5.5.24 "New Song, Old Song" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Psalm 98; John 15.9-17

In the beginning, 

God created the heavens and the earth … 

the earth was a formless void 

darkness covered the face of the deep …

Then God said, Let there be light,

and there was light.

Today is a day filled with light … 

For a few moments in our busy lives, we pay attention, to the divine, to the miraculous, to the glory … we stop, we look, we listen.

We stop what we’ve been doing all week long …  

We look upward to the heavens …

We listen … for the sounds of God.

Today:

We welcome Confirmands into the life of the church.

Our Confirmands covered a lot of territory - good questions, deep thoughts, social concerns … we touched upon some mighty big issues - racism, bullying, science and religion, faith and doubt, and influencers, too …

The church is in good hands with these young people … 

Our Confirmands bring life to us from their perspective.

Life and love as they see it, live it, and dream it … 

they will change the church.

as every generation changes the church … 

this is never your grandfather’s church … 

God is always and forever the creator of a new song.

Sing to the LORD a new song, writes the Psalmist.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in your shoe.

We sing old songs, too … from Genesis to Revelations, Moses and the Prophets … ancient creeds … great stories of faith … theologians and missionaries of the past.

There are dangers here:

Churches get stuck in the past … and never find the future.

A humorist put it this way:

If the 50s every return, we ready for ‘em.

But the 50s never return, nor the 80s or the 90s, or the early aughts … no, never to return …

As the Kingston Trio put it:

Did he ever return?
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn'd
He may ride forever
'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.

A new song to sing.

A new church emerging.

Calendar pages turned.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in your shoe.

With a further reminder: if some churches are stuck in the past, some churches are lost in the present.

If it’s only about new songs, the latest this, the latest that … the newest trends in music, digital displays, miracles, celebrities, books, podcasts, and wild preaching … churches get lost in the mad shuffle of a shopping spree … a frantic grabbing of the hottest and latest deals … 

I know … I’ve been there … 

I say it like this: 

liturgy without love is dead, 

preaching without passion is foolish … 

on the flip side, 

love without liturgy is out of focus, 

preaching without discipline is just plain sloppy. 

The tag line on our bulletin cover says it well: Traditional Worship; Progressive Values … 

We’re rooted in the historic church … all of its traditions  … filtered through the churches of the Reformation, focused in John Calvin and the Reformed Churches, and specifically, the Presbyterian Churches of Great Britain, and the folks who came to these shores with faith, hope, and love.

Traditional Worship; Progressive Values.

How might this look? What does this mean?

When President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Presbyterian missionaries opposed him, and joined what became known as the Trail of Tears. Those missionaries wept on their way to Oklahoma. They didn’t abandon their people when the going got rough. They stayed the course for justice and love. Those missionaries were progressive, because they were rooted in Jesus.

In the run up to the Civil War, northern Presbyterians tended to support the abolition of slavery … many Presbyterians in the south wanted slavery to continue. Those who worked to end slavery were on the right side of history … they were progressive, because they knew the voice of Christ and conscience.

In the 20th Century, Presbyterians continued the struggle for Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Human Rights … several of my friends, a bit older than I, walked in Selma and sat at lunch counters … they are progressive, because Jesus is their LORD.

My faith in Jesus leads me: to open doors, tear down walls, fill in the ditches … 

Isaiah the Prophet writes so hopefully: Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

My faith in Jesus leads me to welcome and affirm those whom some churches have rejected and condemned … 

my faith in Jesus sees all colors and genders as beautiful … and if I have to stretch a little bit, if I have to push myself beyond yesterday’s knowledge, Jesus helps me.

my faith in Jesus leads me to democracy and away from authoritarianism … 

my faith in Jesus refuses to be afraid of the stranger … but to welcome them, one and all …

my faith in Jesus wants a just and peaceful society, the abolition of poverty, good schools, well-paid teachers.

A world where everyone has a fair chance … where every child can dream, and every child can find open doors.

A world of kindness:

those who stumble are helped to their feet.

those in need have their needs met.

those challenged of mind and body are cared for.

the elderly, the widow and the widower, the orphan and the stranger, always a roof over their head and a decent meal.

Micah the Prophet speaks so powerfully: everyone can sit under their own vines and fig trees, and no longer be afraid. 

Dear Friends in Christ:

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in your shoe.

We’ll be at the LORD’s Table in a few moments … our confirmands have been at the Table before, but today, they’ll be at the Table for the first time - as members of the church, members of Westminster Presbyterian Church on Lake Avenue, where the Tower still stands … members of the church of Jesus Christ, all around the world, stretching back to the beginning of time, reaching ahead to the Kingdom of God - traditional in all respects, and with all it’s energy, progressive, reaching for the future.

At this Table, we come face-to-face with love … love as I have loved you, says Jesus!

Would Jesus have said this if it were impossible for us to really love?

I put it this way: what Jesus does all the time, we can do some of the time … maybe even much of the time … 

we ARE creatures of love.

Jesus sets before us the greatest of all human endeavors … to love as he loves you and me.

Jesus loves me, this I know,

for the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to him belong,

They are weak, but he is strong.

Sing a new song … sing an old song.

Celebrate the past … live for the day.

Reach for the future … touch the heart of God.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in your shoe.

Hallelujah and Amen!

"I Will Praise God with an Upright Heart" - Feb. 12, 2017, Palms Westminster Presbyterian Church

Deuteronomy 30.15-18; Psalm 119.1-8; Matthew 5.21-37

---------------------------

I will praise you with an upright heart, says the Psalmist.

I will turn to you, O God, with thanksgiving and devotion.

Praise is simply saying: 

To you, O LORD, I belong.

And how grateful I am.

Though sometimes we’re not so grateful to belong to the LORD.

Jeremiah regretted it.

Lots of others along the way, as well.

Because faith takes us into serious territory.

And we quickly learn: faith can be a burden.

This year, 2017, we celebrate the Birth of the Reformation.

Martin Luther nailed a few papers to the castle door in Wittenberg, Germany, to announce a disputation, a debate … and on those papers, 95 ideas, about faith, the church, and what it means to trust in the love of God.

Luther had no idea where it would all go.

But it didn’t take long for things to go bad.

And when it went bad, it was really bad.

The Pope condemned Luther for heresy.

The Emperor issued a death warrant.

The Pope and the Emperor called on Luther to recant.

Give it up.

Be quiet … go away.

We’ll be friends again.

Some of Luther’s friends gave him the same counsel.

Is it worth it Martin, to go through of all of this?

The brightest minds of the church say you’re wrong.

The emperor wants you dead; the Pope wants you back.

After a thousand years, Martin Luther, how can you now say that the Church has been wrong?

Are you not being a little arrogant about all of this?

Luther had times of great depression, Anfechtung in German - the very word sounds bad, doesn’t it? Anfectung!

Luther was no happy camper in the midst of so many struggles. 

Yes, he had joy, too - joy when he married, joy with his children, and good food and beer. 

He took comfort in the gospel, the pure love of God that can always be trusted … 

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing …

But no one is an Iron Man.

No one is impervious to fear and doubt.

Luther did not always know “the joy of the LORD” … 

His faith took him to serious places … his work required huge burdens … 

Luther knew that somehow or other he was right.

But he didn’t have to be happy and sappy and clappy all the time. 

He didn’t have to sing praise jingles and put on a smile.

He didn’t have to fake it.

Or pretend that everything was wonderful.

My soul is heavy, he said.

My life is burdened.

The burdens of confronting the powers-that-be.

The death of two children.

The death of friends.

And the constant threat of arrest and execution.

But Luther knew he had to do what he was doing.

He was the man of the hour.

Upon whom the mantle of leadership had fallen.

Dear Christian friends, there is joy in knowing the grace of God and the love of our LORD Jesus Christ.

But like it or not, there’s more than one note in the symphony of God’s story.

There is also the discomfort and sting of the cross.

Take up your cross, says Jesus.

Be ready for enemies … ready for hard times.

What they’ve done to me, they’re likely to do to you, too.

Families will be upset.

People of your own household with turn against one another.

It helps to know something of church history.

To be mindful of those for whom the way of Christ has been a hard and difficult road.

American Christianity is far too eager to be happy.

To put on a smily face and play the game, “let’s pretend.”

In churches across America, preachers have become cheerleaders and crowd managers … whipping up the joy noise … and people go home having praised the LORD, but I’ll say to you, they praised without an upright heart … 

Jesus never pretended such nonsense.

And neither did Paul the Apostle, or any of the other great women and men who took up the cross and followed Christ.

Think of the Presbyterian Missionaries who traveled the Trail of Tears with the Cherokee.

Missionaries in far away lands, and day-by-day servants of the LORD, doing good, bearing burdens, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor, visiting those in prison, defending the unjustly accused, standing up for civil rights and justice.

Martin Luther, the Reformer.

Martin Luther King, Jr. on Petus Bridge.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer conspiring to take Hitler’s life.

Our own John Calvin in Geneva.

And a host of others who tackled the big stuff.

And paid a big price.

So, let’s be clear.

To praise God with an upright heart is to be real.

Authentic, engaged.

Devoted, ready.

Ready to offer the whole of our lives.

A sweet offering unto God.

As best we can.

From day-to-day, and,

Over the years.

Wholeheartedly.

And then, sometimes, not so much.

And then, sometimes.

Maybe not at all.

But God remains faithful - that’s the gospel.

Always and forever faithful.

Faithful to us.

Faithful to the ultimate purpose of God’s love - to restore creation, give life, set the captives free, give sight to the blind, healing to the sick … 

God keeps going.

And, then, in some miraculous way, so do we.

God’s grace at work.

The Holy Spirit within us, around us.

Through the life of the church.

And the life of all who dare to think deeply.

In the novel, “All the Light We Cannot See,” author Anthony Doerr tells the tale of a girl gone blind by age 6 … she lives with her father, a widower.

The father builds a miniature of the neighborhood, and she learns how to feel every little street and every little house with her finger tips, and then she walks with her father, with her cane, feeling the sidewalk, the buildings, the gutter drains, learning her neighborhood.

The father takes her out one day on their usual walk, and then, he turns her around several times and says, “Take us home, Marie-Laurie.”

With bumps and bruises, and busy folks bumping into her, she drops her cane and begins to cry.

Her father lifts her up and hugs her tightly.

“It’s so big,” she whispers.

“You can do this Marie.”

At first she can’t.

And then one day …

And for us, too … by the Holy Spirit:

We try, and try again.

People bump into us … we lose our way … 

It’s so big, we cry.

And it is.

And sometimes we can’t.

But in time, something good happens.

We grow in the grace of God.

We learn the power of prayer.

We give and receive love.

We engage and serve.

We weep and we laugh.

We lament and we try again.

Because it is so big.

Jesus speaks of big things:

Murder and judgment.

Adultery and love.

Oath making and truthfulness.

Serious stuff, is it not?

Many years ago, I showed a film to my session, produced by physicians against nuclear war … a stirring presentation of our need to work for peace and oppose war.

Afterward, one of the elders came to me and said, “Well, Tom, if there’s a nuclear war, and we all die, we just go to heaven. What’s wrong with that?”

I don’t know what I said then - I don’t think I managed that one very well.

So the question bounced around in my head for a long time until I came up with a story, of a man who dreamed of going to heaven.

And when the man stood by the pearly gates, St. Peter said to him: “You didn’t care about God’s earth; what makes you think you’ll care about God’s heaven.” And the man was turned away.

Nothing is more important to God then how we live with one another, and how we take care of God’s earth. 

It’s all so big, we cry!

And so it is.

But we can learn to do it.

Because we have to.

For the truth … our own survival, God’s green earth … 

To hear some Christians yak about it, you’d think God didn’t care about the snails and the minnows … but God cares deeply … all living creatures … when the Bible says, God so loved the world, that ain’t just you and me … it’s all of God’s creatures, great and small … the whole shebang, all of it … and that’s the truth … the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The truth that sets us free.

To have an upright heart.

Honest and real.

Serious about the things of God.

Serious about how we live with one another and how we care for God’s creation.

I will praise you with an upright heart.

Amen and Amen.