August 19, 2012
© 2012
I.
On July 8 Candy and I worshipped with you somewhat incognito. Only a
handful of people knew I was going to be your interim pastor. Lyle and Lillian
Fry greeted us warmly when we arrived for the early service. We chuckled to
ourselves at our evasive answers, feeling we shouldn’t be making the
announcement ourselves. “Do you live in the area or are you visiting?” “Oh,
visiting from Dallas.” “Do you have family in the area?” “No.” “When did you
get into town?” “Last evening.” “When will you be going back to Dallas?” “This
afternoon.” “How did you hear about our church?” “Someone told us about you.”
“I hope you’ll come back.” “I think we will.” We were properly introduced and
are delighted to begin our journey with you as you seek a new pastor.
A.
Many thanks to Jason and Shauna for all the practical help with getting
moved here. Also thanks to Julia and Andy with getting oriented to worship for
this morning and a start on the daily workings of the church. We feel welcome
and well supported.
B.
Just a bit of a personal introduction. Candy and I have been married 43
years. We have three sons. Jon and his wife Leanne live in Schwenksville, PA
with their children Hannah, 14 and Isaac, 12. David and his wife Rachel live in
Milwaukee, WI with their children Sam, 10 and Elizabeth 5. Erik is single and
is living in our Dallas home, hoping to get out on his own by 2013. In the
months ahead we can fill in any details you wish.
C.
Preaching in the transition time between pastors calls for some
sensitivity. I don’t want you think I’m picking Scripture passages to send you
some kind of jab. I start with the passages suggested by the Lectionary, the
three year cycle of selections from the Hebrew Scripture, the New Testament
Epistles and the Gospels used by churches of many traditions. My goal is to
prayerfully discern how my sermons can help you listen for the voice of God
from these Scriptures on your present journey.
II.
This morning we read the conversation between God and Solomon in 1
Kings 2 and 3. As I have been reflecting on this the past couple of weeks, I
wondered what I would say if God woke me up some night and said, “Ask for
whatever you want, and I’ll give it to you.” I got to thinking about the many
fables of people being granted three wishes. As a child I remember my friends
talking about always asking for three more wishes for the last wish. Someone
would always say with the voice of authority, that’s not how three wishes
works! The genie in Aladdin’s lamp may be the best known of these stories, but
they come from almost every culture. Often they show that we humans are not too
wise in what we wish for. One family of three wish stories is about a
woodcutter who is granted three wishes for not chopping down a fairy’s tree. He
went home that evening and told his wife while complaining about the dinner she
had prepared, and he says, “I wish I had a nice fat sausage.” It suddenly
appears on his plate. Then his wife complains that he had wasted one of his
wishes and says, “I wish that sausage was stuck on your nose.” Of course, it
sticks and he can’t pull it off, so they use their last wish to get the sausage
back on the dinner plate.
A.
In contrast to the three wish fables that expose human foolishness,
Solomon responds to God’s offer by asking for wisdom. God’s offer to Solomon is
not a reward for heroic righteousness, though Solomon did love the Lord.
Rather, it is God’s gracious faithfulness to the covenant with David. The
narrator is clear that Solomon should not have been sacrificing at Gibeon, but
God said nothing about it. God did not say to Solomon, “When you get everything
right, I’ll help you be a good king.” No, God was meeting Solomon at the point
where love and weakness converged and offering to participate.
B.
Solomon’s request springs from realistic humility. First, he does not
ask even for wisdom that would build his reputation. He asks for the wisdom to
lead God’s people. He puts the covenant community ahead of himself. Second, he
recognizes that he is inadequate. He needs God’s wisdom to do the job.
C.
I easily identify with Solomon’s sense of inadequacy. I know God has
called me to be a pastor. I love preaching and teaching. But preaching and
teaching terrifies me. How dare I presume to stand in front of God’s people
Sunday after Sunday and speak on God’s behalf? What if I say something that
someone takes seriously and it heads them in the wrong direction? In your
transition between pastors, you will make some decisions that will set the
direction of this congregation for many years. I want to be sure I am pointing
you in God’s direction. Already in my conversations with your congregational
leaders, I can tell they are feeling the need for God’s wisdom too.
D.
When the way forward is unclear, ask God for wisdom and abide in Jesus.
III. Today we are listening in on
Solomon’s intimate conversation with God, identifying with his need for wisdom
at the start of his reign. Next week we’ll hear Solomon’s great prayer for the
dedication of the Temple at the peak of his reign. Knowing how Solomon later declined,
we recognize that asking for God’s wisdom does not exempt us from our own
foolishness. Understandably we ask, “How do we access God’s wisdom?” And “How
do we discern which of the ideas that compete for action are from God and which
are our own folly?”
A.
Every once in a while I hear something so compelling I want to hang
onto it and repeat it. So you may hear me talking about Fr. Thomas Hopko more
than once while I am with you. He’s retired now, but when I heard him he was
dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in New York. He told us that when he
was a boy, his mother would say to him, “If you want to grow as a Christian,
read your Bible, say your prayers, and go to church.” Then he said to us, “Now
I am the dean of a seminary training people for a lifetime of ministry, and I
tell them that if they want to grow as Christians and want their congregations
to grow they should read their Bibles, say their prayers and go to church.” The
sheer simplicity of this is powerful. Christian spirituality is not
complicated, only difficult. Bible, prayer and church are the essential
ingredients in discerning God’s wisdom.
B.
If we ask God for wisdom, faith implies acting as though we believe God
is leading us, not confusing us. James 1:5-6a says it eloquently. “If any of
you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and
ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting.” I
believe the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton articulated this faith in one of his
prayers.
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to
please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I
am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I
know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know
nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be
lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and
you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Thoughts in Solitude © Abbey
of Gethsemani, 1958, p. 83
C.
Ephesians 5:15-20 that we read responsively this morning emphasizes the
importance to tuning into the nudges of the Holy Spirit with joyful
thanksgiving.
IV. God is nurturing Christ in
us, which comes out more in how we make decisions than what we decide. When the
way forward is unclear, ask God for wisdom and abide in Jesus.
A.
When we think of abiding in Jesus we typically think of John 15 where
Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me and bear much
fruit.” Jesus also spoke of abiding him in in John 6:51-58 with a very different
image.
I am the living bread
that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and
the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among
themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very
truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, you have no life in you. Those
who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up
on the last day; for my flesh is true
food and my blood is true drink. Those
who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent
me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of
me. This is the bread that
came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died.
But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
B.
This image of abiding in Jesus by eating his flesh and drinking his
blood is graphic, shocking, and certainly offensive to his Jewish audience. We
access God’s wisdom by absorbing Jesus so he permeates every aspect of our
being. Jesus lives his life through us. We become so saturated with God’s
wisdom that it oozes out of us without having to consciously ask what Jesus would
do.
C.
Feeding on Jesus is much more than accumulating information about him
and agreeing to obey him. We read the Bible, especially the Gospels, expecting
to be encountered by Jesus, and that he will leave something of himself behind
in us. We pray, not to tell God what to do about what matters to us but to
engage in conversation in which we increasingly see from God’s perspective. Life
with the church goes beyond religious, educational, social and service
activities so that by the Holy Spirit we recognize the presence of Christ in
each other and touch each other on Christ’s behalf.
D.
When the way ahead is unclear, ask God for wisdom and abide in Jesus.
In the late 1970s I
went through a crisis I still think of as my “dark night of the soul.” Just at
the point that I was falling in love with my pastoral calling, it was seriously
challenged. I couldn’t see the way forward to anything else, but pastoral ministry
was blocked for over 3 years. As awkward as I felt, I stayed engaged with the
church and a small group that had studied and prayed together for a long time.
I kept up my daily Bible reading routine, though I can’t say I got anything out
of it. The words went by like withered leaves in the wind.
What I did find
meaningful and helpful was praying though the Psalms once a month. Five Psalms
a day. I started doing that in 1970 and am still doing it today, but then I was
only a few years into it. In that dark night I discovered that fully 100 of the
150 Psalms are laments and complaints. Two-thirds of them! I latched onto the
laments and complaints. If Scripture included these Psalms, then surely God was
giving me permission to be honest about the darkness of my own journey. I used
the very words of the Psalmists to cry out to God, “Why can’t I hear from you
now when I can’t find the path?”
I have since learned
that God was guiding my path all along. The words of Scripture were soaking in.
My lamenting prayers kept my communication connection with God. The church,
especially that small group, was the source of encouragement and affirmation.
That’s where the
window first opened to let the light in. In one of our small group discussions
we encountered Proverbs 17:22. “A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a
downcast spirit dries us the bones.” I didn’t hear this as scolding me for my
“dark night” but as the opening of the latch on the window that let in the
light.
Very soon after that,
a friend who was a professor at Wheaton College asked me to lead a breakout
group at a retreat for engaged and seriously dating college students. The
morning session seemed to go smoothly and the couples responded positively. At
the afternoon session, my group about tripled in size. As the session wrapped
up, I asked where the extra people had come from. They said that at lunch when
they were talking with their friends, they expressed disappointment with their
breakout groups. Those in my group invited them to come since they were finding
it so valuable. I had not experienced such joy or exhilaration in years! That
was the turn in the road that took me back to pastoral ministry which has
continued to today.
I do not tell you
this today because I think I was then or am now such a wonderful pastor.
Rather, I tell it as my own experience of praying for God’s wisdom and abiding
in Jesus when the path ahead of me was not only unclear but dark. As we begin
this journey in the transition to your next pastor, there will be days of
disappointment and confusion. Part of my responsibility as your interim pastor
is to facilitate keeping up with Bible and prayer and church. To encourage you not to fear, for God is ever with you and will never leave you
to face your perils alone.
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