Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, "Mercy and Sacrifice," Psalm 50:7-15, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 (Proper 5/Ordinary 10)

Sermon 6/11/23

Psalm 50:7-15, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

Mercy and Sacrifice

A few weeks ago, just before I came to Central New York for the summer, I packed up my apartment in New Jersey and moved from one town to another. Not a huge move - just about 15 minutes away. And not a huge amount of things - I moved in with other PhD students, so other than my bedroom furniture, I didn’t have much I needed to bring. As far as moves go, since I have moved so many times as an itinerant pastor and often moved from one five bedroom parsonage to another, this one was pretty simple. Except… as a PhD student, I have to move “student-style,” finding a truck and getting some friends who are willing to help for the reward of my thanks and some pizza for lunch. And, except - I was moving from a second floor apartment, requiring a lot of up and down stairs. And, except this: both of my knees need replacing. They’ve been deteriorating for years, and now they’re down to bone on bone, and walking is painful enough but stairs are even harder, and stairs while carrying heavy things are near impossible. Thankfully, I have good friends. But on moving day, I had to basically sit and watch while they did all of the work of loading and unloading my things, taking trip after trip up and down the stairs at my old place, on what was of course the hottest day of that week. And while that might sound great - sitting back and watching others do the hard work - I suspect for most of us, actually, being helped, while we can’t contribute anything, is more stressful than not. I spent a lot of the day feeling guilty, frustrated, and helpless, wishing I could help, wishing things were different. My helpers? They weren’t doing anything to make me feel guilty. They were thoughtful, appreciative of the lunch I bought, efficient, and done and moved on, while I was still wrestling with how much I hated having to rely on them to get the job done. 

You’ve probably heard the expression: it’s more blessed to give than receive. And I think most of us find that to be the case. We love giving to others. It brings us a lot of joy, doesn’t it, giving? Being able to lift others up through our actions? But being able to receive, graciously, thankfully, when we’re in a place of need and someone else can meet our need that we can’t do ourselves? I think receiving is actually harder than it looks. Maybe it’s fine on Christmas, on birthdays, on occasions where being the recipient of gifts is expected. But outside of that? Where we are receiving not even gifts but “help”? Mostly, I think we really chafe against needing help. I think many of us would do just about anything to avoid appearing helpless, being helpless. 

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week as I read our gospel lesson. Our gospel lesson from Mathew is really three stories in one. In the first part, Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector, to follow him. Matthew does, immediately. Jesus is then eating dinner - perhaps at Matthew’s house? - and there are many other “tax-collectors and sinners” joining in the meal. Then the Pharisees - the religious leaders of the community - discover who has been at this gathering, they criticize Jesus to his disciples, that he eats with what they consider unfit company. Jesus overhears and says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,”” paraphrasing from the prophet Hosea. He continues, “For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Then we skip ahead a bit into what might seem to be two unrelated healing stories, both of which you might be familiar with. First, Jesus gets a message from a leader of the community that his daughter has died, but asking Jesus to come and lay hands on her, trusting that the girl will live. On the way to the leader’s house, Jesus is approached by a woman who has been suffering with hemorrhages for over a decade. And she’s confident that if she can just touch Jesus, even his cloak, she will be healed. Jesus takes notice of her right away, saying to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well,” and indeed, she has been made well. Finally, Jesus gets to the leader’s house and finds everyone in the household already in mourning over the daughter who has died. Jesus sends them all away, insisting the girl is only sleeping. Everyone laughs - the girl is clearly dead! But when the crowd of mourners leave, Jesus takes the girl by the hand, and she gets up, alive and well. Our text closes with Matthew reporting that news of these events spread quickly throughout the region. 

I desire mercy, not sacrifice, Jesus says. I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners. What does Jesus mean? Righteousness, after all, means something like being in “right relationship” with God and one another. And it seems, throughout the scriptures, that God very much does long for us to be in right relationships, just relationships. Isn’t that what God wants? isn’t our journey of discipleship about just that - learning how to set right our relationships with God and one another? And, what does it mean that God desires mercy? I understand that God is merciful - compassionate and forgiving. But how do mercy, sacrifice, righteousness, and sinfulness relate? I can’t think Jesus means that we have to relish our sinfulness so that God has more opportunity to show us mercy. I don’t think that Jesus wants us to pretend to be in need of help so that God can get the joy of rescuing us. So what does Jesus mean? 

I think first - and this is a hard one - first, God’s primary audience is not always us. Sometimes we’re like the lost sheep - but sometimes, especially if we’ve been on the path of discipleship for a long time, seeking to grow deeper and deeper in our faith - we’re just one of the sheep who is safe in the pasture. God’s priority is the sheep who is lost. And we can be jealous that God is tending to the lost sheep, or we can be thankful that we’re already safe and sound. 

As for righteousness? Well: like everything else we might come to have, it is a gift of God. If we learn to grow in discipleship, and set right all our relationships, it is through drawing on God’s strength, embracing God’s grace, and imitating God’s love. When we start believing righteousness is something we’ve achieved by our own efforts, that’s self-righteousness, and self-righteousness is pretty far from God’s intent for us. Being in right relationship with God and others isn’t a destination we can reach and just settle at. It’s a practice, a discipline, something that we grow in with God’s help. 

And there it is: God’s help. Friends - we need God’s help, always. We stand in need of God’s mercy, always. Rather than this gospel being some strange suggestion that we have make ourselves appear to be in a position of needing mercy in order for us to get God’s attention, we need to recognize that we’re already there. We are in need of God’s help. We need God’s mercy. We do sin. We are broken. We do turn away from God. We do fail to live in right relationships. We can’t do it by ourselves. We need God’s help. Unfortunately, our culture is full of really destructive messages about being in need of mercy, about needing help. Our society implies that if you need help, especially too much help, or for too often, or for too long, you are weak, you’re wrong, you’re less than. Instead, we cultivate this myth of self-made people who’ve pulled themselves up by their own power and strength, no help needed. 

When I look at the vignettes in our scripture today, I see stories of people who knew that they needed help/ Matthew, the unnamed sinners and tax collectors, the leader seeking help for his daughter, the woman Jesus healed - they needed help, and they knew it, and they weren’t afraid to accept the help Jesus offered them. Can we be vulnerable enough to know that we need help, and to accept the help that Jesus offers? Can we recognize our own failings, and receive mercy from God who is ever-ready to offer it to us? It’s not that God isn’t interested in righteousness. I think, rather, it’s that our ability to claim the label “righteous” isn’t the standard for entry into God’s reign that we think it is. Rather, God wonders, how receptive are we to receiving God’s grace and mercy? How ready are we to receive all that God wants to give us? I think, friends, that part of our readiness to receive from God includes letting others receive mercy and grace without judgment from us. Those who received healing, welcome, and a calling from Jesus in our text from today: they demonstrate to us the incredible vulnerability of being able accept God’s mercy. God wants to be merciful to us too. God wants to help us, because we need it. May we open our hands and our hearts, ready to receive what we need. Amen. 

Sermon, "Rough Draft Prayers," Psalm 124

 Sermon 9/21/21  

Psalm 124

Rough Draft Prayers

Years ago I took a unit of CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education, and I worked in the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, of a local hospital. It was often heartbreaking work. And I still remember a conversation with one family, whose newborn was fighting for his life. I remember them talking to me about praying to God and that they wanted to just pray for God to save their baby, heal their baby, but...they wouldn’t let themselves pray for that. They didn’t think they could ask God for that, but that they could only pray for God’s will to be done, even if “God’s will” turned out to be that their child would die. I was still learning how to best listen and how to respond when people are inviting you to share in their pain in such profound ways. Their willingness to talk to a 23 year-old chaplain intern about their ailing infant was a sacred gift to me that I didn’t take lightly. I was learning, trying very hard not to tell people what to do and how to feel in a misguided attempt to “fix” things for people. But I really did want to let them know that they didn’t have to edit their prayer for God. They could pray to God exactly what was on their hearts, even if they thought it was somehow selfish. They could cry out: God, please, please, please, spare my child. That would be ok. In fact, I believed - believe - God wants that. Our raw, rough draft, edit-free prayers. The real stuff we’re thinking. Our broken hearts. These are the simple prayers: Help me. Save me. Save them. I love you. I hate you. Where are you? Did you forget about me? Thank you.  

Sometimes the Psalms strike me as prayers like that. They read almost like they’re coming from the moment of crisis, or from seconds after the worst of something has passed. They’re written from the trenches of war and violence, from the depths of grief, from the heights of joy, from the moment of the realization of great love, from our loneliest moments. The Psalm we’re looking at today gives me that sense. I read in it a profound sense of relief, immediately after a danger has passed. Wow - God - if you hadn’t been on our side, we wouldn’t have survived. God, without you on our side, we’d be dead right now! We were attacked, about to be eaten up, about to be drowned in the flood waters, the strength of our enemies. My animal studies ears perk up at the imagery and meanings here: God, we were almost prey to the teeth of our hungry enemies, predators. God, we were birds caught in a trap, struggling, struggling, but because of you we broke free! God - you, you, were our helper, you who made everything that is. Thank God. Phew. Utter relief, survival against the odds, and abundant gratitude - we’re still living. We’re still breathing. We’ve made it. Can you resonate with the psalmist? Have you ever felt such profound relief from danger? Have you ever felt with such clarity: If God hadn’t been with me through that, I’d be lost right now? 

But, as much as I might imagine the “gut response” nature of this psalm, the authentic thanksgiving after surviving some kind of life-threatening attack, I can’t help but cringe a bit at the opening lines. “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side.” Indeed, the psalmist implores all Israel to make this claim - “if it wasn’t for the Lord being on our side against the attack of our enemies…” The idea of God taking sides - taking the side of one over the other, against the other - there aren’t many situations where that holds up to thoughtful theological scrutiny. As Pastor James Howell writes, “Some of the thinnest, most atrocious theology we overhear in our culture is about God being on the side of … the white people, or the [pure] people, or the people of a certain religious inclination, or those who are straight, or think the Bible is literally true” and so on. (1) Being sure that God is on your side, supporting your actions - well, as a private prayer describing your relief at having a survived a life or death situation - it makes sense. But this psalm is one of a collection of Songs of Ascents - Psalms meant for corporate worship, words said by people together, over and over, usually disconnected from immediate urgency, no longer the hurried response of a people just surviving attack. It’s a gut respond, rough draft prayer that becomes codified, until everyone knows: “God is on our side.” And I can’t help but imagine different peoples and regimes using this psalm, casting themselves in the role of a victim, and all others as the enemy, and God as on our side: “If it had not been for God being on our side, let America now say” for example. The implications give me chills. The words sound dangerous. Arrogant. 

What do we do then, with a Psalm like this, a perhaps earnest prayer written in desperation that is said and said and said again, prayed not by the oppressed but by the oppressor, used not by the prey but by the predator, said not by the weak but by the strong and powerful, said not in the heat of the moment, in the midst of gut-deep relief, but with careful planning? 

We’re perhaps in a perfect context to consider such a question. We are, physically, virtually, at a Theological School. Students are busy, busy, busy, reading and writing and submitting assignments. Sometimes, of course, what my professors get from me is my too-hurried response, an assignment left till the last minute, my hurried, unedited thoughts that contain myriad typos and worse, rushed claims and conclusions that don’t hold up to scrutiny. But hopefully and thankfully usually, what we turn in isn’t just or ultimately a first draft. We have “delete” buttons that allow us to rewrite clunky sentences. We have friends and family and tutors that read our first drafts and give feedback. We submit paper proposals and listen to the wise questions from our professors that help us refine our thesis. We get grades and feedback that help us on our next attempt. Our first draft is worth something, but it also isn’t our final draft, thanks be to God! 

I think scripture can feel to us like a final draft. It’s been published, after all. What chance is there to amend now? And maybe we don’t want to amend the heartfelt gut-reaction texts, even though we are now very much not in the heat of the moment. But I think our process of engaging the text - as individuals and as communities of faith, can be like an ongoing revision of our theological first drafts. Together, we can figure out whether God is on our side, or whether we are on God’s side, or how God is even on the side of our enemies, or whether we’d rather really be side by side. Wrestling, we can refine an understanding of God’s preference for being on the side of the poor and marginalized, and where our place is in relation to God and God’s people. We can edit our placement, deciding whether it is best to plop down a Psalm or any text into any setting, or if there’s a best time and a best place to set a text to build up community instead of creating divisions. To see a prayer or a text isn’t to devalue. Instead, it’s meant to leave room for more learning, room for wisdom - our own and others, room for feedback, room for the perspective we gain over time. 

I’m thankful for our rough draft prayers, muttered to God on the spot in our times of deep need, because I believe God welcomes every word from our heart. And I’m thankful that we have the opportunity to go back, examine our claims about God and faith, and submit some revisions. And then do it again and again. Amen.  

1. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/the-holy-innocents/commentary-on-psalm-124

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, "The Two Ways," Psalm 1

 Sermon 9/14/21  

Psalm 1

The Two Ways

As a young child, I was a diligent Bible-reader. An obedient child, I heard at church that I should read the Bible every day, and so I did just that. I also heard that people really loved the Psalms - many people I knew listed it as their favorite book of the Bible. So I was eager to read the Psalms - but honestly, I found them a bit boring. I hadn’t quite developed an appreciation for poetry yet I think! I didn’t read them very attentively. Rereading them as an adult, I did find a few favorites, but overall, I’ll admit that I’ve remained mostly less-than-enamored with them. With some notable exceptions, I noticed a theme in the Psalms, in these prayers: God, I’m really faithful to you, and my enemies are really awful. So, please bless me, and please smite them. Destroy them. Defeat them. Thanks! And oh yeah - I praise your name and stuff.   

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Psalms and our relationship with our enemies. Who are our enemies, why are they our enemies, and what is our relationship to those we would give that label? Does God want us to have enemies? Is having enemies always a failure - on their part, or ours? Is having enemies just a necessary part of seeking to follow God’s path, since there are some who adamantly want to undermine God’s work of justice and righteousness? Is having enemies something we should cultivate - as a sign we’re on God’s side, doing God’s work? Or is it something we should work to eliminate, in acts of reconciliation and forgiveness? For all my questions, the Psalms seem so nuanced to me. I’m in the right. My enemies are wrong, and conveniently, my enemies are God’s enemies too. 

Still, I can’t deny that I have enemies. It’s just that I don’t spend a lot of my prayer energy asking God to smite my enemies, or telling God how glad I am that I’m so much better than the wicked people over there. I can’t pat myself on the back for my good behavior though, because: 

1. I already believe that God doesn’t view my “enemies” in the same way I do, and isn’t interested in doing my bidding against them, giving them the comeuppance I think they deserve. It’s just practical not to pray to God to smite my enemies because I don’t think God will do it for me. I, however, will still admit to imagining my enemies smote, punished, or at least, finally, convinced of the error of their ways and the rightness of my ways. 

2. And other times, I don’t pray for God to smite the wicked, because I’m not so sure of my own standing. Sometimes I delight in God’s law, and meditate on it, like our text from Psalm 1 urges - although probably not quite day and night. Sometimes I feel like I’m planted by the stream of water, spiritually fruitful and prosperous. But other times, I’m pretty sure I’m on the path that sinners treat, and the seat of scoffers? That sounds like a place for my fluent-in-sarcasm self. So, I don’t pray for God to judge the wicked quickly and harshly as a matter of self-protection. 

What do we do with these Psalms, then, that seem to make things so clear? Psalm 1 is titled “The Two Ways” in my Bible. There are two paths, diverging, maybe not in a yellow wood, but in our everyday experiences, and we must choose this or that, right or wrong, God’s way, or the way of the enemy(ies) either/or. 

But between the added-in-title of the Psalm and perhaps more “either/or” thinking of my own than I’d like to admit accompanying me in the reading of this first Psalm, I realize I’ve been a careless reader. At least in this psalm, although there are others that are clearer about claiming who is in the right and who is in the wrong, decidedly clear about who is good and who is bad, in this psalm, despite my initial reading, I realize eventually that the psalmist does not claim to be part of one group or the other, on one path or the other of the “Two Ways” they describe. Happy are those who delight in God and God’s law, and unhappy are those who are wicked - but which is the psalmist? They claim no identification with either group, with either path. Maybe they are standing at the fork in the road, wrestling with who they are, and who God is calling them to be, wanting the streams of water and the luscious fruit, but also feeling caught in the wind like the dispersing chaff, tossed on the air. 

And then there’s something more: in this psalm, the psalmist doesn’t say that wicked will perish. They say that the way of the wicked will perish. And suddenly, I’m envisioning a path once clear, long unused, overgrown with new life until eventually you can’t tell there used to be a trail, a road, a way. Now this is a vision that calls to me - that the way of wickedness - of harming others, of being complicit in oppression and injustice - might be a way that I choose less and less frequently, that we choose less frequently, that we create ways to help others choose it less frequently, until where once there was a path of wickedness, now there is only life, and life abundant.  

Happy are those who delight in God. They are like trees planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. As for the way of wickedness? That path with which we’re all familiar? May flowers and trees and life-giving things and other signs of the justice and joy we find in life with God simply overwhelm this other way, until it can’t help but be drawn back into delighting in God’s path. Amen. 

Sermon for All Saints Sunday, Psalm 24, Psalm 34:1-10, 22

Sermon 11/1/19

Psalm 24, Psalm 31:1-10, 22

All Saints Sunday

Years ago, one of my pastors while I was in my college years sent one of those email forwards that used to be so popular. I’ve tried to find the source of the original, but it seems to be anonymous. The email was called “The Quiz” and it went like this: "Take a few moments to think about your answers to the following questions. Question 1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world. 2. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest. 3. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. 4. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for Best Actor and Actress. 5. Name the last decade's worth of World Series Winners. How did you do? If you are like most people, you can only fill in a few names here and there, but usually can't remember who did what and who won what. The point is most of us don't remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They're the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

“Now, here's another quiz. See how you do on this one: 1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school. 2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time. 3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile. 4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special. 5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with. 6. Name a half dozen non-celebrity heroes whose stories have inspired you. Easier? Of course. We have no problem remembering the people who have helped to shape us. We remember those who have inspired us and encouraged us. These are the people we tell our friends about. These are the people that hold a place in our heart. These are the people we truly value."

I had that email on my mind as I was thinking about today. Today we’re remembering not the Nobel winners and Oscar winners - not unless they had some personal connection to us. No, we’re remembering the ones who have helped us in difficult times, who made us feel special, whose stories have inspired us, who have taught us, the ones who hold a place in our hearts. Today, we’re celebrating All Saints Sunday. Most of us know that means that we’re remembering and giving thanks for those who have died during the last year in particular in the life of our congregation and families and community. But underneath that, we might be asking, “What is a saint exactly?” because we tend to use the word to mean some kind of “perfect, holy person” in our everyday vocabulary, and although we loved the folks we are remembering today, we do know that they weren’t always perfect. 

So what is a saint, anyway? The word in the Bible literally just means “holy ones.” It’s used to describe people mostly in the writings of the apostle Paul, and he uses it to refer almost entirely to living people, and certainly not perfect people. He refers to the apostles, the original followers of Jesus, as saints, and although we admire them, we know that Peter and the rest were not perfect, and since Paul and Peter were fighting constantly, we know Paul didn’t think Peter was perfect either! Paul also refers to broader groups of Jesus-followers as saints, both those who he is writing about, and those to whom he is writing. And in both Romans and 1 Corinthians, Paul begins his letter by calling his audience those who are “called to be saints,” called to be “holy ones.” 

Next we might ask: “Well, what does it mean to be holy?” Because again, when we use the word holy we have certain pictures in our head about what that means, and it usually isn’t a word we use to describe ourselves. What does holy mean? Perfect? Super close to God? Very pious? Last Sunday we celebrated Consecration Sunday. And we use that word a lot in the church - consecration. It’s also what we call it when we bless the bread and cup for communion and ask God to make them into the Body of Christ for us - that part of the prayer is called the “prayer of consecration.” Consecration basically means to add sacredness, holiness, to something ordinary. We ask God to take our ordinary stuff - our money, or the bread and grape juice - and make it into something holy - something that’s set apart for God’s purposes. We ask God to help us make ordinary things vessels for God’s work. Consecrated. 

So, saints - holy ones - are when regular people offer their ordinary lives to God and ask God to make them holy. Saints are people who let God work in and through them so that they in turn can do the work of God in the world. That’s it. And that’s quite enough! We don’t need to be perfect, although we strive, day by day, to be a bit more like Jesus, to follow him more closely, to love like he taught us, like he loved us. We don’t just ask God to make our lives holy and stop there, doing nothing to be open to how God might accomplish that in us, how God might have to change us, mold us, challenge us as we’re made holy. And so perhaps that’s what we see in others when we call them saints: we notice when people are particularly receptive to giving their lives to God to make them holy, and then are particularly open to letting God move right into their hearts and lives in order to accomplish just that. 

I was sharing with our Bible study this week that I was thinking about Mr. Rogers this week when we were talking about saints, because I’d seen a short video, about 4 minutes, with interviews from some of folks working on the upcoming film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, where Tom Hanks stars as Fred Rogers. If we had more time today I’d just play the video, and I hope we maybe take a church outing to see the movie when it comes out later this month. In this video, Tom Junod, the interviewer whose interactions with Mr. Rogers are portrayed in the film, says, “[Fred Rogers] had that amazing gift, of looking at a person and seeing what that person needed, that he was going to minister to that person … When I think of Fred, I often think of him in terms of what he did every morning, which was pray and think of the people he needed to pray for and write to those people.” Actor Matthew Rhys, who plays Junod, says, “His ability for empathy was enormous. What he could do immediately to any person with any kind of problem, any human condition, was relate to it.” Frank Warininsky, a lighting guy on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, said, “If you hit Fred on the right day, or Fredhit you on the right day, he could change your life.” Powerful words. And then, in a clip from the upcoming film, Mr. Rogers’ wife is asked, “How does it feel to be married to a living saint?” And she answers, “If you think of him as a saint, then his way of being is unattainable. You know he works at it all the time. It’s a practice. He’s not a perfect person. He has a temper. He chooses how he responds to that anger.”

I was really struck by her response. I think it’s so important that we understand what we mean when we celebrate All Saints day, because if we think saints are perfect people, when we give ourselves an “out” from trying to be saints ourselves. We give ourselves an “out” from responding to the apostle Paul when he says we’re called to be saints. But saints are saints not because they’ve done something we can’t, something we can never attain. They’re saints because they allowed God to do something in and through them, because they let God make their ordinary holy. So I think Mr. Rogers is a saint. But we can be too. We can’t get away with saying things like, “I’m no Mother Teresa.” We talked just a couple of weeks ago about the struggles she had, how she wrestled with faith too. The only reason we can’t be Mother Teresa is because there’s only one of each of us. You can be you, which is the best thing for you to be. And you can be a saint of God, a holy one, called to just that path, called to give your ordinary self, so that God can do holy stuff with your life - whatever shape that might take: A person who listens and loves well. A person who builds others up. A person who loves relentlessly. A person who sees those others skip over. A person who forgives. A person who serves. That saint can be you. 

At the end of our service today, we’ll sing a hymn called “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” Each verse talks about all the places we can find God’s saints: those who loved God, who follow Jesus, who we find at home, at the store, in our neighborhoods. And each verse concludes with the hope: “I meant to be [a saint] too.” Ironically, Lesbia Scott, who wrote the hymn for her children, was surprised, even dismayed that a little song for kids became so popular. But maybe she forgot the point of her own words. (1)  Today, we celebrate all the saints, in all the places in our lives we have found them. And let us mean, God helping, to be saints too, whose ordinary lives are made holy by God. Amen. 

1. https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-i-sing-a-song-of-the-saints-of-god

Sermon, "Unafraid: Fear and Death," 2 Corinthians 4:7-15, Isaiah 40:27-31, Psalm 46

Sermon 8/11/19

2 Corinthians 4:7-15, Isaiah 40:27-31, Psalm 46

Unafraid: Fear and Death*

We’ve been talking about fears for the last several weeks. We started about thinking about fear and security, our need to feel safe and the ways we can let that need close us off from anyone and anything too different from us, if we forget that God’s perfect love casts out fear. We talked about fear and failure, and the pressure we put on ourselves when we mistakenly believe that our value as a person is derived from our supposed successes. We thought about fear and loneliness, and how we can perhaps best fight off our sense of isolation by focusing instead on making sure others are not lonely. We talked about fear and change, and how change sometimes feels like grief, but though weeping lasts for the night, the joy of God comes in the morning.

Today, we’re concluding our series by talking about fear and death. I know, a light-hearted wrap-up to this series! But that’s the thing - we human beings have a lot of different experiences, different hopes, different fears - but death is a common experience that every single one of us will face. Everybody dies. And yet, despite the universality of our experience, despite the fact that everyone dies - no matter how healthy you are, no matter how rich you are, no matter what country you live in, no matter what, your journey on this earth, this plane of existence, will one day end in death - despite that common bond we have - humans, plants, animals, all of us - in our culture we tend to shy away from talking about death. Sometimes, when I’m meeting with a family to plan a funeral for a loved one, the family can’t answer any questions for me about what their loved one wanted in a service. And they can’t easily answer questions about what they want in a funeral service - because they’ve avoided thinking about it, avoided talking about it. I get it - I do. I’m in the process of making my will right now, and making sure I’ve communicated in writing the kind of decisions I’d want someone to make for me if I was in the hospital, on life support. I told my Mom that I was doing this, and that I’ll make sure to communicate with her and my siblings about where important documents are. It’s not a light and easy conversation to have. And I’ve always teased with my Mom that we don’t need to talk about these things for her because she is not allowed to die - ever. Of course we don’t want to talk about death when it comes to our loved ones because despite whatever hopes we have for eternal life, we know the loss and grief we’ll experience right now when we lose someone we love is the worst kind of pain we’ll experience in this life. 

But I think it is more than that - our fear of death. I think we especially fear the unknown, and what happens in death is the great unknown. No matter what we learn about the process of death, no matter what we read about visions of eternity, we can never really know what death is like until we experience it. Death is an unknown, and that is what is most frightening about it. I think about a poster I had on my wall in junior high. It was an image of our galaxy, with an arrow pointing to a tiny spot on the image that said, “You are Here.” I can’t remember where I got it - something from school probably. I thought it was pretty clever. But the more I looked at it over time, the more uncomfortable it made me. I could get pretty lost in my head thinking about the size of the universe - how either it having an edge or not having an edge - both possibilities seemed impossible and baffling. And then to think that I was a tiny speck on a tiny planet in one solar system in one galaxy out of that whole perhaps infinite mess - it was just too much to consider. I had to take the poster down. Sometimes I think ours fears about death are kind of the same. There’s too much that’s unknowable about death, too much that is beyond what our minds can really take in, and so it’s hard to look death in the eye too often. 

So we do it in snippets. On Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, we start by remembering that we’re mortal, literally marking ourselves with ashes. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And at funerals, at the graveside, the prayer of committal says, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” When someone else has died, for a little bit, we have to face our own eventual death. 

Adam Hamilton spends time in his book Unafraid reflecting on the fear of death as he studies the words of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians. By the time Paul writes this letter to the young church at Corinth, things aren’t going so well. There’s been tension between the young faith community and Paul. He’s had to correct some of their beliefs and behaviors, and in turn, some of the Corinthians call Paul’s leadership into question. Paul’s a bit on the defensive. He and his co-workers have been through a lot. He so wants the church at Corinth to thrive, because he wants the gospel message to thrive. And he’s given heart and soul to make it happen. You can hear the weariness in his tone: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” Adam Hamilton picks up on Paul’s metaphor of the clay pots. “We have this treasure in clay jars,” Paul writes. Hamilton says that our bodies are the clay jars, and clay jars of Paul’s day weren’t meant to last forever. They get crushed and broken and destroyed. But they hold a treasure - the real, essential us. (211) 

I’m struck particularly by Paul’s words starting at verse 10. Paul says he and his co-workers carry in their bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be visible in their bodies too. “For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.” Paul seems to say that we can only fully reflect the life of Christ when we embrace the sacrificial death of Christ as part of us too. After all, something can’t be resurrected unless it has first died. So how can we embrace new life without first embracing death. Since Paul was pretty hopeful and intent on continuing to preach the gospel, we know Paul didn’t mean he was signing up to die - although he did eventually give his life for his faith. No - Paul means that we die to self - we die to “me first” so that we can embrace “Christ first” if we want to embody Jesus in the world. The unknown of death, the grief and sorrow of death - they can be scary things to contemplate. But when Paul talks about his life making Jesus visible to others - I want that! I want others to be able to experience the life of Christ through me and my work. I think we’re called to that. If that means we have to also carry the death of Christ with us, in us, are we ready to do that too? I recently saw a post on facebook talking about people speculating on what they might do if they knew they had one day left on earth. Maybe we’d eat our favorite foods. Visit our favorite places. See our dearest loved ones of course. And the post said, “Jesus knew he had one day left on earth. Jesus washed feet.”    

Hamilton notes that the Bible has many different images of heaven - from the beautiful images in the writings of the prophet Isaiah, to the streets of gold in Revelation. Hamilton thinks of these different descriptions as ways of saying, “‘Think of the most beautiful and treasured things you can in this life - the next life is even more beautiful than these!” And then he shares this story, an illustration that is more than 100 years old. There’s a man, dying alone at home. “His doctor, traveling by horse and buggy, came to make a house call. He went everywhere with his faithful dog, whom he left on the front porch as he entered the home of his patient. The patient, lying in bed, said to the doctor, ‘Doc, I’m scared. What’s it going to be like on the other side?’ At that moment the doctor’s dog began scratching at the door and whining, hoping to be let in. The doctor said, ‘Do you hear my dog scratching at your door? He’s never been in your house. He doesn’t know anything about the inside of your home. Here’s the only thing he knows: His master is on the other side of that door. And if his master is inside, it must be okay, and it is where he wants to be. That’s what heaven is like.’ Believing this about death changes how we face our mortality.” Hamilton says. “It doesn’t mean we have no fear, only that we’re not controlled by fear. It means that, despite our fear, we can live with real hope.” (219) 

I find hope in this: In facing death, we don’t experience anything that God did not experience in God’s own self. Jesus died. His death was at the hands of enemies. It was painful, violent death. It was not something Jesus did easily, not something he faced without fear and anxiety and wishing there was a different way. He was crucified. He was put to death. So I find comfort that we follow a savior who faced death head on - washing feet the night before with his servant’s heart, trusting in his Parent, ready to embrace death to demonstrate the abundant life God promises us. That gives me hope.  

I find hope in the fact that whatever aspects of the unknown await us in our experience of death, whatever different pictures of heaven, of eternity we might conjure, whatever metaphors the scriptures use, there’s a consistent theme: we’re united with God forever, God who created and loves us. Being with God who is goodness itself can only be good!

And I find hope in this - hope, and challenge: We can only experience resurrection if we experience death first. Eventually, death of this body, this life. But we’re always being called to face the death of some part of ourselves, our old selves. To have room for my resurrected life, I have to put to death everything in me that isn’t of Christ. That’s maybe as hard and as scary as facing physical death. But isn’t resurrection worth facing death? 

As we come to the end of our series, of this go-around with wrestling with our fears, I return to 1 John, where we started out weeks ago: “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as God is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” We aren’t perfect. Sometimes, we’ll be afraid! But God is perfect. And as we let God in, as we put aside everything but God, God’s perfect love casts aside our fears. Fear not! God is with you. Thanks be to God. Amen. 

* All quotations are from Adam Hamilton’s book Unafraid: Living with Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times. New York: Convergent Books, 2018.