Gathering to be Sent

Sermon on Nehemiah 8 for the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

(Listen to the sermon here)

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Would you believe me if I told you all of our worship services are identical? Would you believe me if I told you that we have a specific pattern that we observe regardless of whether we do a traditional service or contemporary? Would you believe me that our 8:30 and 11am services are identical? Take a look at your bulletin, do they look the same?

Believe it or not, they are. I know, I know, some of you are saying, “Alright Pastor Andy, I might be deaf to your preaching, but I’m not blind! Clearly these orders of worship are not the same!”

But I invite you, pick up a red hymnal in the rack in front of you and turn to page two. The Basic Pattern of Worship. Our worship, regardless of the elements, always follows this pattern. Read along with me, out loud, the second sentence in red ink: “This order for proclaiming God’s word and celebrating the Lord’s Supper expresses the biblical, historical, and theological integrity of Christian worship. The several formats demonstrate its flexibility for different situations, but in its essentials it is one order.” One order, and notice it doesn’t say “United Methodist worship,” but rather “CHRISTIAN worship.” We join together with Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, The Reformed, Baptists, Catholics, countless other Christians, when we worship in this four-fold pattern.

We always begin with the ENTRANCE, where “the people come together in the Lord’s name. There may be greetings, music and song, prayer, and praise.”

We transition into the PROCLAMATION and RESPONSE, when “the Scriptures are opened to the people through the reading of lessons, preaching, witnessing, music, or other arts and media. Interspersed may be psalms, anthems, and hymns. Responses to God’s Word include acts of commitment and faith with offerings of concerns, prayers, gifts, and service for the world and for one another.”

As we have heard the Scriptures, read and proclaimed, we respond with THANKSGIVING, and most appropriately, with COMMUNION in which “the actions of Jesus in the Upper Room are reenacted: taking the bread and cup, giving thanks over the bread and cup, breaking the bread, and giving the bread and cup” again, that too is a four-fold pattern, taking, thanking, breaking, giving, the very pattern of Jesus’ life on earth. Taking (scooping hands to collect all of humanity), thanking (lifting cupped hands/humanity up to heaven), breaking (arms out to the sides as nailed to the cross), and giving (hands forward, palms up, invitational for all).

And finally we have the SENDING, “the people are sent into ministry with the Lord’s blessing.”

Looking at our reading from Nehemiah today we see this same four-fold pattern emerging. “All the people gathered together as one person before the Water Gate.” The people gathered together, and here the New Revised misses a key point, that NIV and others retain: “as one person,” not as a collective of individuals, not a bunch of people who wish to remain separate, but rather a group who wish to find their commonality, their identity in each other, people so involved with each other, that they are one. We hear echoes of God’s very being here. Trinity means three persons in perfect unity, perfect relationship, so tied up in the life of each other that they are inseparable. That is what worship does, it forms us back into the image of God that we were created in, but that is distorted by sin. When we gather, we seek to lay aside our human differences, and ask God to form us together. We just sang this – “Gather us in – the lost and forsaken, Gather us in – the blind and the lame, Gather us in – the rich and the haughty, gather us in the proud and the strong, gather us in – all peoples together.” God gathers us in the name of Jesus Christ to be formed, once again into that image of love, in our flesh and our bone.

The reading continues: “The people told the pastor Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, the Holy Scriptures, which the Lord had given. Ezra brought the law before the congregation, both men and women and all who could make sense of words (I take this to potentially mean children who are of speaking age), and Ezra read from the Scriptures from early morning until midday,” Early morning until mid-day. And you thought YOU had it bad with four Scripture readings and a fifteen minute sermon. Imagine listening for six hours as someone read Scripture out loud, but we read, “and all the people were attentive” or as Eugene Peterson writes, “They were all ears!” “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave sense, so that the people understood the reading, and all the people raised their hands and cried out, Amen! Amen! As Ezra blessed the Lord.” Interpretation and sense → that is, preaching. Ezra preached so that people could understand the Scriptures, and there were so many people, he had thirteen helpers working their way through the crowd, discussing these things, helping folks to understand. This is the second movement of the four-fold pattern of worship. We approach the holiness of God in the reading of Scripture and expounding on it through preaching, and if the preaching is done right, and I grant you that’s not always the case, but IF preaching is done well, then we walk away with a better understanding of God’s desires for us.

Now the next part of the text on first glance doesn’t seem to fit into our third movement of Thanksgiving and Communion – “Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest, and the thirteen Levites who were teaching said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the Law.” All the people wept when the heard the Scriptures read and preached. Alright, show of hands, any of you ever been bored to tears by a sermon? Ya, that’s what I thought, but clearly that’s not the case here, remember, “they were all ears.”

Other commentators speculate that the people had wandered so far from the law during the exile that they were heartbroken because they felt so convicted of their sins. And that may be true, I’ve had those times where I was so convicted, in such desperate need of God’s justifying grace to strengthen me to repent, to turn around, to begin the journey of following Christ once again, but I think there’s more than that going on here.

Let me tell you a story, in 2007, Kate and James and I (Angus wasn’t born quite yet) flew up to Alaska on vacation for a dear friend’s wedding. During our trip we were able to visit with so many people we had grown to love like family during our time living there. The day before we were to return home was Sunday, and so we planned to worship with two of our former congregations, Chugiak in the morning, and St. John in the evening. As we gathered for worship that Sunday morning, as we sat amongst fellow travelers on The Way, as we gathered together as one with the community we had once been a part of, Kate and I were both reduced to tears. We felt the power of the Holy Spirit connecting us with God and the gathered congregation in a powerful way. We had returned home, to our place in the family of God. We were overwhelmed with such emotion, with such a tremendous sense of thanksgiving and communion with our sisters and brothers. For a moment we were formed into that image of God, in perfect loving community.

And later that night at St. John, we kind of chuckled about how we had been blubbering idiots earlier that day, but wouldn’t you know it, during the second verse of the first hymn, we looked at each other once again, with tears streaming down our faces and laughed despite ourselves.

When we truly allow the Spirit to draw us together as one people, to overwhelm us with a sense of love, of belonging, of this is who I REALLY am, then the thanksgiving can pour forth from us in many ways, the least of which are tears.

But my friends, this is not the purpose of worship. God does not gather us together for our enjoyment, for our entertainment. God does not call us here, to this place so that we can have emotional roller coaster rides, and feel good about ourselves. No. The purpose of worship is to glorify God and enjoy God forever, but likewise, the purpose of worship is to empower us by grace with this sense of love, this sense of belonging, this sense of identity, that we are strengthened to go forth into MINISTRY to all the world.

You are a minister of the Gospel, not just James and I, but all of you are ministers of the Gospel, and we gather, read, proclaim, and give thanks so that we can go INTO the world to be the hands and feet of Christ, to be the love that this world so desperately needs. Ezra declared to the people: “Go! Eat the good food, enjoy the good drink, and share it with your neighbors, those who have nothing.” My friends, that is why we are here. We Gather, we read, we proclaim, and we give thanks so that we can be SENT into the world to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission: Go therefore, into the world, and make disciples of all peoples. As United Methodists our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, to allow God to gather us and shape us into the image of love, so that we can be poured out for all the world, in service and in love, so that God might transform the world, through us.

Are you with me? Are we together on this? Has God gathered us into one mind, so that we might go forth doing all the good we can by all the means we can in all the ways we can in all the places we can in all the times we can to all the people we can, as long as ever we can? By the grace of God, may it be so. Amen and Amen.

Health Kits for Haiti

My friend Billy had a dream. As a former police officer and tech-savy lumberjack, not to mention committed follower of Christ, he had a vision and a passion to see social-networking paired with disaster response. He spent the better part of two years trying to make this a reality through what some of us knew as 7-villages. The human condition being what it is, this vision descended into the abyss of (poor) theological discourse, rather than the intended ability to network like-minded people from vast distances to share resources in disaster response.

After a brief hiatus, he is at it again. He has initiated a Facebook “event” asking others to come together to put together health kits to be distributed by the United Methodist Committee on Relief, in the hopes that such an event would inspire others around the nation to do the same. Taking his cue, I too have begun such an “event.” The reason I put that in scare quotes is because I’m not organizing something that will happen in a specific location at a specific time, but rather asking others to work together as families, church-groups, or geographically co-located friends to put together kits. You can be a part of something much bigger than we can imagine if you are willing to do the following:

1) visit THIS WEBSITE and put together Health Kits to be distributed to the people of Haiti

2) invite others to join you in this effort

3) using facebook, twitter, email, or perhaps good old fashioned snail mail, to invite as many family and friends to do the same

Through the power of our social connections, we can make a HUGE impact beyond any of our wildest dreams, but it takes all of us to step out in faith and make a little effort together. Our little efforts combined can result in a synergistic outpouring of love and grace to the hurting people of Haiti. Won’t you join us?

To join our Facebook event, or to just copy and paste ours into creating your OWN event, visit us at:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/event.php?eid=266101946757&ref=mf

PS My friend Billy and I have never met. It is only through the power of social networking that we’ve had any kind of interaction. Do you see the potential here?

Why Preachers Must Preach the Psalms

Full disclosure: This is NOT a blog post, but rather a paper for seminary. Some have expressed interest in reading it, so I’m posting it here for those who are having trouble sleeping at night.

INTRODUCTION

Preachers seem to have a homiletical aversion to the psalms. “Not often does a Psalm serve as a text for a sermon, and the reasons for this omission are varied.”¹ Regardless of the reasons, it is my intent to show that the psalms are not only appropriate for preaching, but in many ways are ideal. I will show that historically, great preachers have embraced the psalms as homiletical fodder. Next, I will speak about the theological advantages of preaching from the Psalter. I will then show how preaching the psalms is excellent instruction in prayer. Penultimately, I will discuss how the psalms are uniquely suited to reaching a post-modern generation while simultaneously offering a corrective to our present day lack of connectedness (hyper-individualism) and consumerism. Lastly, I will show how the psalms have the intrinsic ability to reshape us into the Image Dei and subsequent disciples of Jesus Christ.

PREACHING HISTORICALLY

Preaching from the Psalms is a notion as old as the apostles themselves. In Acts 2, Peter’s sermon is “woven out of Old Testament quotations, most of which come from the Psalms.”² From Origen to Augustine³ to Jerome, from Luther, to Calvin, to Wesley⁴, from Spurgeon, to Bonhoeffer, to Niemoller, from Barth, to Tillich, to Brueggemann, theologians and preachers have consistently preached from the psalms throughout the ages⁵, “and when we preach them, we step into that tradition, mirroring the image Bernard of Chartres drew of medieval thinkers as “pygmies on the shoulders of giants.””⁶ In the great tradition of preaching, it is not only appropriate that we preach from the Psalter, but altogether necessary.

PREACHING THEOLOGICALLY

Psalms are within the canon of Scripture and “¹⁶ All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.”⁷ Indeed, not only are the Psalms part of the canon of Scripture, but Martin Luther wrote an introduction to the Psalter in which he calls it “a little Bible.”

Thomas Merton said that the Psalms “sum up the whole theology of the Old Testament,”⁸ I tend to agree with Dr. Rhoda Carpenter that the theology of the Old Testament can be summed up in one Hebrew word – חסד – hesed, translated as loving kindness, or steadfast love. Through the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31) we see that God’s love remains steadfast, even when the people Israel stray. Throughout the ages, God is a God of the covenant, of steadfast love that endures forever (Psalm 136). “In its final form, the Psalter has the coherence of catechism, instruction not only in prayer but in the one to whom we pray and the movements of that one in life and history.”⁹

Perhaps the most urgent need for preaching the psalms is the issue of theodicy, that is “A defense of God’s righteousness”¹⁰ or an explanation of the coexistence of a steadfastly loving God and the presence of evil in the world. One such example, “Ps 37 grapples with the issue of theodicy, i.e., why do the wicked prosper and the righteous experience adversity.” ¹¹

In the final analysis, we find that nowhere in Scripture, the Psalms included, do we find an answer to the question: “Where does evil come from?” And so, we must not speculate, but rather like the Psalmists, trust that despite the suffering and evil that we encounter, that God remains steadfastly with us, co-suffering with us. “God does not give cancer or strike people with AIDS or cause car accidents. A view that the good are rewarded and the wicked are punished is absurd to anyone with eyes and ears.”¹²

“If suffering should not be interpreted as divine punishment, then neither can prosperity be interpreted as divine reward. Or to put it theologically, only when the doctrine of retribution is destroyed does grace become a meaningful concept.”¹³ The Psalmists, time and again, wrestle with this notion that the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous seem to suffer. If the psalmists wrote like St. Paul, there would be a systematic denunciation of retributive theology.

The psalms also make a wonderful bridge for us between the ancient worshipping community of the ancient Israelites into the New Testament (not to mention tying us closer together with our modern day Jewish sisters and brothers which I’ll speak more of in the post-modern section).

We must remember that Jesus and the apostles were Jews, and so their understanding of the Kingdom was through that lens. Interestingly the most frequently quoted Old Testament passage is from Psalm 110:1¹⁴, “The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”” ¹⁵

This verse alone shows that the understanding of power, dýnamis¹⁶, is still shifting from force to steadfast love, even in the earliest followers. Up until the eve of his death, Jesus was trying to teach his followers that his real power came from servant love, and not forceful dominion (Matthew 26:52, John 18:36-37, Luke 22:49-51). Preaching the psalms is a necessity for us to preach faithfully to the apostolic faith.

TEACHING PRAYER

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”¹⁷ “The phrase ‘learning to pray’ sounds strange to us. If the heart does not overflow and begin to pray by itself, we say, it will never ‘learn’ to pray. But it is a dangerous error, surely very widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself. For then we confuse wishes, hopes, sighs, laments, rejoicings – all of which the heart can do by itself – with prayer. Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him [sic], whether the heart is full or empty.”¹⁸

“Prayer, connecting with God, is never quick and easy. It’s like learning a foreign language.”¹⁹ Bonhoeffer continues with this description of learning a language. “The child learns to speak because his father [sic] speaks to him. He learns the speech of his father. So we learn to speak to God because God has spoken to us and speaks to us. By means of the speech of the Father in heaven his children learn to speak with him. Repeating God’s own words after him, we begin to pray to him. We ought to speak to God and he wants to hear us, not in the false and confused speech of our heart, but in the clear and pure speech which God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ. God’s speech in Jesus Christ meets us in the Holy Scriptures. If we wish to pray with confidence and gladness, then the words of Holy Scripture will have to be the solid basis of our prayer. For here we know that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, teaches us to pray. The words which come from God become, then, the steps on which we find our way to God.”²⁰

Indeed, as Eugene Peterson affirms, “What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God. The Psalms show us how to answer.”²¹ From a Wesleyan theological basis, this is a beautiful fit into the doctrine of Prevenient Grace, “the divine love that surrounds all humanity and precedes any and all of our conscious impulses. This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God’s will, and our “first slight transient conviction” of having sinned against God.”²² In this frame, all that we do is a response, an answer to God, and what better language to use to answer God, than the language with which God chose to speak to us, the language of Holy Scripture in the Psalms?

“Prayer is like that, like a muscle. It requires use, discipline.”²³ The psalms are where we enter into this discipline alongside the faithful cloud of witnesses in order to shape our prayers “into an adequate answer to God’s word.”²⁴ Preaching the Psalms is requisite to teaching our charges how to pray.

ADDRESSING POSTMODERNISM

Media: music, movies, art. Our young people are immersed in artistic expressions in ways never before known. “It fills their eyes and ears through screens, speakers, headphones, and more. It’s media, means or instrumentality for storing, communicating, and widely disseminating information to the public – including teenagers. And as quickly as media’s ever-expanding technologies, outlets, and content continue to grow, our kids gobble it up with a passion. Do teenager’s love their media? You better believe it! Just try taking it away from them sometime. You’re bound to have a fight on your hands.”²⁵

Our postmodern generation lives by the language of media. They speak and think in movie quotes and song lyrics. The psalms are the media language of an age gone by, embracing metaphor and rhyme, rhythm and humor, imagery and passion, addressing real emotions and issues. What better part of Scripture to reach a generation so shaped by the language of media, than the Psalms? “The Psalter exhibits a wealth of images, metaphors, figures; and they appeal not primarily to our rationality, but to our imagination.”²⁶

“The fantastic images in the Psalms are not merely vehicles to say better what we already know and feel. An image may instead evoke some inner plight that had not previously been noticed; the image then works like an archaeologist, poking, digging about, brushing away layers of dirt accumulated over time until – well look! A broken pot. If we can find the shards scattered about and piece it all back together it is a beautiful pot.”²⁷ This process is one by which the Holy Spirit can work, if we allow.

“The sermon that enters into a metaphor or an image does not proceed finally by random association. Each image, as Scriptural, does a different kind of work on a listener. Each image explodes into recognition, dismantling the way we had previously imagined the world to be, surprising us, evoking much that is deep, burrowing out a passageway to a new world. For the Psalter’s images are pregnant with hope.”²⁸

Such imagery leads to a more inductive type of sermon, one that illicits more images and ideas, coaxing the Holy Spirit to work amidst the words. “Inductive sermons have a special appeal to inhabitants of a culture dominated by television and motion pictures. We have become a storied culture. Whether it is a mystery drama, a comedy, or even a sports contest, there is a large element of induction. The drama isn’t solved until the end of the last act, and the joke leads up to the punch line, and the sports event moves toward the final score. Inductive sermons fit that way of thinking.”²⁹ The Psalms themselves are inductive, often feeling unresolved until the final verse. Psalms are ideal material for inductive sermons, speaking to our postmoderns in a fashion they can hear.

The language we find in the Psalms is also important when dealing with a postmodern audience. As Jonathan Wilson argues, language is also more than just its reference as modernity suggests, but rather the meaning of language is found in the ways the community uses the language. Language cannot be divorced from practice without doing violence to the intent of the communicator. Language is not just a tool for personal expression, but actually shapes and forms our worldview. Language and culture combined with practice, has deep influences on what we believe and hold dear.³⁰

Because of this, how we engage language can be helpful in building community, and likewise, hurtful. Do we choose to fill our minds with images and language of destruction, or hope? That is where the language of the Psalms can be a powerful antidote and needed correction to the language that we are constantly inundated with by media. “The ways [in which] we speak and think is conditioned by the particular language in which we dwell.”³¹

“The images we find in the Psalms not only shape but even limit where our imaginations go… there must be some boundaries.”³² If the media of our culture were to have its way with us, which I fear it does more often then not, then we are subjected to a constant barrage of advertising which tries to convince us that we can purchase our way to salvation, that our deepest longings for fulfillment can be found through consumerism, rather than community. Halford Luccock hears “a cry from the dungeon of our animal inheritance,” that “we are dungeoned by possessions, smothered by a clutter of merchandise, the life flattened out by the accumulative instinct of selfishness. The prison house of selfishness is the common jail of mankind [sic], caging men in the little cell of personal advantage.”³³

This consumerist mindset actually alienates us from others, making us supposedly self-sufficient entities unto ourselves. Postmoderns value community, they value the stories of others, which leads to a very ecumenical spirit among our young people, seeking closer ties with not only other denominations, but peoples of other faith traditions who also seek love, and peace, and social justice for all. The Psalms are a shared language with all other Christian traditions, as well as our Jewish sisters and brothers.

Unlike previous generations, postmoderns are less concerned with talking heads espousing absolute truths but rather, they place the stories of others in the highest echelons of value. “Post modernity teaches that linearity is but one of many narratives that could be told about a given event. In fact, postmoderns prefer that more than one narrative be told, recognizing that one systematic telling is selective and open to distortion. It is not that postmodern people do not want truth per se, but whose truth? Often the one proposing, or more often imposing, “truth” is a person in power. Why trust that person? Instead, a better way to truth, in their view, is to hear the many stories and to discern accordingly, within the context of community.”³⁴ They are naturally seeking the type of community that the Psalms were written and prayed and used for worship in.

“The Psalms are dialogical. Few Psalms are monologues; most capture both sides of a conversation. Hurt, anxiety, and confession are articulated – but there is an answer, the answer of faith, the surprise of God’s graciousness, the ray of home.”³⁵

The Psalms help us address this hyper-individualism, and allow us to engage others in dialogue, even if we do not know the other. “The Psalms, if preached well, can draw us out of our own corner of suffering into an awareness of the broader suffering of others… We pray not just for them but with them. Because of the nature of Scripture, and of the church, we unwittingly stumble into a solidarity with them.”³⁶ When we fully engage the psalms in preaching, the inevitable question is, ““Who else is in despair?” Simply posing the question has some curative effect.”³⁷ As a culture who suffers from emptiness due to overconsumption and lack of authentic community, ironically the cure to our own despair may be found in placing ourselves amidst and in the suffering of others, in not being alone, absorbed in poor me and mine.³⁸

RESHAPING US

So how does preaching the Psalms create the potential for reshaping us into that Image Dei, that image of God in which we were so lovingly created? First and foremost, God is triune, that is three persons in one perfect unity, one perfect relationship. We are created for relationship. “The Psalms can help us to realize that our loss of “social connectedness” our failure to care for each other, is inextricably linked to our pervasive tendency to avoid suffering at all cost.”³⁹

In the west, we are culturally trained to avoid or deny suffering, and if both fail, “then at least go out and buy something to make yourself feel better.”⁴⁰ Suffering is to be eschewed in present day America, but is that the faithful Christian approach to suffering? Is that the way of the cross, the way Jesus Christ, God made flesh, modeled for us?

“To explore the mire at some length is not faithless! If the Psalms teach us anything, it is that we have license to hurt, to doubt, to scream in agony, as did the Psalmists, as did Job, as did Jeremiah, as did Jesus himself, who did not hurry to a serene faith on the cross, but drew upon a Psalm to voice the worst dereliction imaginable.”⁴¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?⁴²

As preachers, “we face the herculean task of helping our listeners to understand that happiness is not incompatible with suffering.”⁴³ In the beatitudes, “those whom Jesus pronounced “happy” are precisely those who regularly are identified as the pray-ers of the Psalms of lament: the humble, the meek, the poor, the needy, and the persecuted.”⁴⁴ This notion leads us back to the issue of theodicy discussed above. The Psalms rightly correct the heretical notion of the prosperity-gospel which is simply an upside-down retributive-theology cake with icing.

The righteous and just will suffer in this life, but we do not draw our hope from lack of suffering, but rather from the One who showed that God can and does bring about new life despite pain, and suffering, and evil. “Contentment, security, happiness are all possible, not merely after or beyond suffering, but in the very throes of suffering.”⁴⁵

As I write this paper, it is one week since the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. Amidst the excruciating devastation and destruction in the western hemisphere’s most poverty stricken nation, those who suffer daily, the news reports are filled with a people who have taken to the streets, singing praises to God’s name, worshipping and calling forth in the language of the Psalms, asking for divine deliverance, praising God for God’s steadfast love, even in the face of all aridity and disenchantment!

The Psalms have the power to transform us into the image in which we were first formed, the image of God Almighty. When we preach the Psalms, we proclaim the necessity to give thanks even when we don’t feel especially thankful. We proclaim the necessity to ask for forgiveness, so that we might be empowered by grace to forgive. We proclaim the necessity to praise God for wondrous are God’s works, and who are we that God would be mindful of us⁴⁶?

To preach the Psalms is to refute the tendency to become slaves to our own whims and feelings. To preach the Psalms is to enter into our created purpose according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, To Praise God and enjoy God forever. Praise is simply “an attempt to cope with the abundance of God’s love.”⁴⁷ “To cry out to God and in God’s name, is the first and necessary step out of inertia, toward change, and end to apathy. Augustine’s famous saying is pertinent here: “Hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, courage to see to it they do not remain as they are.”⁴⁸

Preaching the Psalms leads us into inevitable change, radical transformation of ourselves by the power of grace into the people of the Kingdom, proclaiming in word and deed that indeed the Kingdom has come on earth, as it is in heaven. Preaching the Psalms is faithful stewardship of the kerygma for “making disciples of Jesus Christ, for the transformation of the world.”⁴⁹ Go, preach the Psalms, and declare the Kingdom of God!

1J. Clinton Mcann Jr. and James C. Howell, Preaching the Psalms, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), 15.

2Mcann & Howell, 26.

3http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.toc.html

4John Wesley, Sermons, on Several Occasions, ( Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1999).

5Mcann & Howell, 19.

6McCann & Howell, 32.

7The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version, ( Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), 2 Ti 3:16.

8Thomas Merton, Bread in the Wilderness, (New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997), 3.

9McCann & Howell, 35.

10Roy B. Zuck, A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, (electronic ed.; Chicago: Moody Press, 1994; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996), 246.

11James E. Smith, The Wisdom Literature and Psalms, ( Joplin, Mo.: College Press Pub. Co., 1996).

12McCann & Howell, 81.

13Ibid, 112.

14Ibid, 39

15The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version, ( Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ps 110:1.

16Gerhard Kittel et al., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ( Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1995, c1985), 186.

17The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version, ( Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ro 8:26.

18Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1970), 9-10.

19McCann & Howell, 67.

20Bonhoeffer, 11-12.

21Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, (New York: Harper Collins, 1989), 6.

22Harriett Jane Olson, ed., The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church 2004, (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2004), ¶ 101.

23McCann & Howell, 67.

24Hans Ur von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), 1: 218.

25Walt Mueller, Youth Culture 101, (Grand Rapids: Youth Specialties, 2007), 78.

26McCann & Howell, 54.

27Ibid, 55.

28Ibid, 63.

29Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages 2^nd ed, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 129.

30Wilson, Jonathan. “Toward a New Evangelical Paradigm of Biblical Authority” in The nature of confession: evangelicals & postliberals in conversation, Edited by A. Lindbeck, Timothy Ross Phillips, Dennis L. Okholm (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1996), 156.

31Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 12.

32McCann & Howell, 60.

33Halford Luccock Treasury, ed. Robert E. Luccock (New York: Abingdon Press, 1963), p 58.

34Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 68.

35McCann & Howell, 74.

36Ibid, 59.

37Ibid, p58.

38Ibid, p 60.

39Ibid, p109.

40McCann & Howell, 105.

41Ibid, p77.

42The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version, ( Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ps 22:1.

43McCann & Howell, 105.

44Ibid, 112.

45Ibid, 106.

46 The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version, ( Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ps 8:4.

47Daniel Hardy and David Ford, Praising and Knowing God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), p 1.

48McCann & Howell, 65.

49Olson, ¶120.

Psalm 13 & Haiti

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget us for ever? How long will you hide your face from us?”

For decades Haiti has struggled with second and third class citizenship in the world. Just miles from affluenza, why is it not contagious? Why can we not contract just a little bit of the disease of superfluous abundance that plagues our neighbors to the north?

“How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?”

The hours pass, the days inch by, the help trickles in. Years of corruption, years of thievery from our own government, stealing the bread from our children’s mouths. Years of the nation’s peoples sitting idly by and letting them! How long will you allow them to continue, O Lord?

“Look upon me and answer me, O Lord! My God, give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death.”

The stench of death is all around me, I cannot flee from its presence. Where e’er my eyes shall wander, I am swallowed up by it’s darkness! Answer me O Lord, with your light and love!

“Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him, and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.”

The aid is coming now, but it will soon fall away, leaving us no better than we were, just as it has time and time again. The enemy perpetuates the cycle. The system gives you just enough to make you think that you see change, but they will sing you right to sleep and then screw you just the same…

“But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help. I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.”

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2010/01/15/watson.haitians.march.cnn

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Let your justice reign down on this people who have never known justice, and yet worship you even in the face of death and destruction. Move us from our apathy, and put us to work, seeking your justice for and with the people of Haiti. May it be so dear Lord. May it be so

“God’s Plan”

So I was doing my normal RSS reading this evening and came across THIS ARTICLE in the Anchorage Daily News (I know, I know, I’ve lived in South Dakota for almost five years now, and I STILL do a better job of keeping up with Alaska news than South Dakota news…)

The second paragraph is what REALLY grabbed my attention:

“In an interview with the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes,” Steve Schmidt described Palin as “very calm — nonplussed” after McCain met with her at his Arizona ranch just before putting her on the Republican ticket. McCain had planned to name Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., as his vice presidential choice until word leaked, sparking what Schmidt called political blowback over picking the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee.”

WOW! Lieberman? Really? This was news to me. I had never heard about other possible running mates for McCain other than Gov. Tim Pawlenty from our good neighbors to the east. In the 2000 primaries, I was all set to vote for McCain, a man who seemed to speak his mind, who wasn’t afraid to buck the party big-wigs.  I read the snippet above to Kate and said, “Man, if McCain had picked Lieberman, he would have won! He would have drawn all the centrist and blue dog democrats…”

And then I thought, “Hmm… What if it really was God’s plan that McCain should pick Palin…”

naaah…

What is Baptism?

Sermon on “Baptism of the Lord Sunday”

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Today we celebrate the Christian Feast – The Baptism of the Lord. This is the day in the liturgical church calendar when we remember Jesus coming to the River Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John the Baptizer (to the chagrin of the folks down the street, John was a baptizer, not a baptist.)

I thought today would be a good day to explore our United Methodist understanding of what baptism is. First, Holy Baptism is one of only two sacraments in the United Methodist Church: Baptism is the first. Anyone know the other? That’s right, the Lord’s Supper, or communion.

In our reading from Acts today, everyone has already been baptized when Peter and John come along, but the people had not yet received the Holy Spirit. We see from this that Baptism is NOT some magical incantation that imparts the Spirit of God on an individual. If we keep reading in the book of Acts, in chapter 10 we read of another case of when the Spirit had fallen upon the people BEFORE they were baptized. We have clear biblical accounts of God’s Spirit doing what He will, not beholden to human acts.

Baptism then is not about what we do or choose, but rather it is ALL about what God does and what God chooses. God is already at work in people’s lives long before baptism, and baptism is simply a response to God’s love and Grace. Please notice, I said it is a RESPONSE to God’s grace. As is stated at the beginning of the Baptismal liturgy, “through the Sacrament of Baptism we are initiated into Christ’s Holy Church.” Each time we as a congregation affirm this covenant to nurture one another in the Christian faith and life, including the newly baptized in our care, we are promising to surround her or him with a community of love and forgiveness. Baptism is about covenant. A covenant with God, and a covenant with our neighbors.

So, who is eligible for baptism within the United Methodist Church? Just as Peter and John discovered in Acts, everyone. Simply put, it is an act of personal commitment, as I said, a response of love to God’s grace bestowed upon us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now some might say, “Infants can’t respond!” and they may be correct, but if you remember, it’s not about us, it’s not about our choices, it’s about acknowledging what God has already done for us. God has already bestowed grace and love, even upon infant children. This is called Prevenient Grace, perhaps one of the most fundamental tenets of our United Methodist understanding of salvation. Prevenient grace is that grace which comes before even our first conscious thought, so grace is with us before we are even born.

Infant baptism is celebrated in the oldest of Christian traditions: Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Anglican Church… Our practice of infant baptism is firmly rooted in conservative tradition. When we baptize infants, parents and sponsors and members of the entire congregation take vows on the infant’s behalf to raise the child in Christian Love, teaching them the ways of the faith. It is our way of welcoming a new child of God into the family of God, of extending the covenant.

Now there is a particular piece of Scripture that is a poignant example of why we continue the tradition of infant baptism. In Mark, Jesus rebukes the Disciples for trying to shoo the children who are crowding around Jesus. Jesus’ response is sharp and immediate, “Let the little children come to me, do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs.” If we refused to offer the sacraments, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion, we would be impeding our children from drawing closer to God through the acts ordained by Christ himself. Because of this, we baptize infants and allow children of any age to take Holy Communion.

Now when an infant is baptized, and is raised in the faith, they become full professing members only upon confirmation, a study and discernment process that is anywhere from 1-3 years, typically in the Jr. High to younger High School years. It is during a service of Confirmation, that baptized members are received as full Professing Members of the church.

We don’t baptize JUST infants and children. We baptize ALL individuals who have found faith in Christ Jesus. We will baptize in any of the three modes, sprinkling, pouring, or full immersion. You have your choice. Typically you don’t see full immersion with infants… We only recognize ONE baptism and we will not rebaptize, as is common in anabaptist traditions (anabaptist literally means to baptize again.) In the United Methodist Church, we recognize all Christian baptisms. I was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. I know many of you seated here today were also baptized Roman Catholic, some Lutheran, some Presbyterian. Yes, we even recognize Baptist baptisms. (I THINK I’m allowed to make that joke since I attended a Baptist seminary…)

Okay, back to Prevenient Grace again. We, affirm the biblical notion that we are saved by grace through faith. Because of this, we believe that God’s prevenient grace is sufficient for the salvation of a child who meets an untimely death. We are not saved by our baptism, but rather we are saved by God’s grace, and as United Methodists we affirm that God’s prevenient grace is sufficient for the salvation of a child.

But what about the rest of us? Why is it important that we understand baptism? Why should we take time to reflect on this? Because – we made a promise. Time and again, every time someone is baptized in this church, we have made a promise. Baptism is not just about the individual. Say that with me, “Baptism is not just about the individual.” Good say it again, “Baptism is not just about the individual.” GOOD! Now say it like you mean it! “Baptism is not just about the individual.” That’s right!

It’s first and foremost about God, and God’s grace. But it is also about community. Baptism is about grace, and it is about community. Whenever we baptize someone, whenever we incorporate them into the faith community, we are all participants, we all partake in the holy Sacrament, and we all enter into the covenant once again, to do all within our power to raise this person in the faith, to teach and admonish, to perfect them in love. Very specifically, we promise to support the ministries of the church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness.

We promise that we will be a people who prays, for the newly baptized, for the members of the church, for the pastor and congregants, for those who are not yet in the church.

We promise that we will be a people who are present. We promise to show up. We promise that we will make public worship and our faith development a high priority, and that we will be here, every week.

We promise that we will give financially, faithfully working toward giving at least a full 10% of our annual income to the work of Christ.

We promise that we will be engaged in Christian service. We promise to answer the call to teach Sunday School, to serve on a church committee, to serve at the Love Feast, and sit with and share a meal with our guests. We promise to serve humbly and lovingly, all whom we encounter, especially those we do not like, asking God to help us to grow in love.

We promise that we will testify to the truth of God’s love through our witness. We promise that we will be mindful that we are ALWAYS ambassadors for Christ, and that all that we say and do will make an impression on others, potentially drawing them closer to Christ and the church or driving them away. We promise we will be evangelical, inviting others into The Way that leads to life, inviting others to worship, and ready to speak about God’s love whenever the opportunity presents itself.. As it is written in 1 Peter 3, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”

That’s a pretty huge set of promises eh? Prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. So how have you been doing on all of those? Not so good? Following Christ is not easy, and it is costly. Pick one of the five to focus on this month, prayers, presence, gifts, service, or witness, and I’ll follow up with you on the others in coming months, but for now, for January, for a REAL New Year’s resolution, work on the piece that you are falling the shortest on. Maybe you didn’t fill out a pledge card and you need to step up to the plate in your financial giving. Maybe you don’t ever speak about your faith, and drive around town cutting people off, flipping others the bird with a “honk if you love Jesus” bumper sticker, and so you need to work on your witness. Maybe you haven’t been real regular in your attendance for church or Sunday School (and yes adults, you haven’t learned all there is yet, if you’re not teaching, are you attending an adult Sunday School class)? Take just a moment and decide, which one are you going to work on for January? Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service, Witness. *pause*

Today, we will again reaffirm our faith through the words of the baptismal covenant. This is NOT a rebaptism, but from time to time it is appropriate for us to remember our baptism, and be thankful. Let us turn to page 50 in the red hymnals as we remember God’s grace in our lives and give thanks.

Vacation – Count your blessings

So we traveled south to see some dear friends – Al and Judy Kline (whom we named our older son after) and Lance and Cheryl Clark (friends from my time at the University of Alaska). We THOUGHT it would be a great idea to go to Texas in January to get some warmer weather, you know like 60s and 70s F, but THEN we saw the weather forecast after we arrived!

Wx for Dallas

Just when we started whining about the cold temps in Texas we looked at the weather back home in South Dakota:

Wx in Mitchell

A lesson learned: Count your blessings, EVERY ONE. Life can always be worse. Strangely, or maybe not so much so, after this little comparison, we thought it felt pretty nice outside in the sunshine today as we saw where Kennedy was shot, and the boys played on the statues of the long-horn cattle drive by the convention center.

More posts to follow (when I feel like it, afterall, I’m on vacation!)

Food, Inc. – part two

As mentioned in my previous post Kate and I spent our New Year’s eve watching the documentary Food, Inc. It seems this movie has persisted to pervade my pensivity.

There is another ramification to the industrialization of food production, one that should speak straight into the hearts of Christ-followers. Our nation’s current food production practices are not congruent with our notion of Trinity. Now I’m sure some of you are thinking, “What is he talking about!?!? Andy must be still sleep deprvied from the U.M.Y.F. lock-in at the church this week!”

The Trinity is arguably the central tenet of Christian theology – not United Methodist theology, not Protestant theology, but CHRISTIAN theology. Upon the doctrine of the Trinity hang all other Christian doctrines as Geoffrey Wainwright from Duke Divinity School might say. But what does the doctrine of the Trinity actually teach us?

Well, for starters, Trinity implies relationship – Three Persons – Co-eternal – Co-creative – Co-redeeming – One God. These three live in such perfect, loving unity, perfect RELATIONSHIP that in essence the Three are One. It is a mystery. But what is not a mystery, is that humans are built in this image. “So God created humankind​​ in God’s image,
in the image of God, they were created, male and female God created them.” ~Genesis 1:27

We too, are built for relationship. When the raising and processing and distribution of food is industrialized, we lose all relationship with these people. We no longer know the folks who are growing our food, and so we don’t care if farmer’s get paid a living wage, because we don’t know them. We no longer have relationship with the producers, and so we want rock bottom prices, because all we can see is that we can’t afford that newer car, or extravagant vacation, or our kids’ college tuition – rather than the farmer whose kid won’t eat today because they can’t afford it.

We no longer know the people growing and transporting and marketing our food, and so we no longer can trust, without a doubt, the quality and integrity of their methods. What’s in the food we eat every day??? How many hormones, or antibiotics, or antimycotics are we ingesting everyday? We have no idea, because the CEOs of big conglomerates don’t have relationship with the consumers, and so decision making isn’t about what’s best for the consumers. For the corporate execs. it’s simply about making sound business choices, and in a market driven economy, what drives corporate decisions is stock-holder opinion (yes, you and me – through our retirement and investment accounts) – ie: profit.

If we purchase locally, we can get to know where our food comes from. I have no doubt that if I asked to come and see the operation of any of our local farmers from whom we get our food, they would GLADLY oblige. If we build relationship with those people who produce our food, we will soon care if they have enough to eat, or if they can keep their house, or send their kids to school. If we build relationship, then we have no choice but to live into Christ’s teaching of the Greatest commandments, loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

What can we do to re-establish relationship with those who produce our foods? I’m all ears for any suggestions you might have…

Food, Inc.

Kate and I spent our New Year’s Eve watching a Netflix movie, Food, Inc.

While there was clearly some propaganda involved (ie: oil refineries photo-shopped in the background of five combine harvesters abreast in a field), the movie gave me quite a bit to think about. Kate has convinced me (long before viewing this movie) that purchasing locally produced foods is a much more responsible way to feed our family. Local producers earn a living wage, we know where our food comes from, money and fossil fuels are not spent shipping our food vast distances, increased quality (and if you don’t believe me, buy a tomato in January in South Dakota and tell me what it tastes like…)

One major epiphany I had during the movie was about the role Wal-Mart plays in this. Kate and I have for many years refused to shop at Wal-mart, except in rare instances (that usually result in weeks of remorse). But in the movie, I heard something like, “every item that passes a scanner is a vote for what consumers want.” What if our family still shopped at the local Hutterite market for all of our poultry and meat needs? What if our family still shopped at the locally owned supermarket (County Fair) for our major portions of groceries? But what if our family made it a point to go into Wal-Mart once a week, or once a month to purchase socially responsible foods, foods that are produced organically, or fairly traded? Wal-mart has the buying power to effect change in local AND global markets, just like McDonald’s and other fast food chains have affected the way food is now produced in this nation.

If we let Wal-mart know, through our consumer dollars, that we want food and other consumables that are healthy, not just for us, but all of global society and God’s creation, then change will happen. We can change the world, IF we choose to spend our money in ways that lead to health rather than demanding rock bottom prices, because the long-term cost is just too darn high…

Watch the movie for yourself and see what you think. It’s currently viewable on Netflix as “watch instantly” or you can surely get it at your local DVD rental store.

Theology Quiz

Found this theology quiz over at Wesley Report and thought I’d give it a go. I’d encourage you to give it a shot and see what you think.

Results seem pretty accurate to me:

You Scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God’s grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

93%

Neo orthodox

86%

Emergent/Postmodern

75%

Roman Catholic

71%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

54%

Classical Liberal

32%

Modern Liberal

32%

Reformed Evangelical

29%

Fundamentalist

14%