1.15.23 "You're Sitting In My Pew!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena

 Isaiah 49.1-7; John 1.29-42

Her name was Peg.

A member of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Livonia, MI … every Sunday, there she was, in her pew … 

One Sunday, Nick and Patty attended …  

They found a place to sit, and settled in; when an elderly lady came up to them and said, “You’ll have to move; you’re in my pew.”

Well, they moved, and lived to laugh about it … it was Peg who told them to move … it was her pew, and that was that.

Studies have been done on how we find our pew … by the third or fourth visit, we’ve claimed our space … those who study the brain suggest that we’re constantly trying to simplify life - so when we attend church, there’s at least one decision we don’t have to make - we have our pew, and that’s where we sit … unless someone else comes along, and they don’t know who’s pew it is.

Which reminds me: in days of yore, families owned a pew … a name plate affixed … this was how churches funded their budgets - people paid annually for their pew … the closer the pew to the pulpit, the more a family paid … sort of like seats at Dodger Stadium behind home plate. And, if one couldn’t afford a pew, well, there were always the free seats in back of the church. 

Who’s pew are you sitting in this morning?

We sit where gladness sat.

We sit where sadness sat.

We sit where joy and happiness snuggled one another.

Where greed and hypocrisy smiled smugly at the world.

Where faith, hope, and love grew strong.

Where heartache and anger were healed.

The best and the brightest.

The scoundrel and the crook.

The saint and the sinner.

The saved and the lost.

The lost and the found.

Here is where they all gathered to hear the word of Christ.

The word of grace.

The story of God!

Where are you sitting this morning?

Those worshipping in their homes - much the same idea - who owned the home before you arrived? Who rented the condo, the apartment you now call home? Maybe you built the home, but in times past, who lived on the land? Who came before us? Who will be here when we’re gone?

Every pew here has its own story … if only they could talk, eh? 

The school teacher who loved her children and gave them windows on the world … 

The real estate agent who refused to show a home to a family of color … 

The families who stood firm for integration and believed in the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The auto mechanic who loved old cars and the smell of grease, with walls of hanging tools and drawers full of spare parts … 

The architect who put dreams on paper, to create a home for a family … 

The factory worker who joined the union and learned how to bargain for fair wages and real benefits … 

The young man out of work, looking for a job … 

The struggling couple yelling at each other in the car on their way to church, hearts broken for dreams now lost … 

Each with their own story … and, yes, their faith …  faith well-formed for some, and hardly-formed for others … 

Yes, we’re sitting in someone’s pew … 

For the time being, it’s our pew; it’s where we sit … 

In time, others will sit in our pew. 

Life is like that … a script nicely laid out … on Thursday, we do the laundry, on Saturday, we mow the law, on Sunday, we go to church … pattern … purpose … priorities … promises and prayers … we have our script … and then, time moves on.

As it must, as it will … our pew will go on the market - with a nice ad - “Lovely pew, good view, well-taken care of … waiting for you to take ownership.”

One Sunday morning, someone will walk in - they’ll find a pew, and maybe make it their own …

To be the church of Jesus Christ … to care for God’s earth … to love one another as best we can … to shed the light of faith upon the human journey.

To take up the mandate of the Creator to those created in God’s image. 

You and I were created in God’s image, to be up close and personal with creation … to care for it in ways that promote its wellbeing and its future.

In times past, humanity’s interaction with creation was hardly noticeable … we plowed the earth, dug our water wells, but to little or no defacement of the earth; no permanent harm … the earth gave us what we needed … 

And, then, the industrial age … and we know the rest of the story … 

Extraction and exploitation … the earth suffering, war on a scale previously unimaginable … a few grew rich on the sweat and labor of the many.

The drive for profits and power … smoke and steel rising, better living through chemistry … pesticides and fertilizers, plastics and hazardous waste … 

And here we are … 2023 … challenges that exceed whatever personal responsibilities we might have - conserve water, recycle our waste, be mindful of what we eat, drive an EV … all of that and more … it’s the “more” that challenges us beyond the personal disciplines of mindful living.

What we need is good government, good politicians, who will tell us the truth and work for the common good … who will marshal the resources of private and government interests to seek the common good … who will reach for the best in the human journey, rather than pander to the worst.

Dr. King said: "Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' "

We need CEOs and stock holders who go for more than the bottom line, but reach for the stars … young people who go to college and graduate with degrees in “mindfulness and character-development,” who refuse to sell their souls to the highest bidder, and yes, we need to get rid of the college-debt cash cow, which enriches a few and burdens the many … 

We need leaders who will challenge the insanity of a consumer culture, a culture of consumption, a culture trapped in the idea that more is better, when less is better, by far … leaders who will continue to raise the alarm with the growing patterns of anti-semitism, homophobia, racism …

Where are the people we need? 

The politicians, the CEOs and MBAs … Where are they?

May God raise a new generation of leaders who can see the goodness of life, and life’s purpose, who defend it with all their worth - not for personal gain, but for the welfare of all God’s creatures, great and small.

Here we are today … sitting in someone’s pew, keeping it warm and up-to-date for those who’ll be here tomorrow. 

What we pray for, how we vote, the things we value … it all counts - our faith in Christ - it’s all important. The world needs people of faith.

God Bless you on this weekend in honor or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … and to God be the glory. Amen!

11.13.22 "Hope & Caution"

 Isaiah 65.17-25; Luke 21.5-19

Isaiah’s stirring words of hope are written to a people who have known more than their fair share of disappointment and loss.

Across the ancient land, years of warfare, deportations, death and destruction, a great lament is heard … faith trembles, faith weakens, faith falls to its knees … anger, despair, frustration grow like weeds in the lawn … hope takes flight, leaves town … the human spirit is battered … who can believe in the God of Abraham and Sarah any more? … who can believe in the covenant promises of a king “always on the throne,” a land always safe and secure?” Who can believe that any more?

To the weary hearts of a weary people, to those who have suffered untold loss and grief, the stirring words of hope.

For I am about to create new heavens, and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind … for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.

I have no doubt that Isaiah’s words of hope were met with catcalls and blistering laughter … How dare you speak of hope in such a time as this? Look at us Isaiah. What can come of this? We’re beaten. We’re defeated. It’s all gone; it’s all lost.

What’s going on?

I do not presume to know the mind of God … but the promise of God to be at work, in all things … in ALL things for good … is the anchor of our faith … 

A faith that has withstood enormous tragedy and loss … a faith that speaks to our hearts, encourages us to push on, to push ahead … to not be afraid, and if we are afraid, well, that’s ok, too … God understands.

Call it hope.

Hope is a deeply personal element … best experienced through the community of faith … through one another … none of us has enough hope all by our lonesome … what hope we have is good, but hope joined to hope is better still … 

When I can’t sing of the love of God, someone else can … and one day, when they can’t sing, I will sing for them. 

We do this for one another … this is the power of the church!

In this moment, in this place, we’re surrounded by history … the voices of those who trod this way long before we showed up … they raised this building to the glory of God … they gave us the windows through which the light of Christ shines upon us all …  

Hope … but let’s be wise in matters of hope … hope doesn’t always pan out for us … at least as we had hoped. History makes that clear … Israel in Egypt 430 years … how many prayers were offered, how much raised to heaven, and how much hope lost in sorrow and tragedy? 

Hope needs the cautious words of Christ … we cannot hope beyond reason … hope has its limits … we know that, and we don’t like it, one bit … which is why religious charlatans will always have a job … we’re desperate for hope, and hope ginned up by pundits and preachers promising the moon has tremendous attraction - but all that glitters isn’t gold.

Fr. Greg Boyle says: “I do not think it is preposterous to believe in God. I am just hoping people stop believing in a preposterous God.”

Here in this place, we’re Presbyterians - grounded in Scripture, mindful of the wide traditions of our story, restrained in our emotions, and determined to do what’s right. 

God is a god of miracles and wonders … but God is also the god of silence and sorrow … all our prayers are heard, all our prayers answered … but often in ways we cannot fathom, in ways we’d rather not …

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

Jesus speaks of suffering and death, and then adds, … not a hair of your head will perish.

A proverbial expression throughout the ancient world, a proverb of eternal hope … hope transcending time, hope beyond the boundaries of our days and months and millennia … eternal hope to give a finish to time … not a hair of your head …

What is greater than death?

Is it not Christ? 

Christ for us … Christ for humanity … Christ for every creature, great and small … none shall be lost; all shall be saved … the eternal hope is the capstone of time.

Paul the Apostle writes: If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Eternal hope strengthens moral hope … we have to work, of course, and work hard, to bring about the kingdom of God. 

We can’t sit back and hope that God will do something about climate change, the homeless challenge, the anti-Semitism again rising again like a poisonous fog.

We cannot sit back, we cannot ignore our calling - to love one another, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

We cannot stand idle … 

The German pastor, Martin Niemöller, after WW2, spoke often of his quietness in the face of Nazi evils … his famous quote:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Pastor Niemöller made it clear: … through silence, indifference, inaction, Germans had been complicit in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. The silence of Protestant church leaders, including his own [silence], was particularly egregious because they were in positions of moral authority.

“The opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow.”

The Apostle Paul writes: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect.

This day, whatever the world will give to us … weal or woe, I pray that all of us will stand by one another … if we can sing the songs of Zion, let us sing with all our heart … if we can’t sing today, others will sing for us.

The ancient stories of faith, hope, and love … stories enshrined in our windows, and the cross of Christ centered in our chancel … beams of light reaching to the four corners of the world …

To the glory of God. Amen and Amen!

April 3, 2022, "Go!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena

 Isaiah 43.16-21; Philippians 3.1-16

Now it’s official, now it’s real.

As of Friday, April 1 (no fooling), I’ve become your Interim Minister … with joy and pleasure, I accept the task, and gladly promise each of you my very, very best.

It’s fitting and right that this Sunday, a Sunday of beginning, is also the end of my little three-part sermon series, “On Your Mark,” “Get Set,” “Go."

I’ve used the analogy of a race … runners emerge from the locker rooms, shake limbs, stretch muscles, lost in thought, when the announcement comes, “On Your Mark.”

We are the people, and these are the times.

There is no one else here, but you and me.

We’re the runners; this is the race.

It’s our moment.

Others have run the race before us.

Now it’s our turn - we’ll do our best, to push ahead to victory.

It’s the race of faith, which means we do this together … arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand … helping one another to run the race … no one crosses the finish line alone … we cross the finish line together.

Last week Sunday evening, Donna and I watched the Oscars … I was particularly touched by the sense of gratitude that marked most of - I suppose a result of the last two years of Covid … all the challenges, delays, restrictions, disappointments - everyone seemed profoundly grateful and deeply humbled, to stand before their peers with an Oscar in hand - acknowledging everyone who made this moment possible - it takes a village to raise a child … it takes an industry to make a movie.

On your mark, get set, go.

And where shall we go?

We go to the future.

None of us know what the future holds, and that’s scary, but the God we know in Christ Jesus our LORD has made it abundantly clear to us, that the future is ours … and God is clearing the way.

As your Interim Minister, it’s my task to work side-by-side with you, to review and consider everything that has led to this moment … the brightest moments, the unhappy setbacks … every bit of the journey - to be studied, pondered, questioned … where did we do it right? when might we have made better decisions? what do we need to do now?

Very importantly, we’ll examine our neighborhood - demographics - who’s moving in, who’s moving out? What are the schools like, and what are the challenges?

We will consider the powerful cultural changes that now shape our times.

I was ordained in 1970, the First Presbyterian church of Holland, Michigan … when the future of the Presbyterian Church was certain … I went to high school, college, seminary … and expected to serve the church my entire life … the church was here, and so was I, and so were my colleagues …  

In 1990, I became senior minster at a church in Livonia, Michigan, a Detroit suburb … the church was founded in 1951, in the rush of the post-WW2 era - when folks went to church in droves, by the millions, all over America.

The church grew to 2400 members in the late 60s, with a beautiful building, a fine staff, and an elevator … 

One of the former associate ministers of the church said to me, “Those were the days; we couldn’t stop people coming to church. The parking lot was jammed, the Sunday School overflowing … the coffers full; it felt good, and we thought we were great.” 

By 1990, it had declined to 1300 members, on the books at least. In reality, it was more like 500 members. Folks had moved, times had changed.

When Dr. Max Morrison was minister here, along with a huge staff and much excitement, folks got up Sunday mornings, put on their Sunday Best, and made their way to the church … here in Pasadena, and all across the land … 

But all was not sunshine and sugar … the Supreme Court and its landmark decision, Brown v. the Board of Education in 1954 … President Eisenhower sending troops to Little Rock in 1957. 

Westminster Presbyterian Church stands in favor of school integration, invites the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to speak here in 1962 … and, in time, a thousand members walk out. A serious loss, no doubt.

But God looked upon Westminster and said, “Well done, good and faithful church. You chose the better part. You stood on the right side of history.”

In the 80s and 90s, evangelical churches had a go at it, with praise bands and megachurches, and for a time, they were on top of the heap, even as mainline churches continued to lose membership. Now, evangelicals are in the throes of it, too, torn apart by infighting, scandals, and young people simply moving away from the faith of their parents … 

As for religious affiliation in America, more and more simply check “none” … who knows the outcome?

Yet God makes it clear: There is always a way to be faithful, always a way to serve the LORD, always a way to bear witness to the world for the love of Christ.

We will never return to the heyday of the 50s and 60s … or to any other moment in time … the past is past - it’s gone; we learn from it, build upon it, and then we move on … we do what our forebears did in their time - they innovated, they invested, they took chances. 

Building this church was taking a chance. 

A chance on something new, a Tower on Lake Avenue.

God speaks through the Prophet Isaiah:

Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

In the months ahead, we will consider how best to serve the LORD in 2022 and 2023; how to bless this neighborhood, welcome everyone, engage in ministry, focus our priorities, care for our campus, revise and renew, and prepare the way … prepare the way for the next installed minister of Westminster Presbyterian Church.

To the glory of God, for the healing of the nations.

On your mark, Get set … Go!

Amen and Amen!

Onward and Upward

John 1.43-51    Palms Westminster Presbyterian Church

Welcome to a New Year.

Some might say, well, it’s just another year … it’s no different than any other day … which is true enough, but we humans have a sense of time … time past, present and future … 

Time for us is fateful … important … we don’t want to be late for an appointment … we don’t want to be too early for a social event … we want to arrive on time, or at least to be fashionably late.

Time marches on, we say, and so it does.

We’re all part of time … we’re born, we live, and then one day, we draw our last breath … and like the Bible puts it, we join our fathers and mothers, and here in this place, we are no more.

Time … the time we have is everything …

We make choices, decisions, commitments … we make our plans and do what we can to follow through …

We make promises to have and to hold …

We make promises to be faithful to Christ … to tell the truth, at least as best we can … and not just the truth, but the truth in love … because truth without love is hardly truth at all … as Paul the Apostle reminds us: without love, our highest endeavors and our finest words mean nothing …

Time is part and parcel of hope … and hope is our greatest strength, our greatest asset … hope in the LORD, and the LORD’s faithfulness, to be at work in all things for good.

Hope for a better day … for new love … for another chance … 

I’ve been thinking of the Pete Seeger song: I Can See a New Day …

I can see a new day

A new day soon to be

When the storm clouds are all passed

And the sun shines on a world that is free.

I can see a new world 

A new world coming fast

When all men are brothers

And hatred forgotten at last

I can see a new man

A new man standing tall

With his head high and his heart proud

And afraid of nothing at all

I can see a new day

A new day soon to be

When the storm clouds are all passed

And the sun shines on a world that is free.

From our gospel this morning …

Jesus said to Nathaniel, Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.

I’m thinking of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  … I have a dream, he said.

That my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream …

I find myself thinking of Isaiah:

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

      “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

      the whole earth is full of his glory.”

I think of those who came to Phillip and said, Sir, we would see Jesus.

Can we be hopeful today?

Can we we face the harsh winds of life and be brave?

Can we speak truth to power, because we believe in the truth, the truth of Christ, the truth that really sets people free?

Can we look at the homeless on our streets and demand that the organs of government get their act together and do a better job for the needy and the downcast?

Can we look at our schools and demand that as a nation we stand by our children, we fund our schools, we keep them in repair, and see to it that our children are safe and secure?

Can we look at the elderly in our land and celebrate what Social Security has meant to millions of Americans, hard working Americans, decent and good Americans who need Social Security to avoid the abyss of poverty?

Can we celebrate the goodness of Medicare … for millions of Americans who need decent health care… 

Can we truly be patriots, and care for one another … 

Can we be Christian enough to know that we owe a debt of love to one another … and that God desires good government … God is the god of kings and queens and prime ministers and parliaments, and Senators and Legislators and Presidents, too … and all who hold the reigns of power will be held accountable before the LORD of heaven and earth, not for how much money they saved, but for how much money they spent, to make life better for children, for women and young mothers, for all who have needs, for all who are in want … God will not ask our leaders about walls built to keep people out, but bridges built to welcome the world! Not about war, but about peace. Not about exclusion, but welcome. Not about punishment, but forgiveness … and how we all cared for God’s good earth.

In the early 80s, I showed to my Session a film about nuclear war, and what we can do to prevent it.

Afterward, an elder asked me, “If we all die in a nuclear war, and we go to heaven, what’s wrong with that?”

At the time, I didn’t have answer, and it saddened me. And for a long time, I thought about it.

And came up with this … not a heavy answer, but just little parable of sorts …

A man stood by the gates of heaven, hoping to enter, but St. Peter said to him, “In your life time, you didn’t care about God’s earth. What makes you think you’ll care about God’s heaven?” And the man was turned he away.

The man objected: I have faith, I believe in Jesus … and St. Peter will say, Yes, but you didn’t have love. You didn’t love my green earth, my clean water, my bright air. You didn’t care about children dying. Oh, you did your charity; you gave, but you didn’t put away the tools of destruction and the greed that creates poverty. You sang hymns about Christ, but you failed to follow him.

Without love, faith is nothing.

Without love, charity means nothing.

I so like what Oprah Winfrey said at the Golden Globes:

In my career, she said, what I've always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave. 

To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome. 

I've interviewed and portrayed people who've withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights. 

So I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon! 

And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say "Me too" again.

2017 has been a pretty rough year for me … and for our nation, as I see it … and the world around us … but I believe the LORD above yet has a hand upon the engines of history … evil will fail and love will prevail …

And that we here in this place will make a difference when we choose Christ, anew and again.

Something new on the horizon … a new day coming … the fresh winds of faith, hope and love … the sunshine of grace, mercy and peace … the love of Christ … and people, people all around the world, taking a deep breath, rolling up their sleeves, going to work, and working hard, to make this a better world …

In the end, God will look upon us and say Thanks. You cared for my earth, and that means you’ll love heaven. 

In life and in death, now and forever, we belong to a most faithful Savior.

I can see a new day.

Amen and Amen!