships of people being with each other and being one another’s refuge and nurture. “Be still, and know that I am God!”
“Be still, and know that I am God” is an utterance that invites being not doing. On a day like today where we celebrate fellowship with one another the thing I’ve learned most strongly about this community is that whether it’s in committee or in the pews, there is a yearning for God. Some of you describe it as that feeling you get that keeps you coming back. Others identify it through what you do. But no matter how you think about it, that desire and longing for God finds some sort of voice here.
Sisters and brothers, our calling is into community… a community that holds and nurtures. As we spend time together and in the days and years to come, God invites us to be still and consider how that yearning for God has been fulfilled. We’re invited to step into the wonder of the trinity as God’s partners in creation. If it has been lacking, we’re invited to question what can we do to let down our own walls or to help reach through the barriers of fear that others have.
Now, I’m not naive enough to think that we live in a culture where all our spiritual and emotional needs can be taken care of by one group of people. The fact of the matter is that God’s refuge and strength enter our lives from many places and often our closest supports are outside this community. And that’s okay. But while we’re here and when we’re considering what we want here to be like, God’s invitation is for us to pause in gratitude for what this faith community has been in our lives. God’s invitation is to know that no matter what comes along, we are not alone. “God is our refuge and strength.” Amen.
Good morning. It is a true joy to be with you today on this Trinity Sunday where we celebrate that Christians are bad mathematicians or have a different kind of math… a math that says that 1 Father + 1 Son + 1 Holy Spirit = One Big God.
Okay, I figured that joke would either reveal that you were asleep or that I am a geek but I couldn’t help myself. The fact that we set aside a day to consider the Triune God, Trinity Sunday is an interesting thing to me. We definitely spend time talking about God, Jesus, and the Spirit. And we give a gentle nod to the fact that they are intertwined. But do we really stop to stand in awe of how amazingly God’s love, Christ’s redemption, and the Spirit’s creative energy works in and around us and with each other?
Today is probably a good day to do that because last week we talked about a pretty tough calling to keep reaching out even when we don’t understand other parts of the Body of Christ. And this week I said we’d look into our refuge, nurture, and growth together within a community of faith. And that’s what we’re going to do.
Today’s Psalm starts with a phrase familiar to many of us: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” This Psalm shows a great deal of trust and hope on our part in a God that is ever present and truly helpful in our daily lives. But is it just trust and hope? Could it be the Psalmist’s experience that first brought these words to song and then to paper? Could it be that for all our struggles to feel God’s presence, we still have a powerful experiences of and a deep knowledge of God?
I suspect so and on this day, the day of the church picnic where we share in the joy of fellowship, there is no better time to look at our experiences of each other and God in our midst. So, let’s look deeper at this Psalm and more closely at this community.
The 46th Psalm is broken into 3 different sections. The first looks at the turbulence of the earth. The second considers the unrest of people and nations. Finally the third upholds experience of God in being still and recognizing God’s works.
On first look you may think, now what does that have to do with our refuge, nurture, and growth together within a community of faith? Well, there are lots of ways to look at this Psalm. If we were soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, we may be looking at it for what it says about God’s dealings in political matters. And if we lived in earthquake ravaged Haiti or tornado torn Joplin, MO, we might center in on God’s work of creation in spite of the ebb and flow of nature and destruction. But for today, let’s look at it from right here… from this community of faith.
See, we know what it’s like for the “waters roar” and the land to tremble. The recent floods and storms have reminded us just how fragile our things of human design are. And if we look back in time, we need not go too far to see the damage wrought by nature. We also know what it’s like for the nations to roar and put our sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, grandchildren, parents and loved ones in harm’s way. But in the big times, the everyday times, and all the in between times, how do we know that God is our refuge and our strength?
Well, if you’ll indulge me, I think I have a unique prespective on this question. I’ve been helping in worship at First Pres consistently for over a year now and a few times before that over 2 years. But I’ve not been here for worship only. I’ve talked with many of you during coffee hour. I’ve sat in some of your homes to grieve. We’ve run into one another at local festivals or stores. Even as recently as last week, we’ve shared in the joy of baptisms and new members. You’ve reached out to me and to one another and much much more. And all along I’ve been watching. I’m a people watcher and you’ve given me plenty to take in.
See, during times of looking for a new pastor, some churches spend thousands of dollars on a consultant that comes in and studies a congregation to then give them a report telling them what was observed. But as someone who loves and cares about you, I’m going to tell you for free what I’ve seen.
In you, I have seen that there are more ways for the waters and nations to roar than just literal ones. The very foundations of many of your lives have been rocked by things that happened in your life or the lives of those around you. Unthinkable deaths, illnesses too scary to talk about with more than a few people, losses that leave you questioning how to cope and how to support one another have swept through in the past year just as they do in all years.
But I listened to your words to one another. I heard you say things like, “I don’t know what to say to make it better but I am here for you” or “I am grateful I have you around me to help us through this.” I also watched your actions. You sent cards, shared rides, offered meals, and shared with one another. You have been that beautiful interplay of God’s love, Christ’s healing, and the Sprit’s binding that one another need. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
However, I’ve been watching during more than just the crisis moments. I’ve watched the everyday times and if you ask me, the true measure of a community is not only in how well they rise to the occasion of crisis but what they do day in and day out. I see that you love to learn and grow.
You have church school, Sunday night conversations, Tuesday evening studies, VBS, and other special events. And those events are not just about growing intellectually or spiritually but they are also about the time spent with one another in seeking and learning together.
I also have watched you in stewardship. I’ve overheard conversations of concern about how to deal with financial issues with integrity. I’ve witnessed the birth and development of new gifts and callings such as when I overheard one of you talk about something that needed to be fixed and then you realized that maybe it was your calling to fix it. And the coffee hour helpers, greeters, ushers, flower arrangers, table setters, dish washers, meal cookers, baked good donators (and eaters), liturgy helpers, prayers, and so much more can’t even begin to be calculated when you start to look at stewardship. This congregation loves to do things for one another and for each other and it’s awe inspiring to stand back and see. “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
But all that I’ve named has been about the “doing” not about the “being.” The most meaningful things I can name about First Presbyterian as a congregation are about “being.” For example, everyone is interested in the search for a new pastor. And whether it’s the conversations I know are taking place in the PNC or the ones in the pews, those conversations are ongoing. Debate, vision, disagreement, and hope get tangled with practical concerns. And you know what? They should be messy or we’re not faithfully and fully seeking God’s guidance. But at the core of all the outward swirling and energy is a deep seeded desire to be together.
And this “being” goes further than just looking for a new pastor. In the past year, I’ve come up with a theory about this church that I’ve shared with many of you. The theory comes from why I think it is that you have a history of being so vibrant in times without a pastor when many congregations collapse. My belief is that your liveliness and growth comes from your deep knowledge that YOU are the Church, not some person standing here. You know that WE are the body of Christ using all kinds of different gifts and I suspect that some of those gifts come out even more during times without consistent pastoral leadership.
Faith like that can’t be bottled and it can’t be taught. But it can be cultivated by relationships of people being with each other and being one another’s refuge and nurture. “Be still, and know that I am God!”
“Be still, and know that I am God” is an utterance that invites being not doing. On a day like today where we celebrate fellowship with one another the thing I’ve learned most strongly about this community is that whether it’s in committee or in the pews, there is a yearning for God. Some of you describe it as that feeling you get that keeps you coming back. Others identify it through what you do. But no matter how you think about it, that desire and longing for God finds some sort of voice here.
Sisters and brothers, our calling is into community… a community that holds and nurtures. As we spend time together and in the days and years to come, God invites us to be still and consider how that yearning for God has been fulfilled. We’re invited to step into the wonder of the trinity as God’s partners in creation. If it has been lacking, we’re invited to question what can we do to let down our own walls or to help reach through the barriers of fear that others have.
Now, I’m not naive enough to think that we live in a culture where all our spiritual and emotional needs can be taken care of by one group of people. The fact of the matter is that God’s refuge and strength enter our lives from many places and often our closest supports are outside this community. And that’s okay. But while we’re here and when we’re considering what we want here to be like, God’s invitation is for us to pause in gratitude for what this faith community has been in our lives. God’s invitation is to know that no matter what comes along, we are not alone. “God is our refuge and strength.” Amen.
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