4.16.23 "Peter Raised His Voice!" Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Psalm 16; Acts 2.14-21

Who hasn’t raised their voice, a time or two?

A child wandering toward the street, the parent cries out,“Stop!”  

The Costco parking lot, we spot a friend on the far side, and we raise our voice, “Hi Sally, how are you?” to catch our friend’s attention.

Some years back, a congregational meeting … a church riven by racial conflict … an older white congregation, Cameroonian immigrants … all of them Presbyterians, all of them wanting a church to call their own … each with their own cultural and religious traditions, not always fitting together too easily … 

As the meeting proceeded, conflict started … a white man, stood up, and began to criticize the Cameroonians for not fitting in … it was terribly uncomfortable for everyone, and knowing what I knew about the congregation, about this particular person, I raised my voice, and loudly I said, “Stop it! And sit down!”

It worked … the man stopped talking, and sat down … the meeting proceeded, with some distress, but we made it through the meeting, and on to another day

I raised my voice!

The parent cries out!

We hail a friend!

Peter raised his voice on Pentecost Day … in the midst of a noisy crowd, visitors to Jerusalem from all over the Roman world - for Pentecost Holiday, the 50th day after Passover … a harvest celebration, a festive time, a time to give thanks … the city was super-busy, jammed streets, stores doing a fine business, the Temple a place of celebration and joy.

Whatever happened that day remains beyond our purview … but something happened … strange and wonderful, bewildering and mysterious … the disciples were given the gift of language, tongue-speaking … 

It is not for us to ask what this was … we don’t know; we’ll never know … but the story makes clear - something wonderfully important … God enabled understanding … the means by which every resident and visitor in that fabled city, could hear the Good News - in their own language, their own idiom, their own tongue - Jesus the Christ is Risen!

The crowds were curious, wondering, everyone talking … 

In the midst of the clamoring crowd, Peter raises his voice … the disciples are all there, but it’s Peter who raises his voice … he steps out, he speaks … loudly, forcefully, to make himself heard.

Some accused the disciples of drunkenness … hitting the Pentecost wine early in the morning … but Peter says, It’s too darn early for that; it’s 9 in the morning … we’ve not been drinking. What is happening is a fulfillment of an ancient dream, a long-standing hope, when God would change the course of history, chart a new way for God’s People, open up doors long closed, bring about a new day in Israel’s life. This is what’s happening, says Peter.

Peter declares the universality of God’s purpose and love … what God makes clear in creation, God confirms with the covenant … what God makes clear throughout the ages, God confirms in Christ … 

Life prevails, love endures, 

The light cannot be quenched by the darkness of fear, hate, bigotry, or lies … 

The good overcomes the bad … though the bad always has its day… evil is real … terrible things happen to good people, good people perish, there is no good reason for any of it … it’s just that evil is evil … and the bad is bad.

And so is the good … the love and mercy of God … there is light … there is hope … there is goodness … there is beauty.

The new Netflix series, “Transatlantic,” tells the story of Varian Fry, who goes to Marseille, France when war breaks out in Europe … to save Jewish refugees from a sure and certain death.

When Hitler came to power in 1932, many could see what would happen … Jewish intellectuals, writers, artists, scientists, musicians, fled to Paris, and when Hitler’s armies crushed the French army, driving the British to Dunkirk, the refugees fled south, many of them to Marseille.

Varian Fry ultimately helps 2000 refugees escape to freedom, including the likes of Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, and Heinrich Mann.

In the midst of turmoil and hate, life emerges, goodness prevails … love endures … 

This is Peter’s message … God gives to the world those who keep alive the finest ambitions of the human soul … God pours out the Holy Spirit … the imagery is rich … like a jug of wine, a pitcher of cold water, poured out generously … upon all flesh … your sons and daughters … young men see visions … old men dream dreams.

In every time and place … God creates those who see the times and know what’s happening … they know a lie when they hear it, a deception when they see it … they go into action, they put themselves on the line … they raise their voice.

Like Varian Fry who saw what was happening, and went to work … 

And millions like him around the world, in this very day, bearing witness to the hopes and dreams of humanity … the hopes and dreams of God.

In our own time and place, we, too, here, at Westminster, benefit from Peter’s raised voice … he declares to the world that Jesus is risen from the dead … 

Peter encourages the crowds with hope: Save yourselves, save yourselves from this corrupt generation … repent … and you will be forgiven … you will receive the Holy Spirit.

I have no doubt about God’s universal work … in lands far from us, and in our homes and cities … God at work, in all religions … in every heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness …

Religion is what it is … good and bad, sweet and cruel, wise and foolish … no religion can escape the burden of reality … no more than any of us can escape the burden of reality … the good that we do, and the harm that we’ve done … the deeds of faith and love, the misdeeds of selfish instincts … the best of our moments, and the worst …

No religion, anywhere, has a corner on the truth … no religion, anywhere, can claim superiority … to claim superiority is already on the road to perdition … in all the religions of the world, where superiority is claimed, we see the results all too clearly - the Taliban in Afghanistan, Christian Nationalism here in the States … horrors visited upon children and women throughout the religions of the world … the narrow-mindedness of those who keep the law, while rejecting the spirit of the law … who, as Jesus said, strain out the gnat, but swallow the camel …

No religion can free itself from the burden of reality … but all religion is a reflection of the soul, the love of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, the Holy Spirit of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit of Creation … the Holy Spirit that hovered over Mary to conceive within her the Anointed One of God … the Holy Spirit here and now … moving in our hearts and minds, the Spirit tugging at us, convicting us, pushing us, drawing us, lifting us up, and holding us close to Christ.

Our task is to be the best kind of Christian we can be … informed by the best of our Presbyterian Tradition … the great and sovereign love of God, love that will not turn anyone away, love that doesn’t judge, but redeems … love that welcomes the children, all the children, children of need, trans children and their families … all of God’s children, gay and straight, male and female … every color of the rainbow … every race and ethnicity, all the forms of gender and life.

There are those in our world who proclaim a god of judgment, wrath, punishment … a god who loves some, but not all … a God who rejects and abandons, a god who hates, a god who is violent and loves guns … a god who can’t stand gays and lesbians, a god who considers trans children and their families to be “an abomination”…  a people to despise, to hate, people to reject, criminalize, imprison, and even execute.

Is this the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ?

I don’t believe it is.

So I raise my voice to proclaim the Gospel of love.

I invite you to raise your voice, too … to combat the lies that fill the air we breath … to challenge the distortions that twist the church into hideous shapes and forms … to call out those who lust after power and control … those who deny the rights and freedoms of the many, in order to enhance the wealth and privilege of the few.

Is this the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ?

I don’t believe it is …

So I raise my voice, and I invite you to raise your voice, too - to sing the glories of Christ our LORD, risen from the dead, to give life to the Dry Bones, life to the children beside him, the women with him, the first disciples, and all the disciples ever since.

The LORD gives life and courage to a Varian Fry, to all who go into the smoke to rescue the perishing, save a few souls, make this a better world. 

Christ raised his voice and cried out, It is finished!

Peter raised his voice and proclaimed, He is risen!

Varian Fry raised his voice, and saved the many!

With them, for all of humanity, I raise my voice, and I invite you, to raise your voice, too.

Hallelujah and Amen!

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!

1.22.23 "Another Way Home" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Isaiah 9.1-4; Matthew 2.1-12

We’re in the season of Epiphany … a season of discovery … represented by the Wise Men of the East … who traveled long, who traveled far, watching the night sky for a sign … 

They came to Bethlehem to lay down their gifts … warned by an angel of Herod’s true intent, they return home by another road … when Herod finds out, he’s mad as hell, and lays waste to the little town and all of it’s children.

What else is new? 

Herod’s rage … despotic rulers, those who imagine they can control time and manage the universe with their ruthless and uncaring power - they stop at nothing; will do anything, to protect their power

Thank God:

There is always another way home, after we’ve been to Bethlehem.

I’m reminded of one my favorite Bible stories: Paul and Timothy head to Bithynia, but the story adds: the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them, so … they went down to Troas … 

During the night, in Troas, Paul had a vision: a man of Macedonia standing before him, pleading with Paul - Come to Macedonia to help us. 

Is there anyone here who hasn’t had their plans upset by the unexpected? 

The road ahead blocked … no way forward … stymied, stuck, stalled  … the poet says: the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray …

The Book of Proverbs says: The human mind plans the way, but the LORD directs the steps.

Proverbs puts it this way: Prepare your work outside, get everything ready for you in the field, and after that build your house.

In other words, first things first … 

Which is easier said than done … we are distracted by glittery things … something of small importance appears to be of great value.

Consumer specialists understand how this works … if it’s not one thing we want, then it’s another … and we need it now, or so we think … before we know it, what we wanted so badly, ends up in next summer’s garage sale … 

I’ve been there … the urge to get something at the spur of the moment … from QVC to ads on YouTube, and for me, the best book ever on theology … 

Buy it now; it’s so easy - “one-click” shopping - our phones, our computers, linked to our credit cards … boom … just like that, a click away, it’s on its way, delivered tomorrow, at our doorstep.

First things first … I don’t know how to make that work clearly … nor how to say it well … but the words of Scripture prove worthy:

Do not worry, says Jesus, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ … your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Part of what we’re doing here, in person, via YouTube, we’re working to have good priorities.

Again, the words of Jesus: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We are creatures who make plans … we forecast the future … hold a wet finger in the wind to see which way it’s blowing.

We’re the bowler arcing the ball down for that perfect strike … we’re fly fishing for rainbow trout, and we read the river … we fall in love and dream in technicolor …

But it won’t always work … we know that!

The best laid plans are sometimes thwarted …

The Wise Men were nearly undone by Herod’s evil …

Life, with all of its twists and turns …

Illness pays us an unexpected visit … the loss of a job, the turn of an economy; a pandemic … the relentless march time … circumstances of our own undoing, and sometimes our undoing by circumstances out of our hands.

The suffering in Ukraine … other parts of the world … hopes and dreams smashed, reduced to burned ruble, in the ruins of war … unimaginable heartache and loss … and what a price the children pay.

In the face of such loss, I don’t know what I would do, what I would think, how I would react.

Would I still trust in God?

“Trust in God!” … we say!

Easy to do when the sun shines, and the roof ain’t leaking.  

But harder to do when things fall apart … 

When death is in the air.

When loss overwhelms us.

There is always another way home …  

Over the years, I’ve been privileged to hear stories … folks make it … love finds a way  … healing, hope, a new day … as with Paul - if not Bithynia, there’s always Troas … if Herod stands in the way, there’s another way home.

God provides … God provides for Jesus in the wilderness, after 40 days of harrowing deprivation … 

The Wise Men were given another way home … 

Paul was given Troas.

Hope abounds …

But hope needs reality … 

and reality can be utterly daunting:

Not everyone finds their way out … 

Not everyone escapes …

The horrors of war, the cruelties of history can win the day.

Little Anne Frank dies in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. And what did she do to deserve that?

A journalist gunned down in Ukraine.

The sun is no longer shining … only clouds and gloom.

 

Despair fills our souls … fear and trembling at every turn of the hour … faith grasps for meaning … and sometimes faith curls up and dies.

But it’s the consensus of the ages - God proves faithful, even in the midst of hell - the Creed puts it well, if not strangely, he descended into hell - there to break the final power, and establish the kingdom of light … to forge another way home for a whole lot of people who need “another way.”

God’s faithfulness extends far and beyond the boundaries of time … we belong to God, in life and in death … in body and in soul … forever, and a day.

There is always another way home … a route, a path, a highway … a river, a road, a trail … in time, and in eternity, forever and a day … because God is love, and we are loved unto life.

We will get there … and to God be the glory. Amen