Prayer through the Ages

Every now and then, I think it's a good idea to evaluate our Chrstian practices. What are they; and are we doing them as well as we could?(Sometimes the question is, Are we doing them at all?) This sermon begins a seven-week series that will center on classic Christian practices. I begin with prayer, since it is central to our lives as Christians. If you choose to read my sermon, I'll be interested to find out if it was helpful to you.

Of all the Christian practices, prayer is certainly one of the most important. Prayer allows us to connect to God. Prayer recharges our batteries. Prayer takes us beyond ourselves. Jesus’ ministry was steeped in prayer. This morning, you heard a story that took place early in Jesus’ ministry. (Mark 1:32-39) He has ministered to needy people all evening, and he is probably bone-weary. But instead of sleeping in and getting some extra rest, he gets up early in the morning and goes out by himself to pray. Mark didn’t need to add that detail to his story. But he’s careful to put it in, because it’s important. Prayer wasn’t an optional activity in Jesus’ life; it was central. And it is for us, too.

My sermon today is titled, “Prayer through the Ages.” That might lead you to believe that I’ll be doing a historical survey of prayer. I might be starting with prayers of the early Christians, moving on to structured daily prayer patterns of medieval monasteries, and then finishing with types of contemporary prayer. I might well be doing that. But I’m not. The “ages” that I’m considering this morning are our ages – yours and mine. They’re the times in our lives that we’ve experienced already, the times that we’re encountering right now, and the times that we’re looking forward to some day in the future. I’m going to focus on some of the questions that many of us have about prayer as we move through our ages. We do have questions about prayer, don’t we? But we usually don’t ask those questions. Maybe that’s because we’re afraid to ask them. After all, if we ask a question about prayer, someone might think that we don’t understand the Christian faith as well as we ought to. That would be embarrassing! So we don’t ask anything at all – and our prayer life sometimes suffers because of it. So, this morning, I’ve made up questions from five imaginary people. They aren’t real people. I wasn’t thinking of anyone in my congregation when I dreamed them up. But the questions they will ask about prayer are very real. Maybe you already know the answers to all of them. If that’s the case, then Bravo! You’re a real expert in prayer – and you could probably teach me a thing or two! But if you don’t know all the answers… well, maybe you’ll discover something useful in my sermon this morning.

We’ll start with Gary, who’s just 7 years old. Gary’s Sunday school class has been talking about prayer; but he’s missed something important. Gary’s question is, “What is prayer, anyway?” What is prayer? What a good question! That’s getting down to the basics! Prayer is nothing more than having a conversation with God. We can say all the things to God that we might say to one of our earthly loved ones. I would tell Gary that prayer is kind of like talking to his mom or dad. Sometimes we tell God about the great day we’ve just had; sometimes we ask God a question; sometimes we want to share hurts or frustrations; sometimes we ask for things we need; and sometimes we tell God ‘Thank you.’ It’s as simple as that.

Now we’ll move on to Matilda, a lovely young lady of 18. Matilda has been thinking a lot about prayer, especially since her mother takes her to a Methodist church one Sunday, and her father takes her to a Pentecostal church the next. She is bothered by the difference in prayer in the two churches. So she asks, “Is there one right way to pray?” No, Matilda, there is no ‘right way’ to pray. There are certainly differences in church traditions. For some Christians, prayer is quiet and reflective; while for others, it’s much more active. In ancient times, people stood while they prayed (and that’s still the case for Orthodox Jews). The important part of prayer is not how we do it, but that we do it. I would advise Matilda to join each congregation in their own style of prayer; and to decide which style suits her best for her own personal prayers. After all, we can talk with our friends while sitting at the dinner table, taking a stroll around the block, or exercising at the Y. Our conversations with God are no different.

Larry is in his mid 30s and has a young family. He works long hours to provide for his family; and on the weekends, he’s busy with the activities of his children. Larry says, “I just don’t have time to pray. My family and work obligations keep me really busy. How can I make time for prayer?” Many of us have Larry’s problem, don’t we? If we don’t get the fields harvested, our family might not eat next year. If we miss our daily prayers… well, God loves us anyway. But it’s important for Larry to realize that we don’t have to take an hour off and sit quietly in a chair to pray. We can pray wherever we are and whatever we’re doing. Are you in line at the grocery store? You can pray there. Maybe a frazzled-looking woman with a couple of active toddlers is in line in front of you. Pray silently for her. After you’ve done this a couple of times, it will become automatic. It helps many people to choose a short, one-line prayer, and pray it frequently during the day. You might pray, “Lord, have mercy,” or “Jesus, be near me.” Soon it will be second nature to come to God when you get up in the morning, when you go to bed at night, and lots of times in between.

Teresa is in her late 50s. She’s attended church all her life; but recently, she’s run into a problem. “I’m stuck,” she says. “My prayers don’t seem to go any farther than the roof. Is God even listening to me?” Teresa, many Christians have experienced what you’re describing. Although you’re coming to God, it doesn’t feel like God is there any more. The medieval mystic St. John of the Cross gave it a name, calling it ‘the Dark Night of the Soul.’ It can be experienced by Christians who have prayed for years, and who have always felt the presence of God. But one day, God seems to have taken the phone off the hook. We pray and pray, but don’t hear anything from God in response. No less a spiritual giant than Mother Teresa experienced this. Read her autobiography some time. She was in the Dark Night of the Soul for much of her life. But she continued to pray anyway. At one point, she said, “It is only when you realize your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself.” When we experience the Dark Night of the Soul, perhaps we, too, are preparing to be filled by God.

Finally, we meet Grace. Grace is in her 80s and has been a praying Christian through all those years. She doesn’t do much formal praying these days, and for an interesting reason. She tells us, “I’ve prayed for so many years that I don’t have much to say to God anymore. God knows what I need; and he knows that I appreciate all the blessings in my life. Do I have to put my prayers into words?” Actually, Grace, wordless prayers are some of the deepest prayers that we can pray. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what we ought to pray for, so the Spirit intercedes for us in prayers that words can’t express. And God who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” When we pray without words, our relationship with God is like that of a couple who have been happily married for a long time. All the words have long since been said. They are content to sit silently on the front porch in each other’s company. When they hear a bullfrog croaking down by the pond, they catch each other’s eye. They smile, knowing that the wife loves to hear a bullfrog in the summer. But they don’t have to talk about it in words.

Isn’t that what we long for, in the end: a relationship with God so deep that words aren’t necessary any more. But we can only attain that kind of relationship by constant prayer. So, however you pray, and whenever you pray, and whatever you pray about, pray! Share your joys and your sorrows with God. Ask God to enlighten you when you have questions. Be thankful for all the good things in your life. Complain when you need to. God’s a big boy; God can handle it! And if you can’t feel God’s presence, pray anyway! God hasn’t gone anywhere.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul has some advice for us about prayer. “Do not worry about anything,” he says, “but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The peace of God that passes all understanding. That’s what prayer can give us. Regardless of the circumstances of our lives, prayer can give us God’s peace, and keep us safely in the arms of Jesus. What more could we possibly want?

Not Like Us

This past Sunday was World Communion Sunday, the day when Chrisitans all around the world join in sharing the sacrament of Holy Communion. My sermon considered how we react to people who are "not like us," and how easy it is to discount -- and even villify -- them. Do you see yourself anywhere in my sermon?

I’m going to start my sermon this morning with something a little bit different – a word association quiz. Don’t worry – there aren’t any right or wrong answers. I just want you to pay attention to the image that flashes into your mind when I say a word. Ready?
The first word is “inventor.” What kind of person springs to mind when I say that word?
The next word is “musician.” Do all of you have an image in your mind?
The last word is “Christian.” That one should be easy.

Now, I’m going to hazard a guess that the image that came to mind when I said each word – for some of you, anyway – was that of a white, middle-class person who looks a lot like we do. When I said “inventor,” you probably thought of Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell. But you might have pictured George Washington Carver, the African-American genius who found so many uses for the peanut. How about “musician”? Who came to your mind for that word? Was it Randy Travis or one of the Beatles? I wonder if anyone thought of Yo Yo Ma, the Asian-American cellist who makes his instrument sing like the angels themselves.  And “Christian.” Who did you think of for that? Did you picture somebody who looks pretty much like we all do here? I thought so.

The point that I’m trying to make is that when we talk about categories of people – categories like “inventor,” “musician,” or “Christian” – we tend to think of people who look, talk, and act just like we do; and we exclude those who don’t. The images of white, middle-class people just spring into our minds automatically, even though we all know perfectly well that there are lots of people around the world who aren’t like us. It is human nature to divide people into those who are “like us” and those who are “not like us.” But when we divide people into “like us” and “not like us,” it’s only a small step to believing that “not like us” means “not as good as us.” That kind of thinking puts us on a pedestal where we don’t belong – and it doesn’t give other people the credit that they deserve.

“Not like us” can take many disguises. Sometimes, “not like us” is obvious – a different skin color, a different language, or different customs. But other times, “not like us” is sneakier. “Not like us” can be people who speak with a different accent, who belong to a different Christian denomination, or who worship differently than we do. “Not like us” can be people use praise bands to lead worship, and sit on folding chairs in gymnasiums instead of in church pews. Why, some of those “not like us” people even worship on Saturday night!

Can you see how “not like us” can drive a wedge between us and people who are our brothers and sisters? We start to get suspicious of people who are “not like us.” We wonder: why do they do things differently than we do? Are they hiding something? Are they really good people after all? If we’re not careful, we end up tumbling down a slippery slope, and we might end up all the way at the bottom thinking that the people who are “not like us” are absolute good-for-nothings with no good features whatsoever!

Even Jesus’ disciples fell into this kind of trap. The gospel of Mark tells us that one day, they came running to Jesus with a story about someone who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name. The trouble was, he wasn’t an official disciple. He hadn’t been with Jesus and the twelve as they journeyed through Galilee. He hadn’t sat at Jesus’ feet as to hear his teachings. Why, he probably didn’t even know the words to the Lord’s Prayer! And so, the Twelve had told him to stop – stop casting out demons! Stop liberating unfortunate people from the grip of madness. Stop restoring their minds to sanity. Stop giving them a chance to live normal lives again. After all – he wasn’t one of them! Can’t you just see Jesus shaking his head in despair? The disciples didn’t get the praise that they expected. Oh, no, quite the contrary. “Don’t stop him!” Jesus said. “If you’re not against us, you’re for us!” He could have added, “If anyone is doing the works that I do, then that person is one of my followers, even if he is ‘not like us.’”

I’m guessing that the disciples were confused. After all, we spend lots of time talking about how other people are different from us, and not all that much time talking about how they are the same. We still do that today. But this morning is different. This morning is the one day in the Christian year that we agree to focus on how we are alike instead of on how we are different. This morning, instead of concentrating on how other Christians are “not like us,” we focus on how Christians around the world are “like us” as we all join in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. This morning, Christians of all nationalities are remembering the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on our behalf. They are celebrating the Bread of Life that we share here – the Bread that consoles us, supports us, and nourishes us. And they are looking forward to the great banquet at the end of time, when all of us will sit down at God’s table in glory, and all our differences won’t matter any more.

Oh, the practices of those other Christians may be very different from ours. They may be sharing rye bread, pita bread, or rice cakes. They may be drinking wine, grape juice, or even milk. They may be distributing the elements on plates and in little cups as they sit in church pews; or they may be eating from a common loaf and drinking from a common cup as they kneel at the altar. But all of them are praising the same God, following the same Christ, and filled with the same Spirit. And even though many of them are “not like us,” we are all living our lives for Jesus Christ.

“Not like us”? Actually, they are just like us! We are all sinners in need of forgiveness, lost sheep in need of salvation, wretches in need of God’s amazing grace – the grace that we find right here at the table of Jesus Christ. So, everyone, come to the table! Come, take your place amidst people of all languages, cultures, and customs. Come, because we are all God’s people who have found salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ. Come, and join with our brothers and sisters around the world. Come – and, with them, be thankful.

Faith and Works

What is the relationship between faith and works? That's what I considered in this morning's sermon. I used the old song "Love and Marriage" that go together like "a horse and carriage" to understand faith and works as two things that belong together. You can't get rid of either one in a vital Christian life! What do you think?

Some of you may remember a song from way back called “Love and Marriage.” Frank Sinatra used to sing it. It went something like this:

“Love and marriage, love and marriage,
Go together like a horse and carriage.
This I tell you, brother:
You can’t have one without the other!”
Campbell’s Soup even used it in one of their commercials. (Of course, they substituted “soup and sandwich” for “love and marriage.”) But the point is the same. There are some things that just go together; and one without the other is incomplete.

Faith and works are two of those things. One without the other just isn’t complete. Faith without works is like the horse unhitched from the carriage; and works without faith is like a carriage without a horse! That may seem to be obvious, but many Christians seem to prefer one over the other. We don’t do a very good job of keeping both the carriage and the horse. For example, we Protestants claim that “All you need is faith.” What we mean by that is that no one needs to do anything to earn their salvation. God has already given us salvation as a gift through Jesus Christ. But many people misunderstand this statement. They take it to mean that if we have faith, we don’t have to do anything else. James must have been writing to a congregation who thought like that. Remember what he said to them? ”Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” (James 2:17-18) Can we show our faith without taking any actions? I’m not so sure that we can. Other religious traditions make the opposite mistake. These folks concentrate on works, and forget about faith. They believe that we’re not acceptable to God if we don’t dress a certain way, worship a certain way, or believe a specific doctrine. They don’t understand that we are already acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We can’t earn God’s love by any works that we do! We act as Christians not to earn God’s favor, but in thankfulness for what God has already done for us.

So, what is the proper partnership of faith and works? That’s a difficult question; and the answer will depend on who is giving the answer. My answer goes something like this: We do good works in gratitude to God for the salvation that we have as a gift. We get the power to do those works through our faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In other words, our faith is the horse that pulls the carriage of our works. Think about that for a minute. Faith without deeds is like the horse unhitched from the carriage. It looks beautiful as it runs around. We can admire its beautiful color, its smooth gaits, and its flowing tail. But it isn’t any good to anybody, because it doesn’t do anything. And if we do works but have no faith, we’re like the carriage without the horse. Without energy to pull it, it can’t go anywhere! Oh, we may try our best to do good things; but without faith, we don’t have a chance of doing the kind of works that God really wants us to do! What kind of works am I talking about? I’m talking about the hard ones. I’m talking about loving our enemies, praying for those people who wish us harm, and caring as much for others as we care for ourselves. I’m talking about giving needy people the shirt off our back, the blanket off our bed, and the food off our table. I’m talking about taking up our cross and following Jesus. Without faith, we don’t have a prayer of living like that. But with faith – calling on Jesus for help and trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit – we can do amazing things for the glory of God! If we hitch the horse to the carriage, there’s no limit to what is possible.

You may be thinking, “Well, that sounds good for spiritual giants. Of course, the saints did wonderful things. But that doesn’t work for somebody like me. I’m not smart enough, brave enough, or resourceful enough to do anything really important.” In response to that reaction, let me share what Corrie Ten Boom said about our natural talents: “It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.” Not my ability, but my response to God’s ability. God’s ability is the horse that pulls the carriage of our ability to places that we could never go on our own!

Let me share with you not only Corrie Ten Boom’s quote, but the story of her life as an example of what is possible if we allow our faith in God to power our works.

Corrie Ten Boom grew up in Haarlem, Holland, in what is now the Netherlands. She lived with her sister Betsie and her father Casper in a comfortable, middle-class home. They were devoted Christians, with faith in Jesus Christ and service to others as the twin foundations of their lives. In May, 1942, a well-dressed woman carrying a suitcase appeared at their front door. She told the Ten Booms that she was a Jew, and that the Nazi Occupation forces had arrested her husband several months earlier. Her son had gone into hiding, and she was afraid to return home. She had heard that the Ten Booms were kind to Jews. Could she stay with them? Casper’s response was, “In this household, God’s people are always welcome.” With this simple act of hospitality, the Ten Booms began nearly two years of hiding refugees from the Nazi Occupation forces. Some were Jews, while others were members of the resistance movement. All risked being sent to the death factories of the concentration camps if they were caught. At any one time, there were usually 6 or 7 people living in their home. The Ten Booms fed them, clothed them, and gave them shelter, saving the lives of an estimated 800 Jews.

In late February, 1944, the Gestapo raided their home. They arrested everyone who tried to enter it, seizing over 30 people. Corrie’s father, Casper, was an old man of 84. When the Gestapo asked him if he knew he could be executed for helping Jews, he responded, “It would be an honor to give my life for God’s people.” He died in prison only 10 days after his arrest. Corrie and her sister, Betsie, were sent to a concentration camp near Berlin, where Betsie died in late December. Before she died, she told Corrie, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” Corrie was freed just 12 days later as a result of a clerical error. The following week, all the women her age in the camp were executed.

Corrie devoted the rest of her life to sharing what she had learned about faith during her years of living as a Christian at the risk of her own life. She was able to do what she did, she said, only through the strength that God gave her through her faith. “Trying to do the Lord’s work in your own strength,” she said, “is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.” Perhaps the greatest challenge to that faith came in 1947, just two years after the war’s end. She was approached by one of the guards at the camp where she had been imprisoned – a guard who had been known as one who was cruelest to the prisoners. He asked forgiveness of her. But how could she forgive a man who was responsible for the death of countless innocent people, including her own sister? Listen to her own words about the encounter. “Even as angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him… Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness… And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives us, along with the command, the love itself. For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

Corrie Ten Boom died on her 91^st birthday after spending more than 30 years sharing her faith and her experiences with people in over 60 countries. If she were here today, she would tell us that she was no one special. She simply did what God asked her to do using the strength that God gave her. She would assure us that “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” That’s not a bad way to end this sermon. “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” When we try to do good works in our own strength, we fail more often than not. But when we have faith in God who promises to fill us with the Holy Spirit, we can do works that are truly remarkable. “When I try, I fail. When I trust, He succeeds.” Now that’s what I call hitching up the horse to the carriage and going somewhere!

 

If you are interested in reading more about Corrie Ten Boom's life, you might want to read one of the books that she wrote: The Hiding Place, about her experiences hiding Jews during World War II, and Tramp for the Lord, her experiences around the world as she shared the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Scorecards

What if each one of us decided to really work on improving our spiritual lives? How would we begin to do that? In this sermon, I suggest that making our own "spiritual scorecard" might be a place to start. If you choose to read this sermon, see if my comparison to a filling out a baseball scorecard is helpful to you.

One of the delights of my life is going to a baseball game. Football and basketball and soccer are fine; but give me baseball any day of the week! There’s just nothing quite like the fresh mowed green grass, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs, and the roar of the crowd when the home team takes the field. As far as I’m concerned, that’s summer at its finest.

When my husband and I go to a baseball game, the first thing we always do is to pick up a scorecard. For you folks who may not be familiar with that: a scorecard gives you the ability to track every single play of the game – all the balls, all the strikes, all the hits, runs, errors, and stolen bases – so that at the end of the evening, you’ve got a little summary of the whole game right there in your hands! But when you’re working on a scorecard, you can’t lose focus. You can’t wander off to buy a bag of peanuts, or you’ll miss something. No, a scorecard forces you to stay tuned in to what’s going on.

It makes me wonder if we might be better Christians if we had some kind of “spiritual scorecard” to keep us focused on what we are doing. James tells us to do something like that in the part of his letter that we heard this morning. “Be doers of the word, not hearers only” is the way that he puts it. In other words, “Put what you hear into practice. Act on what you know you should do. Keep trying to do better.” A spiritual scorecard might help us with that. Of course, we wouldn’t be recording balls and strikes. We’d be keeping track of things that are far more important to us: ways in which we would like to improve as Christians.

Wallace W. Bubar, pastor of Philadelphia’s Overbrook Presbyterian Church, recently wrote about a kind of spiritual scorecard like this that he used when he was a boy. Here, in his own words, are his thoughts about his experience. [Bubar’s article appears on page 21 of the August 22, 2012 issue of The Christian Century.]

“It was called the six-point record system. In the Southern Baptist church of my childhood, the offering envelopes in the pews had the usual line for your name and the amount of your contribution. But they also had six little boxes underneath where you could put a check mark, and next to the boxes were six actions: worship attended, Bible brought, Bible read daily, Sunday school lesson studied, prayed daily, [and] gave an offering. Somebody at Southern Baptist headquarters in Nashville [Tennessee] had decided these were the six things that were worth recording. Not the Ten Commandments, not the nine fruits of the Spirit, not the eight Beatitudes, and not the seven cardinal virtues. No, [these] were [the] six essentials of the Christian life.

As a kid, I took this business seriously. I brought my Bible every Sunday and did all the other things prescribed on the offering envelope. I was proud when I could check off all six of those boxes. I knew as long as I was doing these six things, I would stay on good terms with the Lord. It wasn’t until some years later that I met James. I’d never really noticed him back there, hiding [in the New Testament] behind Paul. But [eventually] I met James, and when he asked me about my faith, I proudly showed him my envelope, with all the check marks in the boxes. Six out of six! He took one look and laughed. Then he said, ‘I think maybe you need some different boxes on there.’ [After all,] it’s not about whether you’ve brought your Bible; [it’s] about where your Bible has brought you.”

What if each one of us decided to make a spiritual scorecard for our own use? Think about that for just a minute. What things would you put on your scorecard? Would you include the same items that Rev. Bubar found on his childhood offering envelope: attended worship, brought Bible, read Bible daily, studied Sunday school lesson, prayed daily, and gave an offering? Or would there be other things that, in your opinion, are much more important?

I can’t answer that for you. If you make up a spiritual scorecard, it’s entirely between you and God. But I do have some thoughts about what that scorecard might look like.

First of all, no two of our scorecards will say the same things. That’s because each of us need improvement in different areas. The first line of one scorecard might say, “I need to control my temper.” Another might say, “I want to look for the good in other people.” And a third might simply contain the reminder, “Pray more.” The areas in which we want to improve as Christians are as different as the Christians who want to improve!

And that brings me to my second thought. If you can check off every line of your scorecard every single day, then you’ve made it too easy. Do you remember how proud Rev. Bubar was to have checked off all six boxes on his boyhood offering envelope? And do you also remember what he heard the letter of James whisper to him? “I think maybe you need some different boxes on there.” If we can accomplish all the goals that we set for ourselves, then we’re setting those goals way too low! If you find it easy to study the Bible, but it’s really hard for you to be patient with other people, then maybe “Patience” should have a line on your scorecard. The point, after all, is not to be proud of what we find easy to do, but to work towards improving in areas that are difficult.

Finally – and maybe most important of all – we don’t need to do this all by ourselves! The Spirit of God is eager to help us improve our Christian lives. Through the working of the Spirit, Jesus Christ is walking right next to us, offering his help with whatever we find it hard to do on our own. If you think that you could never learn to visit a hospital patient… or mentor a teenager from a broken home… or even find one more dollar to give to the FISH food pantry… well, maybe you couldn’t do those things by yourself. But with the help of Jesus, I understand that all things are possible.

In the end, the line that matters most is one way down at the bottom. It’s on every single person’s scorecard, no matter what the goals are up at the top. It says, very simply, “Today I did my best with God’s help.” And if you can put a check mark in the box next to that line, God will always score it as a home run.

Deeper Than Words

This Sunday, we celebrated God's gift of music as we thanked two of our long-time worship accompanists. My sermon explores how music touches places in our souls that words seldom reach. If you choose to read it, maybe it will help you recall ways in which God has spoken to you through music.

Every pastor knows that there are some things in a congregation that should not be tampered with! At least, every smart pastor knows that. There are some things about a church that a pastor can’t change drastically without expecting a lot of push-back from the congregation. One of those things is music. Every congregation cherishes certain kinds of music; and a pastor meddles with that at his or her own peril. After you called me as your pastor, if I had replaced all our hymnals with new ones that didn’t contain any of the hymns that you like to sing, you wouldn’t have been terribly thrilled about it. If I had then installed a praise band with drums, guitars, and tambourines to lead worship every Sunday morning, some of you might have liked it, but the rest of you… not so much. And if I had ripped out the organ, thrown the piano in the dumpster, and given away all our handbells… well, let’s just say that my obituary would have run in several newspapers the following week! Congregations don’t like it when anyone fiddles with their music! That’s because music is a vital part of our faith experience. Music feeds us in a way that no sermon possibly can. During a sermon, we may think about God’s ways, but when we hear music sometimes we can almost feel them.

Music touches us in the deepest places of our soul. Many writers have considered the effect that music has on the listeners. “After silence,” said philosopher Aldous Huxley, “that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” Writer Victor Hugo echoed this thought when he said, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” Much more recently, J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, put these words into the mouth of her creation Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: “Ah, music! A magic far beyond all we do here!”

Yes, indeed; it does sometimes seem like music can work magic.

Imagine a Sunday morning when you wake up grumpy and grouchy – a “wrong side of the bed” morning if there ever was one! You drag yourself to church, thinking all the way here that you have better things to do than waste an hour sitting in a pew. You’re ready to endure worship on that morning instead of participate in it.

But the first hymn is “Holy, Holy, Holy.” As that familiar hymn offers images of heaven, cherubim and seraphim worshipping God and the saints bowing down in praise, the music lifts you up into the presence of someone who is far greater than we are. A sense of awe floods over you. The music has helped you to begin an “attitude adjustment.”

The sermon is about Jesus Christ, and about his loving presence that never leaves you, in this life or the next. Jesus was the last thing on your mind when you got up that morning. The sermon does remind you that Jesus is always there. But you don’t really feel Jesus’ presence until you’re singing the hymn “In the Garden” after the sermon. You sing, “He walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own…” and all of a sudden, you know that Jesus is right there sitting in the pew next to you.

The last hymn on that morning is “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.” You learned that song when you were a kid in Sunday school. It takes you back to a time when you literally stood up from your chairs when your class sang it, together with the teacher that you loved so much. You’re never able to be grouchy when you sing that hymn!

The end of the story is that when you leave worship, you feel a new sense of God’s glory, the presence of Jesus Christ in your life, and the love of God’s Spirit that you have known for so many years in a community of faith.

As much as I’d like to believe that an upbeat call to worship, well-crafted prayers, and an inspiring sermon can do that for all of you, I know better. The kind of transformation that I’ve just described usually happens through music. And thank God for that! Music is one of the most effective tools that God uses to speak to our hearts and to transform our lives. God speaks to us through our minds, surely. I am the last person to suggest that we should take our minds out of gear while we worship! But God also speaks to us through our feelings; and one of the most effective tools for that kind of communication with God is music! We tend not to trust our feelings. That’s because we’ve been told over and over again that thinking is better than feeling. After all, thinking is logical; while feelings are subject to all kinds of whims and fancies. The trouble with that argument is that our logic only goes so far. Logic can’t penetrate into the deep mystery that lies at the very center of our being. Only feelings can go there. And music. It can go there, too.

Try to remember the last time that you sang one of the great hymns that are frequently played at funerals: “Amazing Grace,” “Rock of Ages,” or “Abide With Me.” I don’t know about you, but those hymns always fill me with a deep sense of peace. It’s a feeling of peace that isn’t logical. The gospels even call it the peace “that passes all understanding.” It’s one of God’s richest gifts. And it we most often experience it through music.

Well, I’ve talked a lot about music. I hope that all my talking has helped you to recall some of the times that you have felt God’s living presence through music. That’s why we have music during our worship, after all. The hymns aren’t just for our entertainment: the religious equivalent of a half-time band show at a football game. No, we have up music during worship because it is one of the deepest expressions of our hearts that we can offer up to God; and because it’s one of the most profound ways that God can speak back to us.

And so, this morning, we celebrate music. We are grateful for the ability to enjoy it, and for the ability to participate in it. We celebrate the music makers, too: all those who have praised God in song, in dance, and with instruments down throughout the centuries; and those who compose music and write hymn lyrics so that we can make music ourselves. And we celebrate those in our community of faith who have God-given talents for making music on behalf of all the rest of us. They lift us up on music’s wings! And as they lift us up, they give us a gift – the gift of touching the God who is beyond what our minds can comprehend; the God who cannot be expressed by words; the God who lives in the deep, mysterious places of our hearts, deeper even than words.

But not deeper than music.

Echoes of Eden



This sermon is the last one in the series considering chapters 1-3 of Genesis. Is the Garden of Eden just a fairy tale... or might it be the symbol of one of our deepest longings? When I preached this sermon in church, it resonated with a number of people who heard it. Maybe it will touch something in you, as well.

 

Over the last several weeks, we have considered the creation stories that are told in Genesis. We have watched in wonder as God spoke the universe into being, carved out a space for us to live, and created humanity in his own image. We have listened to God tell us that our job is to “till and keep” the earth; and pondered the relationship between man and woman, the partner who “corresponds to him.” We watched those first humans eating the forbidden fruit as they tried to improve their status to be “like gods;” and saw the disastrous consequences of that action. This morning appears to be the end of that story. God has expelled those human beings from the Garden of Eden to make their own way in a hostile world.

But… is it really the end of the story? Actually, it is only the beginning of a long story that isn’t even finished yet. It began in hope as two children, Cain and Abel, were born. It continued with God choosing Abraham and Sarah to be the parents of God’s special people; and liberating their descendents from Egypt in a great Exodus. Those people were gifted with a land and leaders – some wise, others not so wise. When those people were conquered and dragged away in Babylon because of their foolishness, God stayed with them, and brought them back to their homeland once again.

But throughout the whole story, God’s people knew that they weren’t really where they belonged. Their homeland of Israel was only just a taste of their real home. Every now and then, one of the prophets talked about it. Isaiah described a place where there will be no more tears, no more death, and abundance for all; a place where the lion will lie down with the lamb, and humans will be reconciled with all creation. We know about that place, too. It’s the place where we want to be; the home that is so deep inside us that we’ve all yearned for it at one time or another.

C.S. Lewis, 20^th century essayist and novelist, tried to describe it:

“[There is] something that you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires… night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for…. You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should ever really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt, you would say, ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’ It is… the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is.”

Yes, our deepest desire is to be where we belong. And when we hear faint echoes of that place, we know it! We’ve all felt those echoes in one way or another. Some of us feel them best in nature when we see a sunset, a rainbow, one drop of dew on the red velvet of a rose. Others feel them through great art or music – the tragic grace of Michelangelo’s Pieta sculpture, perhaps; or the magnificent chords of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony. Most of us feel them in the profound silence of a cathedral. Surely, we feel them when we are gathered as the Body of Christ, worshipping and fellowshipping together as an extended family. And whether you believe that the Garden of Eden was a real, physical place that existed one historical day long ago; or whether you believe that the Garden is a symbol for a world uncorrupted by sin – it comes to the same thing. We all yearn for our world as we know it should be, but isn’t. The world that should be is our real home.

The way that we get to that world is through Jesus Christ. That’s why the Messiah came, after all – to get us back where we belong. We can’t get there by ourselves, no matter how hard we try. We need a whole lot of help to get back home. Jesus’ entire life was devoted to showing us what that home looks like, and helping us to get back there. He was born in a stable to show us that the status we yearn for so deeply isn’t really important after all. He showed us through his life of love and compassion what life in our true home will be like. Because we human beings didn’t believe him, and preferred to cling to power and status, he died on a cross. But he rose on Easter morning to gift us with the home that we lost – home right now through our relationship with him, and the promise of home forever on one day yet to come.

You see, when we live with Jesus and in Jesus, we are back in the Garden again. It started with Mary Magdalene on Easter morning when Jesus called her name – “Mary.” Jesus calls each one of us, too, by name, and invites us back into the Garden that is really a foretaste of the fullness of the Kingdom of God. That’s what heaven really is – the home that we thought was lost, restored to us again. The good news is that we’re going there one day when our lives are over. The better news is that we can glimpse it right now when we live in fellowship with Jesus Christ. When we pray, meditate, or do works of mercy and compassion in Jesus’ name, we slip away, even if ever so briefly, into our true home.

Echoes of Eden are really whispers of Heaven. We can already hear them, through the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, and the working of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God that through Jesus’ living presence, we are home already. And thanks be to God that through Jesus’ resurrection, we will one day be home forever, never to leave again.

Consequences

What were the consequences when Adam and Eve ate that fruit off the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden? We know, of course, that God expelled them from the Garden; but there were other consequences that continue to affect our lives to this day. In this sermon, some of those consequences -- both good and bad -- are considered. Are there other consequences that come to your mind?

Actions have consequences. We all know that. If you’re hanging a picture and you hit your thumb with the hammer instead of hitting the nail, it hurts. That’s not news to anybody. But sometimes, our actions have consequences that we can’t possibly foresee. If you’re hanging a picture, and you hit your thumb with your hammer, you might fall off the ladder when you throw your hands up and yell “Ouch!” When you fall off that ladder, you might break your leg. Then you will need to take a trip to the Emergency Room and spend the better part of 6 or 8 hours waiting for treatment. All because you wanted to hang a picture. Who could have foreseen that?

The story of the forbidden fruit is the same kind of story. When the man and the woman in the Garden ate the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil, they thought that they knew what the consequences would be. The serpent told them that they would become like gods, because they would know the difference between good and evil. And that’s exactly what happened. When they ate that fruit, the text tells us that “their eyes were opened.” They realized that some things were good while others were evil. They gained the ability to make value judgments. They could now act on the decision “This is a good thing,” or “This is a bad thing.”

But what they didn’t realize is that all of their judgments were limited. They may have been like God, but they didn’t know everything that God knows. We never do, do we? And since they didn’t know everything, “good” and “bad” became distorted. They didn’t know what all the consequences of their actions would be, so they focused on the consequences for themselves. “Good” turned into what is “good for me,” and “bad” turned into what is “bad for me.” Those two little words make all the difference. So it didn’t take long for them to get “good” and “bad” mixed up. Their very first action was to hide from God when he came to the Garden that evening. They knew that they had disobeyed a direct order not to eat that fruit. They knew that God would be angry with them. And they knew that the consequences probably wouldn’t be pleasant. So they hid, thinking that hiding would be good for them. They didn’t know enough to realize that it’s never a good idea to hide from God, regardless of who you are! To make matters worse, when God found them, they didn’t own up to what they had done. Oh, they told the truth – but they told it in a way that pushed the responsibility for their actions off on somebody else. “The woman – the one that you put here with me – she gave me that fruit,” said the man. And the woman, in turn, said, “It’s not my fault. It was that serpent. He lied to me!” Oh, yes – politicians didn’t invent “passing the buck.” It goes all the way back to the Garden!

God’s response is filled with grief. “What is this that you have done?” Can’t you hear the sorrow, the anger, and the frustration in God’s voice? “What is this that you have done?” The question hangs in the air like fog, surrounding all our actions to this day. God knew what the consequences of their actions would be. The peaceful world of the Garden was going to disappear. With our limited perspective, one person’s good often clashes with the good of another. The results are disastrous: jealousy, resentment, hate, violence, and war.

So God laid it on the line for those first two humans, and spelled out what some of the consequences would be. People would have to work hard for their food. The soil would grow weeds and thorns more quickly than it would produce crops. Sometimes, it wouldn’t produce crops at all. And our conflict with the soil would continue until we finally die and are buried in it. The relationship between men and women would be permanently warped. The ideal relationship of mutual love and nurture that God intended would disappear, replaced by one of dominance and submission. And this pattern of conflict would spread like ripples on a pond until it filled the whole earth. Domination, conflict, suffering, and death – those are the consequences that we deal with every day because human beings wanted to be “like gods.” It’s not a happy picture.

But it could have been worse. It would have been lots worse if God had followed through with the original consequences that he had promised. On the very first day in the Garden, God told the human, “In the day that you eat of the fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil, you will die.” That was going to be the consequence. And so, God would have been well within his rights if he had ended the lives of the man and the woman right then and there. He could have put a tall, strong fence around the Tree of Good and Evil; and then he could have created two other humans, since the first ones were such miserable failures. But God didn’t do that. No, despite all their disobedience, fuzzy thinking, and poor choices, God never left those two human beings. God stood by his creation regardless of their behavior.

Now, we know the end of this story. We know that Adam and Eve are going to be thrown out of the Garden so that they don’t eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and become immortal. But we also know that when they are thrown out of the Garden and into exile, God goes with them. And God is still with us today. We may be foolish, selfish, short-sighted and self-centered, but we are never alone. God stays with us to the very end. Can you hear a whisper from the future, coming from the Gospel of John? “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son… not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

Maybe God’s presence with us is another unintended consequence of that incident in the Garden. After all, when human beings lived in the Garden, they didn’t need God’s presence with them all the time. Life was easy and joyful there; and their relationships with each other and with the animals were carefree. They knew that God was around. They even saw God now and then – in the evening, when God walked through the Garden enjoying that part of his creation. Things are very different now. Now, we don’t see God as often as they did. Some people never seem to be able to see God at all. And we need God every minute of every day. Living outside the Garden, we never know when we will crash into an obstacle that somebody has put in our way, or stumble on a misunderstanding that we thought we had cleared up, or even fall headlong into a pit of despair. Now, we need God to support us – to hold us up when we are falling – to encourage us when we want to quit.

And that’s just what God does, throughout our whole lives. When we’re just little tykes, God tells us the only thing that we can understand – that he loves us. When we get old enough to think that we know it all, God is there to comfort us when we find out how little we really do know. When we are rejected by a friend, a lover, or an employer, God is there to reassure us that he will never reject us, and to offer us a new beginning. And when we see the end of our lives approaching, God is there to take us by the hand and lead us back into the Garden that we left so long ago.

Yes, the consequences of eating that forbidden fruit are overwhelming. Our human ability to focus on ourselves and to mix up good and evil is overwhelming; but so is the steadfast love that God shows us through all of it. In the end, maybe that’s the most unforeseen consequence of all – that despite our sin, God loves us, and cares for us, and promises us eternal life back in the Garden. And thanks be God that it is so!