3.26.23 "Suddenly, a Noise!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

Ezekiel 37.1-14; Romans 8.6-11

Whatever else can be said about the Christian Faith, this much is clear, at least to me:

The heart of the Christian Faith is hope … 

And hope means courage … the courage to face whatever - may come our way, however it shakes out for us … 

Life can be downright miserable … things go south in a heartbeat … we screw up badly, behave in the worst of ways … friends desert us, colleagues betray us … our car breaks down.

We all know the downside of life … we’ve been there … maybe we’re there right now, we’ll be there again … it’s just the way it is.

The Bible knows full well the crummy side of life … if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.

And so it shall be, to the end of the age …

But this much can be said … this much has to be said … there is hope, a focused, profound, hope, that transcends all other hopes … there is goodness at work in the universe … there is grace, there is mercy, there is love … from death to life, from bondage to freedom, from a valley of dry, dry, bones, to a new day rising.

Ezekiel knows hard times … he’s been with the people, in the long hike to Babylon … a trail of tears.

Let’s be honest … 

In the down side of life, we can lose our bearings … sadness overwhelms the soul … bitterness, resentment, about how things turn out, because sometimes, things turn out really crummy … 

And it’s not even our doing … the shifting sands of time and culture can throw us to the side of the road and leave us stranded … economic powers, political shifts, far beyond our control … time and tide wait for no man.

I keep thinking about the folks in Syria and Turkey … 50,000 dead and counting … so much lost … so much gone … it’ll take years to rebuild those cities and towns …  

The people in Ukraine - day in, day out, the threat of death … sorrow and fear at every turn of the corner … 

Ezekiel’s people in Babylon, lost … forlorn … broken:

Psalm 137 says it well …

By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

The Psalm ends with some of the bitterest words every uttered by any human being, anywhere … a scream of rage, hurt, revenge - against the Babylonians, for what they’ve done …

Some read Psalm 137, and ask, “Why is this even in the Bible?” 

This hideous outburst, dripping with bitterness … it’s in the Bible, because the Bible is all about the human journey, the human story, our story … hopes and setback, defeat and victory, finding a way through, and finding our way blocked, the good … the bad … and the ugly.

The Bible is thoroughly honest; the Bible doesn’t pull its punches, it’s doesn’t shy away from the wretched things of life  … 

And still, always and forever, the singular, beautiful, message of hope and courage … don’t be afraid, I am with you always, to the end … I will never leave you or forsake you … there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, neither in this life, or the life to come, neither trial nor travail, neither heartache nor loss … 

With caution, with patience, and kindness, never scolding anyone for feeling bad … never wagging a finger at anyone who’s discouraged … or blame anyone, for being in the Valley of the Shadow of Death … 

Preachers and priests can scold … but not so the Bible.

Not so the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ.

God walks with the wounded.

God rests with the weary.

God takes the hand of the lonely.

God waits for those who cannot go another step.

God is present within all the bleak and dreary corners of life.

On that day in Babylon, a vision: God takes Ezekiel to a valley, bleak and dreary, full of dry, dry, bones …

Can these bones live again? asks God.

What can Ezekiel say?

I imagine his face, a face drawn down by fatigue, a soul broken and bleeding … 

With a shrug of the shoulders, Ezekiel mumbles, Only you know, LORD … only you know!

Is this a statement of faith?

Or resignation?

I’m not sure what it is … I suspect it’s a shred of faith, a remnant of former days … what was earlier formed in Ezekiel’s childhood, the liturgies of the Temple … the songs of Zion … at his mother’s knee, at his fathers’s side.

But now? … what’s left?

A shrug of the shoulders, a bit of a mumble, Only you know, LORD … only you know.

And God says, Let me show you what I can do.

And with that, suddenly, a noise … bones and sinews, flesh and blood, come into being … 

Creation, all over again … when God, like a child playing with dirt, took a fistful and shaped it into a little figure.

God took that little figure and held it close to God’s face, and with a puff of breath, God breathed life into that little lump of dirt … and that day, God said, 

I created a remarkable being of dirt and divinity … 

for the dirt, mortal … 

mortal to the core, 

subject to all the infirmities and limits of flesh and bone … 

but driven by divinity, by impossible dreams, 

incredible hope, 

infinite reach for the stars above 

and the courts of heaven beyond … 

this creature of dirt and divinity 

will carry great burdens, 

experience untold joys and great pleasure, 

and will learn how to weep … 

this creature of dirt and divinity will do horrible things, and great things … 

this creature of dirt and divinity will harm and hurt … and heal and help …

 it will pray, it will curse; 

it will build, it will destroy; 

it will celebrate the truth, and tell big lies … 

it will be great, it will be terrible … it will be beautiful, it will be frightening; 

it will be a human being, a creature of dirt and divinity.

Can the bones, the dry, dry, bones, live again?

It’s the question of the ages …

Will Syria and Turkey rebuild?

Will the war in Ukraine come to an end?

Will our sadness find a way through?

Will our dreams come true?

It may take years … it may take ages … maybe only in eternity … 

It’s all held together … in Christ our LORD.

the dirt and the divinity … 

the visible and the invisible … 

all of time, all of eternity … 

the smallest elements of creation, and the distant of stars … 

the next moment, and billions and billions and billions of light years …

As I was putting all of this together … thinking, reading, writing … pondering the stories of Lent, thinking about all of you … my own life, my family, my stories …

This came to mind:

You can do it.

I believe in you.

You have the ability to make your world.

You will recover.

You will find your way.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In the name of the Mother, the Daughter, and their Divine Presence.

In the name of all that’s good and beautiful and true.

In the name of every child’s hope, every child’s dream, every child’s love …

Yes, Yes, and Yes!

Hallelujah and Amen!

May 22, 2022, "Ford Every Stream" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena

 Psalm 67; John 14.25-29

I love to read Zane Gray novels … stories of the "old west" - more fiction than fact, but still fun to read.

Stories of huge cattle drives ... the constant search for water, forage … safety … and those rare and difficult rivers - how to cross a river ... 

If the water's too high, bed down the cattle - wait for the water to drop ... sometimes, last year's crossing changed during the winter, so another place has to be found ... 

None of it easy; all of it demanding ... and every bit of it, dangerous.

But the work pays off … there's always a place to cross the river.

Sure, it's just a novel of the Old West: Riders of the Purple Sage, The Spirit of the Border, The Rainbow Trail.

Beautiful young ladies with flowing hair and glowing eyes, handsome cowboys with rugged features and tender hearts ... hard days and lonely nights … raging storms and crooked cowboys.

The point of the story remains: there's always a place to cross the river … the cattle drive goes on ... the bad guys get their comeuppance, the hero gets the girl, the girl gets her man! Love wins the day!

I think of all the challenges Westminster Presbyterian Church has faced over the years ... how many rivers have been crossed ... issues resolved, sadness overcome, glory achieved, greatness enjoyed … the good work of being the church of Jesus Christ goes on - lives transformed, witness given, ministry sustained, mission accomplished, the bills paid …the Tower still stands, the organ plays on … year, after year, after year!

The Psalmist says it well:

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.

Like the cattle drive of old, there’s no going back … the only way, is the way ahead … if the water’s too high, we’ll wait … if last year’s crossing has changed, we’ll find another place to cross … we’ll experiment, innovate, invent … 

I can’t think of words more important for the people of God in such times as our’s: experiment, innovate, invent.

1930, 1940, 2001, and 2022 … every age poses its own set of challenges and questions … some periods are a little more settled than others … sometimes, everything is upside down.

Right now, we’re in a strange time, an in-between time … no one seems to know quite what we should do, or where we’re going.

Such times afford us a rare opportunity, an opportunity to step back a bit, take a deep breath, look long and hard at who we are, what we value, what we want, how to love the world, how to love one another. 

Amanda Gorman said: “To love one another just may be the fight of our lives.”

Jesus tells the disciples about the Holy Spirit … the Spirit, to teach us everything … everything pertaining to the life and work of Christ. 

We are not alone; we have the sacred text, we have the living Spirit of God - the deep traditions of our faith … we have one another - we have what’s needed to know who we are, how to live, what the love of God requires.

Jesus says to the disciples: Peace I leave you … my peace I give to you .. do not let your hearts be troubled, do not let your hearts be afraid … rise, let us be on our way.

In that moment, the disciples didn’t have a clue.

They had no idea what was to come.

Jesus says, I’m leaving you.

But I will not abandon you.

The Spirit will be here.

In Christ, our courage … 

In Christ, our hope.

Especially so these days … when hatred plays its ugly hand at every turn of the clock … politicians and preachers proclaim “replacement” propaganda - “the replacement of the white race” - and hatred of immigrants, people from the Middle East, people from south of the border, people of color, people from Asia … and always the Jews, of course. 

Irresponsible politicians, careless preachers, shout their malicious ideas of race and color, as if such could ever be God’s truth … but it’s not God’s truth… it’s the Devil’s lies … a script from hell - hell thrives on fear, hell loves hatred; hell despises the truth … hell lives on death.

I ask you: Was Jesus oblivious to the times in which he lived?

Was Jesus a recluse in the wilderness, a hermit on the mountain?

Jesus knew full-well the oppressive powers of Rome … the countryside punctuated with crosses … everywhere, betrayal, suspicion, high prices, food shortages, and too much religion, religion run amok … a land seething with unrest and fear.

Jesus lived in the midst of it all - when the time came, he journeyed to Jerusalem, the eye of the storm - where Pilate presided, and religion ruled. The Sermon on the Mt. is deeply spiritual, and powerfully political - the Sermon on the Mt. addresses the lies and deceptions of the day, the temptations to hatred and power.

Jesus offers peace, the antidote to fear … because bad decisions are made when we’re afraid … fear destroys our ability to think … fear twists love into useless shreds … 

Nowhere does Jesus suggest any of this to be easy; it’s hard to live the Christ-Way - then or now, for Jesus, or for us. 

But it’s the only way to survive, the only way to make some sense of our times, the only way to cross the river. 

Here, this morning, we do what God’s People have always done in difficult times: we turn to God … seek God’s counsel … pray for the Holy Spirit … seek the gift of courage: the courage to keep on keepin’ on … inventing, innovating, dreaming and daring.

Emily Bronté wrote:

No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

A little child on the beach watched the sun sink into the sea … she asked her mother and father, with a tremor in her voice, “Will the sun come back?

Her mother said to her, “Early tomorrow morning, we’re going to the mountains, and we’ll watch the sun come back.”

Leo Buscaglia tells the story of his mother’s “misery dinner” …

It was the night after his father came home and said it looked as if he would have to go into bankruptcy, because his business partner had left town with all the money. 

His mother went out and sold some jewelry to buy food for a feast. Some of the family scolded her for it. But she told them: ”the time for joy is now, when we need it most, not next week." Her courage rallied the family. 

Cowboys on a cattle drive … 

The disciples in the land of doubt … 

A child on the beach … 

And Mama with her misery dinner.

Climb every mountain, dear friends.

Ford every stream,

Follow every rainbow,

'Til you find your dream 

In the name of the threefold God. Hallelujah and Amen!

"What Just Happened?" - January 3, 2016

Calvary Presbyterian Church, Hawthorne, CA

January 3, 2016

John 1.1-9

A loud noise somewhere … “What was that?”

A tremor of the earth … the house creaks … “Was that an earthquake?”

We turn on the news midway through some report … everyone looks serious … we wonder to ourselves, “What just happened?”

Newly weds after their first fight, “What just happened?”

Newborn parents come home from the hospital with their little bundle of joy; they look at each other and query, “What just happened?”

Those newborn parents will wonder “What just happened” ten thousand times throughout the course of the years to come … as we all do, much of the time, at work and play, in hard times, and sweet times, “What just happened?”

Angels we have heard on high

Sweetly singing o’er the plains,

And the mountains in reply

Echo back their joyous strains.

What just happened?

Something, good, that’s for sure … truly, really, wonderfully, good … something that continues to inspire us with hope … we sing the carols with gusto, tears rise in our eyes … candles burn brightly in the night … a night that cannot overcome the light.

We might well ask, what with all the divine light, why so much darkness? …

Wars and rumors of war, refugees on the road, just like Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt … refugees, then, refugees, still, in a world where there’s so much hatred, so much anger, so much bigotry, so much fear …

The darkness is real …

But it cannot, will not, ever, overcome the light …

The Bethlehem Baby … Shepherds from the fields … Wisemen from afar … the star still shines …

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by;

Yet in the dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light …

Glorious light … abundant light … light to warm the heart, and light to lead the way.

Jesus said: You are the light of the world … let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

What just happened?

Something good.

And something in which we can rightly believe …

We live by our beliefs, do we not?

If we believe the world to be a bad place, it’ll be bad place for us … if we believe the world to be full of goodness, we’ll find goodness around every turn of the road, no matter what, no matter where.

Jesus said, The eye is the lamp of the body … if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

We choose … we choose what to believe about the world … and we choose how we see it … 

Joshua said to the people in the wilderness, Choose this day whom you’ll serve … the gods of the past, the gods of the day … or …

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The God of Miriam, Deborah and Ruth.

The God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ.

What just happened?

Something good … 

Something to believe …

And something to live.

From the Prophet Hosea:

I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice … the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings …

To put it in contemporary words: Let me see your faith at work … not here on Sunday mornings, but out there, on Monday mornings … let me have more from you than just your prayers; let me see your deeds of mercy, acts of kindness and the works of justice.

Yes, going to church is good.

Reading our Bible.

Saying our prayers.

But lots of people go to church.

Lots of folks read the Bible.

Lots of people pray.

And then they buy guns and get angry …

Guns, guns, and more guns … and so much violence …

Christian Churches in America are full of violent people … people who long for the violent end of the world … the violent end of the United States … violent people - the KKK, the John Birch Society, White Supremacist Groups and all the rest … hateful, bigoted, fearful, ignorant, angry … all in “Jesus’ name!”

I’m heartbroken - the failure of the church to lift up the light … so many Christians have turned to the Dark Side … and opened their hearts to fear and hatred.

To quote Yoda:

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

And how some folks hate our President.

They hate all kinds of people - Muslims, immigrants, refugees, people of color, gays and lesbians, poor people, you name it …

But I say unto you, dear people of God:

Never!

Never ever!

Is this the way of Jesus!

Jesus was born to show the world another way … 

And if we wonder what it means,

Micah the Prophet answers our question:

The LORD has told you what is good …

To do justice,

To love kindness,

And to walk humbly with your God!

James writes:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress …

Paul the Apostle writes to the Galatians:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

And to the Corinthians:

Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude … love never ends.

Because God is love … and love is God!

People of God, we have a world on our hands … and never again can we go back to a world of distance … where it took weeks and months to cross a nation, or cross a sea … months to send and receive letters … t’s a world now of porous borders and instant communication; we live next door to one another … Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs … every stripe of race and creed and color … people who believe, and people who don’t … with lots of different holy books and lots of different traditions … 

Shortly before his death, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote:

We have inherited a large house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together— black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu— a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.

And how shall we live together?

What does it mean to follow the Child of Bethlehem?

In world of crude politics and violent voices … can we not lift up the alternative vision?

Do we dare to live the ways of peace?

Kindness?

Mercy?

Or shall we join the ignorant mob arming itself with fear and hatred?

Of will we take up the cross of compassion and love?

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play

And mild and sweet their songs repeat

Of peace on earth good will to men

For the Christmas Season now past … for the year behind us … for the year ahead of us … for the sake of our world, and our children and grandchildren …

What just happened?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word with with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Hallelujah and Amen!