Cautious Confidence?

Psalm 121

Lent 2A

Fondren Presbyterian Church

March 12, 2017

The Reverend Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

Psalm 121 is one of a series known as the Psalms of Ascent.  Interpreting what that means exactly is tricky.  The Psalms present a unique challenge in the canon when it comes to dating or placing them in their historical context.  There are few if any internal cues that allow us to say, “this Psalm came from this time and place.”  There are also these enigmatic headings that categorize them without fully explaining what the categories really mean.
Does Psalm of Ascent mean it is a Psalm that references a high place or climbing to a high place as a means of communing with God?  There is ample biblical witness to the importance of high places and their role in both divine presence and human devotion.
Perhaps it means ascent to heaven.  Here too we have ample witness to the idea that heaven is somehow located in the heavens where God looks down with interest and devotion to creation.
There is no way to know exactly what these designations mean.
One persuasive case is made for an interpretation that captures several meanings for these Psalms.  This school of thought views the Psalms of Ascent as Psalms sung during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
What little internal evidence there is would seem to support this idea.  Psalm 120, the first Psalm of Ascent, is clearly written from a perspective outside Jerusalem and Psalm 122 is clearly written from an insider’s context of Jerusalem.  If we take those two at face value, Psalm 121 is likely a Psalm of the journey to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem itself was a high place.  Whether its relative elevation was greater than your home didn’t really matter.  The journey to Jerusalem was always up.  Like the old hymn says, “We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful, Zion.  We’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.”
And the pilgrimage to get to Jerusalem would lead the pilgrim past many high places.  The roads of the Ancient Near East most often followed valleys both for ease of travel and the probability of finding water.  So there were literal high places to encounter on the pilgrim journey to the metaphorical high place in God’s holy city.
Most of us are familiar with this particular Psalm of Ascent by its first lines and more particularly from the traditional King James translation of those lines.  “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help.”  Rendering the psalmist’s words as a declaration, the King James translation begins the Psalm with a bold statement of personal faith.  I lift up my eyes to the hills because I know that my help comes from there.
Perhaps a more faithful rendering of the psalmist’s words would phrase that first verse like a question; “I lift my eyes to the hills.  From where will my help come?”
It is a question we have all asked in times of fear or uneasiness; in times when we feel threatened or lonely or adrift in our souls.
The psalmist poses this familiar question and then, in the next verse in fact, answers it.
“I lift my eyes to the hills.  From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.”
Whatever the danger- physical, emotional, spiritual- our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.  There is no question to the psalmist that God is keeping a watchful eye over him and over us in body, mind, and spirit.
That is perhaps the most important thing we can take away from this Psalm.  God is watching over us even when we do not know it or see it or feel it, God is always fully even painfully aware of our lives and is always keeping a watchful eye over us.
“I lift my eyes to the hills.  From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.”
“The hills” or the high places were not always encountered as the dwelling place of God.  Often the hills would hide dangers on the road.  Think about the story of the Good Samaritan who comes along to find a man beaten and robbed lying in a ditch.  Bandits and robbers lurked among the craggy rocks of “the hills.”
So when the Psalmist says, “I lift my eyes to the hills.” It is just as likely that the looking was done out of an abundance of caution as unquestioned devotion.
I doubt the man who was robbed and left for dead thought that the help that would come from the maker of heaven and earth would arrive in the person of the Samaritan.  As we know from countless sermons and storytellers, Samaritans were not known as good or very respected people.  Part of the miracle of that story is that the lowly Samaritan was the one to stop and help.
That is often how God works in our lives.  God looks out for us in unexpected ways and, in the case of the Good Samaritan, God’s watchfulness over the physical wellbeing of the traveller was found in the generous hands of a stranger.
“I lift my eyes to the hills.  From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.”
Sometimes God’s watchfulness comes closer to home.
        In Jonathan Safron Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar Schell is a nine year old boy whose father has been killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack in the Twin Towers. Understandably, Oskar is deeply disturbed by that terrible loss.  So when he finds a key in his father’s closet, hidden in an envelope marked “Black,” he is more than interested.  He sets out to find the lock that the key will open, convinced that it will tell him something important about his dead father.
       So, all by himself, at nine years of age, he sets out to visit every “Black” in New York City. Consulting his telephone book and a map of the city, he goes out to meet total strangers in search of that lock.  As we read the book, we are worried for him, wondering how he can do such a thing all alone.  And we wonder with more than a little disgust where on earth his mother is in the whole thing.
       Finally, by a convoluted set of circumstances Oskar learns that it wasn’t his father’s key after all. It was simply a key hidden in a vase that Oskar’s father had bought at a rummage sale.  Angry that his search was in vain, Oskar destroys everything associated with his search.  But that’s when he discovered that his mother knew about his activities all the time.  In fact, she had contacted everyone in New York with the name Black, telling them what Oskar was doing.  All of them knew ahead of time that he was coming and, thus, gave him generally friendly receptions.
      She gave him the freedom to conduct his search alone, but she was watching over him all along by going ahead of him and setting up his appointments.  Oskar had to go alone to accomplish his mission, but she prepared the way so he was safe. (1)
“I lift my eyes to the hills.  From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.”
      These stories of a man helped by a stranger in first century Palestine or a fictional tale of a young boy coming to terms with the loss of his father illustrate the careful watchfulness of God, but God’s work is not kept in the distant past or the pages of a novel.  We too lift our eyes to the hills and ask, “From where will my help come?”
      The psalmist answers that question in great detail.  After proclaiming that our help comes from the Lord, the psalmist elaborates and says:
“He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.
 The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time on and forevermore.”
      These words of multiple assurances remind us that as we set our feet on the pilgrim journey, whether the physical walk to Jerusalem or the spiritual walk to Golgotha, God will guide our feet and watch our every step.
      In a repeated cadence that drives home the point, the psalmist reminds us over and over again that we do not journey alone.  And who is with us?  None other than YHWH.  In fact the name YHWH is mentioned six times and the phrase “watch over” is mentioned five.  This is a song about God’s watchfulness.
      Years ago Bette Middler sang a song entitled, “From a Distance.”  The refrain of the song said, “God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us…from a distance.”
When we seek to bring this Psalm home and draw it’s bold assertions of God’s presence and care into our own lives, it is easy to fall into the trap of our modern skeptical age and say, “well if God is watching, she is watching from a distance.”
     There is something that feels a little intellectually dishonest or, heaven forbid, overly churchy to talk about God right here right now with me, but that is in fact what the psalmist claims for us.  Not that God watches from a distance but that God is right with us, close enough to guide our very feet.
Right here and right now that help comes and though we may be tempted to claim just the cautious confidence of our age, we are called today and every day to the bold confidence of the Psalmist.
      And when we do, when we do claim that bold understanding of the God who is watching over us right here and right now, we will know the hope and confidence in that old hymn “Why should I be discouraged, why should the shadows come, why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home; when Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is he; his eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”
      Let us pray.
      God of watchfulness, make yourself known to us in this place.  Fill us with bold confidence in your promises so we too may know what it is to look to the hills and find our hope.  Amen.

1.This sermon illustration is taken from Stan Mast’s notes on this text included in the weekly lectionary notes from the Center for Excellence in Preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary for the week of March 12, 2017.

While We Were Talking

Matthew 17:1-9

Transfiguration of the Lord A

February 26, 2017

Fondren Presbyterian Church

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            Last summer my best friend, his two teenage sons, and I drove from Russellville, AR to Bozeman, MT to meet his wife and her parents for a family vacation.  We took a more scenic route than usual so we could see some of the sights along the way.  

            After passing through Colorado and the magnificent sights of Vail Pass, Glenwood Canyon, and the wide-open skies of the western slope, we came into Utah a few hours ahead of schedule.  Looking at the map we decided that there was enough time for a quick side stop at Arches National Park. 

            It is said of the Grand Canyon that it is one of the few things in the world that fails to disappoint and always lives up to the hype.  I could say the same about Arches.  There in the middle of the Utah desert, stretching for miles to the horizon, are incredible red sandstone outcroppings, berms, and, notably, arches, formed by millennia of wind erosion. 

            Driving through the park we reached one particular promontory where, looking out at the landscape stretching ahead, I found myself speechless.  It was a sight that defies description because words are not enough to capture it. 

            I am not one to throw around the language of spirituality too loosely.  But seeing that landscape, with that sapphire blue sky, in that calm and still place, was, I have to say, a truly spiritual experience.  It was one of those moments when you feel God right there; with you; in the moment. 

            Ancient pagan and modern Celtic spirituality described those places where heaven and earth feel closer than in others as “thin places.”  The wind swept island of Iona, a gentle spring gurgling up in a remote place in the Highlands, a promontory looking out over the magnificent Utah desert.  All of those can be thin places.

            “Up a high mountain” might fairly be called the biblical vernacular for “thin place.”  Whenever someone goes up a high mountain in scripture, some kind of encounter with the holy is in the offing. 

            Moses goes up the mountain and meets God.

            Elijah goes up the mountain and hears the voice of God.

            The psalmist turns his eyes to the hills looking for guidance from…God?

            So common is this motif of mountains as places of divine encounter that the very expression “mountain top experience” has crept into our vocabulary to describe those life-changing moments.

            That day on the mountain in ancient Palestine surely lived up to its name for Peter, James, and John.  Jesus takes them, and only them, up a high mountain.  What happens there is one of the more dramatic moments in Jesus’ ministry before the events of holy week.

            The text tells us that when they got up the mountain, “he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.”  That English translation of the Greek word “metemorphothe” as “transfigured” gives us the name of this day.

            Now when we hear the word “transfigured” our minds often go to change.  Jesus was changed before them from the man they knew into this glowing radiant figure who evidently shares the glowing visage of God revealed to Moses so long before.

            If we want to be literalists and concern ourselves only with the words on the page, that is not a bad place to stop the sermon and get on with our days.  Of course, we know the rest of the story and we know that Jesus was with God in the beginning and we know that in the fullness of the biblical witness we have Christ revealed not as an evolving divine figure in the world but as God incarnate, born of Mary, walking among and ministering too us. 

            Fully human AND fully divine is the theological principle, not fully human and MOSTLY divine as though there were still some divining to be done down the line.

            This Jesus who goes up the high mountain with Peter, James, and John was fully God at the bottom of the mountain, so what does the text mean when it says he was “transfigured before them?”

            To understand Christ in that moment, we need to first understand the mountain, or more particularly, the mountaintop as a place of divine experience.

            Montreat North Carolina is a thin place for many Presbyterians. 

            And for thousands of Presbyterian youth each summer it is a mountain top experience.  It is a place where, together, they come to know what it is to live in the blessed community of Christ in a place where the membrane between heaven and earth is quite nearly invisible. 

            Each night at Montreat, groups from churches or presbyteries who travel together to the conference gather for back home time.  Back home takes as many forms as there are groups to share it.  There is no magic formula other than using the time as an opportunity to live more fully into the miracle of the week. 

            In my home church, one of the traditions is to do “pows and wows” for the day.  Some call them mountains and valleys, some highs and lows, but the idea is the same.  Each person is invited to share the thing that gave him or her the biggest wow or surprise of the day and the thing that gave him or her the biggest pow or disappointment. 

            At a youth leader’s conference not long after Montreat one year, a discussion started over dinner and one of the youth professionals made the comment that after Montreat that summer some of the adults wanted to revamp their youth ministry to model it after the week at Montreat.  The logic was that during that week the group had come together in such amazing ways, they learned in keynote, the unpacked what they learned in small groups, they bonded in free time, and they opened up to one another in such incredible vulnerability during back home time and their version of pows and wows.

            Someone asked how it went with the changes, and the youth professional said it had been a disaster. 

            We went around the table talking about why that might be when one of our number piped up and said, “maybe there is a reason people in the bible visit the mountain top but never live there.  It’s a visiting place not a place.”

            You could have heard a pin drop.

            She was exactly right.

            The goal of making every moment as spiritually enveloping as a Montreat Youth Conference is tempting and laudable, but it is a mountain top and mountain tops are for visiting not for living.

            Peter jumps at the chance to stay on the mountaintop.  When Moses and Elijah appear and begin talking with Jesus, Peter offers to build three dwellings assuming that now that they are up the mountain, Jesus plans to stay there.  After all, who would want to leave?

            It is tempting for us to want to set down roots and build our tent on the Mountain top where we encounter God so fully, where the distance between heaven and earth is so minimal, and where the glowing radiance of God lights our way.

            It is not long, however, that Jesus bursts this particular bubble and just like closing worship at Montreat always arrives on Friday night, Jesus sends the disciples back down the mountain and back to the day to day of their living.

            So why take us up there in the first place?

            It seems awfully unkind for God to draw us to these thin places and up to these mountaintops just to usher us back to the thickness of the world.  Why not just leave us alone?

            The answer, I think, comes in vs. 5. 

            While Peter is speaking to Jesus about setting up camp right there on the mountain top- while he is distracted by clinging to the moment to make it last- the voice of God comes upon them just as it did in the moment of Jesus’ baptism.  Again, God says to them that Jesus is God’s son and with him God is well pleased.

            There is no new information revealed on the mountain. 

            Peter, James, and John are not bearers of some new information about God or Christ, or the relationship of the divine to humanity.

            What they get in that moment is the voice of God telling them what they already know; Christ is God’s son, the beloved, with whom God is well pleased.”

            That mountain top experience was, to be sure like a whelming flood to those disciples, but they were washed over with familiar waters.  They were reminded of what they knew down at the bottom of the mountain; that God is near them and with them and for them.

            I think that is the real point of thin places; of mountaintops; of all the places where we pause and see and feel the goodness and nearness of God.  The truth of God is no somehow transformed in those moments; it is our lives that are transformed.  What changes is not what we see but how we see.

            Perhaps another way of saying what happened to Jesus up on that mountain is that he was seen by the disciples in a whole new light.  In that moment, they caught a glimpse of what was already true about the radiance of God in Christ.  They encountered a thin place and in it they reencountered the truth of the glory of God and THAT is why rather than tell them to set up camp Jesus sends them back into the world. 

            Thin places and mountaintops are not rewards for our endurance in the world, they are the places where our strength to bare witness in the world is renewed and refreshed.  Christ takes us to the mountaintop not so that he might be changed before our eyes but so that our eyes may be more fully opened to him and in him WE might be changed.

            Friends, this week we begin the journey of Lent.  So often we see this as a valley to be traversed so we can reach the mountaintop of Easter morning.  Perhaps this is the year to see Lent not as the valley but the mountain- the gift from God to come to a place where God is near and the light of Christ may shine in our lives. 

            Let us pray.

            God of every mountaintop, you call us to live in your light.  In this season of preparation, transform and transfigure our lives so we may know more fully your love for us and share more boldly your love for the world.  We thank you for those places in the world where we are drawn closer to you and where we know more fully the hope and love you have for us.  We pray these things in the name of the one who calls us to the mountaintop, Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

When Prayer Hurts

Matthew 5:38-48

Ordinary Time 7A

February 19, 2017

Fondren Presbyterian Church

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

After the Democratic National Convention in 2000 when Al Gore selected CT Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate, ABC News ran a story vaguely implying that it might be tricky for an Orthodox Jew to serve as Vice-President.

            The story did not echo the “Hotline to the Vatican” kind of scare tactics unleashed on Kennedy in 1960, but the question was raised in this and other news stories, “How will an Orthodox Jew who observes Torah laws deal with an emergency on the Sabbath?”  In other words, if he is forbidden from operating anything mechanical- he walks to the capitol and takes the stairs on the Sabbath- how will he manage to retaliate against an enemy or deal with a phone call to a foreign leader during a crisis? 

            Unlike the fears of past Catholic candidates that their faith would mean control from a far away Pope, the concern with Lieberman was that he was so religiously devout that his beliefs might interfere with him taking us to war.

            A politician so devoted to the demands of his faith, he would be unable to take us to war.

            Those words have, to my knowledge, never been uttered about a Christian candidate for President or Vice President not Anglican George Washington, not Presbyterian Woodrow Wilson, not even Quaker Richard Nixon.  Never has the world been worried that they might take too seriously Jesus’ words…

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

            When was the last time you got a sideways look when someone heard that you were a Christian and worried that you might be a little to attached to that justice, fairness, equality, righteousness, peacemaking, cheek-turning, pray for your enemies stuff?

            Why doesn’t the world- the powers and principalities of the world- fear us?

I mean when you read the gospel, it is pretty scary stuff if your business is maintaining power through force, dishonesty, intimidation, or any of the other tools of power wielded so freely in our culture. 

            In fact, the forces of power in the world are more often than not the mirror opposite of what the gospel calls us to believe, do, and be. 

The dangerous proposition that is the gospel of Christ is an equal opportunity critic of the powers and principalities.  So much so that the gospel message itself has been the target of thinkers on both the left and the right.

            Ayn Rand, darling of the Tea Party wrote, “If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism which men must reject.”

            And then there’s Karl Marx, father of communism, who said, “The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submissiveness and humbleness.”[i]

            The powers and principalities of the world of all philosophical stripes know a threat then they see it and the gospel is a threat.  And a community filled with gospel people is absolutely deadly. 

            So why doesn’t the world fear us? 

            Or at least fear us as much as they fear Joe Lieberman?

            One answer, a pretty simple answer really, is that we are realists.  We read the words and we hear the words and we even sit through preaching on the words, but in the end we live in the REAL world and the trained indifference of our hearing filters out all of that idealistic falderal.  Yes, yes, loving our enemies is a good idea but in Jesus day enemies did not wear suicide vests or fly airplanes into office towers or order drone strikes on civilian populations. 

            There are enemies and then there are ENEMIES and in our day and age we are living with the latter.  And that excuses us from the letter of this command, we tell ourselves.

            And, if we are honest, there is some truth to that.  Ours is a time vastly different than Jesus’.  As powerful as they were, I doubt that all the Caesar’s horsemen and all the Caesars’ men could do much to push international politics today. 

            This and so many other of Jesus’ admonitions in the gospels read like good ideas whose place is in the idealistic context of the church and not out in the real world where we need real world solutions to real world problems and not pie in the sky theology.

            Standing here in the relative safety of this pulpit it is tempting to jump on that bandwagon to simply dismiss those reactions to Jesus’ message as just so much unfaithful drivel.  It is easy and tempting to take that pervasive realism in church and culture, set it up as a straw man, topple it, and then proceed to beat the hell out of everyone with this gospel story.   

            But the truth is that when it comes to constructing a strategy for living in this real world there is something to that ultra-realistic view of Jesus’ words if we hear them as ways to succeed in the realities of our world. 

            Turn the other cheek, give more than you are asked, go the extra mile, and love your enemies are not very good strategies for getting ahead in this world.  In fact, they are probably the four most important ingredients to being a doormat in this world!

            So it is no wonder that the powers and principalities so readily reject Jesus and this fools errand of a model for living in the REAL world; no wonder the world doesn’t fear followers of this message that is, by every metric cherished by the world, weak, foolish, and destined to fail. 

            This is not how to get ahead in the real world.

            And that is exactly the point.

            Contrary to the Rev. Good Hair TV preachers, the gospel is not a recipe for success and prospering your life in this world.  Rather than revealing a better way to win at the game, Jesus rejects the game all together and shows us in its place a glimpse of the kingdom of God.

            What Jesus proposes here is a whole new way of living that is contrary to the rules and the goals of the world.  In these words is the start of a counterculture- a revolution rooted in community that rejects the limitations and assumptions of the “real world” by introducing a whole new reality; the kingdom of God.

            So what is the formula for this new reality- this kingdom reality?

            First, we have to reorient our relationships from adversity to community. 

            We have to stop seeing the other as the target of justice- you took my eye, I will take yours- and adopt a posture of forgiveness, forbearance, and reconciliation.

Notice that when Jesus says “turn the other cheek” there is no implication that it is going to be struck too!  We read that into the text.  What Jesus commands is not about offering your other cheek so it too may be slapped, but giving your neighbor the benefit of the doubt that it will not be.

            When Jesus upends the assumptions of this world, he rejects the notion that we are living zero-sum lives where your gain means my loss and the one who dies with the most toys wins. 

            In this short passage of just 69 Greek words, Jesus gives 6 separate commands on how to relate to another person.  One after the other, Jesus uses these admonitions to lay the foundation for reconciliation and community; a new reality founded not on the limitations of the world but the boundlessness of God. 

            But what kind of community? 

What kind of community is Christ calling us to embrace in this new reality of the kingdom of God?

            In our moment in history, this second part of Jesus call to community is perhaps one of the most radical pieces of the gospel. 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. ⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

            I heard a politician being interviewed one day and the interviewer asked him where he got his news and he listed several news sources including the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.  The anchor was visibly surprised.  He looked incredulously at the politician and said, “but you’re a Democrat!”  To which the politician replied, “exactly.  I already know what I think.”

            As the experts have unpacked the last Presidential election one of the themes that is emerging is the impact of the “echo chamber.”  More than in recent years, we seem to be withdrawing into communities of strict commonality where our diversity of opinion and outlook is reduced to the lowest common denominator.  There are news sources for liberals and conservatives, social media like Facebook and Twitter follow your likes and dislikes to know which news stories to put in your daily feed; there are even online dating sites now that let users filter potential partners based on political views!

            We have become so adept at parsing our neighbors and pigeon holing one another that we have reached a point in a rapidly diversifying world that our lives are less diverse each and every day.  

            We have gone from us vs. them to us vs. them vs. them vs. them with ever shrinking circles defining who is in and who is out and our civil discourse has become so bellicose that we have trouble seeing any of them as deserving of the time much less our friendship, care, community, or prayer.

            Jesus takes this moment in human history and turns it entirely upside down.  Notice that Jesus does not encourage us to become more diverse in our circle of friends and neighbors. 

Diversity within the boundaries of communities we define is not the point. 

            The point is to get rid of the boundaries all together; to tear down and stop building the walls that parcel us off one from the other.  We are called to create and live in communities defined by being no more discriminate than the sunshine or the rain; to let our goodwill fall on the world the way the rain does on the earth. 

            Jesus calls us to a true community of the whole human family.

            That this text comes up in the lectionary as we are in the middle of a national debate on immigration and the politics and policy of refugee admittance to this country is, I think, as much if not more a function of providence as coincidence.  Like most of you, I have personal opinions on what our national policy should be but I have no expertise to claim in international relations, national security, or immigration policy.

            What I can offer is the observation that from the earliest stories of the Israelites to the modern story of the church, God’s people have been called and commanded to care for the immigrant in their midst.  Welcoming the stranger is at the heart of our call to community in Christ and care for neighbor is an indispensible element in our Christian faith which is based on the gospel of Jesus Christ and not the realpolitik of the day. 

This call hospitality and community is not a negotiable part of the gospel and any church, community, society, or nation that fails to be mindful about and demonstrate care for the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee in their midst stands afoul of the calling of Christ. 

            The place of the church in the world is standing directly in the path of a culture of fear of the other and division among peoples as we proclaim loudly and without ceasing that ours is a God whose love falls like the rain; covering and nurturing all the earth. 

            Those last words of our text today, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” may sound like a charge too great to achieve.  When used in this context the Greek word telos, which can certainly be translated as “perfect” might fairly be rendered “whole.”  The telos to which Christ calls us is not the perfection of flawlessness but the perfection of wholeness of completeness.  We are made whole and given all that we need to relentlessly give voice in the world to the promise and vision of the Kingdom of God. 

            Imagine that!  A church relentless in its proclamation:

            of the dignity of all people;

            the boundlessness of God’s love;

            the promise of God’s kingdom;

            the eternity of God’s love;

            and the call to all creation to holy community defined by how wide it reaches rather than by whom it excludes.

            That is a church to make the powers and principalities tremble; a church for the forces of division and dehumanization to fear.

            Leonard Bernstein, when he debuted his modern mass, said that in his opinion the most dangerous words in any language are, “let us pray.”  When we utter those words we acknowledge the one who calls us to prayer and prayerful living and we declare in the face of the world our faith in the one who is greater than the world. 

            Those are the first words of our resistance to the world. 

When we pray, not only for those we love, but also for those God loves;

those who have done us well and those who have done us ill;

when we pray even the prayers that hurt to say, we begin our active resistance to the powers and principalities that would divide God’s children and we take the first steps toward the holy community of Christ.

            When we pray, we begin a revolution of wholeness in a broken world.

            So…let us pray.

            God of boundless grace, you have called us to cross every human border and boundary so we may begin to realize your holy community of promise.  Give us ears to hear your word above the din of the world and eyes to see your children beyond the interests of our own lives.  As the hymn writer said, grand us wisdom, grant us courage, for the living of this and every day.  Let the holy revolution of your promise begin here in our hearts.  Amen.

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[i] As happens so often, Dr. David Lose provided invaluable insight to the text and offered this observation about Rand and Marx in a Working Preacher post from 2014.