Recognizing a Christian

 How can folks who are not church members find spiritual support when they need it? They can't just go into a church on any given Sunday morning these days, because many churches are not physically worshiping together yet. We individual Christians must be "church" for them! But how can they recognize us? This sermon suggests a way that works quite well.

After all the heat of the summer, we are finally moving into the fall. This year, though, we won’t be able to enjoy many of the traditions that we anticipate every year. The football games of some teams have been cancelled; the season of others have been shortened; and, in many cases, only families of players will be permitted to watch the games in person. Fall festivals are at risk of being cancelled. The class reunions that usually take place right around now have been put off, too. I was supposed to have my 50^th high school class reunion this year, but that's not happening, either. We are planning to meet in our 51^st year, instead, and everyone is hoping that all our classmates who are around this year will still be around next year to celebrate with us. I was looking forward to that class reunion! I was anticipating meeting friends that I haven’t seen in years, and to renewing acquaintances with people I didn’t hang out with in high school.

The last reunion I attended was my 30^th one – 20 long years ago – and what I remember most about it was that many of us didn’t look exactly the way that we did when we graduated from Piqua Central High School back in 1970. Some of us had gained a few pounds here and there; and many of my male friends had significantly less hair than they did when we graduated. Even the behavior of some folks had changed! People I remembered as being shy (if not withdrawn) were outgoing and personable; and some of the ones who were big jerks back then had become almost human. And that was 20 years ago! We will all have changed even more by the time my reunion rolls around next year. I hope that the organizing committee will supply us with name tags. I know that I’ll need to look at a whole lot of name tags so that I can recognize people who looked very different at our high school graduation!

The church has changed, too, just like the people with whom I graduated. In the past five months, we have moved from worshiping in a physical sanctuary to worshiping virtually; and we don’t know how long it will be before we can safely gather again. It makes me wonder how people would ever find us if they needed us. Right now, they can’t just appear in our sanctuary on Sunday morning, because we aren’t there! That begs the larger question, how do people recognize the church at all? How do people know that all of us are part of a community that follows Jesus Christ? We don’t look any different from anyone else. Most of us don’t wear signs that say “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” Oh, we might wear a tee shirt now and then that has a faith-based message on it, but most of the time our faith in Christ isn’t something that people can see.

Maybe we need to wear nametags. Everybody at a 50^th class reunion needs a nametag so that people can recognize each other; so we Christians should have something like that, too. But I’m not going to wear a physical nametag that says “Christian” on it when I go to Kroger or to the Y. No, that nametag needs to be something else, something that we take with us everywhere we go. What about our behavior? Maybe that should be the nametag that says “Christian” on it. That’s what Peter is getting at when he sets down all those guidelines for behavior that we heard in this morning’s scripture reading. (I Peter 3:8-9) He offers quite a list of qualities that Christians should embody: sympathy, compassion, humility, and respect for others, for example. There’s nothing new in his list, though. We’ve all been told to do these things a thousand times before!  We know that this is how Christians are supposed to behave. Actually, this is how we want everyone to behave in a civilized society! But Peter presents one item just a little differently from all the rest (I Peter 3:13-16) After he tells us to behave like Christians should, he says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” Peter doesn’t tell his readers to hope; he assumes that they already do. Hoping isn’t something that Christians should try hard to do, like showing respect or sympathy. Hope should be part of our Christian DNA!

If you take a look at the rest of Peter’s letter, you’ll find that this isn’t the only place he mentions hope. Almost as soon as he begins his letter, he reminds his readers that they have been given “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3). Although he doesn’t use the word “hope” itself very often, it’s the foundation of everything that he’s talking about. We readers today might be surprised to hear about that hope, because the church to which Peter was writing was in the middle of persecution. We aren’t sure exactly what kind of persecution it was, but we can be sure that the congregation was suffering for their faith. This little letter refers to suffering over and over again! Peter talks about suffering “grief in all kinds of trials”. He encourages his readers to suffer for doing good, rather than for doing evil. He even reminds them of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that awaited him after he had persevered. Hope in the middle of that kind of suffering is pretty tough; but Peter not only assumes that they have hope, he tells them that they should be ready to talk about it! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t expect people who are suffering to be talking about hope. Who would ever walk up to the victim of an accident and ask, “So what are you hoping for?” It seems like the very worst kind of black humor! But that’s exactly what Peter is telling this community. He wanted them to be talking about their hope to the bloodthirsty mob as they were entering the arena to be torn apart by wild animals!

Maybe we should consider the possibility that “hope” is what sets the church apart from the rest of the world. Maybe our hope in Christ and our trust in the power of God’s grace is our nametag that tells the world that we are Christians! The long list of qualities that Peter tells his readers to have – compassion, sympathy, and respect for others – are all desirable behaviors, and even expected; but many people in our society do those things. They aren’t exclusive to Christians. But hope in Christ – that’s what the church has to offer, and by that hope anyone should be able to recognize a Christian, regardless of what creed we recite or where we gather or how we worship! I’m not talking about a Pollyanna kind of hope; that sugary “Oh, it’s not so bad after all” kind of attitude that ignores what’s happening. Several weeks ago, I shared a sermon with you that offered the insight that hope is what is left when everything else is despair. One of the last lines of that sermon said, “Keep kicking despair until it bleeds hope.” Hope may seem like only a little seed in a great big manure pile of despair; but a seed of hope can take root and blossom in the middle of the very worst that life can throw at us. Hope is what keeps us going after property, possessions, and loved ones are lost to a hurricane or a tornado or a wildfire. Hope is what keeps us loving our family and friends when they call us names because of the political party we belong to or the candidate for whom we plan to vote. Hope is what keeps us putting one foot in front of the other in the middle of a pandemic with no end in sight. The world needs that kind of hope right now – the kind of hope that we proclaim because we’re Christians.

So let me suggest this morning the nametag that we Christians can wear. If we want to be recognized by the rest of the world – if we want to help the rest of the world – if we want to be true followers of Jesus Christ – maybe our nametag should say, “Hello!  I have hope!” That’s the nametag that I plan to be wearing! I pray that you will wear it, too.

Filling Our Mugs

 Every morning I get up and fill a mug with coffee without even thinking much about it. What else am I filling my life with, though? This sermon takes a closer look at that and offers a few suggestions.

OK, quiz time! What can cheer you up, inspire you, comfort you, and bring back all kinds of wonderful memories? The answer might be “a close friend” or “a favorite book,” but this morning, the answer I’m going for is “a mug”! Many of us have mugs that we use all the time. The mugs that we like the best fit into our hands like they were made for us. They’re just the right size to fit into the curve of our hand, whether it’s a man-sized mug or one that’s considerably smaller. Before we even pour a hot beverage into that mug, we have been cheered up or inspired by whatever is on the side of that mug. Then we all fill our mugs with our beverage of choice. I’m a coffee person, myself. I wouldn’t even think of starting the day without a cup of hot, freshly-brewed coffee.

We rarely think much about what we use to fill our mugs, though. We’ve got a routine that ticks along like a clock: morning coffee, afternoon tea, and evening cocoa. It’s just part of life that goes on without our thinking about it. But that’s part of the problem that we face today. Just as we fill our mugs without really thinking about it, we fill our lives, too, with all kinds of things without thinking about it. We watch the evening news because we want to keep up on what’s going on, and we hear about wildfires in California, filling us with fear. We scroll through Facebook to catch up on what our friends are doing; and as we do, we see disturbing images of clashes between protesters and armed militia in Portland, filling us with anger. And when we read the headlines on the front page of the Dayton Daily News, they say “Rise in Jobless Claims Reflects Grim Economy,” filling us with despair. I read a recent editorial suggesting that the reason our country is so polarized right now is that, during our time of isolation in this pandemic, we have sat alone, filling ourselves with a continual diet of bad news, disturbing images, political propaganda, and conspiracy theories. No wonder that so many of us are depressed! We’re filling ourselves with poison instead of hot tea with lemon!

But we could be filling ourselves with other things! In his letter to the Philippians, Paul advises, “whatever is true… noble… right… pure… lovely… admirable… if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.” (4:8) If Paul were here today, I’m sure that he wouldn’t tell us to shut our eyes to the situation around us, or to ignore all the injustices that cry out for our attention. But I’m also sure that he would tell us that a steady diet of bad news will corrode us from the inside as surely as acid will eventually destroy the mugs that we love so much; and I’m very sure Paul would tell us that we are far more valuable than our mugs! God tells us something even better. God promises to fill us with the Holy Spirit, who fills us with hope, and energizes and empowers us to meet whatever lies ahead of us. The book of Isaiah frequently uses water in the desert as an image for the living water for which we all yearn. (Isaiah 41:17-18 is a great example.) God assures us that, through Jesus Christ, we have a never-ending supply of that water, even when we are as dry as a bone. Just as we fill our mugs with hot beverages that comfort us physically, God fills our lives with the spiritual comfort of the Holy Spirit so that we can be faithful Christians in this challenging world.

What are you filling your life with right now? That’s a question that we all should be asking ourselves; because life is going to get more difficult before it gets easier. The political season has formally kicked off (although I’m not really sure whether it ever went away), and ads with unsettling images will soon be everywhere; late summer is bringing longer hours of darkness; and winter will soon drive us indoors, many of us into renewed isolation. We all need to care for ourselves with as much concern as we care for others. Instead of reading only the daily newspaper, pick up one of the many editions of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and read one story a day. Instead of listening only to the evening news, find a sitcom that you like and make a promise to yourself to laugh at least once every day. Instead of randomly scrolling through Facebook, go directly to a page that you want to see – the page of a friend or one of your children – and skip all the unsettling stuff that you really don’t need to see.

Ecclesiastes, a text that is a complicated mix of cynicism, optimism, despair, and hope, says this: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart” (9:7a). I am bold to say that if the author were alive today, he might well say, “Go, fill your mug – and your life – with joy, faith, and laughter.” It’s good advice for any time.

Tough Love

 What does God's love look like? Oh, I know, we can't actually see it; but some comparisons are better than others. I think that God's love looks like a... Well, you'll just have to read my sermon and see what I think!

Several years ago, a pastor named Rob Bell wrote a book about Christianity that caused quite a stir. People who read the book either loved it or hated it. Those who hated it claimed that Bell’s thinking wasn’t biblical. His harsher critics even accused him of being a heretic. That book led to Bell’s removal from the Mars Hill Bible Church, the church that he had founded in a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan and pastored for over 10 years. Despite the fact that under his leadership, that church had grown to a membership of nearly 10,000 people, many of its members decided that because of what Bell wrote in his book, he was not fit to lead a Christian congregation. What did Rob Bell write that caused such a ruckus? Did he deny that Christ was divine? No. Did he say that the Holy Spirit isn’t really a part of God? No. Did he claim that he himself was the Messiah? No. Well, then, what in the world did he write? In his book Love Wins, he wrote that God loves us, and that nothing in this world can ever separate us from that love.

God loves us? We all know that! Why, that’s the good news of the gospel! We Christians proclaim that as the very foundation of our faith! Jesus died for us because God loves us so much! So, then… what exactly was the problem? The problem was this: Rob Bell believes that God doesn’t just love us Christians, but that God loves everyone. Even more radical, he believes that God doesn’t just love us here and now, but that God will love us forever, regardless of who we are or what we have done, or said, or thought. He hates the picture of the Last Judgement that Michelangelo painted on the wall above the altar of the Sistine Chapel. In the very center of the painting is Christ judging everyone who has ever lived. Above Christ are the redeemed who are ascending into heaven; while below him, the souls of the lost are sinking down into hell. It’s hard to miss the message of this painting: God’s grace won’t last forever. There will be a time when God’s love for some people runs out; and when it does… well, they’re out of luck. Some people will be eternally “in,” while others will be condemned to eternal punishment.

This, then, is what all the ruckus was about. Rob Bell would say that although images like Michelangelo’s Last Judgement may be fine art, they don’t reflect reality. The reality, he says, is that God loves us today, tomorrow, and forever. Jesus died for us; and his resurrection proves God’s love for every single one of us! Nothing at all can ever separate us from that love. God will never condemn us, because God loves us! Now Rob Bell didn’t make that up. He got it from none other than St. Paul himself, who wrote in the book of Romans: “Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39) God’s love can withstand anything that we can do!

What does that kind of love look like, anyway? Most of us think of love in sentimental images like a mother singing a lullaby to her tiny baby who is cradled safely in her protective arms. Sometimes love does look like that. But if God is going to love us through thick and thin – and I join Rob Bell in believing that God does – that love is going to need to be a lot tougher than a fuzzy, pink baby blanket adorned with a picture of Hello Kitty. A love that can embrace even people like Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler, and Osama Bin Laden has to be very, very tough. That kind of love has to be like a boxer who gets up off the mat again and again after he has been knocked down; patient and resilient enough to keep trying over and over for as long as it takes.

My favorite image of God’s tough love is a green plant that has pushed its way through the pavement of a parking lot and is blooming defiantly where it isn’t supposed to be. Take a look at any abandoned parking lot. It is filled with little green plants that are growing through cracks in the pavement that have appeared over weeks and months. Those cracks were made by the sun and rain and freezing and thawing of life; and no sooner does one appear than a little plant takes advantage of it. Once that plant has thrust its head through the crack, it’s very difficult to get rid of it. God’s love works the very same way. Many people never give a second thought to God’s love. They are so focused on power, money, and their own self-interest that they pave right over it with those other priorities. Those little seeds of love wait until life causes a crack or two in that pavement; and then, up they sprout! There is nothing tougher than patience and the resilience to try again and again until something happens. God’s love is just like that.

Maybe that’s the kind of love that we should be offering to other people in Jesus’ name. That was the advice that Paul gave the congregation at Rome in his letter to them. (Romans 12:14-21) “Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!” We are all too ready to meet hate with more hate, violence with more violence, and negativity with more negativity. That’s one way that we got into the situation that we’re in now: polarized in our religion and in our politics, alienated from one another, and often downright nasty! What would happen if we kept gently poking at the pavement that separates us like God does with the tough love that never gives up? When we meet prejudice, for example, we could listen to what the other person has to say, gently state the truth that we are all God’s children, and let it go. But then, we could do the same thing again and again and again, patiently and persistently. What would happen if we filled the world with responses like that? What if we treated every single person like we were going to sit right next to them at Thanksgiving dinner? Their behavior might not change; but ours sure would. And I’m betting that sooner or later, their behavior might change, too.

It’s amazing what God’s tough love can accomplish. I heard a story once about Mother Teresa, surely a representative of God’s love. She had set up a meeting with a couple of corporate executives hoping to persuade them to donate to her mission in India. The executives had already decided that their answer would be “no.” Mother Teresa met them warmly, and patiently accepted their refusal to donate to her mission. “Let us pray,” she said. They all bowed their heads in prayer, and Mother Teresa prayed for her mission. When the prayer was finished, she asked them again for a donation. Again, their answer was “no;” and again, Mother Teresa responded “Let us pray.” This process of request, denial, and prayer was repeated several times until the executives realized that they would never get away from this persistent woman who showed such tough love until they did what she asked of them. Mother Teresa got her donation.

I’ll bet that if you think back over your life, you tried to pave over God’s love, too; only to find out that God crept into your life like a little green plant through a crack that you didn’t even know was there! Maybe that love didn’t come into your life through Mother Teresa, but I’ll bet that the process was similar; because that’s just the way God’s love is: tough, gentle, and persistent. “I am the Lord,” God told Moses, “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.” (Exodus 34:5-7a) If you ever doubt it, just look at the empty tomb on Easter morning. You’ll see the results of a love that is tough, gentle, persistent, and the most powerful force in the universe! Thanks be to God!

Heavenly Comfort Food

 We all have comfort foods that we go to when we're feeling anxious or sad. God offers us that, too, although not through our stomachs! God feeds our souls with comfort through hymns, scriptures, and secular readings. If you're feeling anxious, maybe some of these suggestions will help you.

So, how have you all been doing during the last couple of weeks? Be honest! If you have been struggling with depression or anxiety – maybe even more than usual – you’re not alone. Last week, I heard on CNN that a recent Census Bureau survey found that 33% of Americans reported feeling stress, anxiety, or sadness. Last year’s figure? 8%. That’s more than a fourfold increase in negative feelings in just one year. And the Kaiser Family Foundation found that more than half of Americans believe that the pandemic is taking a toll on their mental health. The collective stress of dealing with the chaos in our lives is responsible for the disruption of people’s sleep, their tendency to lose their tempers more easily, and the dreaded overeating syndrome. (You know, like buying a package of Oreo cookies and polishing it off all by yourself in one afternoon.) Jennifer Senior, a journalist for the New York Times, wrote in a recent editorial (August 5, 2020), “We are not, as a nation, all right. (We’ve) all run smack into a wall.”

People seem to hit that wall about 4 months into continuing trauma over which they have no control. I hit it about two weeks ago, just before I came down with the mystery illness that put me down for more than a week. My frantic Facebook post had friends from all over the country sending me messages of support, and phoning me to make sure that I was OK. One of my Facebook friends who is the cheeriest person on the planet posted this past week that she has been feeling especially depressed and anxious lately. I know that some of you are feeling the say way, because you’ve told me. Even Michelle Obama recently confessed to feeling a “low-grade depression” because of the pandemic, the current political situation, and the state of race relations in our country. “I’m waking up in the middle of the night,” she said, “because I’m worrying about something, or there’s a heaviness.” I tell you all this not to add to your depression, but to reassure you that if you are feeling especially anxious or stressed, it’s OK; there’s a reason for it. We’re all dealing with continuing difficult circumstances over which we have no control. We don’t even know how things will end; and that makes it all the harder!

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I get anxious and depressed, I want comfort food like that package of Oreo cookies that I mentioned earlier. I need something that will bring good memories to my mind; something that makes me feel secure again. I remember when my daughter Jessica showed up at my front door unexpectedly one afternoon during her first year in college. She was in tears. At the time, she was pledging a sorority, carrying a full course load, and thought that she had to do everything by herself. To say that she was overwhelmed would be an understatement. After I had listened to her despairing comments about how she simply couldn’t handle it and might just leave college all together, I told her to come in and take a nap in her own bed while I made a big batch of homemade mashed potatoes. In the morning, after a good dinner, a good night’s sleep, and lots of hugs from her dad and me, she headed back to school, refreshed and renewed. By the way, she joined that sorority, became an active member of it, and graduated in four years with honors. It’s amazing what comfort food can do.

We need some of that comfort food right now, because we’re all overwhelmed. We aren’t the first people to feel that way, as this morning’s psalm makes very clear. “When will you comfort me?” the psalmist asks God. “How long must your servant wait?” We’re all wondering that, too, right now, in the midst of a pandemic and political turmoil. The answer, unfortunately, is “Who knows?” and I’d be a liar if I told you anything else. But Paul talks about comfort in his second letter to the church at Corinth. He tells us that God is “the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.” Now, I’m pretty sure that Paul isn’t talking about a plate of mashed potatoes. What he is talking about is the certainty that God has comforted us in the past, and will do it again when we need it the most.

Let me go back to those comfort foods for just a minute. What are your comfort foods? For some people, like my daughter, it’s a big plate of homemade mashed potatoes. For others, it’s homemade vegetable soup like Mom used to make. Maybe your comfort food is crisp bacon, or a dish of macaroni dripping with thick, creamy cheese sauce. What is it about those foods that give you comfort? My guess is that they bring back memories of love, safety, and protection. Those memories are powerful things! One dish of your favorite comfort food can bring all those memories flooding back, and offer you calm when one of life’s storms hits. Do you have memories of God’s comfort; times when you knew God was there watching over you, guiding you through life’s storms? Sure, you do! But God’s heavenly comfort food isn’t a bowl of vegetable soup. God’s heavenly comfort foods are scripture passages, hymns, and your favorite inspirational readings. Let me share some of my heavenly comfort foods with you, and maybe you’ll be able to identify your own.

One of the scriptures that never fails to comfort me is Psalm 121. It begins, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills. Where dos my help come from? My help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.” Another is from Psalm 139: “Where can I go from your Spirit? How can I escape your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me.” Maybe you are comforted by the 23^rd Psalm, or by a reading from one of the gospels. Find it and read it! You might even want to post it on your bathroom mirror where you can see it the first thing in the morning. Go to the scriptures whenever you are anxious or sad. You can feel God’s comfort through them.

I’ll bet that you have a hymn that comforts you, too. One of my favorites is “This Is My Father’s World.” I learned it when I was only 7 years old at church camp. It reminds me that God is a whole lot bigger than I am, and that I don’t need to worry; because God’s got this! I know that lots of you are comforted by “In the Garden,” with its image of walking with Jesus in the cool of the morning. Don’t forget that hymn was the hymn of the week not too long ago, and it is still posted on the church Facebook page. You can listen to it there anytime. Even if one of your favorite hymns isn’t a hymn of the week, go to YouTube and search for it. I’ll bet that it’s there just waiting for you to listen to it!

Finally, maybe there is a reading that you find comforting. I love the poetry of Emily Dickinson, for example. One of my favorites is a short poem titled “Hope.” It describes hope as a bird that "perches in the soul and sings the song without words and never stops at all." I love the image of hope as a bird that cannot be silenced, even through storms! Do you have a poem, a book, or a story comforts you? Now is the time to read it!

We are all anxious right now; and no one knows when all this chaos will settle down. In the meantime, be comforted. If you are overwhelmed and echoing the question of the psalmist: “When will you comfort me? How long must your servant wait?” remember what Paul said: God is the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles.” God invites us in, prepares heavenly comfort food for us, and offers us rest for our souls. That’s just what the doctor ordered. Thanks be to God!

Thirsty

I'm thirsty; and so are you. We're all thirsty for some normalcy in these very abnormal times. And some of us are thirsty to be able to encounter God in the ways that we did before COVID hit. That's what this sermon is about: our thirst for God, and what we can do to satisfy that thirst.

“I’m thirsty.” We’ve all said that at one time of another. We laugh about toddlers saying it to get out of going to bed; but thirst isn’t limited to toddlers. That’s no problem this morning, of course. I can just reach over and take a sip from my little plastic Kool-Aid cup that I have with me every Sunday morning. Even if my cup isn’t at my elbow, the water tap in the next room isn’t far away. But there have been times when I was truly thirsty; and there was no water close by. On occasion, I have gone hiking and underestimated how hot the day was going to be. After emptying my canteen, I still had a distance to go. My mouth tasted like dust, the sun beat down on the back of my neck, and each plodding step became more difficult that the last. That’s what thirst is like. Instead of enjoying the beauty of the scenery, I focused only on the water that I wanted so desperately.

This scripture from the psalms, though, isn’t concerned physical thirst, even though it begins describing a deer searching for water in a drought. No, this psalm describes the thirst we feel when we are wrenched away from the place where we have always encountered God. The psalmist can’t get to his place of worship, and memories are all that he has left. “These things I remember,” he says, “as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God… with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.” But that familiar, beloved location is now off limits; and all he can do is weep tears of yearning. “I’m thirsty,” he whispers. “I want to see God again.”

I know how he feels, and I imagine that you do, too. I remember those Easter Sundays when I gathered with my church family for breakfast, and then delighted in the beauty of the Easter flowers in the sanctuary while we all joined in singing, “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today! Alleluia!” That didn’t happen this year. I remember the days when we enjoyed cake and punch after worship while honoring our graduates. That didn’t happen this year, either. Heck, I remember the not-so-special Sundays when the sanctuary wasn’t even full, but when those who were there enjoyed each other’s company! It’s been four months since that happened. I’m thirsty. I want to see God again in my own sanctuary. 

But see, here’s the thing. This psalm doesn’t end there. “Thirst” isn’t the last word. No, the last word is “hope.” “Put your hope in God,” the psalmist advises, “for I will yet praise him, my savior and my God.” But… what is it that we are supposed to hope for? Are we supposed to hope that everything will go back to the way that it was? That might be the case; and it’s a good thing to hope for! But that might not happen. At least, it might not happen anytime soon. So, maybe it would be better to simply hope that our thirst for God will somehow be satisfied, and not pin our hopes on the way that our thirst will be satisfied.

When I’m physically thirsty, I’m not going to hold out for an icy cold bottle of Evian water that was bottled in the French Alps! I’ll be grateful for tap water, or iced tea, or even lukewarm lemonade! Those things will all quench my thirst. We need to remember that when we are thirsty for God. We all yearn for the church sanctuary where we have spent so many happy hours worshiping next to our friends and relatives. If you don’t yearn for the sanctuary at Nashville UCC, I’ll bet that you yearn for some other place where you have encountered God on a regular basis. Maybe that place is summer camp, closed this season because of COVID-19. Maybe it’s a restaurant where you have gathered with beloved friends, but because you’re at high risk for the virus, you don’t dare eat there right now. Maybe it’s a yearly reunion where you have always reconnected with folks you don’t see on a regular basis, but this year… well, it’s just not worth the risk. I’m thirsty, myself, for all those things! But here’s the good news of the gospel: God isn’t confined to any of those places. We expect to encounter God in a church sanctuary, or at summer camp, or in a gathering of beloved friends; but God doesn’t only live there! We can encounter God in any place, and at any time.

The truth is that we can encounter God in the most common places and through the most common things around us. If the sacrament of Holy Communion tells us anything, it tells us that. On the evening of that first Holy Communion, Jesus and his disciples were nowhere special. They weren’t in a church or in a five-star restaurant. They were in somebody’s spare room that person was generous enough to let them use for the evening. My guess is that they weren’t dressed up to the nines in their new Passover outfits, complete with new sandals and maybe a new walking staff. They were just wearing their everyday clothing. And, most important of all, Jesus didn’t offer them escargots, or duck à l’orange, or flaming cherries jubilee. He offered them bread and wine, because that was what they had for supper every single night. “This is my body,” he told them, and “this is my blood.” If you are thirsty for me, you’ll find me in the ordinary things that you encounter every single day: in bread and wine; in the smile of a trusted companion; and in the rising and the setting of the sun. That’s where I am, and that’s where I’ll always be.

One of the songs that I learned at summer camp a long time ago was one that asks the question, “Have you seen Jesus my Lord?” No sooner than the question is asked, though, it is answered: “He’s here in plain view. Take a look, open your eyes. He’ll show it to you! Have you ever looked at the sunset, with the sky yellow and red, and the clouds suspended like feathers? Then I say, you’ve seen Jesus my Lord.” Oh, I know; it’s difficult to see God in the sunset because… well, it’s so ordinary. We are thirsty for those extraordinary places and times – places like our own church sanctuary on Christmas Eve. How can you NOT encounter God during Christmas Eve service in a candlelit sanctuary? But we can be thankful that when those special times and places aren’t available, we can encounter God in the ordinariness of bread and juice, at the table to which Jesus invites us. We’ll gather together in the Spirit at that table in just a few minutes. And as we join together at the table this morning, my prayer is that you all encounter the divine One through the common things of our lives: the beauty of your backyard flowers that you enjoy from your porch, your computer screen or cell phone that enables you to worship with your community of faith, and ordinary bread and juice. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, they will help you to stay near to the heart of God, so that you might never thirst again.