August 21, 2022 "Courage for The Times" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Jeremiah 1.4-10; Hebrews 12.22-24

Your mission, should you choose to accept it …

Like the original Mission Impossible TV program … or the Blues Brothers movie … we’re all on a mission … we really are … a mission that’s impossible … a mission from God.

It’s impossible, just because it’s from God … God knows what we can do, God knows what we can do in partnership with God … it looks to us impossible … but so does Mt. Everest to the first-time climber … a complicated surgery to a young surgeon … a criminal trial to a new defense attorney … that young student at the first day of high school … we’ve all tackled the impossible … and sometimes it really didn’t work … yes, we all know that … the climber doesn’t make to the top, the surgery doesn’t work, the trial is lost, and school can be a mess.

But wait a minute … haven’t we also succeeded?

Climbers make it to the top … surgeons remove the tumor and repair the damage … difficult trials are won … the student goes on and does well.

We’ve all won the day … a challenge of the soul, deep within our selves, wrestling and struggling to know who we are, and why we are the way we are … how to better manage our emotions, set workable goals … find the grounding peace that holds our life together.

We’ve all won the day … a difficult relationship that nearly imploded, but we worked our way through it … a challenge at work, but we solved it, step-by-step, one day at a time … learning all along the way … discovering and growing.

We’ve all won the day … at the time, we thought it’s impossible, but now we look back, and see the hand of God … a goodness transcending the distress and hurt … something divine, something eternally good, forever gracious … the guiding hand of God … yes, and friends and family along the way … a whole network of people provided by God.

Mission Impossible …

And here we are … just as we are … in this time and place … Westminster Presbyterian Church … Lake Avenue … the Tower still stands … God is still God … faith, hope, and love remain … grace, mercy, and peace endure …

We are called … we are loved … we are sustained! 

To be called of God, we have purpose … great purpose, final purpose … a purpose of transcendent goodness … an impossible purpose beyond our years, beyond the boundaries of time and space … a purpose rooted in the original creation, the mandate of Genesis … to till the earth and keep it … 

To be loved of Christ, we have courage … courage for our times … whatever the times may be … the courage to stand by the cross of Christ and not run away … the courage to keep on learning, growing in faith … the courage to face ourselves in the mirror of God’s love.

To be sustained by the Spirit, we have endurance … to stay the course, to not give up … whatever the burdens may be, however great the loss … in the face of terrible demands, and impossible odds, to endure…  

God said to Jeremiah, I know you … 

I know you through-and-through … I knew you in your mother’s womb … I knew you before you were born … I’ve always known you … you’ve always been a part of my story, and my story is now your story … to be a voice of hope and peace, a voice of truth and compassion, a voice to disturb the powerful, and a voice to comfort the powerless … 

This is our calling, too … this is our purpose … this is who we are … the Great God Almighty speaks to each one of us … 

Come and follow me … 

Over the years, I’ve heard terrific stories … stories of God’s call … an adult looks back in time to recall a moment when they were a child, when a strong and guiding presence made itself known … a presence that cannot be defined, described, but only felt … in the deep places of a child’s soul.

Some are called in a chance decision to attend church - one Sunday morning, and there it is, in a word, a song, a moment - the call of God. 

Some read a book … some listen to music … the call of God … 

The call of God … anytime, any age, any moment … multiple calls, many calls … quite calls, loud calls … anonymous calls, and obvious calls …  because God is a God of love, and God loves you and God loves me … and no matter how unique we are, God calls us in such a way that it fits the contours of our soul … God knows us through-and-through.

When the call comes to Jeremiah, he’s not so sure … I’m too young, says Jeremiah, and who can blame him? 

God says to Jeremiah, Do not be afraid … of them.

Who’s the “them”? … well, the powers that be … kings and queens, priests and scribes, the brokers and the bankers … those who hold the reigns of government, who manage the temple in Jerusalem … people who see the world centered in their privilege and comfort … the world is their oyster, and it’s gonna stay that way … five centuries later, their descendants conspired against Jesus and killed him.

God asks Jeremiah to walk into a maelstrom … a political situation of untold peril, a religious environment hostile to self-awareness.

No wonder Jeremiah’s a little uneasy!

Nevertheless, God assures Jeremiah:

I am with you … 

The LORD put out a hand and touched Jeremiah’s mouth … and with that, God says: I have put my words in your mouth. 

Today, I appoint you over nations, over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.

To be a world-changer: to order and reorder and reshape the nation.

A tall task, wouldn’t you say?

A mountain of work … dangerous and demanding.

Few of us are called to such monumental tasks … few of us are called to walk in the footsteps of a Martin Luther King, Jr, or a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or a Dorothy Day … 

But all of us are called, called by the same God who called Jeremiah … 

Called:

To be courageous, to be loving, to be kind.

To be brave, to be wise, to be generous.

To be creative, inventive, imaginative.

To be loyal and devoted, committed and caring.

Humble and gentle.

Take down what’s wrong, build up what’s right.

God speaks to all of us.

I am with you!

When the night is upon us, and life is hard.

When the sun shines bright and all is good.

When the heart is heavy, and the road is long.

When love wins the day.

When love is no more.

Where there is hurt and pain.

Where there is laughter and joy.

In the beginning of life, and in its end.

At the very first breath, and at the last.

In every moment, all along the way.

To this God, we belong.

For this Christ, we live.

By the Spirit, we love!

O God, our help in ages past, 

Our hope for years to come,

Our shelter from the stormy blast,

And our eternal home:

Amen and Amen!

July 13, 2014 - Pacific Palisades - "The Sower, the Seed, the Soil"

Genesis 25.19-34; Psalm 119.105-112; Romans 8.1-11; Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23

Things don’t always work out for us, do they!

The best laid plans of mice and men … 

In the shower at the end of the day, our head against the wall, water streaming down the back of our head …

I didn’t plan on this … how could this happen? … why did he do it? … why did she say it? 

Shattered dreams … broken plans … the unexpected …

Hard for us … and might it be hard for God, too?

Seems to me the toughest job in the universe is being God … whatever we might think about God, it’s helpful to think how hard it must be for God.

God fashions a beautiful creation … brought nearly to ruin by the creature “endowed” with God’s own breath … Eve plucks the forbidden fruit and she and Adam have a picnic.

Cain kills Able … and it only gets worse

There was a time when God said, Enough! I’ve had it with you.

God was heartsick, sad, angry, over what had become of God’s best laid plans.

So the flood … to rinse the earth clean … metaphorically speaking … as the story goes … all gone, save Noah, his family and some animals.

A fresh start for everyone and everything … but it didn’t take long for the Apple of God’s eye to get right back at it - Noah gets drunk, Ham laughs and there’s hell to pay … humans gang up together and build a tower to heaven, to make a name for themselves … pride, power and pomp … 

So God creates a new plan … smaller and less ambitious at first … Abraham and Sarah - two old people without children, without a future … could God have done any better? I think God loves a challenge, no matter what.

God begins anew - Come with me Abraham and Sarah, and I’ll take you places you never dreamed possible … a long journey it is …  and what a struggle for God … in the Book of Hosea, God says:

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?

      What shall I do with you, O Judah?

      Your love is like a morning cloud,

      like the dew that goes away early.

Some of the saddest words in the Bible, My people have forgotten me.

God defeated time and again … Abraham and Sarah laugh at God and take things into their own hands … their children are less than stellar … they get tangled up in Egypt for 400 years and things are a mess … plagues break the spirit of a proud Pharaoh, and Pharaoh let’s the people go … they dash out into freedom … only to complain.

The Sea is parted, they escape from Pharaoh’s wrath … only to find themselves in a wilderness … and they complain.

They wanna go back to Egypt … at least in Egypt they knew where their next meal was coming from, and they had water.

But God provides …

Water from a rock …

Manna in the morning … 

Quail in the evening.

A pillar of cloud for the day …

A pillar of fire for the night …

And the people complain …

Commandments given on a Mountain Top … and .. oops, a Golden Calf in the valley … at which point God is ready to give up on all of it … but Moses, in one of the great moments of the Bible, reminds God to be God and get on with it.

The Promised Land is gained …

The Walls of Jericho tumble on down …

But the story ends badly: the people did what was right in their own eyes.

A mess all over again, even in the Promised Land.

Then came the kings - Saul, never much of one … David, clever and god-loving and cruel and greedy, too … and poor old Solomon - no better beginning could be had for a king, built a glorious temple, noted for his wisdom, but it all ends badly … and only gets worse from that point on … the kingdom splits, constant warfare, treaties made and treaties broken, idolatry takes root, the Northern Kingdom destroyed in 721 BC by Assyria … the Southern Kingdom destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians and folks carted off to Exile.

70 years later, survivors straggle back home, rebuild the temple, but it ain’t much … several centuries later, after Alexander the Great and the emergence of the Mighty Roman Empire, King Herod the Great undertakes the rebuilding of the rebuilding to create one of the most stunning masterpieces of the world - the Temple in Jerusalem.

But Rome is in charge … some love it, what with Rome’s power and wealth … some hate it, and rebel … some can’t stand it, and retreat into the Wilderness by the Dead Sea … God’s people are lost and uncertain … Empires rule the world … slavery abounds … the rich are superrich … the poor are desperately poor … 

What’s a good and loving God to do?

Another flood? But the rainbow promise stays the hand of God …

So along comes Jesus … Emmanuel, God with us … the Lamb of God, the Bright Morning Star, the Bread of Life … and what does Jesus do?

Among many things, he tells stories … like the Sower, the Seed and the Soil.

The Sower reaches into a bag of seed slung round his shoulder, grabs a handful, and flings the seed far and wide … lots of seed … plenty of seed … good seed … every seed capable of a great harvest … by the handful, far and wide … into every corner of the field.

We know the story … a lot of seed never makes it …

Stones and rocks and weeds and birds (well they gotta eat, too) and hot sun … all that good seed, wasted? … shouldn’t God be a bit more judicious? … a little more careful about wasting all that good seed?

Now is NOT the time to be careful … now is the time to be generous, prodigal, divinely wasteful … don’t worry about the losses … don’t waste time counting the seed … grab it, fling it, throw it, with a mighty arm … cast the seed far and wide.

No time for restraint:

A child stomping in a mud puddle? … a young lover looking into the eyes of the beloved? … the hundred yard dash and a runner? …

Restraint, caution, deliberation? … good words, but often the enemies of faith, hope and love.

Those who catch a lot of fish fish a lot …

280 average bowlers bowl a lot …

Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly … and has to be done poorly, more often than not, in order to be done well.

It’s as simple as that … 

Fling the seed far and wide … 

Call it … kindness … justice … truth … honesty … patience … mercy … forgiveness … trust … faith, hope and love, grace, mercy and peace … today, tomorrow and forever.

Don’t focus on the negative: the seed that fails, the soil that doesn’t produce, the fish we didn’t catch, the games we didn’t win, the people who failed us, those who broke trust with us … investments gone south … relationships gone awry …  … don’t fret, don’t fuss, don’t blame, don’t get angry, don’t judge, don’t turn your back… it’s the way of life … not everything works; people disappoint us and things go wrong … so what? 

There are three kinds of matter in this world: anti-matter, dark matter and “doesn’t matter” which has no effect on the universe whatsoever … and it doesn’t matter that some seed doesn’t make it.

Call it grace.

If we can understand grace toward others … we might be a wee bit more honest about our own stuff, too …

What’s our soil condition like?

 All kinds of soil in each of us … sometimes my heart is stone cold and rock hard … sometimes worries and fears gobble up my faith and run away with it … sometimes the seed of God’s love falls on the good soil of my life, and it grows like mad, with a giant harvest.

What’s the point?

Keep on sowing … just like God … just like the Sower.

The Sower knows it’s going to work … 

The Sower has confidence.

Faith works, so does love, and hope doesn’t disappoint us.

President Obama said a few weeks back at UC Irvine’s Commencement: “Cynicism is a choice. Hope is a better choice.”

Lots of seed won’t make it … but there’s always the harvest … and great is the harvest … a hundred to one, sixty to one, thirty to one …

Those listening to Jesus would have smiled … the dream of every farmer … the impossible dream … no seed gives this kind of harvest in real life … but real life is not where we learn our best lessons …

We learn our best lessons in the kingdom of God - transcendent ideas, images as wide as the universe … the kingdom of God, like a pearl merchant selling everything to gain the priceless pearl … like a poor widow sweeping her floor looking for a lost coin … like a shepherd going after one lost sheep … only imagination can take us there … where dreams are big, faith is bigger, and hope bigger still … 

Tomorrow morning - we’ll have opportunities to sow the seed of God’s love … 

Don’t worry about waste … don’t worry about the seed that never makes it … don’t fret about stony soil and weeds and hungry birds … 

Throw the seed far and wide … patient faith, faithful patience … the harvest will come … people will surprise us with their goodness … impossible problems will be solved … glimmers of peace will appear unexpectedly … hope arises … courage abounds … faith endures …

Tomorrow morning, dear friends,

Unto God Almighty, our gratitude.

And to the world around us, the Seed of Love.

Abundant and free.

Because good soil is everywhere.

Good soil all around us.

And great is the harvest of hope! Amen and Amen!

Steady - Nov 18 2007

Luke 21:5-19

“LORD Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, I give myself to you in faith and obedience.”

Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus the Anointed One of God … the center of our faith … the anchor of hope … a portrait of life and love … the image of the invisible God … the firstborn over all creation … by Him, all things were created … He is before all things … and in Him all things hold together.

Jesus my LORD: he head of the body; the head of the church … the beginning and the end; the Alpha and the Omega; the firstborn from among the dead … all of God’s fullness dwells in Him … through Him, all things on earth or things in heaven are reconciled to God … through His blood shed on the cross (Colossians 1:15-20; Revelation 22:12).

Jesus my LORD.

Our reading today … Jesus in Jerusalem … the political and spiritual center of God’s people … a city built on a hill … the Temple built by Herod the Great … a thorn in the flesh for Rome … the pinnacle of pride for the people … the City of David.

The boys from Galilee are impressed … “What a place,” they say. “How glorious it is; look at all the big buildings.”

Like Iowa farm boys visiting New York City … or a young lady from Nebraska strolling down Rodeo Drive …

Jerusalem the Golden …

I remember my own journey to Israel … we arrived in Tel Aviv … spent a few days on the Sea of Galilee, and then the bus ride to Jerusalem … following the footsteps of Jesus … from Galilee to the Holy City.

As the bus labored up a steep roadway, we all held our breath … the tour guide alerted us … “You will see the city as Jesus saw it.”
The bus crested the hill, and there it was … in the bright light of mid-morning … gleaming … alabaster white … a golden hue … the city of David … my eyes filled with tears.

The disciples were mightily impressed … why not? … this incredible city - one of the wonders of the world … every Jew dreamed of making pilgrimage there … “Oh to be in Jerusalem” … at ever Passover meal, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

We toured the city for a week … every turn of every corner, a piece of history … a story to be told … a picture to be taken … and finally the Temple Mount itself … the Western Wall … sometimes called the Wailing Wall because of all the tears shed by those mighty stones.

In the niches of the wall, scraps of paper, thousands of them – prayers scribbled … I scribbled mine: for Donna and the children … and I wept by the Western Wall.

In AD 70, the Roman Empire, fed up with Jewish unrest and rebellion, laid waste to the city – demolished the Temple, one stone at a time – nothing left; everything gone.

The gold and the silver, the precious stones and tapestries, hauled off to Rome – war booty - to underwrite the building of a monument … the Coliseum … to celebrate the victories of Emperor Titus …

Jesus foresaw all of these unhappy events … when the boys from Galilee were oohing and awing at the Temple’s splendor, Jesus saw something else … He saw the tragic outcome of the present course … headed for a showdown with Rome, and Rome would win.

It would be the end of the age … the world as the disciples knew it would cease to be … their world would come to an end.

Hardly the news anyone wants to hear … but so it is with life … what we know and those we love soon gives way to the flow of time …

This last week, Donna and I were looking at old slides … goodness … I was once young … and my children were once babies … things change … we move on … we all march to the beat of the same drummer … a rhythm tapping out the days, until we draw our last breath, and life is no more.

Stone-by-stone … the end of the age!

The disciples were unnerved … “When will this be? Will there be any signs? We’d like to know.”

“Beware that you are not led astray,” says Jesus.
Many will come claiming to have all the answers … “Do not go after them,” says Jesus.

Steady as she goes! Don’t be terrified … take advantage of the moment to testify: tell the world about faith, hope and love; grace, mercy and peace.

When you’re up against it, I will give you the words and wisdom you need … to withstand the onslaught of the world …

Steady as she goes … by your endurance, you will gain your souls …

An incredible promise: by your endurance, you will gain your souls …

A promise that makes sense … endure and we gain our souls … because souls are lost, when fear takes hold … when we’re unnerved by circumstance, when we panic, the center collapses, we become prisoners of the immediate … events dictate our state of mind.
Circumstances decide our character …
We’re no longer centered; our point of reference no longer within, but out there somewhere in the swirling sands of time …

Disasters and wars: cutbacks at work … slumping housing market … stocks in decline … a child’s report card … a fateful call from the doctor’s office.

Our stomach churns … sleep is fitful and nightmarish … imagined scenarios race through mind, and everyone of them is bad … trusted members of the family fail us … friends turn the other way, too busy with their own stuff … faith ridiculed by the skeptic; rejected by the cynic.

The end of the age! Or so it seems.

Jesus dares to say: be steady … remain centered; … you will make it through the storm; I will bring you to a better place … it’s going to be all right … not a hair on your head will perish … nothing lost … by your endurance, you will gain your souls.

Talk about the power of positive thinking …

The glass is half-full … a positive spin … roll with the punches … bend with the wind …

Jesus is that kind of person … so is Paul the Apostle … Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr. … John and Charles Wesley … Mother Teresa … life is no picnic for any of them, but they make meatloaf sandwiches, fix potato salad and have a picnic anyway.

Things turn our best for those who make the best of how things turn out!

Jesus on the cross … salvation for the world.
Paul in prison … opportunity to sing hymns - witness to the jailor.
Martin Luther tucked away in Wittenberg Castle – a death sentence hanging over his head … he writes the Reformation documents that change the world.
Mother Teresa, the inner burden of spiritual turmoil and doubt … picks up a washcloth and comforts a dying man.

They all trust the fundamental promise of God: “I am at work in ALL things for good.”

A simple faith – there’s good here; I may not see right now, I may not know how it’ll all turn out, but I trust my Father in heaven.
I take God at His word, signed and sealed with the blood of Christ … confirmed on Easter morning … the stone rolled away; the powers of death undone … the old book closed; a new book opened … a new story, a new beginning, a new day.

The power of positive thinking …

“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

“The earth is the LORD's, and all that is in it.” (Psalm 24)

“To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust.” (Psalm 25)

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27)

The power of positive thinking … Robert Schuller didn’t invent it … Norman Vincent Peale didn’t invent it … Joel Osteen didn’t invent it …
But from the wellsprings of Scripture … the ancient text … the Word of the LORD … “God created the heavens and the earth” … “God at work in all things” … “then I saw a new heaven and a new earth” … “and we will be like Him” … “in the twinkling of an eye.”

Steady as she goes!

The power of prayer … “Jesus my LORD” … “Our Father who art in heaven” … “Now I lay me down to sleep, I the pray the LORD my soul to keep” … “God is great; God is good; let us thank Him for our food” … “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference” … “not my will be done, but thine” … “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever” …

Steady as she goes.

The Holy Spirit … the Counselor, the Advocate; God inside us; God with us … the Holy Spirit instructs us in the things of Jesus, seals the grace of God upon our hearts … brings us into the kingdom of God, centers us in God’s unconditional love; implants God’s unconditional love into the center of our lives …

Steady as she goes.

Jesus knew full well that changing times unnerve us … and times are always changing … we’d like to know a few things, if you please … some inside information.

Jesus replies cryptically … an answer that’s no answer at all … a simple reminder; a reality check: earthquakes there are, and wars rage … natural disasters and human tragedies … small and large … played out in our living rooms and in our workplaces … in the halls of government and on the battlefield … fires roar up a canyon and homes are gone; rain ceases and a city is threatened … a thousand dramas every day … large and small … things change … things come and go … birth and death … hope and sorrow … joy and fear … love and anger …

Jesus says, “So what else is new?”

Steady as she goes!

Hang on to God, because God hangs on to you, and God will never let go.

It’s going to be all right; you’ll make it … the storm will pass; you’ll be the better for it … keep your eyes on God … steady as she goes.

“Do not be afraid little flock; it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20).

“I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

Steady as she goes!

“Let mutual love continue.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers …
Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them …
Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have.”

Steady as she goes … easy does it … stay calm … stay focused … stay centered in the love of God … read your Bible; pray often and pray simply …

And by your endurance, you will gain your souls!

Hallelujah and Amen!