6.23.24 "Five Smooth Stones" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

1 Samuel 17.1-11; 17.38-50

The Baptism of a child is always, a day of celebration …

Prayers and promises … songs and sermons … food and festivities.

Markus Christian Thomas von Thun-Hohenstein

Young Man, we pray for your wellbeing … body and soul … we make promises to you, that we’ll do our best:

We promise, a roof over your head, a comfy bed, loving arms, kindly words, good schools and safe neighborhoods … 

We promise: books to read, bikes to ride, games to play.

We promise you a childhood … a pathway to the years that stand before you … to make the most of yourself, to dream all the dreams of a child … good dreams, dreams of discovery and courage, dreams of bravery and adventure, the dreams of the heart, and the dreams of the mind.

We promise: to provide for you all that we can … and you, dear boy, provide us a future, beyond our years and time … 

when we have retired from the journey, 

when we have laid down our burdens, 

you will continue the good fight, 

you will run the race of life.

Markus Christian Thomas, you will build upon what we’ve built … tear down a few things no longer needed, and build anew what we could’t even imagine.

You will write your books, and sing your songs … and discover more of God’s good world … 

You’ll find solutions to the problems that vexed us … you’ll find your way to the stars … 

Like us, you’ll discover your own foolishness and failure.

Young Man, just like us, you will know yourself to be flesh and bone … you will learn the deep lessons of humility, honesty, kindness, and love.

As I write this sermon, I think of the young boy David … and his five smooth stones …

He’s the youngest of the family … his elder brothers are engaged in battle with the Philistine armies …  

Goliath, a giant of a man, bellows his challenge - find someone to fight me to the death … and if you win, my soldiers will surrender to you … and if I win, you will surrender to me.

Who will fight me?

No one volunteers … except one boy … full of youth’s energy and confidence … I’ll do it, says he … I’ll fight the giant.

The boy is brought to King Saul … the king is amazed, and says to the boy, Here’s my armor for you!

But the armor is too big … which is to say, We can’t wear anyone else’s armor … a good lesson for all of us …  

A child born unto us - we have our dreams for them … we want them to do well, be well, win the day … 

We feed and cloth them, we school them and take care of their needs … but they will never wear our armor … what fits us will never fit them … 

A new generation finds its own resources and abilities … the child in our arms discovers who they are, and what they possess, the skills of their heart and mind … 

David isn’t a solider, he’s a shepherd … 

He’s used to the elements - cold at night, hot during the day … seasons of chilling rain and wind-blown snow … prowling lions of the night … cliffs and crevices in the mountains … danger at every turn of the way …

David is already prepared … in his own way … he has his sling … at his feet, five smooth stones … it’s all he needs … 

David confronts the giant, sends a stone hurtling to its mark, the giant falls … the day is won, victory gained, peace at last.

A young boy, a sling, and five smooth stones.

We know the rest of the story, David goes on to more victories and greater things … he’s not perfect, by any means, but his faith remains clear and focused … when King Saul fails and dies, David is called to be the next King of Israel … the mantle of leadership falls upon his shoulders, he leads the nation for forty years …

As for Markus Christian Thomas … what will he do?

Discoveries to be made.

Adventures to be had.

Goodness to embrace.

Mistakes to be made.

Love given, and love received.

The future will unfold for him … 

In the meantime, we do what we can to insure a good future.

What every generation has done before us … we take up our tools, hitch up our jeans, take a deep breath, face the world square on … and go to work.

There are giants to defeat.

Battles to win.

Life to be lived.

Look for the good, and we’ll find it.

Search for opportunities, and they’ll appear.

And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work,
life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready
and we ripple with life through the days.

Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a man a stool,
if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding
good is the stool, content is the woman, with fresh life rippling in to her,
content is the man.

Give, and it shall be given unto you
is still the truth about life. … D.H. Lawrence, 1929

Paul the Apostle wrote: be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the LORD, because you know that in the LORD, you labor is not in vain.

We live, we work, we go to church … we rise in the morning to take up the tasks of life … we grab a quick lunch, or cook a pot of stew … we retire at night, and lay me down to sleep, and pray the LORD my soul to keep.

We have what it takes … 

our shepherd’s sling

five smooth stones … 

the courage of Christ and the love of God … 

For Markus Christian Thomas … and for all the children of the world. 

Hallelujah and Amen!

3.10.24, "Snakes & Salvation: Two Sides of the Same Coin!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Numbers 21.4-9; John 3.14-21

America’s Civil War tested the resolve of the nation … shall we remain one nation, or will we be divided … 

The question of enslavement remained unresolved from the beginning of our nation:

Benjamin Franklin abhorred slavery, but if slavery were challenged, Franklin knew the slave-holding states would never sign on to the Constitution … 

Franklin bit his tongue, held his peace, in the hopes that what he and others failed to do in their time would be accomplished by future generations.

The nation evolved … northern states rejected slavery … it didn’t happen all at one, it was piecemeal, but the southern states could see the writing on the wall - the days of enslavement would soon come to end, and gone with the wind, so to speak, southern wealth and influence. 

The Southern States set about to insure the perpetuation of enslavement … 

When Maine petitioned Congress for statehood, Southern politicians took a stand: they would vote for Maine’s statehood only if the new state of Missouri were admitted as a slave state.

On March 15, 1820, Missouri and Maine were both admitted  … one, a slave state, the other, a free state. Known as the Missouri Compromise.

September 18, 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted: in exchange for abolishing slavery in Washington, D.C., and admitting California as a free state. This act required all runaway slaves to be returned to their owners, even if they escaped to a free state. It also put the responsibility on the federal government to track down, capture, and try runaway slaves.

 

May 30, 1854, The Kansas-Nebrask Act became law … the Missouri Compromise was repealed … in its place, two new territories, Nebraska and Kansas … with the question of slavery to be decided by the territorial legislatures. 

Activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote, one way or the other. “Bleeding Kansas” it was called, as violence erupted again and again. 

November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln elected … his inaugural was March 4, 1861. In spite of assurances to the contrary, Southern States perceived Lincoln to be a threat to their way of life.

South Carolina called a state convention and voted to secede … six more states quickly followed: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas … four more states soon joined them: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These eleven states eventually formed the Confederate States of America.

April 12, 1861, Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter … the next day, the fort surrendered, and the Civil War was underway … it was a terrible war of untold suffering and death …

Between 1861 and 1865, the number of soldiers killed is estimated at 620,000 - approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.

Of those numbers: 360,222 Union soldiers and 258,000 Confederates … with another 50,000 or so civilian deaths.

November 19, 1863 - in the throes of the war, Lincoln travels to Gettysburg, for the founding of a national military cemetery for the Union soldiers who fell in battle four months earlier. The Union victory at Gettysburg was a turning point in the war.

April 9, 1865, the war ended.

But not the conflict … to this very day, issues of race remain in our nation … I fear for our country’s wellbeing … I’m concerned about the future of Democracy … in other words, I find myself smack dab in the middle of a story similar to our reading for the day.

Numbers, Chapter 21!

It begins with a bloody military victory … 

After the dead have been counted, and the weapons put away, no real victory at all …  

The people turn against God and Moses … 

Numbers 21 is a back story … when it was written, Israel was divided against itself.

Israel to the North with its capital city, Samaria …  Judah to the south with its capital city, Jerusalem … King Saul of the North, King David of the South … often at war with one another … never the twain shall meet.

Our little story this morning holds huge questions for the people of Israel and the people of Judah:

Can God’s people be united? 

Can we get along? 

Can there be a healing? 

Can we be one nation under God? 

Or are we hopelessly divided?

Centuries later, the conflict shows up in the New Testament!

When Jesus crosses the border into Samaria, the woman at the well is surprised - she says to Jesus, What are doing here? You’re a Jew from Judea; I’m a Samaritan here in the north.

When Jesus tells the parable of the “Good Samaritan,” heads are scratched … there are no “good Samaritans.”

Suspicion and fear all around the town.

Memories have a long shelf life! In ancient times, and here at home.

It seem we’re very good at being our own worst enemy!

In America these days … the rhetoric of secession: Idaho, Texas, northern California … racism, anti-semitism, fascism … the Capital stormed; fake electors … white supremacy, Christian Nationalism … rights denied, democracy threatened …

Victories won on the battlefield have yet to be won in the battlefield of the soul.

We’re very good at being our own worst enemy!

Getting back to the story, one of the strangest of Bible stories: a plague of snakes, sent by God.

The people turn to Moses, We have sinned … pray to the LORD to take away the snakes.

The LORD says to Moses, fashion a snake … and set it on a pole … everyone who’s been bitten … shall look at it … and live.

A story, not about medicine … but a question: can the nation be healed? 

Can we learn from our mistakes? 

Do our mistakes have anything to teach us? 

Can we learn from our snakes?

Moses puts a snake on a pole …

Take a look … don’t turn away … 

Be honest, be truthful, be humble.

Even the snake is a servant of God … 

Jesus says of himself:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The center of our faith: the Cross … and on the Cross, Christ hangs and dies.

Look at the Cross … 

The sadness of our sin … and then blink, and there’s the glory of God’s love. 

Look at the Cross …

That which we have taken and destroyed … and then blink: and see what God has given … 

Look at the Cross …

Things destroyed … and then blink: to see all things made new.

Face-to-face with our snakes … and then blink: to see the goodness of God.

The snakes are eager to teach us important things:

Fear can teach us courage.

Greed can teach us to trust the provisions of God.

Hate and anger can teach us peace and patience.

Loneliness can teach us about friendship and mercy.

Bigotry can teach us all about the other person.

Lies can instruct us in the ways of truth.

Everything that’s wrong can point the way to everything that’s right.

The snakes bite us, even unto death … but they’re eager to invite us - to a better day.

For God so loves the world! and God - so loves - each of you!

Amen and Amen!