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Praise and Worship our Creator

2 Samuel 6:2-5, 12b-15, 17-19

 

 

 

 

How many of you have heard African American preaching? When I was in seminary both of my preaching professors were from the African American tradition.  I also had the honor of sitting under African American preaching during some of the chapel services at Boston University School of Theology.  In the African American worship tradition, the relationship between the preacher and the people during the sermon is quite active.  The congregation lets the preacher know in no uncertain terms what they think of his or her preaching at different points in the sermon.  If the preacher is on target or is making a good point, you will hear shouts of “Praise God, bring me up” along with standing up, shuffling feet, and even clapping hands.  If the preacher is wandering from the topic and not on focus, you will hear words of “help, Lord; help him, Lord, help her, Lord.”  With these words, hands are held high and eyes are closed in prayer.  And if the people are quite done listening to the preaching, if the sermon has gone on long enough, you’ll hear cries of “bring it home, bring it home!”

Now contrast that relationship of preacher and congregation with the relationship of preacher and congregation in the New England congregational tradition.  If the preacher is on target or making a good point the people will remain quiet, and if the preacher looks hard enough, perhaps a faint smile can be detected.  If the preacher strays from the topic, there may be some shifting in seats, some confused expressions, or eyes beginning to glaze over.  And, if the people have had enough of the morning’s message, the preacher may get the hint as heads bow to look at wrist watches, or heads nod for a mid morning nap!

Kate Huey, Steward for Public Life and Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Ministry in the Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ, reflects on today’s scripture from second Samuel.  In her reflection, she wonders if folks in mainline Protestant churches have tamed God to fit our tame lifestyle:  She writes, “Do we really know what it feels like to rejoice ‘with all our might’ because God is present in our lives? Have we ever felt so full of exultation about Who God Is that we want to dance without inhibition, right in front of our family, our friends, and our community? Or are we closer to being [those] . . . who sit almost immobile in our pews?”

             But wait a second, Kate.  Not our congregation.  When we are moved by good music, we clap our hands in praise to God and in thanks to the ministers of the music.  And we stand and lift our arms in handshakes and hugs for many minutes during passing of the peace.  And we may not stand up or lift our hands during the sermon, but we do in our hearts, in praise for the word of God or in gratitude that the word of the preacher is finally ended.

In today’s passage in Second Samuel we encounter David, remember him?  At this point in his life he is the anointed King of Israel.  And he is full of passion in these verses, passionate praise to God and joy for the return of the Ark of the Covenant and the establishment of its new home in Jerusalem.  We’ve met him before.  Do you remember the first time we met him?  As a shepherd boy who volunteered to defeat the giant Philistine Goliath with his sling shot when all the warriors of Israel could not defeat him?  Such a passionate lad to think he could defeat a man twice his size!  He was such a young boy compared to the other sons of Jesse, but God called him to be king and to lead God’s people.  David is a very passionate figure in the history of the Hebrew people, in the best and worst sense of the word. 

If we were to continue to read in Second Samuel we would meet him again in a much less desirable example of passion, when he commits adultery with Bathsheba and kills her husband Uriah.  Out of that sinful passion, tradition tells us that David writes a passionate psalm of repentance in which he cries to God to “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right^* spirit within me.” 

Yes, David is a man of passion and of spirit who just like any of us encounters and defeats our daily Goliaths, sins our daily sins, asks our God for forgiveness, and lives with a renewed spirit of grace and trust.  And here we see David in unbridled passionate joy, rejoicing in song and dance, in praise and worship to his God whose steadfast love has followed him all the days of his life to this point as the people’s King.  He rejoices for the glorious return of the Ark that holds the tablets on which are inscribed the Ten Commandments, the same commandments that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai when the Exodus people wandered in the desert.  This Ark, this container for those tablets, has accompanied the people over the years on their journey to the Promised Land and as they settled in the land of Cana.  The Ark had been captured by the Philistines and has just been returned because the Philistines feared the power of God in this Ark. To the people, to David as representative of the people, this Ark is an awesome and visible symbol of God’s magnificent, steadfast presence.  And now, for the first time in their history, the Ark of the Covenant is to have a permanent home in Jerusalem.  And he and they cannot keep from praising God with all that is within them. 

The Scripture tells us “David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the LORD with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.” Perhaps this picture illustrates the quote from the second century theologian Iranaeus “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”  As we witness the unabandoned praise and joy of David and the people, we witness people fully alive. David and the people used all of their being in oneness with God to praise and to worship, beyond thoughts, beyond words.  Frederick Buechner, Presbyterian author of Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who, describes David's dance with God: with these words "'How they cut loose together, David and God, 'whirling around before the ark in such a passion that they caught fire from each other and blazed up in a single flame' of magnificence.” 

             Compared to folks in the ancient world, we of the post modern western culture have certainly tamed God, as Kate Huey suggests.  Through scientific and technological advancement we have come to understand the workings of the world in ways that the ancients would have seen as only possible through the miraculous and mysterious control of their awesome Creator.  Through scientific and technological advancement we have come to understand the intricate workings of the human body, have become self conscious in ways that separate us from our original oneness with God our creator.

But do we ever stop to think that our universe holds together and does not spin out of control because the same awesome Creator is in charge of the universe?  Do we stop long to take in the creation around us, right here, in green mountain Vermont, placed into being by our mysterious, awesome creator? Do we ever stop to think that our hearts beat because of the breath that God has breathed into us, not because we are plugged into a wall outlet or into the USB port of a computer?  In Isaiah 55 we read, “For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”  Can we imagine these green mountains all around us singing and the trees adorning their slopes clapping their hands as we pass by?  If we could imagine that, how might we respond?

During the Sumatran Tsunami of 2004 a strange and wonderful event took place.  Shortly after that disaster, I read an article in the Boston Globe about the native people of a small island in the Indian Ocean.  None of these people died from the Tsunami despite its wreaking havoc on the island.  Why?  Because these people are so very close to the creation, so very much in tune with the sounds, sights, and vibrations of God’s creation, that they predicted the tsunami well before it struck; and they were able to seek shelter on higher ground in more than enough time.  They noticed the flight of the birds and the path of the animals.  They felt the ground under their feet.  They looked out onto the waters long before the telltale low tide announced the tidal wave.  They are a primitive culture, untouched by technology and scientific methods.  They were not saved by these methods because they did not have them, and if they did have these methods, they would have done them no good.  They were saved because they live very close, intimately close to God’s creation.  They used their bodies in oneness with God to predict and to avoid harm.

             Are we that different from our ancestors in faith?  Are we that different from the natives on that island in the Indian Ocean?  By millennia and by miles perhaps.  By experience and by culture indeed.  By sophistication and by scientific knowledge no doubt.  And yet, and yet, we are so much alike:  created by our marvelous and awesome God; the same God who created the deserts of Israel, the islands of the south Pacific, the green mountains of Vermont; the same God who created in the hearts of Israelites and native islanders, and in our hearts, the deep desire to praise and worship our Creator who blesses us each and every day; the same God with whom David and the people cut loose with abandon in praise and in thanksgiving.

             The next two Sundays you will have the wonderful opportunity to sing a lot during worship; to sing God’s praises, to sing in thanksgiving to our Creator.  Next Sunday during the sermon time Shaun will lead you in a hymn sing, asking for favorites from either hymnal.  I encourage you to think this week about your favorite hymns, and to be ready to call them out when the opportunity arises.  The Sunday after that during the sermon time, Shaun will lead you in praise and worship music.  My prayer is that your hearts will be warmed and your spirits uplifted.  And, if you decide to lift your hands and arms in praise, if you decide to give a little dance as you sit or stand in your pew, may God be praised even more, may you know even more the joy of worshipping our magnificent and awesome Creator.

Unlikely Messengers

Mark 6:1-13

July 5, 2009

 

 

 

Jesus returns to his hometown.  How long has he been away?  These folks knew him as a child growing up, as an apprentice to his father’s carpentry trade.  And as far as we know, he stayed in Nazareth until he began his ministry at about 30 years of age.  Had they heard of the miracles?  More than likely.  News travels fast in small towns.  And Nazareth had not more than 150 residents, the size of a small congregation.

             But Jesus does not come home to perform miracles.  Jesus comes home to preach and to teach; to bring to his neighbors, family and friends the good news of God’s love for them, of God’s message that they love one another and all people with an even hand:  the outcast, the enemy, the widow, the poor.  And it stops them in their tracks. This hometown boy is preaching to them, is teaching them, is interpreting Scripture from the Torah on a Sabbath morning. 

But somehow what he is saying is different from what they are accustomed to hearing.  It is filled with wisdom and authority.  How unlikely.  This is just Jesus, Mary’s son, and his brothers and sisters are right here.  How unlikely.  Wisdom coming from the carpenter’s boy.  How very unlikely.  They say, “where did he get such wisdom?”    And, they claim, “what deeds of power he does.”

             How unlikely.  It certainly is not possible to deny his gifts.  But they’re having one tough time reconciling that this hometown boy has such gifts; that this hometown boy has such wisdom for even them, has Godly teaching even for them, has the power to move them and to challenge them to change their lives for God’s ways and God’s purposes.  These good folks just can’t get their heads around this Jesus.  They see him and his message as unlikely, unlikely indeed.

             The scripture tells us Jesus is “amazed at their lack of faith.”  He apparently comes into town assuming that he would be received well by kinfolk and is shocked that they he is not.  And the scripture tells us that Jesus waxes philosophical.  He tells them that although prophets are commonly given great honor, they are not honored in their hometown.  That’s how he makes sense of their seeing him as just too unlikely to take seriously. 

             And maybe this unlikely messenger from God, sadly perhaps, philosophically perhaps, gains even more wisdom through this encounter.  Perhaps Jesus learns something about not being so quick to assume that those he knows best and those who have known him his whole life can grasp the juxtaposition of him and the gifts he exudes.  Perhaps he realizes that even the strongest expression of the love of God, even the deepest offering of the wisdom of God, even the deepest yearning of God, reaching out through the most sincere messenger through the most powerful message--can be stopped in its tracks when the person listening cannot imagine the messenger as credible.  Perhaps he is coming to realize that people’s biases and prejudices can curtail the will and work of God, as they see the messenger of God as so very unlikely. 

             And in the aftermath of that encounter Jesus commissions the disciples.  The scripture tells us “He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.”
             Is this commission a direct result of Jesus’ experience with his hometown folks?  He sends them to the countryside away from the town as he turns to the countryside as well.  But in sending them in this way, isn’t he sending them as unlikely messengers?  Who would possibly see them as credible--just simple folk with no sustaining provisions, claiming to have a message from God?

             But perhaps, the experience with his hometown folks also strengthens his awareness that God alone is the true messenger.  He sends them with only a staff--as a shepherd who cares for the sheep of God.  He sends them only with one set of clothes.  He sends them with no food.  He appears to be saying, perhaps, go, unlikely ministers of grace, go with God as your source, knowing that there will be those who receive you as God‘s messengers and welcome you with open arms of hospitality.  And there will be those who will see you as unlikely messengers and will turn you away.  And as they turn you away, they turn God away, unknowingly perhaps.  For you cannot convince people of your message from God if they see you as an unlikely messenger--anymore than I could in my hometown. 

             I wonder.  I wonder what word God has for us today around unlikely messengers in our midst.  In this church, our church, we desire to enrich our fellowship, we are committed to grow spiritually and to let folks out there know the loving ministry that we provide in here.  We are committed to provide loving ministries beyond our community of faith for all people with an even hand:  the outcast, the disadvantaged, the sick; to provide for the many needs of the least, the last, and the lost of Morrisville.  I wonder how much we realize that God sends us as Jesus sent his disciples.  I wonder who the messengers are that God sends to us, who grace our doors, and whom we meet every day in the comings and goings of our busy lives.

             Our lay leaders met with me last Saturday to begin a discussion about the beginning ministry relationship between all of you and me, your newly settled pastor.  We talked about what has worked and what has not worked with pastors in your rich past, and our hopes for vibrant, God-centered ministry into the future, as we partner together.  We talked about ways to include all members and friends in the holy discussion, to partake of everyone‘s wisdom, young and old, brand new and longstanding members and friends of this our beloved church.  We talked about how we can envision ourselves as messengers of God’s word and will as we live out our mission in this church, our church.

             How does this story of Jesus‘ being considered an unlikely messenger in his hometown relate to us who are seeking to be God’s messengers in our hometown?  How does this story of Jesus’ sending the disciples as unlikely messengers relate to us who are seeking to be Christ’s disciples?  Can we imagine that God is calling us to be very likely messengers of God’s love and wisdom? 

             How do we respond when God sends us newcomers in our midst who arrive at this church, our church for the first time with a message of God’s love and wisdom?  Can we imagine someone entering our doors whom we consider very unlikely to be a messenger of God, and can we imagine God opening our eyes and ears to consider that person as the most likely?  Can we imagine God using someone whom we consider least likely for the ministry of this church, our church? 

             We warmly welcome all those who come through our doors because we truly believe that God is in our hearts and in this place, and we have something blessed to offer.  Do we also desire to receive the God that is in the hearts of those we welcome?  To believe that they have something blessed to offer?  Love is love no matter who expresses it and who receives it.  Wisdom is wisdom no matter who speaks it and no matter who hears it.  And it comes in the most unlikely ways through the most unlikely people.  Can we open ourselves to truly believe that?

We may say that those who speak God’s love and wisdom are first the leaders of our church who have been elected by their brothers and sisters of this body of Christ and called by their God.  But the best leaders are those who are open to God’s voice from those they lead.  The best leaders are humble enough to be led by all they encounter. 

My friends, God is all around us speaking to us everyday, through one another, as we go about the busyness of our lives, through the least likely people, an offering of love here, a message of wisdom there, that we do not want to miss. 

             Let us consider that God has called all of us to be likely messengers, to one another and beyond these doors, beyond Sunday morning, onto the streets of Morrisville and beyond, just as the disciples were sent and went out, into the countryside, where the people live, providing ministry where ministry is most needed.  Let us consider that the ministry of God happens best when people hear that God is still speaking to them where they live, how they live, in their own situations.

             As we come to the communion table this morning, the table of Jesus Christ, let us each ask, “how is Jesus bidding me to listen to the most unlikely people in the most unlikely ways?  For God’s message of love and wisdom?”  Let us each ask, “how is Jesus bidding me, commissioning even me to go forth in my everyday life this week to bring the message of God’s love, to bring God’s wisdom to others where they live, how they live, in whatever their situation?”  Amen.

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