November 2006

Monthly Archive

November 26, 2006

Reign

Posted by Jon Martin under Sermons, Sunday Pulpit
No Comments 

See this as a PDF
We’re on the threshold of a season full of music. It’s memorable, enjoyable, catchy, and even sentimental music. Holiday music is already out there on the radio and in stores, and in the days ahead we’ll hear it in our cars, at concerts, at home, at holiday parties, even from the loud speaker above the gas pump. It will be everywhere including in the church. Music is integral to how we worship every time we gather, and for a few weeks at the end of each year, we too sing holiday music. I like that in the weeks ahead the world will join in with us in singing. I pray it will help counter all the discordant language and disharmony in the world, all the racist tirades, sectarian divisiveness, crude and caustic language filling the air.

As the world sings with us, it will be in some unlikely ways. A Car radio plays Away in a Manger and a person who hasn’t darkened the door of a church for decades sing along at a stop light and remembers better days. A shopper hears Silent Night and hums along remembering the Christmas eves of his childhood. A parent hears Hark the Herald Angels Sing and focuses on “mild he lays is glory by, born that we no more may die,” and remembers son daughter serving in Iraq.

Christians have always sung. The first Christians sang the psalms. As people answered God’s call to write sacred music beyond the psalms, it too was included in worship. Every generation has written music for the church to sing, and some of it will be part of our Advent and Christmas services in the weeks ahead.

I know we all have our preferences for certain sacred music. Like all music, it too is very subjective. I might prefer one song over another, and you might like a song that another person doesn’t. That’s the way God made us. We were created with preferences. Susanne reminds me this time of year that I am quick to comment on the music of the season. Since so much of our musical taste is subjective, is there some objective test we can apply to the music of the season that steps us away from personal preference? See if you think this exchange between Pilate and Jesus helps answer that question.

After Jesus had been arrested and before he was crucified, he was brought to Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Pilate alone had the authority to order Jesus’ execution and so he met Jesus to find out his so-called crime. “What have you done? Are you a king?” He asked. Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not of this earth. For this I was born and for this I came into the world: to testify to the truth.” Pilate responded, “What is truth?” Jesus himself is the answer to that question. Jesus is the truth. He is the visible expression of the truth of God’s love for the world. His death and resurrection are the greatest expression of that love. Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” Jesus, standing before his, was the answer to his question made visible.

I hear in this conversation between Jesus and Pilate an objective test for sacred music. Is sacred music objectively good when it bears witness to the truth? Preference, style, and genre are not part of this answer. Music is good when it helps us announce the truth of God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ. Isn’t that the measure of its worth?

Style, composition, instruments, harmonies, melodies have all changed in the long history of the church, but what has stayed constant is its ability to announce the truth of God’s love.

Imagine it’s 55AD, and we’re in a small city in Greece. People are gathering at the home of a Gentile who used to worship pagan gods like Hermes and Diana, but has become a Christian. It’s Friday and both Jews and Gentiles are arriving for worship. These are the members of the church in that city. Their time together that evening will include prayer, songs of praise, and hearing God’s word told to them. There is no New Testament—it hasn’t been written yet. They read from the Hebrew Scriptures, and they share a holy meal. They come from every walk of life: laborers, city officials, former prostitutes, destitute widows, a glass blower, a baker, a blind person, a soldier, free citizens, and household servants. Wealthier members bring milk, cheese, olives, fish, bread, grapes, and wine. It will be shared later from a table. The Spirit is active in this group, and they chant as they read the psalms and retell the events of Jesus’ life. Their singing would sound strange to us but it announces the truth of God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ. (This section incorporates material from Brian Wren’s volume, Congregational Song.)

Now imagine it’s the year 1451 in Northern Germany. It’s the last Sunday in November in a great gothic cathedral that is visible for miles. Inside the cathedral high-arched windows flood the space with colorful light. Tapestries in the cathedral depict scenes from the Bible. A priest at the front of the church lifts the communion elements and a thousand pairs of eyes watch this act unfold. A choir sings in Latin and the people watch in total amazement. As the music fills the cathedral, it announces the truth of God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ.

Now imagine Geneva, Switzerland in 1558. It’s a Sunday morning in this city of thirteen thousand. Worship is led by John Calvin in a plain and undecorated Cathedral. The service is simple: prayers, readings, preaching, and, of course, singing. Calvin knows that singing by people of faith is an ancient practice and must be done with songs that tell the truth of the gospel. The words for such songs come from the Psalms. No instruments accompany the voices singing in French.

Imagine it’s 1659 in Berlin. It is Christmas morning in the St. Nicholas Lutheran Church. The Lutherans have a rich musical tradition. Paul Gerhardt, is a member of the church, and a noted hymn writer of his day. He collaborates with a composer in the church. Unlike the Calvinists in Geneva, there is a full orchestra in the church as well as two choirs, a boys choir and a mixed voice choir. A dozen anthems that tell the truth of God’s love in Jesus Christ will be included in their Christmas day pageant. New music is treasured by these Lutherans because they believe the Bible calls them to sing a new song.

New England, 1742. Jonathan Edwards is the pastor of the Congregational Church of Northampton, Massachusetts. The building is plain, the pulpit is central, and clear glass windows let in grey November sunlight. The church has purchased copies of the songbook, Hymns and Spiritual Songs by Isaac Watts. This is a big step for this church which has to date sung only psalms. One of the hymns they sing that morning is Isaac Watts’ new hymns: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross on which the Prince of Glory Died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.

South Carolina, 1862. African slaves gather for worship in a wooden house on a plantation. They arrive tired. Their meeting begins with song and prayer. “Some are hurting” the pastor says, “Some are burdened.” The congregation responds, “Yes, Lord!” When the sermon ends, the benches are pushed against the walls and someone begins singing a spiritual. They are not allowed to dance so they sway. Drums are not permitted, so they clap, slap their knees, and stomp. They believe that because the Spirit moves, so they must move, too. Their song announces the God’s love for the world in Jesus Christ. And now Pisgah Church, 2006. We gather for worship service on a Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. While the music of the Christmas Season has already started playing around us, we sing of the reign of Christ over everything including all music. Most of the songs we sing are recent when compared to how long Christians have been gathering and singing.

In twenty centuries of Christian music, can you imagine how diverse that music and worship has been? I see a sign of hope here. I see in this collage of people and places and centuries a sign of hope that as the singing goes on, the church continues to tell the truth in song.

In the weeks ahead many in this world will join with us in the songs we sing, and with us announce the truth of God’s love in Jesus Christ in song. We have an opportunity to show the world the truth of what they are singing by how we live our lives. Show them how deep that truth runs in us. Show them that the one who is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, reigns in this place of grace, in our lives, and in the world. And thanks be to God. Amen.

 

November 19, 2006

Everybody Get Together

Posted by Jon Martin under Sermons, Sunday Pulpit
No Comments 

See this as a PDF

Last week we dedicated ourselves to the mission and ministry of the church for another year. I like the significance of our stewardship dedication happening in November—in a month of giving thanks. It means that our commitment to both the ongoing work and the brand new work of the church is part of a season of thanksgiving to God.

What are you thankful for? I am thankful for you. I am thankful for a church family that has a vision and intends to be vital in its mission and ministry in the months ahead. I’m thankful that God calls us to this ministry. In the past weeks of stewardship I have preached about the Godly work each of us has is called to do. You are called to be part of what happens here, and as a disciple of Jesus you bring something that no one else brings. You bring yourself and your perspective and your talents and your gifts. No one else can bring what you bring.

If you’re not here we can’t do that part of our mission that only you are gifted to do in just your way. Ephesians puts it like this: we are being built spiritually all of us together into a dwelling place for God. I like the mood and language of Ephesians. It links “togetherness” with language about how God is building us into a dwelling place. So what kind of dwelling place are we becoming? What kind of building project is this?

The texts for today describe two different building projects. One is the ancient account of the tower of Babel. The other is the building together of the followers of Jesus.

The tower of Babel account was told and retold for generations long before it was written down. Because it was told, retold, and retold for so long, it has many layers to it—like many coats of paint on antique chair. Here are some of the layers. One layer is similar to why Swedes tell jokes about Norwegians. An ancient people made fun of their neighbors, the Babylonians, by saying that their county name is similar to a word that means confusion. Another layer points out the pitfalls of city life. There is a bias here for rural living. Just look at the trouble you can get yourself into if you live in a big city! Another layer comments on the right way and the wrong way to build a tower. Can you believe that these people used brick instead of stone and pitch instead of mortar? Bricks and pitch for a tower with its height in the heavens is akin to a straw house keeping out the big bad wolf.

This account tells of people migrating from the east and settling together. They build a city and a tower, but there is a basic problem with their work. It doesn’t fit with God’s plan for creation. God’s stated plan from the beginning had been that humans are to fill the whole earth, and so when the humans come together to build a city, that is in conflict with this prior plan. Humanity cannot will to opt out of God’s plan. This deeper layer speaks to the human condition of making plans for ourselves no matter God’s prior plan. That, by the way, is a regular theme in Genesis and beyond Genesis into the rest of the Bible. And, truth be told, into our own lives, too.

The final layer I want to comment on is the role of language as a human activity (Brueggemann). This account is framed by language. It begins with everyone sharing one language and the same words and ends with God confusing the language of all the earth. Confusion of language becomes the remedy for human pride and wanting to make a name for oneself. The sad end of humanity willing something for itself that is in conflict with God’s will is that we become people who don’t understand others and are confused by cultural differences in the world. History bears out the truth of this claim that when humans don’t understand something we attack it.

Genesis 11 carries the plot of the Bible to the call of Abraham, the one identified by God to leave that land of Babel, that land of confusion, and settle in a new land. He is the one whose descendents God would use to begin the long journey to restore creation’s brokenness and estrangement from God and neighbor.

This is the made in the first verses of the New Testament. In the opening chapter of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ lineage is traced back to Abraham so that in Jesus, that journey from estrangement is complete and the broken relationships of creation are mended for he is the messiah and is name means, “God saves.”

If Genesis 11 is about misguided building, people being scattered, and world-wide estrangement, Ephesians 2 is about God tearing down and then uniting, and finding common cause. This is the other great building project of our texts for today.

This building project is not a human endeavor, it is divine work. The dividing wall of estrangement is torn down so that new construction can begin. Jesus brakes down the dividing wall between people. He brakes down the confusion of who is favored by God and who is not. He brakes down the barrier meant to keep some away. He brakes down the hostility between people that grows out of vastly divergent understandings of the God, the church, evangelism, mission, moral conduct, piety, religious expression, worship styles, and so much more.

After tearing down, Ephesians 2 speaks of uniting people in Christ. What is that uniting force? It is the reconciling power of the cross. The cross gives all people equal access in one spirit to God. In Christ, we who were once far off—scattered—have been brought near by the blood of Christ. No tower with its height in the heavens could accomplish this. It was a rugged cross on a hill far away, that did this.

We have been brought together for a common cause. That common cause is not so that we can build something to get us closer to God or to make a name for ourselves. We have been brought together so that God can build something out of us. Everything I see around me points to this. It also means that everyone one of us is a work in progress. How will you be a part of this great building project? You have to answer God’s call.

I want to encourage you to answer God’s call and do something really valuable with your time and energy in the months ahead. Someone asked me last week, how do I know if I am doing what God is calling me to do? That’s a great question. These texts from Genesis and Ephesians offer some questions that might lead you to an answer. Does the work you feel called to do build peace where there is hostility? Does it lead to reconciliation with others? Does it strengthen the connection between people in the household of God? Does it mean that you are building with stone on the cornerstone instead of with bricks? Does it lead you to use language that brings people together and doesn’t add to the confusion and estrangement between people? Is it work that is in harmony with God’s plan to fill the earth with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

There are other questions to ask, but I believe if you answer yes to these questions, then your work in the church and in the world is part of God’s plan to keep on building this great household into a spiritual dwelling place.

Give thanks in the days ahead for the people around you who have responded to a call from God to mission and ministry. Give thanks as you travel this week to a thanksgiving gathering or host a gathering that symbolizes in a feast the abundance of God’s grace come our way. Give thanks that together, and through us, God wills to accomplish much. Amen.

 

November 12, 2006

One Nice Ring Tone

Posted by Jon Martin under Sermons, Sunday Pulpit
No Comments 

See this as a PDF 

1 Corinthians 16:5-9 and Mark 12:38-44

A few weeks ago I changed the ring tone on my cell phone. It had been the factory default ring that came with phone. It wasn’t very interesting, and I would often hear other phones with that same ring tone in public places and think it was mine. So one day in late October, I thought I would see what other ring tones were on my phone. I listened to the two dozen or so available and settled on one I really liked. I’m sure many of you have done this as well.

Something unexpected happened the first time someone called me and my phone announced the call with the new tone. I found myself wanting to keep on listening to the new ring tone and not answer the phone. Someone was calling to talk to me and I was, for a moment, pulled in two directions: keep listening to enjoyable music or answer the call. I answered it, and immediately apologized for the delay in answering because I was enjoying my new ring tone.

Since I’ve been talking about this ring tone, I want you to hear it for yourself. I know ring tone preferences are subjective, so you may or may not find this one appealing. All of this leads me to ask a question…

Is there a call that God is waiting for me to answer and I am busy listening to the ring tone? This goes beyond a cell phone. What if life itself—the fact that we are here—is a ring tone? Could it be that your life—your presence on this planet—is the announcement to you that God is calling you to do something with our time on this earth? There is a reason you’re here.

That question challenges each of us to ask whether a call from God might be going unanswered because each of us is in the midst of the activities of life. And certainly there is enough to occupy all our attention: schedules, employment, family, friends, high and lows, competing expectations, good news, tragic news, scheduling conflicts, work requirements, limited resources, the regular routine. Are we so caught up in life that we’re missing what God wants us to do with it? Let me ask that another way. Is your life about the ring tone or about the call?

Think about the Scribe in Mark 12. A Scribe in the ancient world was a Jewish official who copied scrolls. Jesus pointed out one particular Scribe. He wore a long flowing robe. He liked to be greeted in the market place, have the best seat in the synagogue, and have the place of honor in the banquet. He gathered wealth even when it meant another suffered hardship. He liked to say long prayers for the sake of appearance.

Was this scribe enjoying his life’s ring tone of prestige and power, and ignoring God’s call for him to do something really valuable and lasting with his short time on Earth? He sounds like someone who was more about ring tone than answering the call.

Jesus also points out a widow, who, by contrast, put two coins in into the treasury. She had a difficult life. Her life was the difficult ring tone of poverty and living on the margin of society. She didn’t have much in this world. Just like the Scribe though, God was calling her to do something really valuable with her life, too. And she answered that call that day. Jesus said she put into the treasury everything she had to live on. To me that sounds like she answered the call. What valuable life’s work was she called to? Trusting in God. Putting her coins in the
Temple treasury was the visible expression of that trust.

The summer before I came here, I took some youth on mission trip to
Appalachia. Each evening we reflected on the day. One evening they reflected on trusting God. They shared that the people they were meeting had a way of relating to God that seemed so uncluttered with stuff. One youth refreshingly put it: they were poor, but happy and content to trust God. Youth have a way of being able to speak truth. My middle class Presbyterian youth group learned that these people didn’t have much, but they trusted in God in a way that was appealing and yet so foreign.

They met people who had a ring tone of poverty and had, like the widow, answered a call to trust God with their lives. I asked my youth how they were answering a call to trust God? And what the visible expression of that trust might be? They said they would not be so quick to accumulate stuff, and would continue to spend time with people who really know what it means to trust. What is God calling you to do you’re your life right now? What will be the visible expression of your life’s call?

It’s good to reflect on answering God’s call on the weekend of Veterans’ Day. I can imagine every veterans has a story about that internal conversation of answering a call to duty, whether as a volunteer or in a draft. The veterans in our midst teach us how duty is woven through God’s call for our lives? On Friday a posthumous Medal of Honor was awarded to Marine Corporal Jason Dunham. He was a long way from is home in
New York state, when, in April of 2004, near the Syrian Border with
Iraq, he sacrificed everything for the people around him. He threw himself on a grenade and saved his fellow Marines and some civilians. He knew what it meant to answer a call to offer everything you have. His life’s work would be showing what sacrifice means and putting in everything you have to life on.

The Apostle Paul committed his life to answering God’s call. He ends his letter to the Corinthians by writing that he plans to spend the winter with them, probably the winter of 54AD. In the mean time, he writes, I will stay in
Ephesus, for a wide door for effective work has opened for me. We don’t know what that work was, but only that he answered God’s call to stay and continue his ministry there.

Today, we have a call from God to stay here in this place and continue on in ministry. That call is for all of us and includes some sense of duty to be part of what happens here in the months ahead. How will your answer that call?

Will you look beyond the ring tone of all that is around you and believe that you are here to do something really valuable with your life? Will you commit to the mission of Pisgah Church as an expression of your trust in God? Will you embrace the work of this body of believers in gratitude for God’s grace come your way? Will you commit your time and talent and treasure knowing that when we combine what we have, we can accomplish much that is good? Will answer the call to join this Godly adventure called the mission of Pisgah Presbyterian Church for another year? And thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Next Page »