Our Job

Galatians 2:19-21
Mark 2:1-5

While serving as an intern pastor at a church in Kenya, I lived with the installed pastor, his wife, and their cousin who helped care for the home and host guests which were common in the pastor's home. Frieda was the cousin's name, and while I was there we became quite close. Even though she lived with Alfred and Mary full-time, in a sense we both shared the experience of living in someone else's home. I think we bonded over that experience.

Despite her living arrangements, Frieda wasn't very active in the church community. I appreciated that she came to worship the Sundays that I preached while serving there, and even more I appreciated the conversations we had afterward. Frieda and I could talk more openly about our experiences of the church, our questions, our hopes, and our doubts than either of us felt comfortable expressing in other circles during my internship.

One day when we were sharing our stories about growing up she asked me, "When were you saved?" Now, growing up in the sort-of South I had heard this question or variations on the theme more than once. It was always one that made my friends from the Presbyterian youth group and me sort of cock our heads to the side and shrug. We weren't sure. Well, we were pretty sure we were saved, although Presbyterians aren't known for talking about it like that so boldly. But we weren't sure when it had happened.

Most of us had been baptized as infants, raised in the church Sunday School, performed in the Christmas pageants, nurtured in youth group, tortured in confirmation, I mean, taught in confirmation. When in all of that were we saved? And more importantly, why hadn't anyone told us that was when it happened?!?!?

One of the characteristics of the Presbyterian flavor of Reformed theology is that we are more concerned about the glory of God and the coming of God's reign than the salvation of souls. This is why that question can be so hard for us to answer. We don't see salovation as our primary job. I understand that's a provocative, if not controversial statement. Some may even say it's downright heretical, but hear me out.

I didn't say we don't believe in the salvation of souls. I didn't say we don't care about it at all. I said we don't focus as much on it as we do on enjoying and celebrating the glory of God and the coming of God's reign, the demonstration of God's will and kingdom. The reason for this goes all the way back to my theme in the first sermon in this series -- the sovereignty of God. When it comes to salvation, it is all up to God. The work of salvation, forgiving sins and reconciling our broken relationship with the divine, is solely in the hands of the Triune God.

We cannot save ourselves, and we certainly cannot save others. It is impossible for us to do, and therefore it is not our job. It is not our job to bring about salvation in any human being's life, not even our own. That is God's job in Jesus Christ, and God's job alone. Nothing we can do or leave undone will save us. No work we perform, no mission we carry out, no task we complete, no words we say. Nothing we do on our own will save us from separation from God. Only God can and does bring us graciously back into relationship. Not even our faith saves us. Jesus saves us.

In the interest of full disclosure, this belief and understanding of how salvation occurs and what our role is in the whole thing, it has not always been good for us Presbyterians. Sometimes we have a tendency to cling to this understanding of God's sovereignty and hold it up as an excuse to keep quiet about what we believe. It has been a barrier to us when it comes time to talk about evangelism. We think that if God is doing all the saving, than there really isn't much we need or should do. God's got it under control without us; we can just live our lives, believe our beliefs, and don't need to engage with the rest of the world, believers or not. We wrongly think that we can be faithful disciples tucked away in our own corners of the world, making no attempts to show or speak of God's love, our salvation, God's desire for both justice in the world and personal relationships with each of us. But this just isn't how it works.

Our job, definitely, is not to bring about salvation in ourselves or in others. but our job, when we believe in God who saves us, when we believe that God does save us, is to live with thankful faith in the One who is faithful to us. Likewise, faith is our response to salvation; it is not what brings us salvation. Faith is not a mental exercise or an emotion of the heart. It is the way we live since we know who God our creator is and what God does in Jesus. It is our response to the Spirit which fills us with comfort and knowledge of God's grace and goodness. Faith is focusing on the glory of God, reveling in the glory of God, trusting in the glory of God, pointing to the glory of God, that others may be aware of what we know and experience. Our job is not to save souls; our job, our calling from God, is to live faithfully and share our faith with others.

Thirty-one years ago, the Rev. Stephen Jones, an American Baptist pastor, wrote a book called "Faith Shaping, Youth and the Experience of Faith." Not too many books about the practice of youth ministry last 31 years, but Jones hit on some very important aspects of how faith is shaped which then informs how we should go about sharing our faith, pointing to the glory of God and living into the coming reign of God. One thing in particular that Jones noted is that young people, and I would say ANY people, learn about faith by both nearness and directness.

Nearness, to use our Scripture readings from this morning as examples, is what happened in the gospel according to Mark. Nearness is what happened when the friend who was lying on the mat felt the four corners start to lift up around him as he was raised up off the ground. Nearness is what happened when he looked into their determined faces as they groaned and grunted under the awkward weight of their friend on the mat between them. Nearness is what happened when, seeing no other option, they dug through the roof to take their friend to Jesus, and, seeing their faith, he healed their friend. Nearness is when the life of faith is demonstrated day in and day out by the actions one takes and the habits one practices.

Practical theologian Rodger Nishioka tells the story of how on an airplane he stops to say grace over a bag of peanuts. This faith practice takes place because of nearness. It is something he learned from his fathr who relentlessly made his children say grace over every meal they shared, at home or away. It was something that embarrassed him completely in his teenage years, having to stop to say grace with his family even while sitting at McDonald's. Yet this everyday faith and its committed practice made an impression on him. It shaped it his own faith.

Nearness is what caused a young boy, about nine years old, to call his father out audibly in the worship service led by a colleague in Iowa one Sunday. The father had faithfully, as long as his son had any memory, written out a check and placed it in the offering plate every single Sunday. The son was distressed when one Sunday the father didn't do it. "But, Daddy, we give money." The father replied, "Of course, we give money, son. I gave money for the whole month last week." Sitting near to his father in worship for nine years, the son's faith was shaped by what his father did. He learned the values of his parents, his tradition. It spoke to him and was written on his very being what being faithful to God, faithful to the faith community means in his family, all just by being near his faithful father.

But alongside nearness is the importance of sharing faith directly that others may hear the issues of faith presented clearly. In order to share our faith fully, to communicate our understanding of what we have experienced in the grace of Jesus, the love of God, the movement of the Spirit, we do sometimes have to use our words , something I know is hard for us Presbyterians. This is where our understanding of our job versus God's job can get in the way. We think we don't need to say anything because it's not our job to save people. We think our words don't matter because we aren't responsible for the salvation of another persons soul.

But our words do matter. There are times when the issues of faith must be presented directly. The message of the gospel must be presented in an appealing, fair, and meaningful way, appropriate to the age an stage of the one hearing it, so that she can be aware of ways God is working in her life, so that he can make a decision about the grace he has experienced, not in order that they save themselves, but in order that they may choose for themselves how they will respond to this gift of God freely given. Upon experiencing God's salvation we must have the words with which to speak of it, that we may make a decision about how we will live going forward.

Paul's letters, although sometimes to us the language doesn't seem so clear and appealing, are examples of direct faith shaping. The debate was going on in Galatia about whether or not one needed to become Jewish first in order to be a follower of Christ, a Christian. Paul, himself a Jewish believer, preached long and hard about the sufficiency of Christ's grace for salvation, but nearness wasn't going to work for this debate. Nearness wasn't going to express this important message.

He need to communicate directly to share this aspect of his faith. He needed to say out loud what was important for him to believe and share. Nearness is important. It's important to live our faith and allow our actions speak for and communicate the love of God, but nearness isn't enough on its own. Our actions must be coupled with a careful and loving, direct sharing of our faith, too. Paul knew when he had to speak clearly about what he believed in order to shape the faith of new communities, new believers. "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

While the work of salvation is most definitely the work of God and not human beings, we are not off the hook. We do still have a job to do in the kingdom of God. We have a role to play as people of faith, God's servants who live in joy and peace with the knowledge of God's grace and our salvation. Even if it is not our job to go out and single-handedly save other souls we have a job to do to proclaim God's glory to exhibit the coming of Christ's reign, pointing to the one who alone can bring salvation to us and others.

My good friend Pastor Kari Burke-Romarheim, an associate pastor at Bethel Lutheran Church, told me the story one day of how her then two year old son, Andreas, climbed up on the couch next to her husband, Vidar. Andreas then pulled Kari down to sit next to him on the other side. Surrounded by his parents and snuggled in between them, Andreas then looked up at his mother, pulled her head near his, and made the sign of the cross on her forehead, saying "Child of God." Then he did the same to his dad, Vidar, "Child of God."

Every night since his birth Kari and Vidar have done this exact same thing to Andreas, make the sign of the cross on his forehead and speak these very important words. Near to him they show him what they believe; they display their faith and trust in the salvation they experience. Directly they tell him what they know is true, what they believe above everything else. Directly, they tell Andreas what the whole world needs to see in our actions and hear in our words, "You are a child of God."

One Body

Colossians 3:12-17
1 Corinthians 12:14-27


I once worked with a pastor who couldn’t stand that little finger play up there on the screens. Join with me if you know it -- “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the door and see all the people.” It’s cute, right? I’m pretty sure I knew that game before I knew any Bible verses, maybe even any Bible stories. So what’s the big deal? What did this pastor have against a nice little kids’ rhyme?

Well, it was the church part. This colleague was pretty particular about the way the word “church” is used. “The church is NOT a building,” he would say. It’s not our sanctuary or our Sunday School rooms, our offices or our Fellowship Hall. The church is not bricks and mortar.

The problem with that finger play for my colleague is that for him it’s all backwards. “Here is the sanctuary,” he might say. “Here is the steeple.” (That part doesn’t change.) “Open the door and see...the church!” OK, so it doesn’t rhyme. It loses a lot as a kids’ game without the rhyme, but the theology is so much better.

The church, my colleague was getting at, is the people. The church isn’t a place; it’s a community. It’s the people of God created, redeemed, and blessed for ministry. It’s the gathering of believers called together, but also sent out to be active in God’s work in the world. The church, Paul described in his letter to the Corinthians is a living, breathing, active, creative, responsive, body, Christ’s body, to be sure.

I think this is a vital part of our faith. As Christians we claim to be more than just followers of a Jesus, more than just worshipers of God, more than just recipients of the Spirit. We understand ourselves to be collectively, the representation of Christ himself on earth. The church, the holy community, at its very best, is called to the best expression of Christ’s body on earth. This is what we claim to be - - together - - when we’re living and working the way God calls us to.

There are a couple of key points to that idea. One is that it only works when we do it TOGETHER. No one person among the faithful can be the body of Christ alone. No one person expresses Christ-likeness well enough alone to claim that role for himself or herself. It’s why we Presbyterians LOVE our committees. When God’s people work together, we claim, the Spirit of unity makes us the body of Christ. We aren’t the body of Christ on our own; we are individually members of it, but we are not it. Like Paul said, an eye is not the body alone, and an eye cannot function alone. The eye needs the ear and the mouth and the nose and the hands and the feet and the torso and everything other part of the body to make it work to its fullest potential. Each part does not a body make, but together we can be the body of Christ, the church.

The second point is that little caveat “at its best.” The church, we all know, is made up of human beings. We run the same risk as ever other human institution to fall into the way of sin. I remember an old bumper sticker I saw ages ago that said it best, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” I’m not saying that others aren’t forgiven, too; that’s another sermon for another day, but I love the admission and realization in that statement that following Christ does not mean we are perfect people. And imperfect people make an imperfect church.

We make mistakes large and small. As denominations and faith traditions within the larger body of Christ we have covered up abuse out of fear of scandals. We have persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ and people of other faiths or no faith at all. We have ignored the poor, the hungry, the naked, the less-educated, the mentally ill. We have bullied people based on theology, race, and sexual orientation.

Within this congregation and in others we have failed to honor one another as we should. We have reacted rashly out of anger and hurt. We have talked behind each other’s backs or left hard feelings unresolved altogether. We have put our own desires first and disregarded the likes of others. We have been slow to forgive and seek reconciliation with one another. We are an imperfect gathering of imperfect people, and it is difficult, no, impossible for us to be “at our best” by our own efforts.

On our own, even in the church we resort to the ways of the world. We are a broken body. We forget that we are called to a different kind of community than the kind we experience away from the body of Christ. We forget that we aren’t a corporation or a business or a city council or any other earthly institution. We forget that we are the body of Christ, God’s chosen ones, who by a heavenly voice are called to live with one another a different way.

We are called to drape ourselves with compassion, the act of suffering along with those who suffer, humility, where we honor others more than we honor ourselves, patience, where we wait for one another without grumbling. Most of all, I believe, we are called to be a loving, forgiving people, recognizing the imperfections we see so clearly in others are also very present in our own lives. We are called to offer grace when we are hurt, not revenge, not vindication. When we are wronged and we have a complaint against any other, our response should not be a distancing through negative speech and giving up on relationships.

Our response should be to seek one another out that we may find peace and offer forgiveness as we are forgiven by the Lord. Our response in the body of Christ should be different than the response that might come from within a secular gathering. Our calling is to demonstrate the way of Jesus to the world, and the way we treat each other is an important part of doing just that.

But just as we are broken, so was Jesus broken. And just as he is resurrected, we are resurrected. By his grace, we are redeemed and raised to new life. By his overcoming of death, we can overcome the pockets of life-killing imperfection in our life as the body of Christ. Through his forgiveness we can find the strength and courage and grace to forgive one another.

When Jesus calls us together, he calls us to new life, and he unites us with the gift of sacraments, the gift of the holy community, the gift of his Spirit, that together we can be the best expression of his body on earth. Together our hands can be his hands that heal the sick, give food to the hungry, and comfort those who sorrow. Our mouths can be his mouth, praying for the lonely, speaking to the shunned, advocating for the forgotten. Our feet can be his feet, taking the long way to include the excluded, stepping into public places to make his presence known, walking along side those who are seeking the presence of God in their lives. Together we can be his one body.

Inquiring Minds

Deuteronomy 6:1-6
Mark 12:28-30

In the novel The Help Mrs. Hilly Holbrook is the president of the Junior League in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. 1963 - - the year Medger Evers, the civil rights activist, was shot in the back and killed in Jackson, the year Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his speech about his great dream from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But Miss Hilly, as all the maids must call her, isn’t too concerned with all these things. In fact, she’s working on a movement of her own in Jackson. As president of the Junior League she is trying to make sure that all respectable white folk with black hired help build a new bathroom in their garage or outdoor shed for their help to use exclusively. It’s for their own health, she insists.

Miss Skeeter, a lifelong friend of Miss Hilly’s, isn’t quite so sure about this movement, though. Fondly remembering the African American woman, Constantine, who raised her, Skeeter doesn’t understand why the women who care for the whites’ children and cook their food, among other things, should have to use the bathroom away from the rest of the house. It just doesn’t make sense to her. Skeeter begins to get to know “the help” on the sly. She secretly researches the Jim Crow laws she has always known exist, but has never learned much about. She begins to think for herself instead of just accepting what has always been a part of her experience and worldview.

When Hilly starts to discover the kinds of thoughts her dear friend is thinking she questions accusingly, “Who does she think she is? Does she really think she is smarter than the government?!?”

I have to admit I was sort of a little proud about the cover Skeeter uses when lying to her mother about her coming and going as she develops relationships with some of the African American maids. I’m proud that this brave and inquisitive woman is portrayed as a Presbyterian. Now I doubt that this was done intentionally. Our denomination, like all other Protestant denominations other than the Episcopalians split over the issue of slavery in the 19th century, and we remained divided into northern and southern churches until the 1980s. While there were civil rights activists in some southern churches in the 1950s and 60s, we Presbyterians weren’t known anymore than other for our support of the movement.

I don’t think the author Kathryn Stockett really meant to lift up the Presbyterian church, but it made me kind of proud that heroine used Presbyterian church meetings as her excuse when she was going out under the dark cover of night to expand her mind, broaden her experience, and learn more about the lives of the African American women she knew so little about. Skeeter was no longer comfortable just swallowing what was passed down to her uncritically. She realized a time had come when she needed to think through these things for herself and draw her own conclusions. She had been blessed with a mind to think, and it was definitely time to use it.

Jesus lifts up this particular blessing when he challenged by a scribe to choose one commandment over all the others that could be declared the greatest. The scribe like so many others was trying to trip Jesus up more than he was seeking his wise opinion. Other religious and political leaders were there, too, shooting questions at him like darts. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” “Who will a man be married to in heaven if he had multiple consecutive marriages while alive on earth?” And now a question about the greatest commandment from a scribe, a man who had spent countless hours copying the hundreds of laws in Scripture, writing decisions and commentary for the priests and religious leaders based on these laws. He was trying to catch Jesus in an obvious mistake, so I know he MUST have heard Jesus’ small, but significant change of Scripture.

“Hear O Israel,’ Jesus began to quote. “The Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” One thing is different in Jesus’ quote from the original in Deuteronomy. And it’s not that he would have messed this one up by accident. It is and was one of the best known passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is one that many faithful Jews recite to themselves daily as part of their prayers. Known as the “Shemah,” which means “Hear” as the community is commanded to do in the opening lines, this passage is too important and too familiar for Jesus to just have gotten wrong. Therefore, his addition must have been purposeful, and it must have been important.

In counting the ways in which God’s people are called to love God, Jesus adds in loving God with all our mind. Heart, soul, strength—these are all a direct quote from Deuteronomy, but mind is something different, something that didn’t appear in the Hebrew Scriptures. And for that reason, since Jesus bothered to add it to a crucial text for the people of his faith, it is something to which we should pay attention.

Our minds are a gift from God. Our minds are a huge part of what makes us uniquely human and they are definitely what makes us individuals different from one another. Our minds, like every other part of our bodies, have been given to us in order that we will use them to bless and honor and worship God. We do this by using them. That sounds a little strange, sure, but it isn’t. In too many situations, in too many churches, the expectation is that we will check our minds at the door.

In the marketplace, sellers pray that we won’t think to hard about the products that we buy, that we will trust their words in advertising and buy what they are selling, hook, line, and sinker. In some church traditions it is the same, but hopefully without the malice. Believers are called to do just that “believe,” but belief doesn’t involve critical thinking. Leaders at the top hand down doctrine and opinions on issues, and members are expected to accept them or at least keep their disagreements silent.

In our tradition that’s not the expectation. In fact, it is the opposite. Believers not only have the right we have the responsibility to think through matters of faith with our own minds and hearts. We have official doctrine, but in it are ten different documents written in the last 1800 years, and occasionally they disagree. Each one of us is called to put our minds to good use to think and pray and discern our beliefs and actions within the guidance and framework of these beliefs that have been lifted up over the generations.

We say in our tradition that God alone is Lord of conscience, and therefore each one of us has the responsibility to pray and study and discern our beliefs with the support of the Word and Spirit of God which we find in our life as a community. None of us are islands working out our faith in solitude, but each of us is called to explore our faith and beliefs for ourselves. There is not one among us who is not equipped to do this because God has given us each minds and has blessed each one of them for service in God’s name.

At same there is not one among us whose mind is perfect and full of all knowledge of God. Our growth in Christ is never complete; it is never whole and finished. This is why we are persistent in our offering and invitation to further engage our minds through education and small group ministries. This is why we don’t just offer Sunday School for children and nothing for our adults. There is not one among us who is done learning and growing and stretching our minds with the knowledge and love of God. Each and everyone one of us is called to continually love and worship God with our minds as we engage them in matters of faith, questioning, wondering, and growing in our understanding of the way of Jesus.

A few years ago the editors of storytelling SMITH magazine called for submissions from readers for project they called six word memoirs. The challenge to authors known and unknown was to sum up their lives in just six words – no more, no less. Some examples:

“Nobody cared. Then they did. Why?”
One from a 9 year old girl “Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends.”
A couple of confessions:
“I still make coffee for two.”
“Most successful accomplishments based on spite.”

In an exercise of engaging our minds we’re going to try a twist on this theme. In each worship announcement bulletin and then coming through the aisles from the ushers are some pieces of blank paper or index cards. We are going to take time this morning to love the Lord our God with our minds by writing not six word memoirs, but six word theologies. Using no more than six, and no less write down what you believe. You may craft it yourself in a Trinitarian form as so many of the traditional statements of faith do. You may write a phrase or two that get to the core of what you understand about God. You may quote a portion of a favorite song or hymn that expresses your deepest faith. It does not matter from where it comes; it is your theology, your worship with your mind.

Those who are willing will have a chance to share after a few minutes, and all that are turned in in the offering plate later in worship will be posted to a bulletin board for others to read. Including your name is, of course, optional.
So now, let us enter a special time of prayer and worship, loving God with our minds.


In a way, Jesus blessed the very ones who are testing him. He blessed the Pharisees and Sadducees and the scribes who were trying to catch him and find something in what he said that they could hold against him. He blessed them by lifting up the importance of loving God with our minds. He blessed them by making their questions OK, their exercises of the mind an expectation of faith.

Jesus did here exactly what he does in just about every other situation. He blesses the ones we would least expect. He blesses his challengers, his enemies, those who seek to judge him and condemn him for the words that he says and the life that he lives. He blesses them by lifting up the kind of work they do with their minds, and he calls us to engage in that kind of work and worship ourselves, to love God by exercising the minds we have been graciously given. May God bless the minds we have and the faith we discover with them.

Useful Word

Psalm 119:97-105
2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5

The teacher didn’t know how much time he had left. He remembered how zealous he was at trying to stop the spread of the Christian message, so he had no idea how long he would have now that he was spreading that same message himself. At least he was no longer working among the Gentiles on his own. Men that he had trained, men that had been taught at his very side were THANKFULLY out pounding the pavement, taking the gospel into new places without his physical companionship. They were capable, he was certain, most of the time. He couldn’t be with his prize pupil all the time, so he was sure to send him a letter of encouragement.

One letter can go a long way, can’t it? What was the most important letter you ever received? Or on the other hand, the more important letter that you sent?
Was it a college acceptance letter? A love letter? A break-up letter? Notification of debt finally repaid?

What was it like when you opened that letter? Did you know immediately of its news? Had you already figured it out? Were you anticipating what you read before you even went to the mailbox?

How about a letter like this one? Have you ever received a letter from a beloved teacher or mentor? Did you keep it? Do you maybe still have it? I received a letter of sorts from my 3rd grade teacher, but when I was in the 6th grade. I had been helping in Mrs. Strong’s class that year whenever I had finished up my own work in my classes. Mrs. Strong had been a favorite teacher when I was in her room, so when she tapped me to help out with her students, when she called on me to tutor , I jumped in without questioning and loved every minute of it.

When the year was over and it was time for me to move on to junior high, out of the elementary school I had known for the last 5 years, I was elated to receive from Mrs. Strong a book. I still have that book; it is in our kids’ bookshelves, inscribed with an important note from my important teacher. It was the last chance she figured she had to impart wisdom, share her experience, and send me off with words to live by in the next stage of my life and calling. I think Timothy’s teacher did the exact same thing.

In his letter Timothy is reminded of the one thing that helps him know the most important truth, the one thing that carries the most important message for his life and for others, the one thing that promises him that in Christ and through Christ is hope, and forgiveness, and new life. In his letter Timothy is reminded of the scriptures he has known since childhood, the scriptures he heard spoken before he could read them himself. The scriptures he saw preciously rolled and unrolled on scrolls in the synagogue. His attention is drawn to the scriptures he studied as he grew in age and wisdom, hearing in them the stories of God’s faithfulness to the covenant and promise for redemption.

Of course the scriptures Timothy studied were not exactly the same as the scriptures we study today. They did yet contain the gospels about Jesus or letters to and from people following the way of Christ. In fact, the letter Timothy received would someday end up in our Christian collection of scriptures. But scriptures he had spoke just as importantly to the faith of Jesus and God’s works of salvation across time.

They contained the witness of stories told around campfires and homefires throughout the generations, scrolls read and heard in the temple and later the synagogues. Timothy’s scriptures were full of the Psalmists songs – sung both in greatest joy and praise and also in deepest pain and questions. They held the wisdom of proverbs, the sharp critique of prophets, the beauty of poetry and speaks to the heart what the mind can’t understand. In a variety of ways, with a diversity of approaches the scriptures Timothy knew and were commended to him all pointed to the faithfulness of God to God’s struggling people. They are a family album of experiences and stories of the ancestors in faith that witness and testify to the loving God.

It’s a unique book for a people of faith, really, if you think about it. We don’t claim that our collection of writings comes from a single person or a single revelation. We don’t claim that it was dictated to one man by the voice of God or recited by another and copied down word for word. We live with and wrestle with the reality that our scriptures are a collection of distinct books and poems and prophecies, written across a wide span of time, by a diversity of authors, for countless contexts and situations.

We accept that the words we lift up as holy and set apart for a particular purpose, the purpose of guiding and comforting, informing and transforming the lives of the faithful, are at sometimes clear and other times confusing, sometimes united in their message and other times seemingly contradictory, sometimes detailed and maybe even a little boring and other times dramatic, humorous, or heartbreaking. These scriptures are unique for a people of faith, but ultimately they are our scriptures, the place where God reveals to us in no clearer words, God’s love for creation and redemption for it in Jesus the Christ. They are the single greatest testimony to God’s desire to work with us, not against us, to remain engaged in relationship, not give up on us, to pull us out of the pits we dig for ourselves, not leave us helpless in them, and nowhere is this more clear in the person and work of Jesus our Christ, the Word of God.

The Bible stands in a pretty important place in our Protestant and Reformed branches of faith. The Bible, not the authority of the church or our individual experience, is our authority on Christ’s call. The Bible is the place to which we turn to help us discern God’s will and our next faithful steps. As we discussed in Adult Education a few weeks ago, we don’t believe IN the Bible; we believe in God which the words of the Bible reveal to us. The Bible alone is a collection of words on a page. It is stories and poems all collected and bound together in one volume. However, we trust that God has breathed the Spirit of Life all over these pages, and when we invite that Spirit to inspire our reading we can, through these words hear the Word of God.

And what can happen when we hear that Word? What happens to you when you read Scripture and are touched by it? What effect does it have in your life? This one’s not rhetorical; I’m looking for real answers. What do you look for when you decide to read Scripture?

We may be comforted or challenged, inspired or reassured, guided or slowed down, but SOMETHING should always happen when we read Scripture with the Spirit. SOMETHING. These words that have been passed to us lovingly from one generation to the next, these words that have been carefully protected and cherished, these words over which unfortunately much blood has been shed, should do SOMETHING to us when we engage them together or alone.

In Presbyterian circles we love to quote a little Latin to ourselves, the source of which is a little murky, but the sentiment of which is important for our understanding of how God works with the Church. We’re sort of arrogant that way, quoting Latin to each other, but here it is anyway: Reformata semper reformanda. That part alone is often translated “Reformed and always reforming.” It is supposed to point to our faithfulness to continually seek the best way forward as a church, not holding on to the past just because it’s the past.

However, the common translation not only shortens the full sentiment, it offers what seems to be just a minor translation error, but is really quite crucial to our understanding. In full, the English translation of this anonymous point of our Reformed understanding is more correctly, “The Church is reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God.” It’s more than just a longer statement; it’s a more complete understanding of the nature of the church and the purpose and usefulness of Scripture.

First and foremost, it is not the church that changes itself. It is God that reforms the church. The church is not continually “reforming”; the church is “being reformed.” It’s subtle, but it is so VERY important. We are faithful not when we try this or that or any little thing in an attempt to follow God in the world. We are faithful not when we change just for the sake of changing or to follow the winds of the culture with no attention to God’s Spirit.

We are faithful when our changes are led by God. We are faithful when we discern together where God is taking us in the future, how God is calling us to change, when God is calling us to act on our inspiration. Being faithful to God means certain change in our life, our life together as a denomination and as a congregation, but also as disciples of Jesus. God is always calling and molding and pruning and perfecting us, so that we will grow in faith and be equipped for every good work. God has formed us and is reforming us for God’s work in the world.

Secondly, we are not without a guide or wisdom as we move forward reformed and always being reformed. We are not left to our own devices to determine whether the voice we hear calling to us is that of God in heaven or that of a deceiver in the world. The way in which God will lead us will always be in accordance with the Word of God – the little “w” words on the page in Scripture and the big “W” Word in Jesus Christ, to whom those Scriptures witness. The words of Scripture tell us how God operates – out of love and mercy and grace for the redemption of all of creation. The Word of God in Christ shows us what that looks like in human living.
Together the words on the page and the living Word exist not to be etched in stone as a beautiful memorial, not to be shouted back and forth in endless, hurtful arguments, not to be quoted out of context to try to prove one another wrong.

Together the words on the page and the living Word of God exist to transform our lives. They are useful words. They have purpose and action. They call forth change and obedience. They transform our lives and our life together.

They are words of conviction and confession - - “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” They are words of forgiveness and promise - - “For God so loved the world.” They are words of protection and provision - - “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” They are words of comfort and presence - -“I will be with you always even to the end of the age. They are words of commission and sending -- “God therefore and make disciples.”

They are words that call forth change in our lives, change in the way we interact with God, change in the way to see ourselves, change in the way we act as the Body of Christ in the world. It is no accident that in our Christian Education ministry we have decided to make this a Year with the Bible. More often than not our children’s and adult education opportunities will be focused on learning about Scripture. Our congregation has been and continues to be seeking the will of God for our future. We are looking for God’s next reforming call together. We are, like Timothy, making our way as disciples, trying to bring good news to the world in which we live.

It is Scripture that will both ground us and send us. It is Scripture that will tell us of God’s faithfulness in the past, God’s mission in the present, and God’s leading in the future. It is Scripture that will instruct us and prepare us, comfort us and guide us, correct us and refine us, lead us and transform us as we strive to be a part of God’s activity in the world.

In the Large and Small

Luke 13:10-13
Isaiah 40, selected verses

Twenty-one years ago Robert Fulghum’s collection of essays, All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, was published and pretty much immediately rose to the top of the national best-seller lists. It lived there at #1 for just about all of 1989 and much of 1990. The title essay spoke truth to so many of us, about how the simplest lessons we learn as children are really at the core of the lessons we need to master even as adults.

Well, our vacation this last week left me pondering a similar essay, “All I Really Need to Know about Human Nature I Learned By Watching 3 Year Olds.” We returned from our annual pilgrimage to the Anthony farm late Friday night. It was a great week of tractor riding, combine driving, corn picking, and Bobcat cruising, with gorgeous weather and even better company. Both of the big kids spent hours at Dad or Grandpa’s sides bumping along the rows and taking breaks to eat dusty sandwiches in the shade. A wonderful fall vacation.

The vacation also allowed the kids to play with their only cousin on Phil’s side of the family, Andersen, the son of Phil’s sister Kirsten. Andersen and William are only about 2 months apart in age, and we had a blast watching those 3 year olds finally really interacting with one another. Or at least most of the time we did. In watching these two little guys, both in their interactions with each other, and as they responded to the adults in their lives, I noticed some things they do that taught me a lot about what grown-ups do, too.

For example, if a 3 year old is being beckoned by an adult, like with that curling finger, an international sign for “Get. Here. Now.” and he does not want to be here, he simply closes his eyes or turns his back, or for a more dramatic effect, does both. If he can’t see it, it must not exist, therefore, he doesn’t have to follow it.

Likewise, when a 3 year old is being called by an adult to come do something he does not want to do, say maybe get his hands washed after eating a particularly sloppy Sloppy Joe, he will simply stick his fingers in his ears to block out the sound waves carrying that message to his brain. If he can’t hear it, it must not exist, therefore, he doesn’t have to follow it. To a 3 year old, shutting down the paths of communication is the same as running outside the realm of her parents’ control.
It’s that whole idea that if I can’t see them, then certainly they can’t see me.

Another thing 3 year olds try to do is to hide from the adults who are called to care for them. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want to do what it coming, like go to bed. Sometimes it’s because they have done something they should not have, like taken a jelly bean from Grandma’s jar without asking. Sometimes it’s just because they want to do something ALL. BY. MYSELF.

You see these 3 year olds, full of human nature, like to test out their independence. Three year olds, full of human nature, have a tendency, just like the rest of us, to want to push the limits of authority. We have a tendency to want to live our lives beyond the reach of those who are in authority over us - - even when it is a loving, caring, providing, nurturing, challenging, encouraging, forgiving, authority, even when it’s the authority of a parent, even when it’s the authority of God.

We human beings, for whatever reason, from the very beginning, have this curiosity and this independent streak that drives us to try to live outside the reach of even God. Intentionally or unintentionally, we do it all the time. We close our eyes to avoid seeing the way the systems that are in place to protect our good fortune are the same systems that keep others down. We choose not to follow when God beckons us to make a difference on behalf of the poor in our own community. We put our fingers in our ears so we can’t hear God’s preference for peace over war, love over fear and hatred, mercy over revenge. We ignore the wisdom of Scripture, of saints of the past, of friends and loved one who speak for God in our lives today.

We even try to just run from God. We try to hide out in our jobs, our hobbies, our destructive habits, trying to live our day to day lives on our own power, our own authority. We try to work out our rocky relationships, raise our children win battles over our neighbors, and find meaning in our day to day lives all outside of and beyond the realm of God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sustainer. Like the Prodigal Son we believe we can make better choices with what we have been given when we are away from God than we can in the presence of our divine Parent.

Three year olds try to do it. Teenagers get pretty good at getting close to doing it. Adult attempt it and even applaud when they see it in others, admiring this characteristic they call self-sufficiency. Even the ancient kingdoms tried to live without God; they thought collectively, like us, that they could operate beyond the reach of God, saying “My way is hidden from the Lord.”

But the reality is that they couldn’t. We can’t. Like the psalmist in Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I feel from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in the realm of the dead, you are there.” No matter where we go, no matter how far we try to run, no matter how hard we work to ignore God’s leading and God’s authority in our lives, God is there. Who measured the waters in the hollow of a hand? Who enclosed the dust of the earth and measure the mountains on a kitchen scale?

God knows the ins and outs of every bit of creation, the physical land, the flowing water, the heavens stretched out above, and there is nowhere in this creation that we can step that is outside the realm of God’s love and God’s grace and God’s authority. If we put our fingers in our ears God can speak louder than they can block. If we close our eyes God can paint visions on the insides of our eyelids. If we run and hide in the best spot in the world, God will find us because God created that hiding spot and knows its very existence. The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, and the Lord’s care is for the large and the small of it.

The same God who folded the mountains and filled the seas is the same God who was present in Jesus, the same God who walked into towns and synagogues claiming the Scriptures for himself, healing the sick in body and spirit, restoring them to wholeness. With the spirit of God working in him and through him, Jesus sought out those who either tried to live apart from God or who felt their conditions left them separated from the divine presence. His presence on earth demonstrated God’s sovereignty, God’s authority, God’s interest not over just the big picture of it all, but God’s interest in the very details of our lives. While God is so majestic that foundations of the earth were put into place by the divine hands and we look like grasshoppers to the divine eye, in Jesus we discover that God’s care is for even the very intimate, very personal circumstances of our lives. There is no place we can go, no worry we can hide, no step we can take that is outside the love and the care of our God.

Armed with this knowledge, trusting in the constant presence and attention of God, our best response should not be to run away from God who seeks us, but to follow the lead of the woman healed by Jesus. Feeling his touch on her body, experiencing his presence in ALL of her life, she didn’t run to hide from his majesty and power, she didn’t close her eyes to his persisting presence. She responded immediately with joy and praise. She stood and worshiped God.

Ultimately that is what’s asked of each of us. We get caught up in a lot of shoulds and coulds in the life of faith, but ultimately all we are asked to do is worship God who surrounds us with love and mercy and forgiveness, who formed us and the dust of the earth we walk on, who provides for our needs, who heals us from all those things that keep us bent over, weighed down, burdened in this life. All God asks of us is that we worship the one who has this kind of love for us – worship God when the community is gathered, hearing Scriptures that teaches us, confessing sins that divide us, praying for healing to bless us, sharing concerns that plague us, celebrating joys that delight us, all so that we may delight in God who calls us together, giving praise and thanksgiving in all of it for God, who is above all and through all and in all.

We don’t gather here to fill up our spiritual tanks for another week on the road. And although it is a blessing when it happens, we aren’t called here just to fix our lives and spirits when we sense they are broken. We are called here, not to watch as others demonstrate faith and speak about its goodness in our presence. We are called here to work… together… all of us. We are called here to worship and give praise, to honor and celebrate, to recognize and show our delight in God from whom we can’t run, God whose care is for our whole lives. This is what we do when we gather to worship our sovereign God. Worship is NOT about us, our likes, our dislikes, our preferences, our tastes. Worship is about giving God, who is worthy of all praise, glory upon glory, praise upon praise. When we gather as a diverse community it is our responsibility and honor to make sure that all who are gathered can find avenues by which they can do just that with integrity and passion.

And just as God is attentive to our whole lives, we are also called to worship with our whole lives, even when we are away from this place. Worship isn’t the order we follow on Sunday morning or Wednesday night or any other time we gather as the people of God. Worship is what happens anytime and every time we please God by living wholly and completely as the children we have been called to be. Worship is when we tell God and show God our gratitude for the grace we have been given, not just with the words that come from our lips, but with the actions that come from our lives. Worship is when we praise God for an abundance of blessings by using those blessings for purposes God desires.

Living as the best parent or child we can be is worshiping God. Using the talents we have been given to their fullest is worshiping God. Enjoying the creation around us, caring for it with love and attention, working to heal it and protect as agents of Christ is worshiping God. Delighting in the care and company of others is worshiping God. Being attentive to the whispering of the Spirit in times of solitude and quiet is worshiping God.

Worship, for the people of God, is at the heart of what we do, both inside these walls and beyond them. Worship is our number one call in life. May all that we do and all that we say be our worship of God, our way of giving thanks for God’s sovereign grace and mercy.