This is the day you have made, oh God, and what a day it is—for it is the Lord’s Day!
Of the manifold blessings for which we praise you, we praise you most of all for our Lord Jesus Christ, for his life of perfect obedience to you, for the death he died on the cross, and for that Sunday morning miracle in which he broke the bonds of death.
We praise you on this Lord’s Day because it is the day on which we commemorate and celebrate hope, the hope that is real for us and for all your creation because of the resurrection of Jesus.
Please, oh God—fill us with the resurrection life that we might live in hope for this world and for the world to come; fill us with the resurrection life that we might rise above our struggles even as we live through them; fill us with the resurrection life that we might live every moment of every day in trust and in assurance; fill us with the resurrection life that we might live out your presence in us in these days even as we will live in your presence one day.
On this Lord’s Day, oh God, remind us in this service of worship that we are filled with resurrection power and cause us to remember as we go out into the world that we walk every moment in that resurrection power.
In the name of our crucified and resurrected Lord,
Amen.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
I Am Grateful for Me
(A sermon based on Psalm 139:13-18 for Sunday, October 25, 2009; this is the first of three sermons on "Gratitude.")
Several years ago, as part of the process of applying for a promotion, I had to put together a file on myself. I asked my dean, “What am I supposed to say?” He replied, “Just tell us how great you are.” When I set about trying to do that, I found the task to be very difficult. It was hard for me to say flattering things about myself. Perhaps my reluctance sprang in part at least from an appropriate sense of humility. But perhaps it also sprang in part from a life-long sense that I really didn’t have all that much of which to be proud.
Maybe you have such doubts about yourself, too. Whether you were born with it or whether you had it beaten into you by people or by circumstances, maybe you have always harbored a deep sense of worthlessness and insecurity. Outward appearances don’t tell the tale, either. Sometimes those with the most chutzpah and bravado are often the most insecure; they’ll put up any front or put on any mask to keep you from seeing who they really are or who they are afraid they really are.
Into our lives breaks the wonderful good news of this psalm: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (v. 14). I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. All God’s children are fearfully and wonderfully made. We need to get hold of the fact that our very existence is a miracle; that is a wonder that we are. It should give us chills just to think about it.
A friend of mine was once very ill, at the very point of death, but he recovered enough to go home. A mutual acquaintance said of him, “He’s a walking miracle.” I got to thinking about that phrase “a walking miracle.” Doesn’t the phrase accurately describe us all, particularly if we substitute the word “living” for “walking”? If we have life we’re a miracle of God because were it not for God we would not exist. Acknowledging our creation by God is the first step in living a life defined by gratitude. It is a miracle that we are, that we exist. So praise God that we are!
G. K. Chesterton famously said that “the worst moment for an atheist is when he/she feels grateful and there is no one to thank.” We know who to thank! And how it changes things when we acknowledge that God made us and when we incorporate the wonders of that miracle into our thinking.
We are a part of what God has always been doing through God’s creative activity. “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth” (v. 15). God made me and that connects me with all of those whom God has ever made.
That verse also reminds us that we are fashioned by God in minute and wondrous detail. What a miracle it is that this body works, and that is true even when some of it stops working as well as it used to work. We are made by God in intricate detail.
The psalm further reminds us that we are made by God for a purpose. “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed” (v. 16b). God has purposes that God is working out and we are created to be a part of that purpose. It’s all a miracle! Our lives should be a celebration!
So we’re special because we’ve been created by God. But it is a personal relationship with God that makes us aware of just how special we are. Over and over the psalmist declares in wonder that God knows him and sees him. Now in some ways this is the case whether or not we acknowledge God and whether or not we love God and whether or not we have a personal relationship with God. But there are wonderfully positive possibilities for those whom God has also adopted into his family. We are the ones who understand God’s knowledge of us and presence with us not as a threat but as a blessing. We understand that the facts that God sees us and is with us make it possible that we may in fact become what God intends for us to be.
When I was a teenager a couple joined our church who had a small adopted son. His mother decided to use the process of potty training as an opportunity to teach him something important. So every time that he was involved in the process of potty training his mother had him say, “I’m special because I’m adopted.” The timing is not as strange as you might think. Perhaps it registered with the boy that his being adopted was absolutely natural and significant and necessary and indispensable to him. He was special because he was adopted.
So are we. Because we have been adopted into God’s family through the saving work of God’s only Son Jesus Christ we celebrate God’s presence rather than dread it; we welcome it rather than try to escape it. God’s presence is basic and essential and indispensable to our lives. How wonderful it is to know that God knows our thoughts before we think them and our words before we say them and our paths before we take them. How magnificent it is to ponder the fact that no matter where we go and not matter what we go through God is there.
It is because we are in a personal relationship with him through his adoption of us in Jesus Christ that we can pray with confidence rather than fear the closing words of this psalm: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (vv. 23-24). That really can happen if you belong to God! You see, I’m grateful for me because it’s finally not about me; it’s finally about God. In Christ, I really can be who God has made me to be. How can we not live our lives in gratitude if God is so working in our lives? As Paul put it,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us…. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:3-8a, 11-12).
Amen.
Several years ago, as part of the process of applying for a promotion, I had to put together a file on myself. I asked my dean, “What am I supposed to say?” He replied, “Just tell us how great you are.” When I set about trying to do that, I found the task to be very difficult. It was hard for me to say flattering things about myself. Perhaps my reluctance sprang in part at least from an appropriate sense of humility. But perhaps it also sprang in part from a life-long sense that I really didn’t have all that much of which to be proud.
Maybe you have such doubts about yourself, too. Whether you were born with it or whether you had it beaten into you by people or by circumstances, maybe you have always harbored a deep sense of worthlessness and insecurity. Outward appearances don’t tell the tale, either. Sometimes those with the most chutzpah and bravado are often the most insecure; they’ll put up any front or put on any mask to keep you from seeing who they really are or who they are afraid they really are.
Into our lives breaks the wonderful good news of this psalm: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (v. 14). I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. All God’s children are fearfully and wonderfully made. We need to get hold of the fact that our very existence is a miracle; that is a wonder that we are. It should give us chills just to think about it.
A friend of mine was once very ill, at the very point of death, but he recovered enough to go home. A mutual acquaintance said of him, “He’s a walking miracle.” I got to thinking about that phrase “a walking miracle.” Doesn’t the phrase accurately describe us all, particularly if we substitute the word “living” for “walking”? If we have life we’re a miracle of God because were it not for God we would not exist. Acknowledging our creation by God is the first step in living a life defined by gratitude. It is a miracle that we are, that we exist. So praise God that we are!
G. K. Chesterton famously said that “the worst moment for an atheist is when he/she feels grateful and there is no one to thank.” We know who to thank! And how it changes things when we acknowledge that God made us and when we incorporate the wonders of that miracle into our thinking.
We are a part of what God has always been doing through God’s creative activity. “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth” (v. 15). God made me and that connects me with all of those whom God has ever made.
That verse also reminds us that we are fashioned by God in minute and wondrous detail. What a miracle it is that this body works, and that is true even when some of it stops working as well as it used to work. We are made by God in intricate detail.
The psalm further reminds us that we are made by God for a purpose. “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed” (v. 16b). God has purposes that God is working out and we are created to be a part of that purpose. It’s all a miracle! Our lives should be a celebration!
So we’re special because we’ve been created by God. But it is a personal relationship with God that makes us aware of just how special we are. Over and over the psalmist declares in wonder that God knows him and sees him. Now in some ways this is the case whether or not we acknowledge God and whether or not we love God and whether or not we have a personal relationship with God. But there are wonderfully positive possibilities for those whom God has also adopted into his family. We are the ones who understand God’s knowledge of us and presence with us not as a threat but as a blessing. We understand that the facts that God sees us and is with us make it possible that we may in fact become what God intends for us to be.
When I was a teenager a couple joined our church who had a small adopted son. His mother decided to use the process of potty training as an opportunity to teach him something important. So every time that he was involved in the process of potty training his mother had him say, “I’m special because I’m adopted.” The timing is not as strange as you might think. Perhaps it registered with the boy that his being adopted was absolutely natural and significant and necessary and indispensable to him. He was special because he was adopted.
So are we. Because we have been adopted into God’s family through the saving work of God’s only Son Jesus Christ we celebrate God’s presence rather than dread it; we welcome it rather than try to escape it. God’s presence is basic and essential and indispensable to our lives. How wonderful it is to know that God knows our thoughts before we think them and our words before we say them and our paths before we take them. How magnificent it is to ponder the fact that no matter where we go and not matter what we go through God is there.
It is because we are in a personal relationship with him through his adoption of us in Jesus Christ that we can pray with confidence rather than fear the closing words of this psalm: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (vv. 23-24). That really can happen if you belong to God! You see, I’m grateful for me because it’s finally not about me; it’s finally about God. In Christ, I really can be who God has made me to be. How can we not live our lives in gratitude if God is so working in our lives? As Paul put it,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us…. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory (Ephesians 1:3-8a, 11-12).
Amen.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
A Prayer of Thanksgiving for WWII Veterans
Today the city of Fitzgerald hosted a luncheon in honor of our community's World War II veterans. I was honored to offer the following prayer of thanksgiving.
Almighty God, Maker of heaven and earth, Savior of all people everywhere who hear and respond to your call,
We praise you for life and for life everlasting, both of which come to us only through your grace.
We praise you for the United States of America, for the state of Georgia, for the city of Fitzgerald, and for the county of Ben Hill, all of which we call home.
We praise you for the life, the liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that constitute the legacy of our forebears and the ongoing ideals of our Republic.
O God, we ask for your wisdom, for your guidance, and for your strength that we might as individuals and as a people pursue and live out those ideals.
We thank you today for those among us who, along with their fellows and their families, sacrificed so much during the great conflict of World War II. We thank you for their service to their nation during the war and we thank you for their service to their families, to their communities, and to society in all the years since the war concluded.
We are mindful of the fact that many of their fellows sacrificed their very lives on the fields, on the seas, and in the air where the battles of the war were fought; we remember those today with great reverence and thanksgiving. We are also mindful that large numbers of our WWII veterans are leaving us each day and so we thank you for this and for every opportunity that we have to tell them “Thank you!”
We are furthermore mindful of the fact that many others have served in uniform in the years since WWII and that indeed many are serving even now, with many of those serving in harm’s way, and we thank you for them and ask your protection and blessing on them.
As we thank you today for the great victory over the forces of totalitarianism and oppression that you won through these veterans all those years ago, we are mindful that there are still forces of totalitarianism and oppression that do and that would rob the people of our world of their liberty and we ask that you would, now and always, give those of us who possess and who love freedom the willingness and the resolve to stand firm against them.
For the food in which we share today, for the fellowship around the tables, and for a community in which we appreciate, celebrate, and support each other, we give you our most humble thanks.
Amen.
Almighty God, Maker of heaven and earth, Savior of all people everywhere who hear and respond to your call,
We praise you for life and for life everlasting, both of which come to us only through your grace.
We praise you for the United States of America, for the state of Georgia, for the city of Fitzgerald, and for the county of Ben Hill, all of which we call home.
We praise you for the life, the liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that constitute the legacy of our forebears and the ongoing ideals of our Republic.
O God, we ask for your wisdom, for your guidance, and for your strength that we might as individuals and as a people pursue and live out those ideals.
We thank you today for those among us who, along with their fellows and their families, sacrificed so much during the great conflict of World War II. We thank you for their service to their nation during the war and we thank you for their service to their families, to their communities, and to society in all the years since the war concluded.
We are mindful of the fact that many of their fellows sacrificed their very lives on the fields, on the seas, and in the air where the battles of the war were fought; we remember those today with great reverence and thanksgiving. We are also mindful that large numbers of our WWII veterans are leaving us each day and so we thank you for this and for every opportunity that we have to tell them “Thank you!”
We are furthermore mindful of the fact that many others have served in uniform in the years since WWII and that indeed many are serving even now, with many of those serving in harm’s way, and we thank you for them and ask your protection and blessing on them.
As we thank you today for the great victory over the forces of totalitarianism and oppression that you won through these veterans all those years ago, we are mindful that there are still forces of totalitarianism and oppression that do and that would rob the people of our world of their liberty and we ask that you would, now and always, give those of us who possess and who love freedom the willingness and the resolve to stand firm against them.
For the food in which we share today, for the fellowship around the tables, and for a community in which we appreciate, celebrate, and support each other, we give you our most humble thanks.
Amen.
Some of the Most Important Words Ever to Come from a Baptist
The current issue of the Christian Index, the newsjournal of the Georgia Baptist Convention, contains a letter by Dr. James Staubes, pastor of Skidaway Island Baptist Church in Savannah, that may well be one of the most significant pieces of correspondence penned by any Baptist in any generation.
When the next resurgence comes, this letter may well be looked back upon as the turning point.
I encourage all Baptists to read this important letter. You will join me in saying "Amen."
(Folks of other traditions will be inspired by it, too.)
When the next resurgence comes, this letter may well be looked back upon as the turning point.
I encourage all Baptists to read this important letter. You will join me in saying "Amen."
(Folks of other traditions will be inspired by it, too.)
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Teach Us to Pray: Developing a Life with God
Tonight I started a Wednesday night study on prayer entitled "Teach Us to Pray: Developing a Life with God." Part One follows.
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Part One: The Place and Position of Prayer
“(Jesus) was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11:1). Along the way we will return in detail to the specific teachings on prayer that Jesus offered in response to the request of his disciple but for now I want to note that this disciple expressed the desire of the heart of each of us, whether we know it or not: we want to know how to pray. Moreover, the fact that Jesus answered the question reveals that we can be taught how to pray, that we can learn how to pray.
One of the first steps in learning anything is finding out where and how you are supposed to stand. A baseball player learns first where to stand in the batter’s box and then how to stand in the batter’s box; a football player learns where to stand on the field and then how to stand on the field; a golfer learns where to stand in the tee box and then how to stand in the tee box.
Learning involves being in the right place and in the right position, then. That applies to learning to pray.
The right place: before God
Glenn Hinson offered this definition of prayer: “Prayer… is conversation, communication, or communion between ourselves as personal beings and our heavenly Father, the ultimate personal reality in the universe” (The Reaffirmation of Prayer, p. 17).
God as Father. Prayer is personal communion between personal human beings and a personal God; it thus has the potential for great intimacy. Jesus purposely taught us to pray to “Our Father”; the word is Abba, a form of the Aramaic word for Father that really means something like “Daddy.” So Jesus told us to approach God as a personal being in a very personal way.
God is love. That statement in 1 John 4:8 is the most basic biblical definition of God. As Hinson also said, “Prayer…is motivated by love, which seeks naturally and spontaneously to interact with what it has made.” So from God’s side of this two-sided relationship, conversation, and communion, God approaches us and that approaching is motivated by God’s love. Our response is a response of love, then; as Hinson put it, “Our love responds to God’s love that is always beaming on us” (A Serious Call to a Contemplative Lifestyle, p. 46.
The incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, along with the subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit, offer the definitive proof of God’s determination to relate to us personally.
Prayer happens when our real and open personhood responds to the real and open personhood of God.
The right position: the posture of humility
While God is personal and relates to us in love, we nonetheless need to acknowledge that we stand before him as the human creation of Almighty God. As Psalm 8 reminds us, “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou has ordained; what is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? And the son of man, that Thou dost care for him?” (vv. 3-4 NASB). God does take thought of us and God does care for us—but that is a most remarkable thing. This morning before sunrise I went out to try to see the Orionid meteor shower. I am happy to report that I saw exactly one meteor but it was still worth the effort as, it being a clear morning, I was overwhelmed by the wonder and majesty of God’s creation as exhibited in the innumerable stars. What are we, indeed? We stand in awe before God.
Luke 18:9-14 contains Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, in which the tax collector’s humble attitude, exemplified in the words “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” is favorably contrasted with the self-righteous and haughty attitude of the Pharisee.
Commenting on that parable, Metropolitan Anthony said,
What we must start with, if we wish to pray, is the certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation, that we are cut off from God and that we cannot live without Him and that all we can offer God is our desperate longing to be made such that God will receive us, receive us in repentance, receive us with mercy and with love…. (A)ll we can do is to turn to Him with all the reverence, all the veneration, the worshipful adoration, the fear of God of which we are capable, with all the attention and earnestness which we may possess, and ask Him to do something with us that will make us capable of meeting Him face to face, not for judgment, nor for condemnation, but for eternal life (School of Prayer, pp. 7-8).
Conclusion
As we approach our attempts at prayer, our position is before God and our posture is humility.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Part One: The Place and Position of Prayer
“(Jesus) was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…” (Luke 11:1). Along the way we will return in detail to the specific teachings on prayer that Jesus offered in response to the request of his disciple but for now I want to note that this disciple expressed the desire of the heart of each of us, whether we know it or not: we want to know how to pray. Moreover, the fact that Jesus answered the question reveals that we can be taught how to pray, that we can learn how to pray.
One of the first steps in learning anything is finding out where and how you are supposed to stand. A baseball player learns first where to stand in the batter’s box and then how to stand in the batter’s box; a football player learns where to stand on the field and then how to stand on the field; a golfer learns where to stand in the tee box and then how to stand in the tee box.
Learning involves being in the right place and in the right position, then. That applies to learning to pray.
The right place: before God
Glenn Hinson offered this definition of prayer: “Prayer… is conversation, communication, or communion between ourselves as personal beings and our heavenly Father, the ultimate personal reality in the universe” (The Reaffirmation of Prayer, p. 17).
God as Father. Prayer is personal communion between personal human beings and a personal God; it thus has the potential for great intimacy. Jesus purposely taught us to pray to “Our Father”; the word is Abba, a form of the Aramaic word for Father that really means something like “Daddy.” So Jesus told us to approach God as a personal being in a very personal way.
God is love. That statement in 1 John 4:8 is the most basic biblical definition of God. As Hinson also said, “Prayer…is motivated by love, which seeks naturally and spontaneously to interact with what it has made.” So from God’s side of this two-sided relationship, conversation, and communion, God approaches us and that approaching is motivated by God’s love. Our response is a response of love, then; as Hinson put it, “Our love responds to God’s love that is always beaming on us” (A Serious Call to a Contemplative Lifestyle, p. 46.
The incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, along with the subsequent sending of the Holy Spirit, offer the definitive proof of God’s determination to relate to us personally.
Prayer happens when our real and open personhood responds to the real and open personhood of God.
The right position: the posture of humility
While God is personal and relates to us in love, we nonetheless need to acknowledge that we stand before him as the human creation of Almighty God. As Psalm 8 reminds us, “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou has ordained; what is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? And the son of man, that Thou dost care for him?” (vv. 3-4 NASB). God does take thought of us and God does care for us—but that is a most remarkable thing. This morning before sunrise I went out to try to see the Orionid meteor shower. I am happy to report that I saw exactly one meteor but it was still worth the effort as, it being a clear morning, I was overwhelmed by the wonder and majesty of God’s creation as exhibited in the innumerable stars. What are we, indeed? We stand in awe before God.
Luke 18:9-14 contains Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, in which the tax collector’s humble attitude, exemplified in the words “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” is favorably contrasted with the self-righteous and haughty attitude of the Pharisee.
Commenting on that parable, Metropolitan Anthony said,
What we must start with, if we wish to pray, is the certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation, that we are cut off from God and that we cannot live without Him and that all we can offer God is our desperate longing to be made such that God will receive us, receive us in repentance, receive us with mercy and with love…. (A)ll we can do is to turn to Him with all the reverence, all the veneration, the worshipful adoration, the fear of God of which we are capable, with all the attention and earnestness which we may possess, and ask Him to do something with us that will make us capable of meeting Him face to face, not for judgment, nor for condemnation, but for eternal life (School of Prayer, pp. 7-8).
Conclusion
As we approach our attempts at prayer, our position is before God and our posture is humility.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
God Gets Flagged in Fitzgerald
We have a very good football team at Fitzgerald High School this year; the Purple Hurricanes are 6-0 and ranked #2 in the Georgia AA classification. Head Coach Robbie Pruitt and several of the players are members of the church that I serve as pastor and we have good reason to be proud of the manner in which they conduct themselves.
Last Friday night, during a home contest with region rivals the Berrien County Rebels, a young man named R. J. Davis caught a touchdown pass and, before handing the ball to the referee, pointed his index finger toward the sky. As a yellow flag fluttered to the ground beside him, I turned to my wife and said, “Well, that’s an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against us.”
I remember thinking that it was unwarranted; it was very quick gesture by Davis and it did not seem designed to draw inordinate attention to himself or to taunt the opposing team.
It was not until the following Wednesday, when I learned that a crew from WALB-TV, the NBC affiliate in Albany, Georgia, had arrived at the Fitzgerald High School campus, which is, incidentally, right next door to our church campus, that I found out that the player’s gesture had religious significance. As it turns out, Davis’ gesture was intended to glorify God; he was pointing toward heaven as a way of thanking God for the good thing that had happened to him. He said in the interview that was aired on WALB’s 6:00 p.m. broadcast on Wednesday that he pointed upward “to give God thanks” for allowing him to “be open in the first place.”
I do not know Davis personally; folks who do know him affirm that he is a fine young man and that his religious convictions are sincere.
There are some who would say, I know, that God is neither interested nor involved in whether or not a football player catches a touchdown pass, such legendary football terminology as the “Hail Mary” and the “Immaculate Reception” notwithstanding. I suppose they have a point, given that we would probably prefer that the Almighty give attention to such slightly more important matters as hunger, war, poverty, disease, and injustice than to the outcome of a football play or a football game, even if a school with a name like Trinity or St. Pius or Notre Dame—or even Ouachita Baptist—is involved.
Besides, some would say—and again, I guess they have a point—what kind of theological crisis might be created if we were compelled to conclude that God directed the path of the Fitzgerald High School receiver more than God directed the path of the Berrien County defensive back and that, by implication, God favored the Fitzgerald team over the Berrien County squad?
It is true that the Bible speaks often of God’s mysterious choosing of one over another or favoring of one over another—Jacob over Esau and David over everybody, for examples—but do we really want to extend the theology of divine election to sports teams, as in “Fitzgerald I loved, but Berrien I hated”? I would think not. On the other hand—no, really, we don’t want to go there.
There is another way to look at it, though: should we not be pleased that a Christian young person—that any Christian person—acknowledges and takes seriously the fact that God is somehow involved in all the moments and in all the events of his life? This particular young man does not worship with our congregation but if he did he would sometimes hear me say that if God is indeed God then God is God in every aspect of our lives and he would assume—rightly, I think—that God is a football player’s God on the football field just like God is a doctor’s God in the operating room or a teacher’s God in the classroom or a farmer’s God in the field.
That does not mean, of course, that God micromanages the routes the player runs any more than it means that God micromanages every cut that the surgeon makes or every word that the teacher says or every furrow that the farmer plows—but it surely does mean that somehow God is present and involved in every step that they all take.
It is absolutely appropriate, then, that the Christian praise God in all things because God is in fact God in all things.
That means, though, that God would have also been God if Davis had dropped the ball or if he had twisted his ankle and even if, God forbid (!), our team had lost the game—and it means, doesn’t it, that God was God when the referee—who may be a fine Christian middle-aged man, too, for all I know—threw that flag when that fine Christian young man pointed his finger toward heaven.
Somehow God is in it all.
Sound theology—not to mention sound living and maybe even sound football—require such nuances in perspective.
Maybe that’s a lesson we can all learn from the night that God got flagged in Fitzgerald.
Last Friday night, during a home contest with region rivals the Berrien County Rebels, a young man named R. J. Davis caught a touchdown pass and, before handing the ball to the referee, pointed his index finger toward the sky. As a yellow flag fluttered to the ground beside him, I turned to my wife and said, “Well, that’s an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against us.”
I remember thinking that it was unwarranted; it was very quick gesture by Davis and it did not seem designed to draw inordinate attention to himself or to taunt the opposing team.
It was not until the following Wednesday, when I learned that a crew from WALB-TV, the NBC affiliate in Albany, Georgia, had arrived at the Fitzgerald High School campus, which is, incidentally, right next door to our church campus, that I found out that the player’s gesture had religious significance. As it turns out, Davis’ gesture was intended to glorify God; he was pointing toward heaven as a way of thanking God for the good thing that had happened to him. He said in the interview that was aired on WALB’s 6:00 p.m. broadcast on Wednesday that he pointed upward “to give God thanks” for allowing him to “be open in the first place.”
I do not know Davis personally; folks who do know him affirm that he is a fine young man and that his religious convictions are sincere.
There are some who would say, I know, that God is neither interested nor involved in whether or not a football player catches a touchdown pass, such legendary football terminology as the “Hail Mary” and the “Immaculate Reception” notwithstanding. I suppose they have a point, given that we would probably prefer that the Almighty give attention to such slightly more important matters as hunger, war, poverty, disease, and injustice than to the outcome of a football play or a football game, even if a school with a name like Trinity or St. Pius or Notre Dame—or even Ouachita Baptist—is involved.
Besides, some would say—and again, I guess they have a point—what kind of theological crisis might be created if we were compelled to conclude that God directed the path of the Fitzgerald High School receiver more than God directed the path of the Berrien County defensive back and that, by implication, God favored the Fitzgerald team over the Berrien County squad?
It is true that the Bible speaks often of God’s mysterious choosing of one over another or favoring of one over another—Jacob over Esau and David over everybody, for examples—but do we really want to extend the theology of divine election to sports teams, as in “Fitzgerald I loved, but Berrien I hated”? I would think not. On the other hand—no, really, we don’t want to go there.
There is another way to look at it, though: should we not be pleased that a Christian young person—that any Christian person—acknowledges and takes seriously the fact that God is somehow involved in all the moments and in all the events of his life? This particular young man does not worship with our congregation but if he did he would sometimes hear me say that if God is indeed God then God is God in every aspect of our lives and he would assume—rightly, I think—that God is a football player’s God on the football field just like God is a doctor’s God in the operating room or a teacher’s God in the classroom or a farmer’s God in the field.
That does not mean, of course, that God micromanages the routes the player runs any more than it means that God micromanages every cut that the surgeon makes or every word that the teacher says or every furrow that the farmer plows—but it surely does mean that somehow God is present and involved in every step that they all take.
It is absolutely appropriate, then, that the Christian praise God in all things because God is in fact God in all things.
That means, though, that God would have also been God if Davis had dropped the ball or if he had twisted his ankle and even if, God forbid (!), our team had lost the game—and it means, doesn’t it, that God was God when the referee—who may be a fine Christian middle-aged man, too, for all I know—threw that flag when that fine Christian young man pointed his finger toward heaven.
Somehow God is in it all.
Sound theology—not to mention sound living and maybe even sound football—require such nuances in perspective.
Maybe that’s a lesson we can all learn from the night that God got flagged in Fitzgerald.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sermon Preached at McAfee School of Theology
I had the privilege of preaching in chapel at the McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University's seminary, on Tuesday, September 29; I am grateful to Dr. Brett Younger for the invitation. The theme for the semester is the Ten Commandments and my assignment was the Sabbath commandment. Here is the sermon that I preached.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hope for the Chronically Rushed
Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:27-28; Hebrews 4:9-10
I am thankful for the mysterious providence of God that caused me to plan not to attend the Mercer Preaching Consultation this year so that I could accept the invitation to be here on this day when my assignment would be to preach on the Sabbath commandment.
I am thankful for two reasons. First, in preparing I have been reminded of the necessity of practicing Sabbath in my own life and I plan to respond to my own invitation by doing better. Second, I have been on a quest for a while now to help myself and the people among whom I minister to become more authentically the Church by living out of a real and growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, a relationship that I am increasingly convinced can best be pursued—perhaps can only be pursued—by exercising the classic Christian disciplines. This assignment has led me to seriously consider the discipline of Sabbath keeping and I have become convinced that it may be one of the keys to the way of life into which I should be led and into which I should in turn lead the people for whom I am responsible as their pastor.
Why do I say that?
Well, consider the position of the Sabbath commandment in the Decalogue: it comes at the end of the “first tablet”; it thus concludes the set of commandments that deals with our responsibility toward God and it leads into the set of commandments that deals with our responsibility toward other people. That positioning is appropriate given that the command has to do with God—“the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God” and it has to do with others—no person (and no animal, even) is to work. Notice, though, that the command also has to do with the self, with the ones who are to keep the commandment: “you shall not do any work.”
This emphasis on honoring God, on honoring others, on honoring self—it all sounds so very familiar, doesn’t it?
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he did not say “Keep the Sabbath.” What he did say was, “’Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:29-31a). The keeping of the first and second greatest commandments, then, involves loving God, loving others, and loving self—none of which are easy and all of which require intentionality and discipline and practice.
The keeping of Sabbath is a good way to be intentional about practicing and developing the discipline that will enable us to love God, others, and self in the ways that God intends because Sabbath practice prepares and positions us for the daily practice of loving God and loving neighbor and loving self and Sabbath observance prepares and positions us for the daily practice of acknowledging the blessings of God and the needs of others. We need to observe Sabbath not as the only time that we love God, others, and ourselves but rather as a time to take the time to remind ourselves that we are to love God, others, and ourselves at all times and that the day is coming when all will be loved as they should be.
To observe Sabbath is to remember—and remembering inspires us to love God.
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy”--in remembering the Sabbath, we remember who God is and what God has done. We remember that God is Creator (Ex. 20:11) and that God is Savior (Dt. 5:15—“Remember that you were a slave and the Lord brought you out”). In observing the first day as a Sabbath we Christians remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ and we thus remember what God did in Christ to bring us out of slavery.
We observe the sacred time of Sabbath so that we will stop to remember who God is and what God has done so as to discipline ourselves to remember who God is and what God has done at all times—and remembering we will be inspired to love God at all times.
To observe Sabbath is to respect—and respecting inspires us to love others.
Here is the ethical dimension of the commandment: nobody in the family, no one in the workforce (slaves/servant), no one in the immigrant workforce (resident alien) was to be abused or misused—all were to rest. So here is a focus on others. We use Sabbath to remind ourselves how we are to treat others on all the other days.
It is here that Jesus’ example and teaching are especially important. Jesus did good for and to others on the Sabbath and, since he is Lord of the Sabbath, we should follow his example. “In Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath Day, the commandment becomes an embodiment of the love of neighbor” [Patrick Miller, The Ten Commandments (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), p. 162]. So in our Sabbath observance we should take the time to reflect on how we can offer help and healing and wholeness to people and we should gladly embrace opportunities to do so.
There is a good word here for ministers, I think. For those of us who pursue parish ministry (and some other forms of ministry), we will work on the “official” Christian Sabbath (and thus we need to carve other real “Sabbath” time for ourselves) but, in the spirit of Christ, we are on the Sabbath touching folks for the sake of their help, healing, and wholeness, which is a good thing—and the Sabbath gives us the opportunity to reflect on how we are—or aren’t—doing that all the time.
We observe the sacred time of Sabbath so that we will stop to respect the needs of others and to reflect on how we can take action to meet those needs so as to discipline ourselves to respect and act on those needs at all times—and we will thus be inspired to love others at all times.
To observe Sabbath is to rest—and resting inspires us to love ourselves.
Such resting is for own good. In taking time to rest, to recreate, to celebrate—I would sum it up in the phrase “to let go”—we acknowledge that it’s not all up to us and the failure to acknowledge that truth is a danger in all vocations and maybe especially in ministry. In acknowledging through Sabbath practice that God is God and we are not we learn the great truth that Thomas Kelly put so succinctly: “Nothing matters; everything matters” (A Testament of Devotion); in Sabbath rest we lay it all down so that we can, by the grace of God, pick up again what is appropriately ours.
As for what it means to practice Sabbath rest, I am drawn to the emphasis of Karl Barth as pointed out by Tilden Edwards in his book Sabbath Time; Barth said that the Sabbath should be approached without a program by which I think he meant without a planned agenda. Edwards summarizes Barth’s emphasis this way: “’Let things take their course with particular freedom,’ in stark distinction from weekday practice. Don’t radically plot or settle it beforehand. Do just as much or as little as the day brings, ‘without grasping after it anxiously or eagerly.’” Edwards goes on to say that Barth’s “basic challenge” is “to allow the day a quality of lightness” with the hope and expectation that such lightness “will spill over into the workweek too, cutting into our temptations to overcontrol life willfully, and at the same time sharpening our capacity to discern those actions to which we are truly called.” [Tilden Edwards, Sabbath Time, rev. ed. (Nashville: Upper Room, 2003), p. 69]
We observe the sacred time of Sabbath so that we will stop to rest so as to discipline ourselves to rest in our trust in God at all times—and we will thus be inspired to love ourselves at all times.
But there is more to it than that. In resting—celebrating, enjoying—we look back to what God has done, we look at what God is doing, and we look forward to what God will do. When we observe the Sunday Sabbath, we look back to the resurrection of Jesus, we live now in the power of the resurrection, and we look forward to the resurrection to come—to the Sabbath rest that is yet to be.
Sabbath reminds us that as it was in the beginning (God rested on the Sabbath), is now (we rest on the Sabbath) and ever shall be (we will rest on that great Sabbath that is yet to be). (Cf. Miller, p. 126) The Sabbath then becomes for us an inbreaking of the Kingdom, a foreshadowing of the great Sabbath rest that is to come—a foretaste of glory divine. In Sabbath observance we practice living in what some have called “the ‘isness’ of the shall be” which involves, of course, not just love for ourselves but also love for God and love for others.
As Patrick Miller has recently put it,
The Scriptures thus understand the Sabbath rest as both present gift and also blessing yet to come. That Sabbath promise receives its seal and authentication in the church’s celebration of the holy day of rest and worship on the first day of the week, thus forever identifying the Lord’s Day with the climactic redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ, a work that is the ground of all hope. ‘The first day of the week should be a pointer to the last, final day for every person’ (Wolff, “Day of Rest,” 75). The rabbis were right. The Sabbath is indeed a glimpse of the world to come. (Miller, Ten Commandments, p. 166).
We need Sabbath because we need “a glimpse of the world to come”; we need a glimpse of the world that God has in store for us one day, a day in which love of God, love of others, and love of self will be perfected—but don’t we also need a glimpse of the world that God in Christ and through us might have in store for Monday and Tuesday and every other day of the week, days on which we can go a lot farther than we think we can in loving God, loving others, and loving self?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hope for the Chronically Rushed
Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:27-28; Hebrews 4:9-10
I am thankful for the mysterious providence of God that caused me to plan not to attend the Mercer Preaching Consultation this year so that I could accept the invitation to be here on this day when my assignment would be to preach on the Sabbath commandment.
I am thankful for two reasons. First, in preparing I have been reminded of the necessity of practicing Sabbath in my own life and I plan to respond to my own invitation by doing better. Second, I have been on a quest for a while now to help myself and the people among whom I minister to become more authentically the Church by living out of a real and growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, a relationship that I am increasingly convinced can best be pursued—perhaps can only be pursued—by exercising the classic Christian disciplines. This assignment has led me to seriously consider the discipline of Sabbath keeping and I have become convinced that it may be one of the keys to the way of life into which I should be led and into which I should in turn lead the people for whom I am responsible as their pastor.
Why do I say that?
Well, consider the position of the Sabbath commandment in the Decalogue: it comes at the end of the “first tablet”; it thus concludes the set of commandments that deals with our responsibility toward God and it leads into the set of commandments that deals with our responsibility toward other people. That positioning is appropriate given that the command has to do with God—“the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God” and it has to do with others—no person (and no animal, even) is to work. Notice, though, that the command also has to do with the self, with the ones who are to keep the commandment: “you shall not do any work.”
This emphasis on honoring God, on honoring others, on honoring self—it all sounds so very familiar, doesn’t it?
When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he did not say “Keep the Sabbath.” What he did say was, “’Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:29-31a). The keeping of the first and second greatest commandments, then, involves loving God, loving others, and loving self—none of which are easy and all of which require intentionality and discipline and practice.
The keeping of Sabbath is a good way to be intentional about practicing and developing the discipline that will enable us to love God, others, and self in the ways that God intends because Sabbath practice prepares and positions us for the daily practice of loving God and loving neighbor and loving self and Sabbath observance prepares and positions us for the daily practice of acknowledging the blessings of God and the needs of others. We need to observe Sabbath not as the only time that we love God, others, and ourselves but rather as a time to take the time to remind ourselves that we are to love God, others, and ourselves at all times and that the day is coming when all will be loved as they should be.
To observe Sabbath is to remember—and remembering inspires us to love God.
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy”--in remembering the Sabbath, we remember who God is and what God has done. We remember that God is Creator (Ex. 20:11) and that God is Savior (Dt. 5:15—“Remember that you were a slave and the Lord brought you out”). In observing the first day as a Sabbath we Christians remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ and we thus remember what God did in Christ to bring us out of slavery.
We observe the sacred time of Sabbath so that we will stop to remember who God is and what God has done so as to discipline ourselves to remember who God is and what God has done at all times—and remembering we will be inspired to love God at all times.
To observe Sabbath is to respect—and respecting inspires us to love others.
Here is the ethical dimension of the commandment: nobody in the family, no one in the workforce (slaves/servant), no one in the immigrant workforce (resident alien) was to be abused or misused—all were to rest. So here is a focus on others. We use Sabbath to remind ourselves how we are to treat others on all the other days.
It is here that Jesus’ example and teaching are especially important. Jesus did good for and to others on the Sabbath and, since he is Lord of the Sabbath, we should follow his example. “In Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath Day, the commandment becomes an embodiment of the love of neighbor” [Patrick Miller, The Ten Commandments (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), p. 162]. So in our Sabbath observance we should take the time to reflect on how we can offer help and healing and wholeness to people and we should gladly embrace opportunities to do so.
There is a good word here for ministers, I think. For those of us who pursue parish ministry (and some other forms of ministry), we will work on the “official” Christian Sabbath (and thus we need to carve other real “Sabbath” time for ourselves) but, in the spirit of Christ, we are on the Sabbath touching folks for the sake of their help, healing, and wholeness, which is a good thing—and the Sabbath gives us the opportunity to reflect on how we are—or aren’t—doing that all the time.
We observe the sacred time of Sabbath so that we will stop to respect the needs of others and to reflect on how we can take action to meet those needs so as to discipline ourselves to respect and act on those needs at all times—and we will thus be inspired to love others at all times.
To observe Sabbath is to rest—and resting inspires us to love ourselves.
Such resting is for own good. In taking time to rest, to recreate, to celebrate—I would sum it up in the phrase “to let go”—we acknowledge that it’s not all up to us and the failure to acknowledge that truth is a danger in all vocations and maybe especially in ministry. In acknowledging through Sabbath practice that God is God and we are not we learn the great truth that Thomas Kelly put so succinctly: “Nothing matters; everything matters” (A Testament of Devotion); in Sabbath rest we lay it all down so that we can, by the grace of God, pick up again what is appropriately ours.
As for what it means to practice Sabbath rest, I am drawn to the emphasis of Karl Barth as pointed out by Tilden Edwards in his book Sabbath Time; Barth said that the Sabbath should be approached without a program by which I think he meant without a planned agenda. Edwards summarizes Barth’s emphasis this way: “’Let things take their course with particular freedom,’ in stark distinction from weekday practice. Don’t radically plot or settle it beforehand. Do just as much or as little as the day brings, ‘without grasping after it anxiously or eagerly.’” Edwards goes on to say that Barth’s “basic challenge” is “to allow the day a quality of lightness” with the hope and expectation that such lightness “will spill over into the workweek too, cutting into our temptations to overcontrol life willfully, and at the same time sharpening our capacity to discern those actions to which we are truly called.” [Tilden Edwards, Sabbath Time, rev. ed. (Nashville: Upper Room, 2003), p. 69]
We observe the sacred time of Sabbath so that we will stop to rest so as to discipline ourselves to rest in our trust in God at all times—and we will thus be inspired to love ourselves at all times.
But there is more to it than that. In resting—celebrating, enjoying—we look back to what God has done, we look at what God is doing, and we look forward to what God will do. When we observe the Sunday Sabbath, we look back to the resurrection of Jesus, we live now in the power of the resurrection, and we look forward to the resurrection to come—to the Sabbath rest that is yet to be.
Sabbath reminds us that as it was in the beginning (God rested on the Sabbath), is now (we rest on the Sabbath) and ever shall be (we will rest on that great Sabbath that is yet to be). (Cf. Miller, p. 126) The Sabbath then becomes for us an inbreaking of the Kingdom, a foreshadowing of the great Sabbath rest that is to come—a foretaste of glory divine. In Sabbath observance we practice living in what some have called “the ‘isness’ of the shall be” which involves, of course, not just love for ourselves but also love for God and love for others.
As Patrick Miller has recently put it,
The Scriptures thus understand the Sabbath rest as both present gift and also blessing yet to come. That Sabbath promise receives its seal and authentication in the church’s celebration of the holy day of rest and worship on the first day of the week, thus forever identifying the Lord’s Day with the climactic redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ, a work that is the ground of all hope. ‘The first day of the week should be a pointer to the last, final day for every person’ (Wolff, “Day of Rest,” 75). The rabbis were right. The Sabbath is indeed a glimpse of the world to come. (Miller, Ten Commandments, p. 166).
We need Sabbath because we need “a glimpse of the world to come”; we need a glimpse of the world that God has in store for us one day, a day in which love of God, love of others, and love of self will be perfected—but don’t we also need a glimpse of the world that God in Christ and through us might have in store for Monday and Tuesday and every other day of the week, days on which we can go a lot farther than we think we can in loving God, loving others, and loving self?
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