Sermon - Chaos Turned to Peace

Preached January 13, 2008 at The First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC.

Psalm 29
Matthew 3:13-17

Dedicated to my uncle Cliff Flick; and always to the glory of God.

There were three friends who met together for lunch. One was a doctor, one an architect, and one an economist. After a bit they began a friendly argument about whose profession was the oldest.
The doctor said “When God made the very first humans, he took a rib from Adam to create Eve, which is clearly a medical procedure.”
“Aha,” said the architect. “If we’re going back to the beginning then it’s no question, because before God made people God designed and created a world for them to live in, just like an architect.”
“I’m afraid I’ve still got you both beat,” said the third. “My profession is still the oldest.”
“How can that be?” his friends objected. “Before the creation of people and the earth there was only chaos.”
“Well,” said the economist. “Who do you think invented that?”

“In the beginning,” says the creation story in the book of Genesis, “when God made the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1). I need to tell you that for us in the 21st century to hear this story we need to hear it with ancient ears, and they would have known that the waters represent nothing less than chaos. In the beginning, there was no land, no life, no light, only the swirling waters of chaos. The voice of God brought order to chaos. On the first day: light. On the second day, God created a dome called sky to separate the waters below from the waters above. Remember this is an ancient text from a time when they viewed the world as a surface here with a domed sky holding back the sea above, from which the rains came. On the third day, God gathered the rest of the waters together in once place and made land to appear. When we hear it with ancient ears, the creation story is about God arriving to a formless void of chaos, all water, and putting the chaos in it’s place. This is a story about God turning chaos to order, that we might live in peace.

In the middle east, in that area near the fertile crescent from which our sacred scriptures come, the sea was chaos because what you feared most was the flood. A flood in that flattened land would wipe out all you had grown and stored up for yourself. Too much water coming down from the great sea above, too much water welling up around you – that was chaos. For our experience, we need only to remember the streets of New Orleans, the escape holes in rooftops, the disaster in the Superdome. Chaos.

When we understand that the sea is chaos it changes the way the Bible speaks to us. Throughout the psalms, God is praised for holding back the flood. In the story of Noah we learn that when there was a flood, it was because God chose it and God ended it. People shared the story of Jesus calming the storm not just because it’s a great story, but because it told them that Jesus was Lord if Jesus could silence the sea. In the book of Revelation, when God creates a new heaven and a new earth, it says that the sea is no more. If we didn’t know what that meant, then those of us who love the ocean would be very sad about a future with no beaches to walk. It only makes sense when we remember that the sea is chaos. In the new earth that God will make, the sea is no more, because chaos, pain, and tears are no more.

Do you hear the good news of these ancient scriptures? Can you hear them telling us of the good God has done for them? Not just telling us, but calling to us; they want us to continue the song of praise that has long faded from their lips.

In the psalm we heard this morning, the psalmist tells the good news of God’s power over chaos. He says “the voice of the Lord is over the waters.” “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever. May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!”

Can we join that prayer? Is the Lord still enthroned over the waters, the flood of chaos? What do you think? Does the world seem to have order to you, or are we bobbing along in the chaos, trying to keep our heads above for as long as we can? It is not difficult to make the case that chaos is the rule in this world.
-One person is born to prosperity and another is born into a refugee camp.
-One person discovers by chance a blood clot that is treated in time while another person who was healthy got regular check-ups, dies young of an aggressive tumor no one saw coming.
-One soldier comes home safely from a third tour in Iraq, while another loses her legs in just her first week in country.
-One day everything goes your way, and the next day you can hardly come up to breathe. It feels like it’s raining and it’s never going to stop. Chaos.

All of that is true. But still we proclaim that the Lord is enthroned over the chaos. Hear the words of the psalmist again: “May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!”

I believe that God gives us strength, and turns our chaos to peace.
- Someone is born to a refugee camp, but those inspired with the strength of God’s justice are providing relief, are helping to relocate and house those who have fled their homes. In the past six weeks, our denomination the United Church of Christ held a campaign to raise over $100,000 to provide humanitarian assistance to some of the 4 million Iraqis who have been displaced by the war to camps in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, to provide food, water, health care and education.
- Someone is dying, but those who are filled with the strength of God’s compassion are caring for the sick in the way that Mother Teresa would wrap her arms around those who were dying in the streets of Calcutta, pledging that even if she could not prolong their lives, she could make sure that they did not die alone, that they died with the loving embrace of God, just as many of you have done for one whom you loved.
- Someone is caught in the violence of war, but those inspired by the strength of the prince of peace are working for a better way to make our world secure and its people free - working to care for those who suffer the most senseless acts of war, those whose bodies or spirits are broken.

God gives us strength, not to magically bring an end to all the chaos of disease, violence, and injustice, but to have strength in the midst of the storm, bringing order, and making peace.

God’s spirit hovered over the waters of chaos and brought them into order, and then, years later, the spirit of God descended from the heavens over Jesus, who was baptized in the Jordan River. The spirit of God came again in him to turn chaos into peace, and I believe that in the same way, the spirit of God comes again in us. The mysterious grace in baptism tells me that God’s voice says to each of us as God said to Jesus: This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased. With the spirit of God as our strength, we will see the chaos of our lives turned to peace.

Scrooge and Marley

“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”

So says Ebenezer Scrooge to the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley, and it is Marley’s answer that has stayed with me as the lights of Christmas are stowed away for another year. One of the gifts I received this year is the audiobook of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. In the days after Christmas, Betsy and I had the pleasure of listening to this incredible story read aloud to us. Incidentally, the reader is British actor Jim Dale, and there is no one better, I’m sure.

Marley’s ghost is a lamentable character, full of regret and sorrow when he visits Scrooge on Christmas Eve. Marley’s case is so pitiable that even Scrooge, with his emotions well calloused, begins to feel sorry for him. Or perhaps Scrooge begins to feel afraid for himself, since his own life is just like the life of his dead partner. In an effort to steer the conversation back to a positive note, Scrooge says “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”

“‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’”

In some circles, Marley’s skill and success in his trade were well admired, but he later realized that his trade was not really his business. It makes me wonder about how we discern success among people. Our attention and praise is generally given to those who succeed in wealth and fame, while little thought goes toward those who make humankind their business. Let’s you and I tell a different story than that. Let’s celebrate a different kind of business.

Thoughts on Christmas Carols III

“O Come, All Ye Faithful”

John begins his good news about the messiah not when Jesus begins his ministry, and not when Jesus is born, but much, much earlier. John’s gospel opens with the words “In the beginning.” That’s a bold way to start, because he is borrowing that line from the very beginning of the book of Genesis, the first words of the Torah, or books of Moses. “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s our creation story in Genesis, and here is John, giving us a new version, because he thinks there is something else we need to know about the creation of the world. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”

The word. In the original Greek, the word is Logos. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God. Word is kind of a shallow translation. Logos means word, but it also means speech, conversation, even language itself. Logos means the wisdom and reason by which we communicate and make ourselves known to one another. Logos is God’s word to us, expressed in the scriptures and prophets. Logos is the expression of God’s love for us, beginning with the very act of creation. As long as there has been God, there has been God’s logos: God’s word.

Let me put it this way. If you to Washington D.C., and go to the Lincoln Memorial, you will find that grand statue of President Lincoln who faces out past the pillars over the reflecting pool toward the Capital building. Written on the walls of that monument are two of his speeches. The Gettysburg address:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

And his second inaugural address, given near the end of the civil war:

“As God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace.”

Those are the words Lincoln spoke, but they are also his word. They capture his spirit, his compassion, his vision, and his values. They contain his essence. That’s what Logos means: the word of God is the essence and character of God.

John writes about the word of God, through whom everything was created. He writes about the word because he needs to tell people the amazing thing that happened: The word became flesh, and dwelled among us.”

Isn’t that amazing? The logos of God - God’s essence, God’s wisdom, love, creativity – God’s logos was all packed into a human being, and he lived right among us. He dwelled among us, which translates literally as “He pitched a tent among us.” He lived just like the rest of us.

And that is why, in the final, culminating verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” we sing, “word of the father, now in flesh appearing.” Can you believe it? Can you believe this amazing thing that God did?

And here’s what’s even more amazing, John says: people didn’t even notice. “though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” They didn’t realize what had happened. Maybe it was so far beyond their wildest dreams that they couldn’t see it. The word was living among them, and they didn’t see it. And that poses a question to you and me. Do we notice? Do we recognize the presence of the risen Christ in our world? Or do we still not notice what God is doing right here among us?

We sing “word of the father, now in flesh appearing.” Now. Not a long time ago, but now. And then we sing the refrain: O come, let us adore him.

That refrain is interesting. “Let us adore him” might sound like “aaahh, isn’t the baby adorable?” But this is more than that. To adore is to love. Let us adore him means “let us love God; let us love his way of mercy and compassion above all else. Let us love the peace that he brings above other interests. Let us love the good news he brought above all other desires, let us adore bringing good news to the poor, the hurt, the lost, the lonely, the outcast, the foreigner. Let us adore Jesus Christ, as we seek to become like him in our own lives.”

It is more than “isn’t the baby adorable?” I am sure that’s not what they had in mind back when they first told these stories in the gospels. They did not have quite the same baby culture that we have. To us, babies are cute and adorable. To them, babies were vulnerable. That’s the main impression they would have had. Imagine the shock, then, that God would come to the world this way, vulnerable, exposed to the pain and cruelty of the world in the most tragic ways, just like us. Word of the father, now in flesh appearing. In this small, helpless, vulnerable flesh, God comes near. O come, let us adore him. Let us love him with our whole lives.

Thoughts on Christmas Carols II

“Angels we have heard on high”

The lyrics of “Angels we have heard on high” present a fairly straightforward retelling of the passage in the gospel of Luke which tells of the angel announcing the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. In the gospel of Luke, the shepherds are the only visitors to the newborn Jesus. Matthew tells us about the wise men from another land, and his emphasis is on the gospel’s inclusion of gentile lands. Luke’s telling emphasizes gospel’s inclusion of the lowly, symbolized by the shepherds who worked in the fields. And of course, it will not have escaped his hearers that this is also a reference to young David, the humble shepherd who became king. Now there is a new king from the family of David, and the first to visit him are shepherds.

In the gospel, after one angel has given the news, suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace.” Ever since the year 130, just a century after the earthly life of Christ, that phrase “glory to God in the highest,” or in Latin, “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” has been a part of worship services celebrating the birth of Christ. I remember learning how to pronounce those Latin words in the youth choir at my church. For centuries, the congregation would sing this phrase following prayers and scripture readings. When we sing it today, we are joining centuries and generations of the faithful. The tune even sounds like an ancient chant. There are only six notes in the verse, and the refrain stays within one octave, making this carol much easier to sing than, say, “O Holy Night.” It is called a traditional French carol, but in truth, no one knows who wrote it or when or where.

The carol recounts the visit of the angels to the shepherds by imagining a conversation with the excited shepherds who are on their way to see the baby and are spreading the good news. In the first verse, the shepherds share their joy and wonder about the angelic visit, but don’t actually tell the news. In the second verse, the imagined people who are listening to the shepherds break in to ask what all the excitement is about. What is the news? In the third verse, the shepherds answer, but more than that, they invite: “come to Bethlehem and see.” That has always been the Christian model for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. We are not supposed to be preachy, so to speak. We are called to invite. Come and see. I’d like you to see what worship feels like, what serving others feels like, what fellowship feels like. Invitation: that’s always been the best way.

Thoughts on Christmas Carols I

“Joy To The World”

One of the great hymn writers in the English language is the British minister Isaac Watts. Born in 1674, Isaac grew up in Southhampton’s Above Bar Congregational Church, but he had a problem with the music. It was uninspired and archaic. They kept singing the psalms of the Bible in outdated language, without any feeling. His father challenged him to offer something better, and Isaac responded with over six hundred hymns in his lifetime. “Joy to the World” was one of his efforts to bring the language of the psalms up to date, and to mesh those Hebrew prayers with the message of the New Testament.

Joy to the World is based on Psalm 98, especially verse 4: “make a joyful noise unto the Lord; all the earth.” The psalm imagines the entire creation joining in praise to God: let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. "Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy" (verses 7-8). And so the hymn also includes the whole world “heaven and nature sing,” “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains.” The joy of God is a celebration for all the world, we’re all included. It reminds me of when Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and the Pharisees tell him to rebuke his disciples for shouting their praise for God. Jesus says “I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

So, all of creation is rejoicing in God, but then we reach the third verse, and we’re not sure what to make of it.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make his blessings flow,

far as the curse is found.

Sometimes we sing this, and you can see people get more perplexed each time they have to repeat it: “far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as….”

You have to go back to Genesis, chapter 3, the story of Adam and Eve who live in Eden until they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is a more complex story than we usually give it credit for being. We don’t have time for it now, except to say that eating the fruit is not all a bad thing. It introduces the knowledge of evil, but it also allows them to understand good, and this kind of moral discernment is what maturity is all about. I think God meant all along for this to happen. But with maturity comes the reality of life’s hardship. In the story, when they leave Eden, God puts a curse on the ground. Listen to the curse, because this will explain that mysterious third verse:

“Cursed is the ground…through painful toil you will eat of it…it will produce thorns and thistles, and you will eat the plants of the field” (Genesis 3:17-18).

But when God comes again, the curse will be removed, and world is made new. That’s the promise of Christ, to make all things new, and so we sing that God’s blessings will flow far as the curse is found.

One last point: did you ever notice that this is not a Christmas hymn? It’s an adaptation of a psalm, and other than one meaning of the phrase “the Lord is come” it has nothing to do with Christmas. But sometime in the last century we decided that Christmas was the perfect time to rejoice, to share our joy with all of the world, and to receive God in our hearts.