Advent Waiting:  Placing our Lives in the Potter’s Hands

      My kayak found its winter resting place earlier this month. The paddle and pfd were put away. The roof racks have been lowered, no longer at the ready. I wait for a day when the thermometer breaks 60 and the wind isn’t howling as winter descends. Soon I’ll be waiting for ice to melt in the lakes and ponds I frequent. I look forward to the days when the waiting changes and I am waiting to see what I’ll see on the first day on the water: migrating ducks, a raccoon washing its paws after a fish dinner, an eagle soaring above. 

     You’ve probably got your own way of tracking the seasons of waiting. The passive times when you can do nothing; the period of preparation; and then the less burdensome phase when what you’ve been waiting for arrives: vacation; the beginning or end of school; the annual gathering of special friends; the time when the trials and travails of the year 2020 have become a distant memory. Think of that wonderful kind of waiting. Notice how the joy of what you’re waiting for seeps into the time while you’re waiting. Recall the good feelings that well up when you are actively waiting for something or someone special.

     That’s the kind of waiting the prophet gets around to voicing in Isaiah 64. 1-9. Oh, it may not seem so at first, with Isaiah crying for God to “tear open the heavens and come down.” Yet, if we listen carefully to all that Isaiah is saying, we get a glimpse of what and whom we are to be waiting over the next four weeks.

     Isaiah’s cry to the Lord speaks for us in many ways, does it not? After all, there are days when we look at the world around us, and after a good long look find ourselves wanting to say to God: “Do something about this, will ya!” With each report of positive Covid cases; with every day’s addition to the election that never ends; as the list of scandals grows, and we watch the celebration of Christ’s birth morph into Happy Honda Day and Hundai Holidays; we’re ready to join Isaiah in calling on God to “Tear open the heavens and come down.”

     We may not be in exile as were the people to whom Isaiah was writing, but we may have some of the same impatience when it comes to wanting to see God’s sending some help to straighten out the multiple messes that color the world as we know it now. That is why it is important to listen closely to what the prophet is saying for us and to us. By remembering what God has done, and reminding the people of it too, Isaiah is introducing an element of hope. A favorite old hymn sums it up nicely. “Our God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.”

Isaiah’s words hint at what we’re waiting for in Advent: a savior. Isaiah’s words proclaim why we need saving:

            “We have all become like one who is unclean,
                    and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
                We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
                There is no one who calls on your name
                    or attempts to take hold of you;”
                    for you have hidden your face from us,
                    and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” (Isaiah 64. 6-7)

     Isaiah identifies how humanity strays from the Creator’s ways. It fits us all too well. But notice this: Isaiah doesn’t leave it at that. He takes the spotlight from us and puts it back on God, and in doing so, reminds us all what we’re really in need of; what it is we are waiting for:

            “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
            we are the clay, and you are our potter;
            we are all the work of your hand.” (vs. 8)

Those words draw us back to an earlier verse that sounds the note of hope we so need to hear:

            “From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived,
            no eye has seen any God besides you,
            who works for those who wait for him.” (vs, 4)

     In the reminder that God works for those who wait for him, in the image of through the image of the Father and the Potter, Isaiah is telling us something important. Professor Scott Ba-der-Saye suggests these images, which speak of “closeness and personal connection…evoke a God whose mode of action looks more like that of the artist or the parent than that of a superhero. God forms and shapes the people as a father over time shapes the character of his children, as a potter lovingly molds her clay. Isaiah calls on Israel to be malleable in the hands of God, and he reminds God to fulfill the task of forming Israel into a people of blessing.”[i]

Such is the waiting of Advent: waiting for God, allowing God to shape us into the people we were created to be. Following the example of those who have gone before us and who show us the way to go and to be, like the one featured in this poem Favored Is As Favored Does - https://youtu.be/3mpGd2GuqEE

[i]Scott Bader-Saye, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 1, ©2008, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, p. 6

THANK YOU, LORD!

    Thank you, Lord, for family and friends—
            for tired satisfaction when each day ends;
            for surprises and smiles and loud, baby screeches;
            for chances to learn what your Son, Jesus, teaches.
    Thank you, Lord, for making us grow—
            for pushing us when we’d rather not go;
            for calling us yours when we’re not so hot—
            for loving us when we’ve messed up a lot.
    Thank you, Lord, for our care and feeding—
            for calling us to follow your leading;
            for giving us all we buy, earn or grow;
            for sending us gospel seeds to sow.
    Thank you, Lord, for pandemic’s blessing—
            for calm to match our heart’s distressing;
            for those who work to make us well;
            for all who battle Covid’s hell.
    Thank you, Lord, for selfless sharing—
            for death defying acts of caring;
            for strength descending from above;
            for all who heed the call to love. 

    Thank you, Lord, for letting us serve—
            for lending your Spirit to bolster our nerve;
            for sending Jesus to teach us to live;        

            for letting us know that to live is to give!

    Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Gratitude[i]

          Former General Assembly Moderator John Buchanan writes:  “The basic Christian response to God is gratitude: gratitude for the gift of life, gratitude for the world, gratitude for the dear people God has given us to enrich and grace our lives.  The basic Christian experience is gratitude to God for God’s love in Jesus Christ and the accompanying gift of hopeful confidence and wholeness and wellness that comes with it, regardless of the worldly circumstances in which we find ourselves.”[ii]

         In her book, Help, Thanks, Wow –The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott, in the chapter on “Thanks,” tells of a day she and her friends Barbara and Suzie were getting together for what she calls a stroll and a roll, since Barbara has Lou Gehrig’s disease and uses a walker with wheels on the front.  The outing was to take place at a spot where one can overlook the Pacific Ocean from above San Francisco’s Moraga steps.

          When Susie’s car arrived at their destination, the view was obscured by a thick fog.  They got out of the car anyway only to find that there was a fierce wind blowing, the kind of wind Lamott says “that prick at your body and your mind and your very being.”

          The anticipation of a great day was falling apart rapidly.  With effort they got back into the car and drove around some more.  Lamott writes:  “At some point, warmth and golden sun flooded through the car windows, and Susie drove us a-round the neighborhood, and from inside we took in the brilliant gardens of succu-lents and crazy bright exotic petals.  We found the one perfect parking spot at the foot of the steps, where we could spend as much time as we liked looking up directly at the magical mosaic on the tall steep steps…

          “We all got so happy,” Lamott remembers.  We talked about real things for an hour: life, death, families, feeding tubes, faith.  I asked Barbara… “What are you most grateful for these days?”  She typed on her iPad, and a mechanical voice (she calls Kate) spoke for her: “The beauty of nature, the birds and flowers, the beauty of friends.”

          Says Lamott:  “This is called radical gratitude in the face of whatever life throws at you!”[iii]

          Gratitude is good for you!  John Buchanan writes of a webmd piece titled: “Boost Your Health with a Dose of Gratitude."  The essay cited thousands of years of philosophic and religious teaching urging gratitude and then cited new evidence that grateful people, for whom gratitude is a permanent trait, have a health edge.  It may be that grateful people take better care of themselves, but there is evidence that gratitude alone is a stress reducer, that grateful people are more hopeful, and that there are links between gratitude and the immune system.”   Buchanan concludes:  “So your mother was right when she made you call your grandmother and thank her for the birthday card.”[iv]

          It all begins as simply as that.  Gratitude in general, and gratitude to God in particular, are habits of the heart that can be developed.  It begins with seeing and it ends with doing.  It is like the childhood lesson many of us learned when someone gave us something. Mom or Dad said: “What do you say?” We learned to say, "Thank You!" Gratitude grows from being practiced.

           “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!”  Amen.

---

[i] Excerpt from my sermon, “What Do You Say?” October 13, 2013, First United Presbyterian Church, W. Pittston, PA. (during our sojourn at St. Cecilia's Roman Catholic Church in Exeter)

[ii] John H. Buchanan, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010)  p.169

[iii] Anne Lamotte, Help, Thanks, Wow, (New York, Riverhead Books, 2012) p. 55-6

[iv] ibid., Buchanan

The Way to Go, Or Not!

 

The Way to Go, or Not!                                                                              James E. Thyren

Sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA on November 15, 2020
Psalm 123; Matthew 25. 14-30

     Four years ago, Bill Carter and I went up to Yale Divinity School to attend the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching. In addition to inquiring minds like ours, the Beecher Lectures serve as the centerpiece for reunion gatherings, drawing graduates from across the decades back to campus. So there we were, two graduates of Princeton Theological Seminary, rubbing elbows with all these Yalies, young and old, some of whom graduated be-fore either of us were born. We tried our best to blend in. We had on our khaki pants, our navy blue blazers and button collared shirts, but neither of us was up to adding the bow tie to complete the outfit.

     Presenting the lectures was Thomas H. Troeger, recently retired Professor of Christian Communica-tion, a talented musician, and gifted poet and hymn writer. The provocative title of his three-lecture series was “The End of Preaching,” which, it turned out, was not a commentary on the demise of the Sermon amid all our 21st Century communication options. Instead, having read, listened to, or watched many of the Beecher lectures presented since 1872, Tom proceeded to add his contribution to the perennial question: “what is the purpose of preaching?”

     After surveying how a variety of voices had answered over the years, Tom built his answer on two lines from a poem called The Temple, by English poet George Herbert. Those lines read:

                    “Resort to sermons, but to prayers most:
                    Praying’s the end of preaching.”[i]

In the book compiled from those lectures, Troeger notes that “the word end can be taken simultaneously to mean two different things,” namely, “the purpose of preaching is prayer, and the conclusion of preaching is prayer.”[ii] Playing with those two meanings, Troeger suggests that preaching should lead both preacher and hearer to respond in prayer. He writes: “Since prayer, whatever form it takes, culti-vates a living relationship to God, Herbert’s statement means that the end of preaching is the vitalizing, the nurturing, the enriching, the deepening, the broadening, the heightening of our relationship to God. If the end of preaching is prayer,” he continues, “the richness of prayer, the fullness of prayer, the com-plexity of prayer, the multidimensionality of prayer, the primordial character of prayer, then a question every preacher and every listener to sermons needs to ask is, what kind of prayer is awakened by the sermons I preach or hear?”[iii]

     You see, some sermons lead us to proclaim: “O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvel-ous things.”[iv] Others are designed lead to confession and penitence: “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.”[v] Some sermons lead to a cry of desperation: “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”[vi] Still others inspire a request for guidance: “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach my your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.”[vii] Sometimes a sermon leads to a prayer on behalf of others, “The Lord answer you in the day of trouble!”[viii] Another sermon may elicit a prayer of dedication: “I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”[ix]

     Of course, not all sermons lead to beautiful prayers like these lifted from the Psalms. We preachers hope our words don’t result in silent prayers of gratitude throughout the congregation: “Thank God that’s over!”

     So what kind of prayer is this sermon seeking to awaken in our hearts, minds, and souls today? One answer comes from the Psalm 123 which you heard a few moments ago. It is a prayer of humble sub-mission based on trust grown from relationship. It identifies the only source of help we can count upon in life:

                    “As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
                    as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
                    so our eyes look to the Lord our God
                    until he has mercy on us.”[x]

By the time we are done considering three servants who looked to the hand of their master from dif-fering perspectives, I hope we will come away with prayers that speak of our trust in God’s abundant provision and patience and express our appreciation and thanks for the privilege of being invited to partner with God in the work of the kingdom.

     The parables in Matthew 24 and 25 are part of what some call the Second Sermon on the Mount. It was delivered on the Mount of Olives in the days between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. Instead of the crowds gathered on a hillside, the audience is comprised of the disciples. And this time, instead of the instructions on living God’s way contained in the first sermon, Jesus uses a series of stories to illustrate the consequences of living in those ways…or not! 

     The parable of the talents is the third of four such stories. All four have something to say about how one lives while awaiting the return of Christ. The first involves a “faithful and wise slave,” entrusted with the care and feeding of others while the master goes away. In that story, Jesus said, “Blessed is that slave whom the master will find at work when he arrives.”

     Last week, we heard the story of the ten bridesmaids and their oil lamps. The five who had an ample supply of oil were called wise, while the five who did not were labeled foolish. Oil is a traditional Jewish symbol for good works. The parable holds up the example of those who, by having extra oil gave evidence of living in ways pleasing to God.

     In this week’s story, the focus is the same: how one lives in the time in between the Master’s depar-ture and return. Of the four characters in the parable, most of the attention is paid to the first and last players, the Master and the third servant. However, if we skip over the two characters in the middle too quickly, we might miss some helpful hints for living in these Covid-tinged times.

     The story tells of a man going on a journey. Before departing he entrusts his property to three ser-vants, “each according to his ability.” In each case the sum added up to a big chunk of change. One talent, according to The New Interpreter’s Bible, was “equal to the wages of a day laborer for fifteen years.”[xi] Do the math and you see the first man was given 75 years wages, more than a lifetime’s worth. The second man receives a 30 year pile. Even the third man’s single talent was worth the equivalent of fifteen years of income.

     The first two, on their own initiative, double the master’s dough. When he returns he is pleased and rewards them each with more responsibility. Each is invited to “enter into the joy of your master.” Some interpreters warn against linking the master with God or Jesus, primarily because of the third servant’s description of his reaping practices. Taking a different view, Lindsay Armstrong, a Christian educator sees in all of this an insight into the way God works. She describes how the master in the parable gets out of the way once he has entrusted the gifts to the servants. She writes that in going away the master provides “the distance and room needed for others to lead, grow, take chances and flourish. Here the exceptional love of God is not only shown by the generosity in entrusting full talents; it is also demon-strated by God’s willingness to self-limit so that we may exist and live creatively in the image of God. God offers gifts and space so that we may have a hand in shaping talents, lives, communities, futures and fortunes.” She concludes, “God demonstrates love, not always by doing for us, but by limiting self and letting us learn.”[xii]

     The parable doesn’t tell how the two servants doubled their master’s money. Neither does it betray any hint of fear on their part when they step up and hand over the fruits of their labor. To me, that sug-gests their eyes “looked to the hand of their master,” had learned his ways, and when they had oppor-tunity, put them to work. In the interval between the master’s departure and return, they took initiative, took risks, and trusted their efforts would be respected, if not rewarded, by the master.

     Today, we find ourselves in the interval between the sudden halt to everything we knew as normal, and whatever awaits when, “after a long time,” the pandemic is finally in the rearview mirror. Since March we’ve heard stories of folks who have shown initiative and taken risks to make the most of what has been entrusted to them. The family business that figured out the fabric it used to make one product could be repurposed to make masks. The father out West who designed and enlisted a cardboard manu-facturer to make desks so every child in their school district could have a suitable place to do their on-line schoolwork. And churches like this one and so many others, who have come up with innovative ways to Worship, do Bible study and Christian Education, conduct business, reach out to the lonely, and continue mission projects, often on-line and sometimes in person, socially distanced, of course!

     We don’t know how long our wait is going to be, and unfortunately it looks like things are getting worse again before they get better. Nevertheless, there is reason to hope that when we do get to the end of all this, there will be better days ahead. A few weeks ago, a commentary by Thomas Friedman ap-peared in The Scranton Times. It began with this familiar phrase: “The good Lord works in mysterious ways.” It continued: “He (She?) threw a pandemic at us at the exact same time as a tectonic shift in the way we learn, work and employ. …When we emerge from this corona crisis, we are going to be greeted by one of the most profound eras of creative destruction ever—which this pandemic is accelerating and disguising.”[xiii]

     Friedman goes on to describe how every facet of life as we know it will be impacted: “No job, no K-12 school, no university, no factory, no office will be spared. It will touch white- col-lar and blue collar workers…How we provide portable health care, portable pensions and opportunities for lifelong learn-ing to get the most out of this moment and cushion the worst is what politics needs to be about…”[xiv]

     Claiming that we’re “going to see some amazing stuff emerge, some long established institutions disappear—and the nature of work, workplaces and the workforce be transformed.”[xv] Friedman says, “The reason the post-pandemic era will be so destructive and creative is that never have more people had access to so many cheap tools of innovation, to high-powered inexpensive computing, to such cheap credit--to invent products and services, all as many big health, social, environmental and econo-mic problems need solving.”[xvi]

     With all God has entrusted to us individually we too will have opportunity to be innovative as we seek to be Christ’s people, blessed to bring blessings to others. Together as a church, it is ours to risk being creative as we seek to fulfill the last of the Great Ends of the Church that Brent Eelman talked about last week: “The exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.”[xvii]

     What will that look like? Well, we’ll discover it as we go. That “faithful and wise slave” in the first parable in the series was blessed for being caught at work, which was to feed the others in the master’s household. So that’s a hint. The five wise bridesmaids were prepared with the oil of good works, but those are not specified. The two productive servants in today’s parable are aggressively innovative, but exactly what they did is left unsaid. However, in the parable that follows, Jesus gets specific, but since Bill Carter will be preaching about, you’ll have to tune in next week to find out more!

     All I’ll say for the moment is that faithful discipleship will be shown to be active and not passive. Being passive and not active, let alone aggressive is where the third servant in today’s parable went wrong. Unlike the first two who take some risks with the master’s money and make it grow, this man plays it safe. He buries it in the ground. When the master returns, he is proud as a peacock that he is able to hand the bundle back to its owner without a single penny having been lost or tarnished.

     In some eyes, the third servant might be seen as prudent. In some circles he would be lauded as a careful keeper of what had been entrusted to him. To some ears, specifically the disciples who were hearing the story as Jesus told it, the next sound expected after he handed the money back to the master should have been his own “well done good and faithful servant” like the other two heard. After all, he had followed CDC guidelines and stayed home!

     However, where the first two gave no explanation of how they doubled the master’s dough, the third man prefaces his return of his stash based on his perception of the master. He reveals his motivation for hiding his talent in a hole in the backyard. Fear. He too, had looked to the hand of his master, but he came away with a different conclusion than his compatriots. The bountiful reaping and gathering of the master, the result of bountiful sowing and scattering of seed, became not an example to follow, but a standard he was unwilling to meet.

     His perception of the master--or should we say misperception-- led him to act in a way that caused him to miss a great opportunity to share in the joy of the master. “In this parable,” writes Lindsay Arm-strong, “it is fear and distrust that paralyzes the third slave. His view of the master (who has generously and freely entrusted him with fifteen years-worth of an average laborer’s wages) keeps him fearful and constricted, to the point that he neglects or rejects the master’s graciously given opportunity.”[xviii]

     It seems the third servant could not conceive that the hard-driving master could be miserly when it came to expecting his investments to yield and magnanimous when it came to sharing them. He was captive to a dualistic world view which still inhibits many in our time as well. Of this, Parker Palmer writes: “Because we live in a culture that prefers the ease of either-or to the complexities of both-and, we have a hard time holding opposites together.”[xix]

     The implications for the here and now we live are obvious. Our airwaves and screens are filled with either-or characterizations leaving no room for both-and considerations. Yet, it is possible to support the police and proclaim “Black Lives Matter.” Wearing a mask to control the virus does not mean you don’t love our country. As the parable shows through the two servants, you can believe in a God who pro-vides abundantly and yet expects accountability.

     Hopefully, as our eyes “look to the hand of the Lord,” such knowledge of the God who provides abundantly yet expects accountability-- will lead us to offer prayers thanking God for the abundant provision and patience we have enjoyed, and to express thanks for the privilege of partnering with God in the joyful work of the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.

[i] George Herbert, The Complete Poetry, (United Kingdom, Penguin Random House UK, 2015), p. 23
[ii] Thomas H. Troeger, The End of Preaching, (Nashville, KY: Abingdon Press, 2018), p. 10
[iii] ibid., p. 18
[iv] Psalm 98. 1
[v] Psalm 51. 2, 10
[vi] Psalm 13. 2
[vii] Psalm 25. 4-5
[viii] Psalm 20. 1
[ix] Psalm 22. 22
[x] Psalm 123. 2
[xi] Eugene Boring, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, ©1995, Nashville, Abingdon Press, p. 453
[xii] Lindsay P. Armstrong, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, ©2010, Louisville, Westminster John Knox, p. 311
[xiii] Thomas L. Friedman, “Pandemic clears deck for economic reset.” The Scranton Times, October 24, 1920, OP-ED page
[xiv] ibid.
[xv] ibid.
[xvi] ibid.
[xvii] Book of Order, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 2019-2021 , F-1.0304, p 5
[xviii] Ibid., Armstrong, 311,313
[xix] Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything, Grace, Gravity & Growing Old, (Oakland, CA, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2018), p. 167

 

Words Matter

    Words matter. As much as we would like it to be true, the saying some of us learned as kids is not quite accurate: “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”  Words can be just as hurtful as sticks or stones, maybe more so. With time bruises fade; soreness diminishes, cuts heal, leaving behind a scar to remind of its cause. But words can leave scars that no one sees, stitched up hurts hidden in the heart. Some know the pain of being called “dummy,” “fatso,” “four-eyes,” “freak,” or “geek.” Others know the hurt that goes with being labeled with an epithet that stands in for their race, creed, ethnic origin, or sexual orientation. I won’t repeat those labels here.  You can fill in the blanks. Still others know the limitations imposed when they are reduced to being identified by a physical condition, a mental illness, or the disease that has turned their life upside down. We’ve long since ceased to call someone a “cripple,” however, we still have some names we use that have the potential to stigmatize and impose limitations: “Paraplegic,” “Autistic,” “Covid 19 victim.”

    Words matter. Words make a difference. Words can be spoken with condescension or compassion. There is a story in the seventeenth chapter of Luke (17. 11-19) that tells of ten individuals who were healed by Jesus. Often it is used to speak about thanksgiving, since only one of them returned to thank Jesus for a new lease on life. Today I turn to that story for a different reason. A comparison of two translations of the story provides an illustration of how words matter. The same words from Greek are translated differently, one sticking closer to the original than the other. It may not seem like a big deal, but it is. When it comes to the story of Jesus and the ten who called out to him for mercy outside a village on the way to Jerusalem, translators have been faced with a decision that impacts how one views those ten individuals who were united by a common malady. In The New Revised Standard Version, those who called out to Jesus seeking mercy were identified as “ten lepers.” In light of what I said earlier, that’s like saying, “ten cripples,” “ten autistics,” “ten Covid victims.”

    The New International Version of the Bible, offers a slightly different translation of the passage. In-stead of “ten lepers” the NIV speaks of “ten men who had leprosy.” Do you see the difference? Words matter. That’s like saying “ten people who were crippled by illness or in-jury,” “ten children on the Autism spectrum,” “ten individuals battling the Corona Virus.” New Testament scholar Alan Culpepper digs back into the original language and uncovers Luke’s original take on who these folks calling out to Jesus were. He says:  “As the NIV makes clear, Luke identifies the ten not as lepers but as “men who had leprosy” just as earlier he referred to the man who was paralyzed not as a paralytic but as “a man who was paralyzed” and called the Gerasene demoniac “a man who had demons.” The difference is subtle but reflects a humanizing and dignifying recognition of personhood.”[i]

    Words matter. This is not a matter of being politically correct. It is one of the ways the words “love your neighbor” cease to be an empty phrase and put belief into practice. Luke’s humanizing and dig-nifying choice of words suggests that we consider the words we use and how we use them when it comes to speaking about others, especially as we emerge from this divisive election year.

    It is one thing to divide up the world according to the labels placed upon others: black and white, red and brown, liberal and conservative, straight or gay, sane or crazy, healthy or diseased, whole or handi-capped, republican or democrat, protester or looter. It is another thing to begin to talk about the neigh-bor who is African American; the employer with conservative leanings; the aunt known for supporting liberal causes; the sister who is mentally ill; or the spouse who votes red while you go blue. 

    It is all too easy to dismiss whole groups of people when we tag them with a common label, especial-ly when our tone of voice is laced with venom and hate. It is not so easy when we connect that label to a human face we know and maybe even love! In these days of highly charged rhetoric, we have heard and seen comments and tweets and social media memes and spray painted graffiti, tar whole groups of people with broad, dismissive words. We do well not to fall for such misleading and dehumanizing dis-tinctions, or to use them ourselves. As the Gospel story reveals, those we hold in contempt don’t always live up or down to our expectations!

Prayer:
            Gracious God, send your Holy Spirit to remind us of  the words and ways of Jesus, 

            who responded to those in need with compassion. 

            And as we think of your love made visible in “the Word made flesh,” 

            help us to measure our words so that those who hear them, 

            “will know that we are Christians by our love!” In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

(Adapted from an old sermon preached for First Presbyterian Church, West Pittston; later adapted as a devotional for the beginning of a presbytery committee meeting; further revisions were made for an internet daily devotional for the Hickory Street Presbyterian Church in Scranton, PA.. Some good words never grow old!)

[i] R. Alan Culpepper, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, Luke, John, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 326

 

Words for These Times

The election looms; the tension mounts; the vitriol spews;
minds are racing; spirits churning; teary eyes burning;
hearts are gripped by fear of what may be around the corner;
and faithful souls ask,
What shall I do?
what shall I say?

Old friends part ways; the social fabric frays;
"the common good” is but an abandoned phrase.
Distrust mounts; eyes close; ears shrivel, unused;
and weary souls wonder,
What can I do?
What could I say?

The deadly virus spikes; warnings are ignored;
rage and anger roar; fires burn; nature storms.
Quietly kindness winds its way through it all
inspiring us to ask,
What will I do?
What will I say?

Here, the Apostle speaks
with answers drawn from the storehouse of faith;
none of them easy; most of them hard;
all of them necessary
if we’re to do and say
all that is God’s Way.

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in the spirit, serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless t hose who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;
do not claim to be wise than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

Romans 12. 9-18

New Revised Standard Version of the Bible