English Language Sermon – July 12, 2009

“Dance Naked?” (II Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, Psalm 24)

July 12, 2009

Justin Thornburgh, Guest Preacher

Let me continue reading the lesson a little further (2 Sam. 6:20-22):

David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, ‘How the king of Israel honoured himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ maids, as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself!’ 21David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me in place of your father and all his household, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord, that I have danced before the Lord. 22I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in my own eyes; but by the maids of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honour.’

Let me give a little context to what is going on in the passage we just heard. In 2 Samuel 5, David has been anointed the king of all Israel. And in a move that is mocked by her inhabitants, David decides to make Jerusalem the capital. It is said that David is too weak to make this happen, but alas, he was successful. He also has defended the land against a Philistine attack. This is where today’s reading picks up.

David has gathered the chosen men of Israel to come with him to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant. This is a move to let the people know that even though there is a new leader and a new government and a new capital Israel will still honor the old traditions. They receive the Ark from Abin-a-dab and it begins it trip to Jerusalem. It is a grand procession with singing and dancing and music. An ecstatic journey. Until (and this is what is left out of today’s reading) Uzzah tries to balance an unsteady ark and is struck dead. One of the commentators I read mentions that this is not divine punishment, but because Uzzah was not ritually prepared to deal with the situation. Whatever the reason (another sermon of another day) this incident literally puts the fear of God into David, and David is mad. Afraid and angry David leaves the ark in the care of O-bed-e-dom for three months. When David hears that O-bed-e-dom has been greatly blessed during this interim time, he decides to go get the Ark and restart the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Taking care to make sure Uzzah’s death was not in vain David offers sacrifice after moving the ark six paces. Some think this is every six paces. They journey of ecstasy resumes. Shouting and dancing and singing and music and all of Israel are rejoicing praising the LORD. David is only girded in a linen ephod. This is a garment worn by the priests, but as the text mentions he is only girding himself. It is believed that David is naked except for the wearing the ephod a belt. This is supported by the fact that Micahl, David’s wife and Saul’s daughter, looks upon this display and despises David for it.

At long last the ark is brought to its place and David continues to offer sacrifice and blesses Israel and his own house. Michal, though, chastises him saying, “How the King of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eye of his servants’ maids as any vulgar fellow might shamelessly uncover himself!” David respnds, “It was before the LORD, who chose me in place of your father and all his household, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD, that I have danced before the LORD.” I want us to look at this today. How can we dance naked, stripped of everything that keeps us from the LORD?

***

Let us pray: May it be, O Lord, that the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable to your purposes of grace. Amen.

Have you ever been walking down the street and been hit with such joy that it is a total surprise and you can do nothing but say, “Thank you God!”?

I had that happen to me recently. Every Tuesday I go to the farmers’ market located in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art just off Michigan Ave. I was walking back to the office with an arm full of freshly baked bread, asparagus, home made peanut butter and jelly. I was walking along watching the people, listening to the urban symphony (the percussion of the jackhammers, the staccato rhythm of a giddy child, soaring flute of the birds filling the trees while waiting for someone to drop a piece of lunch, the low cello countermelody of wind blowing through my ears), watching the pigeons going after the remains of a lunch at one of the outdoor seating areas of a local shop, smelling the humidity in the air, touching the trunk of a tree as I passed by and WHAM I can do nothing by smile with tears in my eyes and thank God for this moment. I had what John Prine calls the Illegal Smile on my face for the next several blocks. I worshiped God in that moment. I lived in to the mystery that is grace. I was so overwhelmed by the gifts around me that I lost myself.

It was a moment where I was totally open to and responding to the Holy Spirit. I was stripped of all the garbage that had been going on. The pressures of work, the thoughts of moving, the cloud of things outside of my control: they were all gone. I was there. Stripped of everything. Dancing naked before the LORD. In the glory of Eden.

It was a moment and it passed, but it will come again and I will be ready.

These moments, though, happen quite rarely…at least for me. There are many, many times when my life is not focused like it should be. I am focused on work. I am focused on making sure our bank account is ok. I am focused on pleasing everyone around me instead of focusing on the one who gave me all these things. I am wearing the cloak of the pressures of the world. Life gets in the way. Life shrouds us with the things that prevent us from giving God the worship and praise our Creator deserves. We are human. It happens to all of us, but do not fret. Our reality is one of brokenness. But it is also a reality of grace. A reality of constant reminders that even when we are broken there is the promise of a new day. We just need to go to God as we are.

Look at the Psalms for proof that this disconnect happened to folks we look up to and admire from the Bible. Psalm 51, one of my favorites, is a confession of brokenness and sin. The psalmist is laying all their troubles before the LORD. Going to God warts and all. Psalm 39 is plea from a confused leader for wisdom and forgiveness. A plea for God to “hear my prayer.” Psalm 140 is a cry from a person being overwhelmed by their enemies. A prayer for deliverance from those enemies. In these examples, and many many more, the psalmists are just like us. People living living, working, grieving, searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. People buried under the strain of work. People whose children are going away to camp for the first time. People who have recently lost their jobs. People who are dealing with the passing of a loved one. The Psalms are for us and about us.

The thing about the Psalmists though is that they, even in their darkest hour, go to God. They go to God with tears rolling down their cheeks. They go to God. The act of going to God frees them to begin the process of unburdening themselves. It allows them to begin to transform.

I look at the psalms and say to myself, yeah, but… I am too busy to sit down to pray. Too much to do…I can not give God the worship deserved. I try. I go in spurts. I will be good for a while of setting aside time in the morning to pray, but then the snooze alarm looks better and better. I try to set aside time at lunch hour to go to the chapel at the hospital across the street from the office and pray, but then I have an important project due and then I have a lunch meeting and soon I am back eating lunch at my desk. I try to make time at night, but I need to fix supper or I am too tired from the day at work to focus on anything by CSI reruns. I do not think I am the only one here today that is going trough this. How can I make the time to go to God? Again the Psalms help with this.

Hear today’s Psalm. Psalm 24 (read):

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it;

2for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.

3Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?

4Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.

5They will receive blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of their salvation.

6Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.* Selah

7Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

8Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle.

9Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

10Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

“The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it.” Look around you. These trees are the LORD’s. The grass is the LORD’s. The squirrels chasing each other through your lawn are the LORD’s. Psalm 148 talks about the very earth praising God. This is where I find the time and the ability to respond to God’s works in my life. I watch the birds going for worms in the morning. I look at the trees raising their leaves in praise on sunny days and bowing in reverence on raining one.

I love trees. I love the stories they tell. Have you ever stopped and looked at a tree and tried to hear its story? One of my favorite trees is just over on Magnoila, directly across from where we are now. It is on the west side of the street. It is a tree that tells me a story of a very rough life. This tree is a short squatty one. The trunk is twisted, badly. It has fought to get to where it is today. But there is a split in the trunk and there is part of this tree that is clean and straight. It is a limb that says “I am going to make it.” It is a limb that literally shows new life in this old tree. This tree is praising God. This tree is a witness to me that in all things God creates new life. God is present. Looking at this tree I am able to let my guard down and go to God. Nature is God’s way of reminding me that I am not alone. I can always go to God anywhere, anytime. I just need the reminder.

One of my favorite contemporary blues singers is a guy named Keb Mo. I first saw him at a special event at Chicago Shakespeare. He and Barbara Gaines, the artistic director, went though and looked at the musicality of the Bard’s works. Through that event I became a fan. On his album “Just Like You” there is a song that I look at as a modern day psalm. It is called “Hand is Over.” Here is a sample of the lyrics:

If your problems

won’t go away

and you’re worried

both night and day

hand it over

get on your knees and pray…

Ain’t no mountain

you can’t climb

ain’t no answer

you can’t find

All you need is a hand to hold

It’ll heal you body

and feed your soul…

Hand it over

Hand it over

Give it up,

Give it over

Hand it over

Get on your knees and pray

This song frequently pops into my head when I am overwhelmed. I use it as a reminder, like watching the trees, that no matter how busy or how tired, God is there. All I need do is hand it over.

Something begins to happen when we are able to hand our burdens over to God. We begin to open ourselves up to the transformative power that is Grace.

Worship is not for us, but for God. However; that does not mean we do not get anything out of it. When we go to the LORD and begin to hand over our problems; they are accepted and turned into seeds that help us to grow. As we allow ourselves to transform and be transformed, our worship of God fertilizes us and our roots grow deeper and our leaves turn greener and we begin to loose ourselves to our Creator.

As we loose ourselves to our Creator others begin to see the Creator in us.

As other see the Creator in us we can help them to begin to unburden themselves.

We give God our troubles.

We listen to the music of creation.

We open ourselves up for transformation.

We strip ourselves of the burdens and worries and stress that keeps us from God.

We hear the music of creation. We begin to dance in praise of our God.

We dance unashamed because the Grace of God is what sustains us and protects us from all that will try to bury us.

We dance. We dance. We dance.

English Language Sermon – July 20, 2008

“Blow the Trumpet” (Joel 1:8-10, 17-20)

July 20, 2008 – Creation Sunday

Justin Thornburgh, NSBC church member

Prayer: May it be, oh Lord, that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you and useful to your purposes of Grace. – Rev. Joanna Adams

So, this passage is probably not one you were expecting to hear on a Sunday labeled as Celebrating God’s Creation. I don’t blame you. When I first came across it as I was looking for something to preach on, I quickly turned to the next passage and hoped this one would stop speaking to me. Well, I have been meditating and praying and stewing over this passage for the last month, so obviously it did not stop speaking.

The resource I used to find creation centered Bible passages is a website called Season of Creation. They have a 3-year cycle of readings – each of which lasts about 6 weeks culminating on St. Francis of Assisi Sunday. These cycles focus on different aspects of creation.

One of the Sundays in the series is called Wilderness Sunday and that is where I found today’s passage.

I think part of the reason this passage would not leave me alone is because when I initially read it it was during the first round of wildfires in California – followed a week later by the horrid flooding in the Midwest. News about the world wide food shortages were making above the fold headlines.

These past few weekends Mae and I have done a lot of traveling through Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. While we were not near the worst of the damage we did see an empty Lake Delton. We did see farms with massive barren patches where standing water destroyed the crops. We did see several farms totally annihilated. The most powerful thing I saw was a farm that was half submerged by a river that moved well beyond the flood plain, and the other half of the farm, that was once submerged, now dry and cracking…looking like pictures I have seen of Oklahoma during the dust bowl. This field that was damaged so much by the unyielding rains was now dying because of lack of those life giving rains.

I heard the ground mourn. I could see the animals crying. I saw fire devouring the pastures of the wilderness.

***

Joel is living in or near Jerusalem at the time which this reading takes place. The land was destroyed by a plague of locust. The people of Judah and Jerusalem had turned away from God. They had let material pleasures steal their focus. Joel in Chapter 2 exhorts:

Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near.

He tells the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah that it is because of their sin that this plague is upon them. He calls for the elders to:

Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
16 gather the people.

The blowing of the trumpet is a warning call. Sounding the alarm from God’s holy mountain is intended to be a wake up call for those who are slumbering.

Today’s passage stuck with me because I see parallels between us and the people of Jerusalem in Joel’s time.

We have become a society run by greed. A society run by gluttony. A society nearing the edge of a catastrophic moment. A society not inclined to listen to the blowing of the trumpet.

The earth is speaking to us. Calling us to listen to the trumpet.

I believe that God is present in every microbe of this world.

Whether one believes that the world was created in 6 days or over millions of years, we, I think, can all agree that we began as nothing, and through a divine spark we were created. Genesis 2 says how were created from the dust…the dirt. And then God placed man in the garden to till it and keep it. We are created form the dirt and told to keep it. And we can not forget that God saw all of it and said it was good.

To take this one step farther, not only was human kind created in God’s image, but we can not forget that the Word became flesh. The God of creation inhabited this world and became part of this world. The God of creation became flesh…came from the same dirt as Adam.

Our sins against the land are sins directly against the incarnation of God. The ground mourns.

Our sins of greed and gluttony are part of the reason the flooding was so bad in the river valleys.

Because of our greed we have turned our farms into factories that produce crops that are not sustainable. We have forced farmland to move into floodplains. The monocultures – which is the same crop grown in the same spot year after year – currently used, and mandated by many of the major agra companies if you are to get any help from them or discounts on seed, do not lead to good stewardship of the earth. These monocultures do not allow for deep root growth because they need to be planted annually. These monocultures deplete the land of necessary nutrients and lead to the use of artificial, man-made, fertilizers. These monocultures become susceptible to disease and infestation and lead to the use of more artificial herbicides and pesticides. These monocultures lead to the weakening of the nutritional value of the crops. That is why the United States is one of the fattest yet undernourished countries in the industrialized world. These monocultures lead to the weakening of biodiversity in crops leading to the use of genetically modified seed…all profiting people.

There is nothing wrong with making money, but when a major agra company sues an independent farmer because some of their “brand name” seed – that was probably carried by a bird or blown by the wind – sprouts in his field then our greed has gotten out of control.

Our gluttony feeds our greed.

Because of our need for cheap food, particularly items full of high-fructose corn syrup and dollar hamburgers, we have created a market demanding that we put undo stress upon the land. As His Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch (the leader of 300 million of the world’s orthodox Christians) , says, “Human economy wastes and discards, while natural economy is cyclical and replenishes, and God’s economy is compassionate and nurturing.”

Our sin against the land is sin against the incarnation. The trumpet is blowing.

We, like the people of Judah, need to repent. Repentance is not only seeking forgiveness but then changing our ways.

We can start by reading about where our food comes from. Ask our butcher where our meat comes from. We can join Consumer Supported Agriculture co-ops. Mae and I belong to one and get a half-bushel of organic, sustainably grown produce a week. We are part of another co-op that provides us with meat raised in humane and sustainable ways. You may not be able to do that, but you should be able to look into where your food is coming from or at least how it was raised. This is only one small step.

This, though is not only a personal repentance, we as a community of faith must repent.

There are many things we can do as signs of our repentance. Simple things like making our recycling boxes more visible. Small things like using our wonderful china instead of paper plates; signing up to receive Steeple Stories via e-mail instead of a paper copy. How about we look into creating a green roof top above the gym? What if we could install solar panels to create our own energy … we have this wonderful south facing peak. Action has begun. A green task force has already been blessed by the church council, and we will begin to dream…and ACT.

We can Blow the Trumpet.

We can sound the alarm.

We can learn more about living life more carefully.

We can teach.

We can lead our neighborhood by being an example.

We can celebrate creation.

And you know what. God promises redemption. Through proper care of creation things will happen. I recently saw the movie WAL-E. If you have not seen it, go see it. It takes place in on planet earth after years of not listening to the warning from the mountain. But it is a movie where we can see what happens when we begin to care – if we, as community, heed the trumpet blast and turn from our current ways. If we ACT.

Through Joel, God promises the people of Judah “grain, wine and oil and you will be satisfied.”

Do not fear, O soil;
be glad and rejoice,
for the Lord has done great things!
22Do not fear, you animals of the field,
for the pastures of the wilderness are green;
the tree bears its fruit,
the fig tree and vine give their full yield.

23O children of Zion, be glad
and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for he has given the early rain* for your vindication,
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the later rain, as before.
The threshing-floors shall be full of grain,
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

These things are ours, but we must act. We can no longer afford to be complacent. We must repent…change our ways.

We must Blow the Trumpet. – Amen.

English Language Sermon – May 25, 2008

“Are You A Gentile” (Matthew 6:24-34)

May 25, 2008 – Memorial Day Weekend

Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, Executive Minister ABC/MC

Are you a Gentile?

That was not the question I was asked.

I assume that because my last name is Greenfield that there wasn’t any need to ask. It was simply assumed that we Greenfields were Jews.

That was almost forty years ago. My wife Barbara and I, and pre-school daughter Sarah, had only recently moved into our first home. That was in South Shore, a neighborhood that had once been pretty thoroughly Jewish but had, over the past few decades, become increasingly African American in composition. So when someone at the local synagogue noticed we were new arrivals, they were quick to call and tell us about their Hebrew Day School.

The woman on the phone described the philosophy of the school and the curriculum, and made special note of the fact that the enrolled children received instruction in elementary Hebrew.

“Would you be interested in enrolling Sarah in the school?” she asked.

I replied that we would be very interested, and in no small part because of the instruction in Hebrew. The caller was delighted to hear my enthusiastic response and proceeded to tell me about steps that would need to be followed so that Sarah could be enrolled as soon as possible.

At the end of the telephone conversation, I told the caller that I needed to disclose one thing, which I hoped would not disqualify Sarah from enrollment.

“What’s that?” she asked.

I said that she needed to know that I was a Baptist minister.

There was a very long pause at the other end of the line, but finally she said: “Oh, I’m so sorry,” and hung up.

I’ve often wondered whether she was “so sorry” for having put me through this ordeal – as if to offer an apology to me. Or was she so sorry that I had the bad fortune of being a Gentile.

If it was the latter and not the former – that is, if she was lamenting my condition as a Gentile – then she was in good company. Because Jesus, too, had sorrow – really, almost a kind of deep sadness – for those who were and lived as Gentiles.

Well, that’s not exactly true. What has for centuries been translated at “Gentiles” in the English Bible, doesn’t have any textual or linguistic basis in either Hebrew or Greek. “Gentile” has its origin in Latin, not Hebrew or Greek. “Gentile” was the mistranslation of the scriptural concept of “non-Jewish” or, more clumsily, the “unchosen.” A more accurate translation of this concept in the biblical Hebrew and Greek would be “the nations” or “the other nations,” or “the people of the other nations” over against the “chosen nation” or the “elect people.”

But for this morning, let’s still use the mistranslation as it appears in our Gospel lesson from Matthew – the story of Jesus lecturing on the mountainside – but still keep in mind when we use the word “Gentile” what it really means.

Now obviously Jesus himself was using the concept of “Gentile” or “the nations” or “the people of the nations” in a different way than most of his fellow Jews. For them – that is, his fellow Jews – this concept would mean either that the “Gentile” didn’t have the correct bloodline (we might put it today, the distinctive DNA) to be a Jew or that the “Gentile” didn’t follow the beliefs and behaviors that came from the Jewish religious traditions – didn’t, for example, follow the Laws of Moses, or the Jewish dietary or liturgical codes.

But Jesus, in our passage from Matthew this morning, is clearly not concerned about bloodlines or DNA, is clearly not concerned about following a set of laws and codes. In our Gospel text for the morning he clearly has something entirely different in mind when he wants to distinguish himself and his followers from the “Gentiles” or “the nations.”

Still, there’s nothing to suggest – or even hint – that Jesus is trying to set himself and his followers over against the faith and tradition of his parents or over against the laws of Moses or even the codes of behavior. There’s nothing here that reveals that he is prepared to stop being a Jew, or is asking others to give up their Jewish faith.

In a strong sense, it’s just the opposite: what Jesus is pleading for in this part of his lecture on the mountainside is that his fellow Jews recapture and re-embrace what is essential, what is at the core, what is absolutely fundamental to their Jewishness, their chosenness, their election as the nation and as the people of God. Furthermore, on precisely those terms, those terms that are essential, core, and fundamental (and here Jesus is really pushing the envelope) people with other kinds of DNA and other bloodlines, people who follow the core commandments and the core codes of other religious and cultural traditions, they too can be members of the chosen nation, can also be a member of the elect people, can become – listen to this – a non-Gentile!

Now that is radical. It’s radical if you are a Jew listening to Jesus on the mountainside, and it’s radical if you are a Gentile listening to Jesus on the mountainside. He’s saying to his fellow Jews that you can’t be Jewish if you place your bloodline and your DNA ahead of something that is even more essential for your Jewishness, if you place your following the Jewish laws and codes ahead of that which is even more fundamental to your Jewishness. And he is saying to the Gentiles, you are not excluded from being the chosen nation and being an elect person because of who your parents are or what religion or culture you’ve been a part of. It’s radical because he’s saying: we’ve all got it wrong in this business of who’s in and who’s out, who’s included and who’s excluded, who’s blessed and who’s condemned.

So what is it, according to Jesus on the mountainside, that makes it right for all of us: Jews and Gentiles alike?

Well, it turns out that it’s all fairly simple, pretty basic.

First of all, it is to recognize that neither Jews nor Gentiles can serve two masters. As much as we want to make it otherwise – as much as we want to believe that somehow we can pull off serving two or three or four masters, can somehow manage to pull off living that way – it just isn’t going to work. In the end, one of those masters is going to win out and make all the rest subservient to that one.

Jesus here lays it on the line about these many masters. In the end, the Jew and the Gentile are going to have to choose between the God who created and sustains the whole universe and some other god. And Jesus chooses the most likely candidate as the alternate god vying for loyalty and devotion for Jews and Gentiles over against the sovereign God of the whole universe: the most powerful god competing with the God is the one who entices our loyalty and devotion to wealth, our loyalty and devotion to money and to things, our loyalty and devotion to the accumulation and hoarding of money and things for oneself.

That’s a genuinely tempting god. It’s a god who is so tempting because it appeals to the weakest point of our human nature: our insecurity about ourselves and our insecurity about others—that we won’t have enough to satisfy what we think we need AND that someone else will have more than us, and therefore make us feel smaller and weaker and less important. And it is made all the more tempting if we live in a country that says we are only successful if we’re making money, and buying lots of things, and accumulating more and more, that says we’ve got to spend more on these things in order for the country as a whole to be well off, that says, in other words, that we as Americans can only prove that we’re the chosen nation and the chosen people if we serve the god of wealth, of money, of possessions.

But Jesus on the mountainside says, “No.” You can’t make wealth, and money, and possessions your god and delude yourself into thinking that you can also serve the sovereign God of the whole universe. That somehow you can fit the sovereign God of the universe into some subordinate place within a system in which wealth and money and possessions are in first place. It just won’t work, Jesus teaches. You can’t be a chosen nation and an elect people if you choose that god.

Jesus on the mountainside puts it in the starkest terms: if you are enslaved – and there he got it exactly right, because that’s what making wealth and money and possessions your god will do, it will enslave you – then you will end up despising (that’s the word, “despising”) the sovereign God of the universe – hating, scorning, resenting, dismissing with contempt that sovereign God. You may not say it out loud, but that’s what you will feel.

If you chose that god of wealth and money and possessions then you are a Gentile and a non-Jew, then you are a part of “the nations” and the “people of the nations,” and you exclude yourself from being a part of God’s chosen nation and God’s elect people.

But you’ve got to choose. You can’t, Jesus teaches, serve two masters; you can’t serve two gods.

Let’s be clear what Jesus is NOT saying here: he isn’t teaching that we ought to stop earning enough money to meet our legitimate needs, that we ought to stop having savings to meet expected or unexpected circumstances in the future, that we ought to stop securing the possessions that are required for our lives. All of that, according to Jesus, is legitimate. In fact, he teaches that the sovereign God of the universe helps and motivates us do exactly that. But we cross that line out of God’s domain and into Gentile territory when wealth and money and possessions become our god.

So how do we know when we’re coming close or if we’ve crossed over that line from God’s chosen people into Gentile territory?

If I’m hearing Jesus in his lecture on the mountainside right, I think he gives us three warning, three alerts, three markers for our becoming Gentiles.

The first alert is when we find ourselves worrying about our own lives in an excessive, even compulsive way: worrying, as Jesus says, about “what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, and what you will wear.” When these become preoccupations – and just think for a moment about how we are instilled as Americans today to think constantly about these very things: eating too much, or too little, or eating the wrong things, or drinking special water, or water in certain kinds of plastic bottles, or the shape of our bodies (too thin or two fat, or too many lumps here and not enough curves there), or what styles of clothing we ought to keep up with – when those issues become the things we worry about, then we know, according to Jesus, that we’re coming close or that we’ve crossed over the line from the God’s domain into Gentile land.

The second warning is when we sense we are lessening our trust in the sovereign God of the universe – when we wean ourselves away from the God who created and who continues to create us, when we separate ourselves from the God who lovingly sustains us and graciously forgives us and caringly sets us back on the path of righteousness, when we distance ourselves from the God who calls us to do the sacred work of God’s will for the world. It’s when we start trusting only in ourselves, or trusting only on what some Gentile-inspired device or strategy will do for us that we come near or cross over that line that distinguishes God’s domain from the land of the Gentiles.

And then the third marker is very much related to the first and second: we’re in danger of becoming Gentiles when we are more concerned about ourselves and less concerned about others – especially those who need us. It’s when we are so worried about our own life that we are blind and insensitive to what others need – and what some others need desperately – for them to have life at all. It’s when we so trust human devices that will serve us and overlook the possibility that by trusting in the sovereign God of the universe we can serve the needs of all those others who God loves so deeply.If those are the three warning signs, the three alerts, the three markers of danger, what then, according to Jesus lecturing on the mountainside, helps us stay in God’s domain, what helps us be a chosen nation and an elect people, what helps us avoid becoming Gentiles?

This is what he said then, and what he says now. Listen, these are the words of Jesus:

Therefore, do not worry, saying “What will we eat?” or “What will be drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things. But you should, you must, strive first for the dominion of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

What is that “dominion of God?” What is “God’s righteousness?”

It is, according to Jesus, that chosen nation and those elect people who choose to do what God does.

God takes care of the birds of the air, God feeds them and gives them shelter. God cares for the lilies of the field, God clothes them and adorns them. God loves and cares for all that God has made – not the least, God loves and cares for the human beings who God has created and entrusted with the love and care of the earth that God loves.

So if you want to be a part of God’s domain, God’s kingdom, God’s community, give of the life that God has given you so that you can love and care for the whole world that God loves the whole world.

Surely love and care for those who are in need – those today who are suffering from natural disasters and human-made disasters, those who today are suffering from deprivation and despair, those who today are suffering from injustice and from war, those today who are suffering from illness and ignorance, all those who desperately need our help.

But love and care also for the Gentiles, those who, even in their abundance and wealth, worry and are anxious about their life, what they will eat, and what they will drink, and what they look like, and what they will wear, and what people will think of them, and whether they are important enough, and if someone is better than them. Lead them, my sisters and brothers, to the mountainside and let them learn of Jesus, lead them to the mountainside and let them hear his lecture, lead them to the mountainside so that they can stop worrying, and stop being anxious, and stop being preoccupied with themselves, lead them to the mountainside so that they can learn to trust the loving and forgiving and gracious sovereign God of the universe, lead them, my sisters and brothers, to the mountainside so that when they are asked “Are you a Gentile?” they will be able to say, “No, I’m a child of God and I’m a part of a people of God called to do God’s work in the world that God loves so fervently.”

* * * * *

This Memorial Day weekend we pay our respect, in gratitude, to those who have given their lives for this nation, who have paid an ultimate price of self-giving on behalf of our nation’s ideals of equality and freedom and mutual service to each other. God bless every one of them.

It can also be a weekend in which we, as followers of Jesus, recommit ourselves to a still greater cause, a still greater chosen nation, a still greater elected people. The question for us, then, is whether we, in our commitment to God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, will be willing to make sacrifices, even an ultimate sacrifice, for God’s cause of loving and caring for the world.

Will it be said of us after our passing from this earthly life, that we chose not to be Gentiles, but in the living of our lives chose to listen to and follow Jesus.

If that is your choice, you are invited to declare it publicly this morning by coming forward during the singing of the last hymn, to join not just this congregation of Jesus’ disciples but also whole community of Christ, the community who gives itself for the renewed life of God’s world.

Amen.

Sermon for the Installation of Rev. Rony Reyes, Sunday, March 30, 2008

GOD’S HOLY MOUNTAIN

Rev. Dr. David Andersen

Pastor Emeritus, First Baptist Church of Greater Toledo

Galatians 3:23-29, Isaiah 25:6-10 (Other references: Isaiah 56:1-8, 2:2-3, 9:9)

The first time I visited Chicago as a college student looking at seminaries to attend, I fell in love with it. Never has that love for this city faded. I chose Northern Seminary, partly because of its proximity to Chicago; I worked at Marshall Field’s part time as a student; and I met my wife in Chicago.

The first church I served after graduating from seminary was in Joliet, Illinois, which enabled continued forays into the city. I then served churches in West Virginia, Michigan and Ohio, but because my wife’s family lived in Chicago, we continued our visits to the city, and always when updating my personnel profile, sent by the denomination to search committees of churches looking for a pastor, I included Chicago as a geographic preference.

Nothing ever happened, but here I am today in Chicago, preaching at the installation service for Rony Reyes, my young former associate at the last church I pastured before retiring. Rony is living my dream. How did this happen? It is like the son fulfilling the dreams of the father, and I am overjoyed, but it is not just because Rony is living my dream, it is because I believe there is no better fit in heaven than what has the potential for being in this new relationship between a pastor and a church. It is as though God has played matchmaker in bringing you together and I am delighted this morning to serve as one of the groomsmen, a witness to the formalizing of this unique bond between pastor and people.

Rony needs the challenge this church will give him, and this church needs the love and sensitivity Rony will bring to you as your pastor. And I am blessed to know that somehow that dream I dreamed as a young man was perhaps not all whimsical fantasy but helped in the end to connect me to a bigger dream, God’s dream that we on earth give form to His kingdom in heaven. You as a church and Rony as a minister have in each of your lives separately incarnated this dream of God and now, together, you can expand upon it and grow it.

And what is this dream? Isaiah, almost more than any other Biblical writer, is able to visualize this dream of God’s. He dreamed God’s dream. He saw what God intended and willed to be for all creation, and Isaiah knew that nothing could separate us from this dream, dreamed by God for His creation, the dream that we might be one even as God the Father and God the Son are one.

Some have called the Book of Isaiah the fifth gospel and it has been as such for me. Next to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it has had the greatest influence upon my life as a Christian and understanding what it is to be a member of Christ’s Kingdom. If you were to ask me what is it Christ enables to be through is life, death and resurrection, I would answer it is the fulfillment of the dreams and vision Isaiah records over and over in his book, visions revealed to him by God, waiting to be fulfilled in the last time but even now breaking in upon us because of the generosity of Jesus Christ who when we accept Him makes all things new and shows us a new creation.

And what are the particulars of this dream that can’t wait and is even now coming to be and we are privileged to see, concretely, in the life and work of this congregation right here at North Shore Baptist Church? Let me repeat in for you in the words of Isaiah.

It is a dream of a Holy Mountain. It is a dream where people of all nations gather together. It is a dream where the shroud that has blinded people from truly seeing one another has been lifted and we see each other as we really are, children of God. It is a dream where all the tears caused by injustice, war, hunger, disease, and prejudice are whipped away. It is a dream where we no longer hurt one another. It is a dream where the Lord Himself will be our host and He will prepare for all of us a feast of rich food and well-aged wine.

This is the dream and Isaiah, repeats it over and over throughout his book, reaching for one image and then another to help us understand its fullness. In one version of it he writes about the foreigner who comes to settle with the people of God but fears, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people,” but the Lord says, “No, I will bring you to my holy mountain and make you joyful in my house of prayer.” No one is to be left out.

But the eunuch, the one excluded from the Temple worship because of how his sexuality was perceived says, “I am just a dry tree.” But the Lord says, “No, I will give you in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give you an everlasting name.”

On this Holy Mountain nations are brought together, differences that use to divide now become diversity that is celebrated, and all those who once felt themselves left out are now given an everlasting name more precious than any other name. They are to be called sons and daughters of God.

The vision of Isaiah is the vision of things coming. It is the vision of God’s intent for all creation. But, and this is important, it is not just a vision of what will be for already we see it coming to pass and it is happening in our midst and we see it here, we see it now, we see it among the people of North Shore Baptist Church.

When I was a student in seminary and so in love with the city of Chicago, the American Baptist church that most connected to my cosmopolitan sense of the city was the North Shore Baptist Church. To me it epitomized the metropolitan church in the city. I was struck by the majesty of your architecture, so stately and strong. I absorbed the sense of your storied history and looked in admiration upon those who were your pastors. It was for me a grand church in a grand city, but through the decades as your own history has evolved, what I began to see was something even grander. What I began to see was not only a church in the city, but a church that mirrored the kingdom of God.

I see in you Isaiah’s vision coming true. I see in your multiple congregations an early incarnation of what awaits us in heaven. I see what awaits us at the end of all time. I see in you a living visualization of God’s Holy Mountain where all people, all nations are given a name above all names that unites us to one another, the name of son or daughter of God.

How did this happen? How did you become this one people encompassing so many people from so many different lands and nations? How did it happen that even before the time when God will be all in all that I see God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven? It has happened because of Jesus. What was a vision for Isaiah has become possible in Jesus Christ. In His word and in His Spirit dwelling in us what was far off is no longer so distant and what once seemed only a like a dream has become a reality as week by week, an Anglo congregation, a Japanese congregation, a Hispanice congregation, a Karen people, a Afro American people gather in one place to worship one and the same Living God.

Jesus makes it possible and from the day the church was born at Pentecost, in ever widening circles, beginning first in Jerusalem and then in Samaria, and then to the Gentiles, including an Ethiopian Eunuch and a Roman centurion named Cornelius, and then to the farthest reaches of the world, in an ever widening fellowship we have come to know what Paul meant when he wrote in Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” It is enough to make a Baptist shout “Amen.” Amen?

And now, today, to help lead you closer to that Holy Mountain, you are installing Rony Reyes as one of the pastors of North Shore Baptist Church.

Why am I so enthused about this new relationship between a pastor and a people? It is because from the first day I met Rony it seems to me the vision of Isaiah is what has radiated through his life and now he comes to join a people who share the same vision.

The first day I met Rony was in an interview at First Baptist Church of Greater Toledo where I was pastor. He was applying for a position in our church. He sat in the room in a coat and tie and answered questions from the committee. He was from a Pentecostal background. We were an American Baptist congregation. He was from Guatemala. Our heritage was Anglo. Yet, at the end of the day, after interviewing all the candidates, it was Rony we were drawn to.

Over the next two years Rony and I had many long discussions, we worked together, and eventually Hope joined the staff as well, and we prayed together. Early on I remember one discussion in which Rony spoke of the similarities in Pentecostalism to the Orthodox Church and its focus on the Holy Spirit. I was impressed and thought to myself this is not the narrowness I had associated with Pentecostalism and realized I was the one with the narrower view. Rony has an inquiring mind that has led him not only through the corridors of evangelical scholarship, but down pathways carved out by liberationist theologians and into an exploration of his own heritage in the study of Mayan spirituality. I am sure this inquiry mind and questing spirit will flourish in Chicago.

At the center of his self, in his spirit, Rony has a pastoral nature that places healing and caring above judgmentalism and condemnation. He bridges the divide between ethnic groupings, social classes and theological diversity. In short, Rony is in his person what North Shore Baptist seeks to be in its mission, worship and fellowship as a church.

It is to me more than coincidence that has brought you together. It is, I believe, a match made in heaven, and in the relationship I have shared with Rony, the bond between us, transcending barriers of age and ethnicity and theological persuasion, and when I look at this church, incarnating so much of Isaiah’s vision, I realize as well, heaven is not so far away. Rays of light are shining through and that light is in this church.

God is not quiet, but even while we await His final coming, already we see his appearing in this church and daily as we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” our prayer is being answered, Isaiah’s vision fulfilled, our oneness in Jesus Christ revealed.

I see it in this church, and I see this same spirit in Rony Reyes and I am delighted, overjoyed, God has brought you together.

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory of our oneness in Jesus Christ. Amen.