Kenosis (Newsletter Article)

        A book group I lead recently finished reading and discussing Cynthia Bourgeault’s book The Wisdom Jesus. One of the central ideas of that book has to do with kenosis. The term kenosis derives from a Greek word that means to let go or to empty oneself. While kenosis isn’t a spiritual practice per se, it is a crucial pathway.

         The intent of a spiritual practice is to make oneself available to God’s Presence and to approach a deeper sense of oneness with God. Through kenosis,one allows all the distractions, all those anxieties, fears, and selfish desires to dissipate and fall away so that one becomes more open to God, who both calms and energizes. And the more one learns to be present to the Presence through a contemplative practice, the more one becomes conscious of and in communion with God in the midst of all those same distractions.

         Contemplative practices include contemplative prayer, chanting, journaling, spiritual walking, lectio divina Bible study. There is no “right” contemplative practice. It is a very personal process of discovering what helps you to let go so that you may experience God’s presence in a more immediate way.

This may sound self-serving, but one at least quasi-spiritual practice I’ve enjoyed over the last three years is riding my motorcycle. While it’s not so helpful while riding straighter roads or dodging traffic on city streets, when I find myself on roads that have sustained stretches of curves, all that matters is looking through the curve, then into and through the next curve. All I pay attention to is the road, its surface, and the indicators of how tight a given curve may be—the tree line, guardrails, power lines. I don’t look at the speedometer. I just feel the bike, the engine, the lean, and, by now, my hands and feet change the gears as needed without much conscious input. They know by feel, for instance, when to downshift and when not to (i.e. in the middle of a curve!). When negotiating curves, I enter a mindset during which everything else falls away. I am uniquely open to the moment, and my normally highly-distractible mind is both intensely focused and blissfully free.

A similar kenosis happens when I am in the throes of writing a sermon or a song. Something within me awakens, stirs, and will not be ignored. In attending to that energy, other things fall away, and I am open to what wants to be heard, experienced, and, ultimately, said.

Because things like riding and writing are more active disciplines, they are not kenotic practices in the strict sense. They are, however, activities through which one may begin implementing lessons learned through authentic contemplative practices. They become touchstones that reveal how contemplation and kenosisaren’t such foreign ideas after all.

In today’s context, kenotic practice in some form is extremely important, even life-giving. It’s a way to jettison all the unavoidable angst and noise of a world in chaotic flux. Contemplative disciplines help us learn to reflect and respond in healthier and more faithful ways because we do so from a place of intimacy with God.

Almost everything around us is changing. And while tomorrow will not look like the past we remember and romanticize, God remains faithful. God remains the source and ground of being, of love, of hope, and of restorative justice. Making space for people to learn to linger in God’s Presence—and to learn to want to—may be the most important work of any faith community right now.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds today, tomorrow, and always.

The Journey of Grace (Sermon)

“The Journey of Grace”

Psalm 139:1-12 and Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/29/23

 

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and night wraps itself around me,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

(Psalm 139:1-12 – NRSV)

 

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? ² For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. ³ For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” ⁴ Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. ⁵ But to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

¹³ For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there transgression.

¹⁶ For this reason the promise depends on faith, in order that it may rest on grace, so that it may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (who is the father of all of us, ¹⁷ as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”), in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 – NRSV)

 

 

         I’ve said this before, but Paul often comes across as if he’s trying to win an argument rather than to share a timeless mystery. And when I read some of Paul’s densest and most convoluted passages, something in me recoils. I feel like I’m back in high school physics—a subject I never grasped and was able to flunk with such efficiency as to make failure look, well, effortless.

Over the years, I’ve learned that, when reading Paul, it helps to step back, as if viewing a pointillist or impressionist painting in which the individual dots or brush strokes reveal their secrets and their beauty only in relationship to the rest of the dots or brush strokes. Paul is using all those rhetorical twists and turns to say that God deals with humankind on the basis of grace. Grace is hard for human beings, though. It’s just too gracious, especially when we stand so close to the canvass that all we can see is the flaws in ourselves and others.

When standing back from Paul’s letters, and by that I mean not obsessing over each statement but looking at his work as a whole, we begin to hear him proclaiming that to profess faith in Jesus on the one hand, and then to qualify grace on the other almost inevitably leads to religious legalism. Paul’s own version of that legalism was his Pharisaism—his certainty that those who followed Jesus did not deserve a voice, or peace of mind, or even the right to live. So, he persecuted them until God intervened and made Paul a disciple of Jesus.

Paul understood that when one’s belonging in God must be proven or deserved, grace no longer refers to God’s radical gift of love. It refers to God merely withholding vengeance. That means we have to suppress God’s anger by regurgitating pious formulas. And if we have to activate God’s redemption—even if only by “accepting” it—we are saved by our action, not by God’s grace.

Now, Paul knows his audience. The Romans argue and debate, and Paul speaks that language. So, he uses complicated dialectic to engage his readers. What makes that tricky is that he’s trying to into invite them into a faith that has more in common with an artistic process than with constructing a winning argument. So, he invites them into the story of Abraham.

We referred to Abraham’s story just last week. And in that story, God tells Abraham, “Go.” And Abraham goes. He leaves his home trusting that God will guide him, accompany him, and meet him when he reaches his destination.

Even in the first century Abraham’s story was ancient, so Paul uses it as a kind of mural, a spiritual portrait. The apostle wants his readers to enter and experience the story the same way Abraham begins his journey—by faith.

When Paul speaks of Abraham’s faith being “reckoned as righteousness,” he’s not referring to a characteristic of law-abiding citizens. He’s talking about the spiritual gift of trust. While trust is a gift that cannot be earned, it does have to be learned. And practiced. Writing to Roman Christians, Paul is trying to motivate and empower them to share the stories of faith with other Romans. He wants them to say to their neighbors, Come, listen to this story about a man named Jesus. Enter it. Experience it. Trust it. There’s new life in it!

To be transformed by story rather than argument takes a different kind of openness. It takes the openness of faith.

“Faith,” says the writer of Hebrews, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) Then he, like Paul, recalls the ancient, archetypal stories of faith. In a kind of litany, he says:

“By faith, Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household…

“By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance…

“By faith, Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau.

“By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God…

“By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land…” (Selected verses from Hebrews 11)

These stories story us toward an identity, purpose, and hope that formulas and arguments cannot convey.

During officer training, the most interesting discussions we have usually occur during our review of Church history. What makes us Christian is not the doctrines we profess, but the story we share. That story goes all the way back to Abraham. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all claim that story. And while each tradition takes a different trajectory, we all have to name and confess the errors and brutalities that our stories have committed and continue to commit in the name of God. Sadly, most errors and brutalities occur when we try to make righteousness a matter of principle and process instead of open-ended, love-actioned faith, that is, when we try to make faith a legalistic matter rather than God’s ongoing story of grace. 

When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus says, “‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and…soul, and…mind…And ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mt. 22:36-40)

Paul says the same thing to the Romans: “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder…steal…[or] covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love” says Paul, “is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:9-10)

Neither righteousness nor love can be proved through argument. They’re not academic courses to pass or fail. Because love and righteousness are about relationship, God stories us toward and into the journey of grace.

Over the centuries, the Church has, in many ways, retreated into the ways of gracelessness, the ways of meritocracy and imperial religion. That retreat has led to the church colluding with materialism and violent power. And nothing about that is consistent with the ways of Jesus.

Living by grace, dares us to commit ourselves to the unsentimental, action-oriented love that overcomes fear, that defies every institution and every voice that sows selfishness, suspicion, and division.

While our individual lives may often feel as insignificant as single dots or brush strokes on the canvas of Creation, when we live according to the ways of God’s expansive, welcoming, reconciling love, we participate in God’s power of resurrection already at work in the world. Along this path of pure grace, God is transforming all things into one. And on this pathway, righteousness weaves our garment. Joy and thanksgiving inspire our song. Compassion tells our story. And justice is the footprint we leave behind. 

And He Was Speechless (Sermon)

 “And He Was Speechless”

Genesis 12:1-4a and Matthew 22:1-14

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/22/23

 

The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you. ² I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing.

³ I will bless those who bless you,
    those who curse you I will curse;
        all the families of the earth
            will be blessed because of you.”

⁴ Abram left just as the Lord told him.   (CEB)

 

I don’t really like Matthew’s rendering of the parable of the wedding banquet. I much prefer the kinder, gentler version in Luke 14. It helps, though, to understand two things about Matthew’s context. First is the wider context. Matthew is often called the gospel to the Jews, so one can imagine Matthew as a kind of updated version of the call to Abraham. God is telling Israel, Go, to new land! I’ll let you know when you get there. Second is the immediate context.

In Matthew 21, Jesus drives moneychangers and merchants out of the temple. Now, the people aren’t evil, but they have traded faithfulness to God for membership in an institution which has begun to exist for its own sake. That institution cannot fully carry out its call to be a blessing, a call that dates back to the call of Abraham. So, while Jesus is brimming with passion, he’s not motivated by anger or vengeance. His heart is breaking. And rather than saying, All you bad people get out, he’s saying, This is not who we are! We’re better than this!

         The morning after Jesus clears the temple, he curses a fig-less fig tree. That seems harsh, but a fig tree without figs is good only for shade, then maybe kindling and compost. Similarly, a spiritless spiritual community is nothing but a consumer of resources. Having abandoned its spiritual center and its prophetic voice, such a community has given up on mystery, holiness, and its for-the-sake-of-othersblessedness. 

         After cursing the fig tree, Jesus returns to the temple. Still upset, the leaders confront Jesus. They question his authority. And he tells them that tax collectors and prostitutes have a higher standing in God’s realm of grace than those who sell themselves to power by making temple finances more important than the people and their ministry. Then Jesus tells a parable in which a landowner sends his servants, and later his son to collect a harvest. After the workers murder the servants and the son, the landowner obliterates all the workers.

“Therefore,” says Jesus to the leaders of Israel, “I tell you that God’s kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruit.” (Mt. 21:43)

The leaders want to arrest Jesus, but they fear the crowds who love him. Enslaved to their institutional power and privilege, they are speechless. Into that troubled silence, Jesus tells his next parable:

 

Jesus responded by speaking again in parables: ² “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding party for his son. ³ He sent his servants to call those invited to the wedding party. But they didn’t want to come. ⁴ Again he sent other servants and said to them, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Look, the meal is all prepared. I’ve butchered the oxen and the fattened cattle. Now everything’s ready. Come to the wedding party!”’ ⁵ But they paid no attention and went away—some to their fields, others to their businesses. ⁶ The rest of them grabbed his servants, abused them, and killed them.

⁷ “The king was angry. He sent his soldiers to destroy those murderers and set their city on fire. ⁸ Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding party is prepared, but those who were invited weren’t worthy. ⁹ Therefore, go to the roads on the edge of town and invite everyone you find to the wedding party.’

¹⁰ “Then those servants went to the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding party was full of guests. ¹¹ Now when the king came in and saw the guests, he spotted a man who wasn’t wearing wedding clothes. ¹² He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to his servants, ‘Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the farthest darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.’

¹⁴ “Many people are invited, but few people are chosen.” (CEB)

 

This parable and the stories preceding it unsettle me. And isn’t that the intent? The Pharisee within me cringes because the stories expose my own pettiness, self-righteousness, and laziness. The 21^st-century Christian in me rankles at all of that violence. The only part of me that tolerates these stories is that smug, first-world religionist within me who allows political and religious institutions to create in me suspicion, fear, and judgment of people I don’t understand and don’t want to understand.

I deal with that guy every day. He always hears Jesus agreeing with him. He assumes that God is as small, vindictive, and merciless as I can be. Like those who were invited to the wedding banquet, he makes light of the invitation. He’s more interested in looking busy in an office than he is in following Jesus in the world. Like a shark smelling blood, he enters the feeding frenzy of acrimony and insult where neighbors attack each other with weapons and with words—resentful, polarizing, Christ-crucifying words.

In the presence of that spiritless religionist, I lose my voice, and become a speechless wedding-crasher. Even when aware of the brokenness around me, I tell myself that I’m just trying, in trying times, to hold together a congregation of varied theological and political viewpoints. And that’s not a bad goal—unless all I’m really trying to do is hold onto affirming comments and an income. So, I spin my speechlessness as pastoral sensitivity. But whom does a speechless disciple really trust, worship, and serve?

The only time Jesus is speechless is when Pilate asks him if he’s the King of the Jews. Jesus says nothing because he’s already spoken with the Creation-transforming voice of his life.

         When the king in the parable confronts the man who has no robe, the man is “speechless.” He says nothing of gratitude to the king, no congratulations to the bride and groom. He says nothing to lament the short-sightedness of those who ignored the invitation. He says nothing about the injustice of all that God-denying revenge and murder. And no word of solidarity with the other guests.

Could it be that our wedding clothes are woven of words of prophetic, welcoming, and reconciling grace?

         Now listen, I’m not advocating for works righteousness. We do not have to earn our place at the banquet. The parable is about responding to the call to live as ones chosen and equipped to bear the tangible and audible fruits of a truth-telling faith. It’s about living as embodied speech.

         As a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton took a vow of silence, but his spirited life was all about speaking, all about doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. Out of his silence he rendered such fruitful speech, both lived and written, that his life and words continue to challenge and nurture people of faith today.

Whatever one’s particular gifts, and whatever the situation, speechlessness is not an option for disciples. Our words and actions are our figs, the fruit of our faithfulness. We claim our voice and speak not in order to receive God’s grace, but in bold and grateful response to having already received and experienced it. Speaking truth and justice to power is not easy, because power does not tolerate opposition, especially from prophetic voices driven by the love incarnated in Jesus.

Christ speech—patient, humble, honest, truth-telling, and yes, challenging speech—is both our robe of righteousness to wear and our cross to bear. As the late John Lewis said, it lands us in “good trouble.” Faithful disciples cry out to humankind, We are better than this. Let’s live our better selves!

         If all we want is a personal savior to get us into heaven, we’ll be satisfied with speechlessness, even in the face of injustice. And we’ll do far more to protect our comfortable religious institutions than to love the holy Mystery that is God. If Jesus is truly Lord of our lives and of our living, then we are more than an institution, more than this building. We are the living body of the living Christ.

Daily concerns and challenges can wear us down, but they’re also opportunities to remember that our true calling is among a humanity who has forgotten that we live in a good and beautiful Creation which is made real and lively by an inviting and welcoming Creator.

As followers of Jesus, our call is to go to “the roads on the edge of town” and invite everyone to God’s banquet, that great celebration where we find our true voice—a voice of gratitude, generosity, and justice-seeking love.

Gateways of Grace (Sermon)

 “Gateways of Grace”

Psalm 65 and Matthew 6:28-33

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/15/23

 

God of Zion, to you even silence is praise.
    Promises made to you are kept—
²     you listen to prayer—
    and all living things come to you.
³ When wrongdoings become too much for me,
    you forgive our sins.
⁴ How happy is the one you choose to bring close,
    the one who lives in your courtyards!
We are filled full by the goodness of your house,
    by the holiness of your temple.

⁵ In righteousness you answer us,
    by your awesome deeds,
    God of our salvation—
    you, who are the security
        of all the far edges of the earth,
        even the distant seas.
⁶     You establish the mountains by your strength;
    you are dressed in raw power.
⁷     You calm the roaring seas;
        calm the roaring waves,
        calm the noise of the nations.
⁸ Those who dwell on the far edges
        stand in awe of your acts.
    You make the gateways
        of morning and evening sing for joy.
⁹ You visit the earth and make it abundant,
    enriching it greatly
        by God’s stream, full of water.
You provide people with grain
    because that is what you’ve decided.
¹⁰ Drenching the earth’s furrows,
        leveling its ridges,
    you soften it with rain showers;
        you bless its growth.
¹¹ You crown the year with your goodness;
    your paths overflow with rich food.
¹² Even the desert pastures drip with it,
    and the hills are dressed in pure joy.
¹³ The meadowlands are covered with flocks,
    the valleys decked out in grain—
        they shout for joy;
        they break out in song!

         (Psalm 65 – CEB)

 

 

28And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. 29But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. 30If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith?

31Therefore, don’t worry and say, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ 32Gentiles long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

33Instead, desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:28-33 – CEB)

 

 

         Late in these fall afternoons, as Marianne is shuffling pots and pans while cooking, or as I am shuffling pots and pans while washing dishes, one of us often hollers at the other from our west-facing living room. “Come look at this!” we say. When all the playful ingredients of physics come together just right, we stand at the window in awe of the brilliant fires of sunset.

         Sunrise and sunset happen every day. And some days the colors are more vivid and varied than others. Still, both sunset and sunrise can be hypnotizing wonders, experiences to enter rather than mere sights to behold.

So, with the psalmist we declare: “You make the gateways of the morning and the evening sing for joy.”

         To imagine sunrise and sunset as joyful gateways calls our attention to them as holy moments. And while their bright, lava-lamp magic isn’t a unique occurrence, each event is kind of like seeing a new painting by the same artist.

There’s never even a moment when those gateways are not singing for joy, because just as it’s always “five o’clock somewhere,” the sun is always rising somewhere and setting somewhere else. Even when it’s noon or midnight for us, at some far edge, someone stands at the gateway of the morning and someone else at the gateway of the evening. Like grace itself, these numinous gateways are a continuous presence on the earth.

         The psalmist’s reference to those who dwell on the far edges asks us to think not only of those who live far away, but those who lived before us, and those who lie many generations beyond us—citizens of a future we can’t imagine, but to whom we are responsible. How we live on this earth, the steps we take to treasure it and care for it right now, these are our shouts of joy and songs of praise. They’re signs of our love for ancestors, for neighbors, for descendants, and thus, for God.

          Praise is itself a kind of gateway. And while songs of thanksgiving can express human gratitude for God’s generosity, praise is about far more than the giddiness of getting or the happiness of having. Whether spoken or embodied, true praise acknowledges the limits of human understanding. The only certainty declared by praise is the incomprehensible fact of existence itself. How did we get here if not by some ineffable love? Beneath and beyond all the terrifying turmoil, life is a breathtaking wonder! Like music, awe is a universal language, and it opens portals to new ways of seeing the world, of knowing and being known, and of loving God.

         Water is another central symbol of Psalm 65—God’s stream, full of water.  And along with sunlight and earth, the holy flow of water creates the life-giving vibrancy and the life-sustaining abundance on which all things depend. When reading this psalm, one begins to see that the source of the earth’s life and liveliness doesn’t hover in the heavens but churns deep within the earth herself. The hills are dressed in pure joy, says the psalmist. The meadowlands are covered with flocks, the valleys decked out in grain—they shout for joy; they break out in song.

         The affirmations of sun and water, coastline and mountain, meadow and forest invite us to see God’s incarnate presence in the very earth from which all life arises and to which all life returns. 

         When we allow ourselves to embrace the Creation as Incarnation, how can we possibly allow ourselves to take the earth for granted? A megachurch pastor once declared that God “intended” for the earth to be a “disposable planet.”¹ It seems to me that the writer of Psalm 65 would weep and gnash his teeth at such ingratitude for and desecration of God’s immediate presence through the Creation. A disposable planet does not dress itself with flocks. It doesn’t deck itself with grain. It doesn’t shout and sing for joy. That pastor’s awelessness leads to more than poor stewardship. It becomes the cancer of selfish apathy that consumes the Creation by allowing us to turn blind eyes toward injustice, poverty, war, and humankind’s wanton abuse of the environment. The earth may have a life cycle, but if it’s disposable, then so are we. And no lives matter. And that is contrary to the witness of scripture.

         Psalm 65 presents a vision not unlike Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom in which“The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat…[and] They won’t hurt or destroy anywhere on my holy mountain. [And the] earth will surely be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, just as the water covers the sea.” (From Isaiah 11:6-9 - CEB)

The psalmist is convinced of the God-purposed goodness of the Creation, the very same goodness affirmed in the stories of Genesis 1 and 2, and reaffirmed in Revelation 21 with the prophecy of “a new heaven and a new earth.”

In no way is the psalmist unaware of the challenges to that vision or to the arguments that question the Creation’s fundamental goodness. He might be grieved by the horrific violence in the Middle East and in Ukraine right now, but he would not be surprised by it. That’s why confesses human iniquity and transgression. His song of praise is his impassioned Nonetheless. Psalm 65 is his declaration of faith that “God’s stream” will continue to flow and to bless to the earth. It’s also his vow to live in faithfulness to God who calms the roaring waves and the noise of the nations, and who redeems the Creation so that the earth may sing and shout for joy, again.

         Psalm 65 calls us to live, individually and corporately, as visible and tangible signs of God’s presence. When we pledge ourselves to lives of grateful praise, we can become gateways of grace, witnesses to God’s desire and power to fill deserts with rain, hopelessness with hope, and brokenness with wholeness.

As Christians reading this ancient Jewish text, we claim that Jesus is the unique incarnation of the same God incarnated in the Creation as a whole. As God Incarnate, Jesus enters the world as an expression of God’s own praise, of God’s own delight in and pledge to the Creation. As the body of Christ, then, we are called to be a place where every Friday finds its Sunday.

Today is the first Sunday of our stewardship month, and when we commit ourselves to God through a particular congregation, we pledge more than money. We pledge ourselves to living as gateways of grace. The praises we sing, the missions we do, the care we offer each other, the study, laughter, tears, and meals we share—all of this is praise.

         Whatever the constraints and challenges of any given moment, we are called and equipped to be a fertile field, an overflowing pasture, a meadow clothed in flocks, and a valley decked out with an abundance of grain. Even when the tumult around us is loud and violent, God calls and equips us to live in grateful wonder, to “shout and sing together for joy.”

 

¹https://theconversation.com/god-intended-it-as-a-disposable-planet-meet-the-us-pastor-preaching-climate-change-denial-147712

Neither Death Nor Life (Sermon)

“Neither Death Nor Life”

Psalm 23 and Romans 8:26-39

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

10/1/23

 

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters; 
³     he restores my soul. 
He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley, 
    I fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long.

(Psalm 23 – NRSV)

 

 

 

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with groanings too deep for words. ²⁷ And God, who searches hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

²⁸ We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.  ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³ Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.³⁴ Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
           we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:26-39 – NRSV)

 

         Every human community has its share of hurt to deal with. And while no one in this room is running from drone strikes or dying from malaria, none of us remain untouched by some kind of illness, loss, or anxiety.

         In Romans 8, Paul talks about the Spirit helping us when we are weary, and praying for us when our own words fail.

He talks about being known by God, about being predestined to bear the image of Christ.

         He talks about things working together for good whenever our actions are fueled by love for God.

         And when we embody God’s love, says Paul—that is, when we follow the path of humility, compassion, and justice for the oppressed—God stands with us in such a way that any who stand against us don’t stand a chance. Not in the long run.

         I know that Paul is writing to encourage new Christians who are suffering persecutions that we can’t imagine. Still, after reading the assurances of this chapter, it feels a little bit like listening to the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. Even when he says exactly what we want to hear, Paul can come across as a little pie-in-the-sky.

Then again, that’s not entirely fair to Paul.

         While some biblical passages do say that God protects the faithful from suffering, the overwhelming witness of scripture, and of life experience, exposes that idea as wishful thinking at best. And at worst it’s a futile attempt to protect and preserve a distorted and distorting image of God—the image of God as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

         Let’s go back to Paul’s promise. With the deep conviction, born of his own experiences of suffering and of causing suffering, he says that God stands faithfully with us and sees us through: “hardship...distress...persecution...famine...nakedness...peril…[and] sword.” And this very assurance itself declares the equally trustworthy promise that human beings will endure such trials. Regardless of God’s presence with us, regardless of our faithful intentions, and regardless of whether we think any given experience of suffering is deserved or undeserved, human existence includes suffering.

         While that sounds depressing, maybe even fatalistic, the gospel being revealed through Jesus does not allow us to associate faith and faithfulness with lives of perfect ease. And it seems to me that to suggest otherwise is to lead oneself and others into denial, and, ultimately, into violence, because the only way one can create the illusion of avoiding suffering is by causing others to suffer.

I'm not saying there's a literal and eternal hell. But if there is, it’s not something we have to wait on. To do more than imagine hell: Twist greed into a virtue. Impugn the humanity and dignity of others. Cultivate division. Seek retribution. Do these things and a life of hellish misery will certainly follow, because the only way to do them is by denying the image of God within oneself and others.Paul knows about such hell. As a former persecutor of Christians, he helped to create it. So, when he talks about being killed all day long and being accounted as sheep to be slaughtered, he is both commiserating with the current experience of the Roman Christians and confessing his own past sins. Then, Paul turns and declares hope and deliverance not just from the deep quagmire of suffering, but within it.

         “I am convinced,” he says, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

         I hear Paul saying that even in the midst of the worst that the world can throw at us, we can still love as we are loved. We can still love ourselves and others the way Jesus loves the Pharisees who harass him, the way he loves the disciples who abandon him, and the way Jesus loves even the soldiers who blindly follow the order to crucify him. That is the love from which we cannot be separated. 

         You and I, we are equal parts recipients and bearers of the love that is creating and redeeming the universe. And the point of Paul’s teaching, like the point of Jesus’ life itself, is that God calls us to be signs and demonstrations of God’s love in, with, and for a suffering creation. God intentionally makes us aware of suffering so that, as followers and imitators of Christ, we might enter that suffering with healing and redeeming love for everyone and everything that suffers.

         This Wednesday will mark the completion of my 13th year as pastor of Jonesborough Presbyterian Church. Over these years, I’ve witnessed you enflesh the gospel in countless ways. You have struggled and suffered with friends and loved ones as they have struggled and suffered. And you don’t withhold that blessing. You don’t make membership in this congregation a prerequisite for care. In love, you have stood in solidarity with neighbors in this community to proclaim that God’s unbounded love does not play favorites, that the household of grace welcomes all people. You have, as Paul also says to the Romans, rejoiced with those who rejoice and wept with those who weep. (Romans 12:15) And, with sighs too deep for words, you have prayed with and for each other.

         Even now, you are at work declaring the relentless love of God in Christ. And I stand in grateful awe of all of that.

         Now, our work is never perfectly done, nor is it ever complete. God continually calls us into a world, a culture, and a denomination that are always changing, always growing and becoming. Our challenge is to allow the ever-present, ever-praying Spirit to lead us into ever more daring and ever more vivid expressions of God’s relentless love for the Creation.

         So, even as we affirm ourselves, let’s ask ourselves: Are there people in our workplaces, our neighborhoods, our church, our families for whom we just cannot muster the energy to love with the kind of love with which we are loved? The answer to that question is always Yes. And yet, even now, with deep, wordless sighs, the Spirit is calling us to and equipping us for a love we may not be able to receive or offer right now. We may not even be able to conceive of it.

         If that’s true for any of us, we can take heart. Christ’s table of grace and renewal is set before us this morning. And at his table, he feeds us with his own embodied holiness, with his own prayerful Spirit, and with the very energy and courage that animated his own life. He feeds us with all of that so that we may receive and share the love of God—the love from which we cannot, under any circumstance, be separated.