Greetings, Earthlings!

Psalm 104:24-34, Romans 8:18-25

Here we are on the last Sunday of August, and I am still preaching on your Summer Sermon Suggestions. Someone from the congregation asked me to preach on the environment and our commitment to the earth. In Christian circles this is sometimes called creation spirituality:  the God of Nature and Nature’s God. It is one of my favorite topics. Lots of people feel close to God when they are in nature, and the Scriptures confirm that God communicates through the created order. Theologians call it natural revelation or general revelation. I usually preach on this topic when I am preaching outdoors, which I don’t have too many opportunities to do. In my last church I we had an annual church picnic and outdoor worship service one Sunday in June, and this was always my theme. This year we had a worship service in Sandwich Notch at Pulpit Rock. Since I was standing on a big rock, I talked in part about the geology of the region and the vast expanses of time that geologists speak of – millions and billions of years compared to the decades we use when measuring the human life span. Today I am going to talk about our relationship to the earth from a Christian perspective.

1. My first point is that we as humans are the earth … literally. The Hebrew word in the OT for human being is adam. We get the proper name Adam from it. It is the feminine form of the word adamah, which means earth or ground. The English word human is from the Latin word humus, which means earth or ground. We are literally earthlings. We are earth. The creation story in Genesis says that our bodies were formed from the earth, and they will return to the earth at death. In Genesis 3 God said to Adam: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” Ecclesiastes 3 echoes that, “All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust.”

Sometimes we talk about ourselves as if we were separate from and different from the earth, as if we were aliens to this earth. We talk about coming into this world and we go out of this world. But the truth is we do not come into it or leave it. We emerged from earth and are made of earth. We are the earth. We are all earthlings. I am stressing this point, so that when we get to talking about our responsibility to the earth, we realize that we are actually talking about our responsibility to ourselves. It is not us over against the earth, as if these were two competing claims. They are the same. We are one. We are the earth.

Almost thirty years ago in 1985 Michael Jackson wrote the song, “We are the World.” Do you remember that? He and Lionel Richie wrote the song and got a bunch of celebrities to sing it together to raise money for Africa. It says “We are the world. We are the children.” And it goes on to talk about how we are all part of God’s one big family. They were talking about the human family, but the truth is that DNA has showed that all creatures on this earth are related genetically. We are all from the earth. We are the earth. You could say that we are the earth conscious of itself and conscious of its Maker. We are creation conscious of the Creator. It is mind-boggling even to think about this. We are conscious earth. We are earth.

2. Second, God became earth. I am referring here to the doctrine we call the incarnation – that God becoming human in Jesus Christ. Normally when Christians talk about God’s creation, we stress the difference between the Creator and the creation. This is true. But it also is true that the two became one in Jesus Christ. God became human in Jesus. Creator became creation. Christians believe that God did not just inhabit the body of the man Jesus as an immortal Spirit entering into and possessing a human vessel. We believe that God actually became man in Jesus. There is a big difference between those two ideas. Christianity has always affirmed that God became man. God did not just come into the world in Jesus. God became a part of the world in Jesus. God became enfleshed in Christ. We could use other language and say that God became inearthed in Jesus. This claim of Christianity is really amazing when we ponder it for a moment.

3. Third, God communicates through the earth. One of the basic ideas in Christianity is revelation – the idea that God communicates. God is not a silent distant impassive deity. God speaks. He speaks through the natural world. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” A couple of weeks ago, on a Monday might Jude and I went up to the top of Wentworth Hill about 10:30 at night and sat in the field and watched the annual Perseid meteor shower. It was great. Who would not be filled with awe when gazing into the starry heavens on a clear night? “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” The apostle Paul says: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” God communicates in the natural order.

God also communicates through his prophets and supremely in Jesus Christ. The Letter to the Hebrew begins with the words: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.” That is why the apostle John calls Jesus “the Word” in his gospel. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Words are means of communication. God communicates to earth through earth.

We all have seen video footage or photos of the Allen Telescope Array, run by the SETI Institute near Mt. Shasta, huge radio telescopes pointing up into the heavens. It is a field of enormous ears directed to the heavens, which for years has been listening for any possible evidence of communication from intelligent life in the universe.  Apparently there have been some budget problems funding this project in the last couple of years, but that is not my point. My point is that we are listening for a message from the heavens. But the Intelligent Creator of the universe is communicating to us all the time, and much closer to home, and we don’t need radio telescopes to hear this communication. God communicates through nature around us, through the prophets whose writings are in scripture, and supremely through his Son Jesus Christ.

God communicates to us through the earth. You could say that the earth is sacramental. When we think of the earth as communicating the divine then every part of nature is like a sacrament. Christianity has traditional sacraments – like the Lord’s Supper and baptism. The water and bread and wine are said to communicate God in a special way. But in fact the whole creation is sacramental. It all communicates God if we will just open our ears and eyes. When we see the earth in this way as sacramental, then it is sacred. One does not destroy or abuse or misuse that which you consider to be sacred. This attitude changes the way we see the world.

4. Fourth, the Scripture says that the Earth waits for us. Our epistle Lesson says, “For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Listen to how Peterson’s translation put it: “The created world itself can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.” Then Peterson goes on to develop a pregnancy theme even more. He translates the next four verses this way: “All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

It is an amazing idea, that the creation is pregnant and posed to give birth to something new. And that something new is us. Not just the old earthy creation, these bodies of made of dirt that will return to dirt. But there will be a new creation. The apostle John speaks about a new heaven and a new earth in the Book of Revelation. The apostle Peter says, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

The creation is waiting for something more than we now know. It is waiting for God to renew the creation, and it is waiting for us the children of God to be revealed. I don’t know exactly what this means. In part it means resurrection – which I will get to in a moment. And it also means that the earth and God are waiting for us to live up to our responsibility as children of God. The Genesis story makes it clear that humans were put on this earth as caretakers of creation – to tend and care for it. It says we are to have dominion over the earth. That is a good thing. Many people have taken this to mean something back - that humans can use it any way we want regardless of whether it is harmful to the earth. That is not what it means. It means we are to use it the way God wants. We are stewards, not owners of the earth. We are the resident managers. We are accountable to the owner of the property, who is God. Jesus tells a lot of parables about stewards who abuse their position, and are held accountable when the Owner returns.

You cannot get a more environmentally friendly worldview than that presented by the Old and New Testaments. You would not know that by listening to some people badtalk the Bible and Christianity. Some environmentalists blame environmental destruction on the Western spiritual tradition. They accuse Genesis of giving humans permission to abuse and destroy the earth for economic gain. That is twisting scripture for a political purpose. The Scripture never says anything like that. It says just the opposite! The consistent testimony of scripture from beginning to end, from the creation to the new creation, from Eden to the New Eden, is that the earth is the Lord’s. He loves the world and cares for it and has placed us here to be caretakers of it. To sin against the creation is to sin against the Creator. Even murder is placed in that context in Genesis when killing humans is forbidden because it is understood as an attack on God, because man is made in the image of God. Human life is sacred and all life is sacred.

Scripture admits that things have gone bad, both in the created order and the human order. It has gone so bad that God is going to have to step in and fix this mess that we have made of ourselves and the earth. That is the vision of the New Heavens and the New Earth. That is God cleaning up our environmental mess. The promise of the resurrection is part of this. In biblical thought we do not just escape the world through death, like immortal spirits fleeing a burning house to take refuge in e heavenly kingdom. Our scriptures talk about resurrection of the body and resurrection of the heavens and the earth. This earth and everything in it is redeemed in the biblical story. We are not saved from the earth. The earth itself is saved. We as part of the earth are saved with the earth. The Bible presents a very earthy description of salvation and the ultimate redemption of this universe.

In the end we are the earth. We are formed from the earth and return to the earth. Our job is to tend and care for the earth as stewards of God. We are held accountable by the Creator for how we fulfill our assignment. And our ultimate fate is connected intimately to the earth. And we are redeemed with the earth in the resurrection in the last day, when all creation will hear these words, “Behold, I make all things new!”

Church and State

Romans 13:1-7; Matthew 22:15-22

The topic of this message is the separation of church and state. It is better described as the guarantee of religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment, which reads in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

This topic is still as current as the daily newspaper. For example, this year for the first time, the Inter-Lakes High School could not have a Baccalaureate Service sponsored by the school. The separation of church and state was stated by the school administration as the reason. But the Class of 2013 still had a Baccalaureate service due to a faithful group of parents who got together and sponsored one independently of the school. They invited me to give the invocation at that service at Saint Charles Church in Meredith, which I was very glad to do.

The issue of religious liberty was also raised in New Hampshire in Concord this year. After reports surfaced that two bullets had been found in a school toilet, Lizarda Urena, a mother of two children who attend Concord High School, began to pray about it. She offered prayers on the steps of the school beginning in February and continuing through the rest of the school year. Her prayers called for the safety of students and an end to gun violence. But last month, after receiving a letter of complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the school superintendent ordered the prayers to stop, citing the separation of church and state. So this concerned mom will not be allowed to pray on school grounds when school opens this fall.

What is the Christian’s role in this ongoing relationship between church and state? Jesus addresses the topic in our gospel lesson for today. The Pharisees came to Jesus with the Herodians, which was the party supporting King Herod, and tried to get him entangled in the controversy that was also present in Jesus’ day. There was great disagreement among Jews about the responsibility of Jews to the Roman government, which controlled Palestine at the time. It centered on paying of taxes.  They asked Jesus whether he was for or against the paying of taxes to Rome. Our passage says, “But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.” 

I have three points that I want to make this morning about the relationship between church and state.

1. First, our responsibility as followers of Jesus Christ is to God alone. That means that any responsibility we have either church or state must we understood in that context. I think that is the real meaning of the gospel lesson, but it is often missed. This story is usually interpreted to mean that we must divide our loyalties between church and state. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Give to State what belongs to the state and to Church what belongs to Church. I do not think that is what Jesus meant. If that is what Jesus meant, he never would have been executed by the state and religion as an enemy of the state and religion.

When Jesus asked whose image was on the Roman coin, the reply was Caesar’s. This coin was stamped with the image of Caesar, which meant that the coin belonged to Caesar. So Jesus said, “Give to Caesar this coin that is Caesar’s.” It is helpful to realize what else was on that coin that Jesus was shown – the Roman denarius. That Roman coin had writing on it that declared Caesar to be the Son of God. The coin was blasphemous to Jews. By referring to the image and inscription on the coin, Jesus would have been calling attention to this controversy which centered on the idea of making any graven images of any god. It also would have brought to mind the fact that human beings are made in the image of God. We are stamped with God’s image, just like the coin was stamped with Caesar’s image. So Jesus is saying to give to Caesar the coin made in his image. Caesar made it. Give it back to him. And give yourself, created by God, stamped with God’s image to back God.  Jesus is saying, “Give the money to Caesar, but give yourself to God.

When asked by these same people what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.” This is the key to understanding the church state issue. He did not say, Love God with most of your heart. Give God the lion’s share: 51% or even 99%. He made it clear to give God 100%. When you give God 100% there is nothing left over. When we are approaching this whole topic of church and state, we are going to get it wrong unless we begin by giving ourselves completely to God. Not to church, not to denomination, not religion, and not to state, but to God. Not Church first and state second. Or State first and Church second, or half and half. Not even give yourself first to God, and then to state. Give yourself to God and God alone. When our heart and mind and soul are in the right place – 100% in God – then we can sort out this church-state relationship.

2. Second, what is the State’s responsibility to the Church? The State’s role is to protect it. Scripture says that governments have been established by God. Romans 13 says, “For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.” And the apostle Paul actually goes on from there to make the same point as Jesus makes about paying taxes.  Our Declaration of Independence states that we are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men….” Governments are established by God to protect human rights, and among those rights is the right to worship.

This is where the separation of church and state comes in. There can be no real freedom to worship unless there is a wall of separation between church and state. If we do not have that separation, then two bad things can happen. One is that the church can force people to follow one particular religion, with its theology and ethics. That was the problem in England with the state Church of England back in the 17 and 18^th centuries, and why people fled to America to escape state-sponsored religion and be able to worship according to their conscience. That is also the way of traditional Islam, which in its original form created by Muhammad was a state-sponsored religion. And the most conservative elements of Islam today want to reestablish the state religion of Islam. This is one of the major political forces at work in the Middle East today.

In all fairness I must also admit that Christianity followed this same course for centuries. It was not the original form of Christianity established by Jesus and the apostles, and practiced for the first 300 years of the church. But in the 4^th century Christianity came into power in the Roman Empire and church and state were yoked. Church and State were one, and it was disastrous for Christianity. Therefore we should never want the church, any church, to wield power in this country. Religion thrives in our land because of our freedom of religion. Christianity has withered in Western Europe because they had state churches. The worst thing that can happen to the church is to get into worldly power.

The other danger is that secular government can be used against religion. Some people interpret freedom of religion as freedom from religion. These groups go overboard in opposing religion. I think that is the greater danger today. This country has gone too far in banning expressions of religion in public. We get into silly solutions like not allowing Christmas crèches on public property unless you put a Santa Claus next to it. Separation of church and state can become secular state against religion. The state is supposed to protect religious speech, not ban it. Free speech is not for every form of speech except religious speech. Freedom of assembly is not for every type of assembly except religious assembly. People do not have the right to be protected from hearing anything about religion. We have separation of church and state to protect religion from the power of the state in any hands – religious or nonreligious.

Freedom of Religion also means freedom for religions that Christians do not agree with. That is the whole purpose of religious freedom. It is not just for us. It is also for those we don’t like. If it is not freedom for everyone, it is freedom for no one. That means that Muslims have the right to build mosques in our communities, and we cannot forbid them because we are afraid of Islam. We ought to be afraid of radical forms of Islam, which seek to eliminate freedoms. But most Muslims do not ascribe to such forms of Islam. And they need to be able to worship free from persecution and discrimination. But they also need to make sure they practice the same religious rights they enjoy.

The State’s role and responsibility to religion is to make sure that all religions are free to practice their faith while not infringing on the rights of others to practice their faith, or to practice no faith at all. Atheism is on the rise in America. I disagree with it. I especially disagree with the radical forms of atheism, which are better defined as anti-theism, militantly against religion and seeks to suppress or eliminate religion. That is a dangerous trend and must not be linked to the state. But atheists need to be able to not worship in this country free of discrimination and prejudice.

3. My third point is the Church’s Responsibility to the State. It has two roles. One is the role of Subject and the other is the role of Prophet. These are always in tension. The apostle Paul’s instruction to the church in Rome, living in the seat of power of the Roman empire in the first century was this. Paul wrote: “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.” The passage goes on, but the main point is that Christians are to be subject to the State, insofar as it does not conflict with one’s obedience to God. Christians are not separatists, isolating ourselves from the real world, being pure and righteous while society goes to hell in a handbasket. Christians are in the world but not conformed to the world’s standards. Paul sees God as ordering the world through governments. Therefore Christians can serve God in government at all levels and serve in the military.

But there is another role, and that is the prophetic role of the church. The Church is to be the conscience of the country. It is not to be an arm of the state, a puppet rubber-stamping the values or policies of the nation. It is to challenge the State and society with the voice of God. It is to speak truth to power, as the Quakers say. That was the role of the prophets in the Old Testament. In OT times there were two types of prophets. There were the court prophets, the ones on the payroll of the king. They lived well in the royal court and blessed the king’s policies in the name of God, no matter what they were. In the OT these were the false prophets. There are lots of those today. Then there were folks like Jeremiah, the true prophets who were continually imprisoned for speaking against the policies of the king. People like Nathan who challenged King David to his face with his sin. That is what John the Baptist did in the NT and what got him beheaded. He criticized the personal morality of King Herod.

The church in the United States needs to play this role much more than it does. Christians can be proud citizens of the US just as the apostle Paul was a proud citizen of Rome. But remember that the apostle Paul was also executed by the government of Rome because he refused to compromise his faith in Christ. He is a good model for us. We as Christians must not compromise our faith when it comes to our attitude to the state.

I see Christians today compromising their faith by putting their politics above God and putting a social agenda above God. The culture wars are the worst thing that have every happened to the American Church. This is true no matter what side of the culture wars you are on. This is equally true of the political right and political left, Democrats and Republicans.  Too many people baptize their partisan political and national agendas, believing God is on their side – on our side - and against the other political party, or group or country.

The church needs to speak prophetically and boldly, independently of the political and social agendas of right and left, and all the groups and causes that would hijack the Church’s voice for its own purposes. There are precious few such independent prophetic voices in America today. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of those prophetic voices in 20^th century America. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was such a voice in Germany during the Third Reich. There are many who pretend to be such independent voices, but you scratch the surface and they are just espousing another political or social agenda. There were very few genuine prophets of God in biblical times and very few today, and they are almost always unrecognized until after their deaths. But as much as possible the Church needs to try to be that independent prophetic voice challenging those in power in government in our nation and in the world. We need more people willing to say, “Thus says the Lord …” especially when what follows those words is unpopular with both the Church and the State.

Church and State? Church or State? I return to my first point. Neither. God and God alone. Remember Jesus was crucified by both Religion and Government working together to silence his message of the Kingdom of God.  Instead of Church or State, let us give ourselves completely and uncompromisingly to God. From that vantage point we can walk the Way of Christ in the midst of Church and State. 

How To Pray

Matthew 6:5-8; I Thessalonians 5:16-18

A man prayed in this way: “So far today, Lord, I've done all right. I haven’t lied, I haven't lost my temper, haven’t overeaten, I haven’t taken your name in vain, I haven't been greedy or selfish. I'm really grateful for how you have helped me so far today. But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on I'm going to need some help. Amen.”

We all need help when it comes to prayer. As a pastor I am repeatedly reminded how difficult prayer is for people, even people who have been Christians and church members for years. Public prayer seems to be especially difficult for some people. In every one of the churches I have served, I have had deacons, the spiritual leaders of the congregation, unable to pray in public - in worship or in a meeting. When we disccused it, they confess that they feel uncomfortable voicing prayer out loud. They do not know what to say. This has led sometimes to impromptu instruction on prayer. Basically I tell them that public prayer is just talking. Anyone can do it. If you can talk to a friend or a family member, then you can pray. Prayer is just speaking with our Heavenly Father. No special ecclesiastical language is needed, no thees or thous, no required content. My advice is to just say what comes from the heart. More or less, sometimes preferably less.

I heard a pastor share at a minister’s gathering about a man in his congregation, who during the prayer request time would ask for prayer for his sins. He would confess his sins publicly and explicitly – every Sunday, Sunday after Sunday. He would go on and on, listing and describing his sins in detail, and naming other people’s sins in the congregation. This pastor had to sit down with this guy and say, “Hey. That is too much information.”  This man needed to learn how to pray appropriately in public.

 Most people could use some help when it comes to prayer. Even the twelve apostles needed help. The Gospel of Luke tells us that one day the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus’ reply was the prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. I am so glad they asked! Jesus followed that model prayer with some other instructions on prayer. Our gospel lesson for today is such a passage. Today I am going to teach on prayer. This is a Summer Sermon Suggestion from someone in our congregation. How do we pray?

1. First, Jesus made it clear that we should honestly. He says that we should not pray hypocritically. “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites.” The word hypocrite literally means an actor. Do not pray as if you are performing. Jesus focuses on the idea of performing for others in our passage. “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.” Maybe that is why people have a hard time praying in public. People are warching, and it feels like an act.

I have known pastors who pray in worship as if they were performing on a stage. You know what I am talking about – that ministerial tone of voice. The preacherly drone. When I took a year of sabbatical leave in 2010, the year before coming here again as pastor, I was not preaching regularly so I attended other churches for worship for that year. It was tough finding a preacher to listen to that did not have that put-on ministerial affectation, that holy voice, that homiletical whine. Preaching and especially praying seemed like an act for a lot of clergy. I really came to appreciate how difficult it is to find a church you want to attend regularly. I did find one – a Presbyterian church – pastored by a man who was also a part-time Greek instructor at the local Episcopal seminary. But it took a while. And that was the Pittsburgh area with lots of churches.

Jesus said not to pray like the hypocrites. We can pray as if we were putting on an act for people. So he tells us to pray in secret behind closed doors. Pray in private. But we can also pray in private like a hypocrite. We can pray as if we are putting on an act for God. I think that is why some people have a hard time praying privately. It is not because they don’t know what to say. It is because they know exactly what to say and they do not want to say it. It feels dangerous to open their hearts to God honestly. Prayer involves honest and thorough self-inquiry.  We have to look at ourselves honestly and deeply to know what we are really thinking and feeling. And then to say it out loud to God is to bring it out into the light. Prayer is not for sissies. It is certainly not for hypocrites. Prayer means seeing ourselves as we really are and admitting that verbally to God. A lot of people are not willing to do that. It is too unsettling. It destroys the ego. Our life is revealed to be a house of cards, which comes falling down when the Spirit of God blows through your life. But that is what true prayer is. It is honest.

2. Second, Jesus says that prayer is original and brief. Jesus says in our Gospel lesson that prayer should not be vain repetition. “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Jesus is saying a couple of things here. First, that prayer is not a ritual. I remember when I was growing up my Catholic friend would go to confession and then had to say so many Our Fathers and Hail Marys as repentance. He did it, but even as a thirteen year old could see through it. That is prayer as ritual. Even saying the Lord’s Prayer can also be an empty ritual, if it is said mindlessly. Prayer is not saying something over and over like a mantra that puts your brain into a trance. The apostle Paul tells us in our Epistle Lesson to pray without ceasing, but this is not what he means.

There is a well-known spiritual classic entitled The Way of a Pilgrim. It was written in the 19^th century in Russian and later translated into English. It is the story told in the first person of an orthodox Russian pilgrim walking across Russia while constantly reciting the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” It is repeated over and over again until the brain does it automatically all the time. This practice seemed to work for this guy, bringing him into an attitude of ceaseless inner prayer and communion with God. I hesitate to judge this practice. But I honestly don’t think that is what Paul meant when he told the Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. It sure seems to be awful close to what Jesus was referring to when he says, “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do.” Jesus was thinking of the practice of his Jewish brethren, the Pharisees, who even at that point in history were developing the practice of repeating standardized prayers over and over again.

Rather than pray something written by someone else and repeated by us over and over again endlessly, Jesus is saying that prayer should be original, our own words spoken from the heart, and brief. I have heard ministers mention how much time they spend in prayer. It sounds a lot like spiritual bragging to me. I know that some of the great Christian leaders used to spend hours in prayer. Luther said: "If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer." John Wesley used to say that he thought very little of a man who did not pray four hours every day. I have a confession to make. John Wesley would not think very highly of me. I do not pray for hours, if by prayer you mean talking to God. I do not use a lot of words in prayer. I feel like God already knows it all. That is what Jesus said in our Gospel lesson: “And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.”

I figure God already knows everything I am saying before I say it. Psalm 139 says, “Lord, you have examined me and know all about me. You know when I sit down and when I get up. You know my thoughts before I think them.” To me prayer is not spending hours voicing words out loud or in my head. In fact for me prayer does not have a lot to do with words at all. I do speak words to God in prayer. Words are especially helpful when it comes to confession. It is important to name our sins. It is also important in thanksgiving, to name the things we are thankful for. But for me prayer goes far beyond words.

3. The apostle Paul says in our Epistle Lesson to Pray without ceasing. This is actually the sermon suggestion that prompted me to preach this sermon – what it means to pray without ceasing. I do not think it means maintaining a constant stream of words flowing through our minds, not even such a good prayer as the Jesus Prayer. In fact I think that ceaseless prayer is wordless. Words can actually get in the way of our communion with God. At least that is my experience. Words can connect us with God in a powerful way when they are bold honest words spoken from the heart. There is clearly a place for words in our relationship with God. But there is time when words fail us, when words cannot communicate the deepest yearnings of our soul. The apostle Paul says in Romans 8, “the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

 For me the profoundest form of prayer, and the only type of prayer that I have ever experienced that comes anywhere close to “prayer without ceasing” is an inner wordless attitude of being in the presence of God. When I am truly experiencing the presence of God I am speechless. There is nothing to say and no need to say it. We all know people who chatter away constantly and don’t seem to know how to be present and quiet. When I am in God’s presence I don’t want to talk. Why would I want to talk? What do I have to say that is better than the presence of God. There is an old saying, “Do not speak unless you can improve on silence.” The 13th century Persian poet Rumi says “Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.” I have quoted Saint Francis before when he says, ‘Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary use words.” I rephrase his saying to apply to prayer. “Pray without ceasing. If necessary, use words.”

I think this is what the apostle Paul means when he instructs us to pray without ceasing. I think it means to abide at all times in the presence of God. God is present here now. God is always present here now. The only time and place God is present is here now. God is not in the past or in the future. God is in what theologian Paul Tillich calls the Eternal Now. God is always present. And there is a part of us – what the Bible calls the human spirit in which dwells God’s Holy Spirit – which is always in the presence of God. All we have to do is pay attention to that part of us. Stop paying attention to the words and thoughts racing through our heads, stop paying attention to the emotions surging through our bodies, and pay attention to Spirit who dwells within us. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. God lives in us. If we abide in that Presence, then we are praying without ceasing.

4. Paul says a couple of other things in our passage. He says in verse 16 “Rejoice always.” I think this means that if we live in the ceaseless Presence of God, then joy is our natural state. It flows into and through our lives. Paul talks elsewhere about the fruit of the Spirit that are characteristics of the Spirit-filled life. The first three he mentions are love, joy, and peace. God is love, the Bible says. When we are in the presence of God there is love. We experience God’s love for us and our love for God, which flows over into God’s love for others in and through us. The same is true of joy. You could also say that God is joy. I wish that was talked about as much as love. When people are looking for happiness in life, what they really want is joy. Joy is a spiritual quality that is only found in God. Happiness is the earthly imitation of joy. Happiness comes and goes depending on whatever is happening at the moment. Happiness is dependent upon the circumstances in our lives at the moment. Joy is unconditional. It does not depend on external circumstances. It depends solely on the presence of God. God is always present. Which means that we have access to this joy at all times. That is what it means to rejoice always.

5. Paul also says, “in everything give thanks.” A 5-year-old boy wanted to say grace before Thanksgiving dinner. The family members bowed their heads in expectation. He began his prayer, thanking God for all his friends, naming them one by one. Then he thanked God for Mommy, Daddy, brother, sister, Grandma, Grandpa, and all his aunts and uncles. Then he began to thank God for the food. He gave thanks for the turkey, the dressing, the salad, the cranberry sauce, the pies, the rolls, even the butter. Then he paused, and everyone waited--and waited. After a long silence, he looked up at his mother and asked, "If I thank God for the broccoli, won't he know that I'm lying?"

We might not be able to feel grateful for some things, for the bad things that happen. When Paul instructs us to give thanks in all things, or give thanks in all circumstances, he is telling us to live by faith. Paul is telling us to believe that all things work together for good even if we don’t see it yet or feel it yet. That if we saw things from God’s perspective, we could truly and honestly thank God for all things.

A lot of people suffer emotionally in life because they are constantly fighting against the way things are. They are ungrateful, resentful and angry. Nothing is ever right in their lives. Their relationships aren’t right. Their health isn’t right. Things in their family aren’t right. Their finances aren’t right. The political situation in the country or the world isn’t right. Nothing is ever right. They are never happy because things are never the way they think things ought to be. Paul is telling us that this is a recipe for misery. He is telling us to accept things as they are, and be grateful. Sure they aren’t perfect. They might not even be good. But accept them anyway. And give thanks. And when we do this, we open ourselves up to God. And joy comes in. The peace that surpasses all human understanding comes in. And we actually start to see that things are not so bad, and there is a lot of good, and somehow it is believable that all things could work together for good. We can see this when we thank God. This is how to pray: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 

It’s All Right

Luke 18:9-13; Romans 3:21-26

Back in 1963 Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions had a hit song entitled “It’s All Right.” The lyrics say in part:

When you wake up early in the morning
Feelin' sad like so many of us do
Hum a little soul
Make life your goal
And surely something's got to come to you
And say it's all right (it's all right)
Say it's all right (it's all right).

Bob Dylan had a song called, “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.” Just by mentioning those I risk that you will be humming one of those songs in your mind for the rest of the service. I am mentioning these songs because they came to my mind when I came up with the title for this message. People want things to be all right. A few weeks ago I preached about the pursuit of happiness, but many people don’t even strive that high – to be happy. They just want things to be all right. My message this morning is about having everything right in your life.

For a Summer Sermon Suggestion someone in our congregation asked me to preach on righteousness, which is a central concept in Christianity. Righteousness is also one of those very misunderstood words in Christian vocabulary. When it is said that someone is righteous, we immediately think of some type of moralistic, do-gooding, self-righteous person, which is exactly the opposite of what the word means. So the words righteous and righteousness are problematic. It is better to use a word like rightness, the state of things being right. That is why I am entitling this message “It’s all right.”

Righteousness means “being in right relationship with.” That can mean being in right relationship with God, with other people, with the world, and with oneself. Those are the areas I am going to talk about this morning.  I am not talking about having all your “ducks in a row” as they say, having all the external circumstances in your life just right. That is like building a house of cards. As soon as you get it built, the slightest puff of wind will knock it down. Everything is never going to be exactly the way you think they ought to be. If you ever find yourself in that situation – where everything is just right - enjoy it, because it won’t last. I am talking about having an inner attitude of rightness that will transform our way of seeing the world.

I am going to start off with a central doctrine of NT Christianity - that this rightness – righteousness - is only achieved in one way: by grace through faith. Theologians use the big theological term “justification by faith” to describe this idea. It is based on the truth that I just stated – that we can’t make everything all right. The church can’t make everything all right. Some people think that becoming a Christian will magically make everything all right in their lives, and they are disappointed to find out that Christians have just as many problems as anyone else. They just know where to look for the solution to the problems. The government can’t make everything all right. The courts can’t make everything all right. 

A lot of Americans seem to be under the delusion that the government can fix things, that they should be able to fix things, and when they don’t we get upset. We think that somebody ought to be able to fix things and make them right. That is the big deception of politics, thinking that if we just pass the right law or get the right person in office or have the right regulations, then things will be all right. The truth is that nobody can fix things. I can’t fix things. I can’t even fix things in the church. Only God can fix things, and even he won’t fix things the way we want them to be fixed in the time frame we want it. We want things fixed now and the way we want them to be fixed. That ain’t gonna happen!

Rightness – what the Bible calls righteousness – is found by faith. By faith I mean that we trust God. God is the only one who can make things right. Our hope is that ultimately God will make everything all right, and in a spiritual sense has already done that, if we have the eyes to see. And we can have the peace and joy of that rightness right now in our lives. With that basic principle in mind, let’s look at some areas of human life that need fixing.

1. First is our relationship with God. Every religion in the world – Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc. - admits that something is not right between humans and God, however they conceive God or the Divine to be. They will call this unrightness by different words, and propose different solutions, but it always boils down to the fact that something is not right.  The whole purpose of religion is to propose a solution to what is not right.

Christianity calls that not-rightness by the name “sin.” That is another one of those words that conjures up so much emotional reaction that the biblical meaning of it can hardly be heard any more. But the Greek word that is used for sin 90% of the time in the Bible means ‘to fall short.” It is an arrow that falls short of its target, a bridge that falls short of reaching the other side, a rope that falls short of reaching a person trapped in a hole. It means that we are disconnected. Sin means that all our efforts fall short, and that we are separated from God.

But the prophet Isaiah said, “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save;

Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. ² But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.” We can’t set things right. Our hand is too short. But God can. His hand is not too short. As Christians we believe that this bridging of the gap has been done through Jesus Christ. As the apostle Paul says in our epistle lesson:  “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified [made right] freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, … to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

In Western religion there has been a lot of fear. Fear of punishment from God, fear of hell, fear of not being worthy in God’s eyes. Fear is absolutely eliminated in Christ. Christ is the love of God incarnated, and perfect love casts out all fear. There is no place for guilt or fear in Christianity. God has addressed those issues in Christ as only he can. So if you have those feelings or thoughts, just believe and trust that God has taken care of it in Christ. And don’t worry about it anymore. That is not part of the Christian experience. That is what the Gospel says.

2. Now I want to move on to our relationship with the world. Our relationship with the world is also broken. Things are not the way we want them to be. That is the cause of much of human suffering. Our physical health may not be the way we want it to be. Our emotional or mental health may not be the way we want it to be. In the bigger world we look out and we see the suffering of others. Wars and rumors of wars, hunger, injustice, disease. There is a lot of suffering in the world. And God does not seem to be doing anything about it. This has led some people to despair that there really is a God, or if there is that he is a God who cares about what happens in the world. If he were that type of God, why doesn’t he do something? Those are big question, but we have a big God who can take our big questions.

There is a solution to this. It is not a philosophical solution. It is not a theological answer. If you are looking for the perfect explanation to the existence of evil and suffering in the world, you are not going to hear it here from me, and I do not think you will find it anywhere. At least I haven’t, and I have looked more thoroughly than many people. The solution is the same as the solution to our relationship with God: Faith. By faith I do not mean blind trust. I do not mean posing like the three monkeys: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Close your eyes to the real world, and close your ears to truth, and pray it all works out all right in the end. No! Some people use religion as a blindfold and ear plugs, but that is not faith; that is fear. By faith I mean trusting God, and seeing and hearing God at work in the world.

There is a story in the OT book of Second kings about the prophet Elisha. The King of Syria was attacking Israel. They had sent a great army to surround the city of Dothan. The servant of Elisha got up on the wall and saw the Syrian army surrounding the city and he was understandably fearful for this life and the life of all the Israelitea in the town. “And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” 16 So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:15-17) The point of the story is that there are forces at world in the world that are unseen to human eyes but can be discerned through eyes of faith. Faith is not the three monkeys seeing, hearing, and speaking no evil. Faith opening eyes and ears to a greater reality and speaking that forth.

Things might not seem all right to our human eyes, but seen with spiritual eyes God is discerned to be at work in the world. We don’t have to blindly hope that God will act. We can see God acting. In his 1927 poem "Desiderata" American writer Max Ehrmann says, “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God.” Through faith we can see that things are all right, even though things may appear to be falling apart. God really is in control and things are unfolding as they should.

3. Third, I want to talk about our relationship within ourselves. I am talking about our mental and emotional health. 2012 figures released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shown that 11 percent of Americans ages 12 and older used Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil or other antidepressants. A federal study found the these medications are used by 23 percent of middle-aged women — almost one in four. So it is an issue. Are things all right inside your head and heart? Are you all right? I don’t want what I have to say next to be a substitute for medication that you might need to take for depression or anxiety.  I am not one of these preachers who say that taking medicine is lack of faith in God. I am not against medication. Brain chemistry problems can be treated with brain changing pharmaceuticals.  But I am saying that there is also a spiritual dimension to mental and emotional health – a spiritual solution to making things all right inside our heads and hearts.

We don’t have to believe everything our brain tells us. That is what I tell people: You don’t have to believe your thoughts. We don’t believe everything other people tell us. We don’t believe everything the news tells us. Why should we believe what we tell ourselves? Our thoughts and emotions can really take us on a wild ride, if we let them. We don’t have to let them. We can step back from our thoughts and emotions. When you are troubled, I invite you to take a step back into what the Bible calls Spirit – the human spirit, that innermost part of us, which is united with the Holy Spirit. We can find rest in God. When we step back from our thoughts and feelings – when we put some distance between them and us – then we are no longer at their mercy. They no longer have control over us. We don’t have to let our thoughts and feelings pull us into dark places. This is a real practical spiritual solution to much of our suffering. The old hymn says: “There is a place of quiet rest,Near to the heart of God. A place where sin cannot molest, Near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blest Redeemer, Sent from the heart of God, Hold us who wait before Thee Near to the heart of God.” There is a real spiritual liberation from our self-inflicted suffering. It is found in God.

4. The final point, that I want to make very briefly is, rightness in relationships. This is harder than the other points I am talking about because it is dependent not just on us but on others. And we have no control over others. But we have – by the grace of God and faith in god – some control over ourselves. As Paul says, “If it is possible, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with all men.” (Romans 12:18) It may not be possible, but as far it is depends on us, we can live in right relationship with others.

The key element in relationships is forgiveness. This is one of my major themes in ministry. I am devoting a whole sermon to it this afternoon at the East Sandwich chapel. Forgiveness removes a huge barrier in human relationships. Forgiveness is absolutely essential to healthy relationships. And it is not optional in the Christian life. It is a command of Christ. And we have the power to do it. We cannot say we can’t forgive – that it is not in us to forgive - because God has given us the power to forgive. He has placed it in us. He has given us his own power to forgive in the Holy Spirit. By the grace of God forgiveness is possible in any situation through faith in Christ.

Beyond forgiveness is reconciliation. That takes two. It takes two in our relationship with God – it takes God and us. God has done his part in grace by forgiving us, and we have to do our part in faith by accepting God’s forgiveness and also forgiving God for anything that we think he has done to us in life. It also takes two in our relationships with others. We can extend the grace that has been extended to us in Christ. We can forgive people for what they have done. That is all we can do. Whether it is accepted, and whether others will forgive us in return depends on them. We can only do so much, but we must do what we can.

But in any case, whether there is reconciliation in our relationships or not, we are free. We can be at peace in our own hearts and souls. Sin – either our sin or other people’s sin – no longer has power over us. We have been set free. We have inner peace in our thoughts about our relationships with others regardless of other’s attitudes or actions. This is what the Bible calls righteousness. Everything can be all right - right with God, right with the world, right in ourselves and right with others. As Browning says, “God's in his Heaven/All's right with the world!” Everything really is all right.