Nature Preaches

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 2/26/17

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^NRS  Psalm 19:1 <To the leader. A Psalm of David.> The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. ² Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. ³ There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; ⁴ yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, ⁵ which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. ⁶ Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat. ⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; ⁸ the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes; ⁹ the fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

Have you ever spent time just enjoying the creation of God? A number of years ago a songwriter Mac Davis wrote a song that reminds us of this.

“Did you ever take a walk through the forest
Stop and dream a while among the trees
Well you can look up through the leaves right straight to heaven
You can almost hear the voice of God
In each any every breeze

You got to Stop and Smell the Roses
You've got to count your many blessings everyday
You're gonna find your way to heaven is a rough and rocky road
If you don't Stop and Smell the Roses along the way”

Have you ever taken the time to walk through the woods, along a trail, next to a river or lake and enjoyed the focus of nature? Have you listened to the voice of God in the sound of the Dove or the Whippoorwill as it sings its melody and when they answer each other across the distance? If we don’t take the time to share in the beauty of creation that God has given us, how are we ever going to have the opportunity to know God? David shares it with us the Psalm when he says that the heavens are telling us of the glory of God. I love to get to a place where I can look up into the heavens and see the Milky Way as it cuts across the heavens right above us. And to marvel at the flight of a hummingbird as it makes its way from flower to flower grabbing the nectar of creation as sustenance for life.

The American Indian has at the very center of its understanding, to take in the beauty of the world around us and become one with it. I took a class some months back and was reminded again of the understanding of life in everything around us. We were reminded that life is sacrificed in order to allow life to grow and prosper. From the very essence of life in water as it falls from the sky, soaks into the ground where it gives up itself in the nutrients that are taken by the plants as it works its way into the water table, there to give up its essence to the formation of springs and rivers. Then the waters work their way toward the oceans, often evaporating into the heavens to start the cycle all over again. Meanwhile animals and even we humans find nourishment and sustenance in the cool waters. The plants give up their essence to the Birds, the Bees and other animals as food for sustenance to live. Animals give up their lives for larger animals as food for life and that includes those that give up their essence for our dinner table. Even trees give up their essence; sacrifice themselves if you will for our tables, chairs and homes. All of lives, the circle of life as it was famously called in the Lion King, gives and gets from this wonderful thing we call creation. But do we pay attention to the beauty and sacrifice in it? Do we see God working in the blossoming of the flowers, in the budding of the trees and in the song of the birds at the feeders? I would say that most of the time the answer is no.  

If we truly want to know God, to experience God and to share with God then we must learn to recognize God in the natural world around us. The very essence of the natural world reveals God. Take for example the complexity of our human bodies and the synchronization of the world around us. That we could by chance evolve into a place where the spin rate of the world, the gravitational forces and connection to our sun create a place where air is trapped if you will, in between the physical earth and the void of outer space is incredible if not impossible. That scientists even now are in agreement that it took some form of a third party intervention to get the Big Bang of creation going shouts to the existence of God. That the vastness of nature also shouts to the existence of a being far greater, far more intelligent and far more benevolent than anything we can imagine or devise.

Some years back I watched a great movie about an angel who falls in love with a doctor. He finds out that even for angels there is choice and so he chooses to leave the boundaries of the angelic world for those of the human one. What he misses most every day is the song that comes when the sun rises. I think it is a great way of sharing the beauty of creation that as the sun rises there is a great singing that takes place in the world. I have lived in the country much of my life. As the dawn approaches and then happens we too are allowed to hear this heavenly chorus. Just before the break of dawn there begins a great crescendo of voices including the birds, many vocal species of larger grasshoppers and katydids that continues for several minutes as the sun rises into the sky. It truly is breathtaking if you get a chance to hear it without the sounds of the world around us drowning it out. And then there are the tree frogs. By some great focus of creation they begin their singing at the exact second that the sun disappears in the western sky. For those of us who grew up around them, they are the clock by which we define night. How can we not experience God in those moments?

I read this devotion the other day that I want to share with you today. “Some of my fondest memories as a child and early teen are of times when I would take walks through the woods behind my parent's home to sit on top of a hill overlooking a small community that sat nestled below it.  As I sat there in the stillness of God's creation, listening to the sound of the birds and watching the beauty of the trees and flowers around me, I felt His presence in a way that was equal to any church service I have ever participated in.  My faith was nurtured on that hilltop, and in times when my faith grows weary, I find myself returning to nature to restore and replenish the faith that is deep within my soul.

Many of us have had our most meaningful spiritual experiences in relationship to the environment.  Beauty provokes us to transcend our mundane concerns, shortcomings and conflicts.  We have heard the voice of God in our woods and waterways, in bird song or the remarkable delicacy of a flower.   Yet, there are those around us who readily abandon the idea of a higher power, or ascribe all this complexity to the whim of chaos.  For me, when I look into the eyes of nature, and see all the beauty that God has placed here for us to enjoy, there is no denying His presence in the world He created, or in my life. In those still, quiet moments when I am intertwined with Him, He is as real as the air I breathe, and His voice speaks to me as softly as a gentle breeze. 

I often find myself looking at the clouds by day and the sunset by night, admiring the colors and the way that God seems to paint His beauty across the sky for all to see.  He is quite the artist and nothing can compare to the beauty that He sets before us.  This spring, I have particularly been impressed by the colors of the leaves and blooms that have covered the landscapes.  And, have you ever seen so many different shades of green?   It is amazing !!!”

Sounds a lot like the words of David as he looked upon the heavens and heard the voice of God speaking to him. In nature we see God’s wisdom and intelligence in the divine design of it. How careful each piece comes together and who we human beings are carefully added to this complex existence we call our world. How we see the goodness of God in the life cycle of all creation. But we only see it when we take a moment, open our eyes and our senses to it, and then share in the world around us. Nature can and will preach to us the beauty and majesty of God if we only will stop and smell the roses along the way. 

Unbroken

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 2/19/17

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^NRS  Exodus 6:6 Say therefore to the Israelites, 'I am the LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.'"

I want to share with you the ten signs that you are in for a long sermon.

10.       There’s a case of bottled water beside the pulpit in a cooler.

9.         The pews have camper hookups

8.         You overhear the pastor telling the sound man to have few dozen extra tapes to record today’s sermon.

7.         The preacher has brought a snack to the pulpit.

6.         The preacher will break for intermission

5.         The bulletins have pizza delivery menus

4.         When the preacher asks the Lay Leader to bring in his notes and the Lay Leader rolls in a file cabinet.

3.         The choir loft is furnished with La-Z-Boys

2.         Instead of taking off his watch and laying it on the pulpit, he turns up a four foot hour glass.

1.         And the number one reason you are in for a long sermon, the minister tells you he will have you out in time for the Super Bowl and the last one just ended.

We are now a few short weeks from the season of Lent. It is a season when we reflect and celebrate our relationship with God. Grace, the principle understanding of what God has given us is the foundation of our faith. Without the grace of God, love in action, that comes from God whether we accept it or not, we would not be here in this place to worship and praise. But what is Grace without covenant? Covenant means that there is an agreement between two parties, one side giving something in consideration from the other side. We call them contracts or agreements today and they typically involve the legal community. In my younger days they usually involved a handshake and a promise and that was all that was needed. Funny, those agreements from my younger days were probably closer to what God had in mind.

Most biblical scholars would say that there are seven covenants in the Bible. The first four were covenants between God and the people of Israel. And the next three were between God and the people of the world. The Abrahamic covenant promised that the descendants of Abraham would be great nations and they would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Since technically the Islamic, Jewish and Christian worlds claim Abraham as father, that covenant has in fact been kept. Part two was that the world would be blessed by the descendants of Abraham and since Jesus is that blessing and descendant, it also has been kept. The land grant covenant is still in flux. God gave the land to the descendants of Israel as long as they were obedient but said that they would eventually receive all of it again. They currently occupy a portion but time will tell and my bet is on God. The Mosaic covenant, the Ten Commandments promises that if we obey the commandments then God will bless us. God has kept God’s part; we have failed to be an obedient church. And finally the Davidic covenant proclaimed Jesus and that has and is continuing to be fulfilled.

The final three were between God and us, the people of the world. The Adamic Covenant gives us free will to choose and also the consequences of choice. But ultimately the covenant leads us as humanity back to the Garden. The Noahic Covenant promises that the earth will not be destroyed by water. The rainbow is the sign of that covenant for us.

Finally we have been promised the ultimate promise, the New Covenant that is created between God and the people of the world. This covenant promises us that if we believe in the power of God’s love as demonstrated through the life, death and resurrection of the Son, Jesus Christ, that we will not perish but have eternal life. That covenant has been the subject of my last two sermons on what it means to experience God’s love, to share that love with others and to be disciples for the world.

So today we have this passage from God in the time of the Egyptian experience. God is making a promise to the people of Israel and I would suggest that God is working at keeping that promise to you and me today.

The truth of the covenants of God is that God has never broken a covenant. Not once in all the history of the world has God reneged on a promise that God has made. The people of Israel and I would suggest that God is keeping those promises even now to us.

God says that I will deliver you to freedom. Nothing is more sacred than freedom. Throughout the history of humankind, peace and freedom have been fleeting. One group finds a way to hold another group in oppression and slavery. But God says that we will be free. Jesus Christ went to the cross to assure that we have that freedom and God’s promise has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection of God’s Son.

I will deliver you from slavery and give you liberty. Again, we acknowledge that there are many forms of slavery in the world. Today there is human trafficking that takes young lives and submits them to the slavery of the sex trade. In some parts of the world we have actual slavery still a fact of life. In this country we see slavery exhibited in undocumented jobs that force people to work below poverty levels. We have financial slavery where people are oppressed by interest rates and financial commitments that force them to live lives making choices between necessity and payment. We have welfare systems that keep people from being able to live productive lives. God says to us all that God will free us and give us liberty. Today the church should stand for the oppressed man, woman and child in the world around us. God’s love does give us liberty from oppression knowing that this is not the end all of life. There is something bigger and better.

God said that I will redeem you. The reason we are here today is because God kept that promise. Not just for the people of Israel but for the whole world. Jesus came into this world fully human and fully divine. But the fully human part gave all that He had to give in atonement for our sins.

I will take you as my people. God told the people of Israel that they would become the people of God. Here we are as much as three thousand years later and nothing has changed. The people of Israel are the chosen people of God. That has not changed in the thousands of years since the freeing of the Israelites from Egypt. Paul reminds us of this in Romans 11.

God says that I will be your God. In our world today there are many Gods. We call them idols. We worship them whether we acknowledge that or not. There are many worshippers of money, of worshippers of material things and of self. And yet, God has created an unbroken covenant with us to be our God

I have had the pleasure of talking to lots of folks in my time together with folks. One of the topics of conversation always seem to center around what in next in life, what is my purpose in life, and what are the right answers to life’s most difficult questions. I often say that the answers are right in front of us if we would simply open the book and read it. God has continually created covenant after covenant in hopes that we would get it. God has never broken a promise in all the history of humanity. Some of the covenants are conditional and it is we, the human side of this agreement that have fallen short of the glory of God. But God has never even bent the rules on an agreement, promise or covenant that God has made with us.

Several years ago, a preacher from out-of-state accepted a call to a church in Houston, Texas. Some weeks after he arrived, he had an occasion to ride the bus from his home to the downtown area. When he sat down, he discovered that the driver had accidentally given him a quarter too much change. As he considered what to do, he thought to himself, 'You'd better give the quarter back. It would be wrong to keep it.' Then he thought, 'Oh, forget it, it's only a quarter. Who would worry about this little amount? Anyway, the bus company gets too much fare; they will never miss it. Accept it as a 'gift from God' and keep quiet.'

When his stop came, he paused momentarily at the door, and then he handed the quarter to the driver and said, 'Here, you gave me too much change.'

The driver, with a smile, replied, 'Aren't you the new preacher in town?'

'Yes' he replied.

'Well, I have been thinking a lot lately about going somewhere to worship. I just wanted to see what you would do if I gave you too much change. I'll see you at church on Sunday.'

When the preacher stepped off of the bus, he literally grabbed the nearest light pole, held on, and said, 'Oh God, I almost sold your Son for a quarter.'

Please turn to page 52 in your hymnals with me. Covenant – a relationship between two where one gives something in consideration for the services of another. Covenant of God – a relationship where God offers something whether we reciprocate or not.

Today we will share in covenant together as we share in the words of the United Methodist Church vows under the title Thanksgiving. Let us rejoice in the faithfulness of our covenant God.
We give thanks for all that God has already given us.

As members of the body of Christ and in this congregation of The United Methodist Church,

We will faithfully participate in the ministries of the church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

Are we willing to covenant or will we sell our soul for a quarter?  

Love is the answer

Sermon given at Sydenstricker UMC 2/12/17

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Scripture Reading:

^NRS  John 3:1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." ³ Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" ⁵ Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' ⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶ "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Today we are pulling materials from two of John Wesley’s sermons. The first is titled Original Sin from 1759 and the second is titled God’s Love to Fallen Man from 1782.

The writers and intellectuals of John Wesley’s day began to explore the ideas of enlightenment, that human beings were both innocent and perfect from birth and because of that there was in fact no such thing as original sin. Since there was no sin there was no need for God and for divine grace. Some things haven’t changed in the last 250 plus years. In fact John Wesley argues they have even gone so far as to say that in reality we are created just a little less than God. But if that is true, Wesley asks, “…what must we do with our Bibles? For they will never agree with this.” [i] 

Wesley suggests that if we were born and never educated about God, we would never have a relationship with God. He uses the example of infants raised without being spoken to who develop no language outside of infant babbling raising the reality that language is learned just as everything else. We know that children must be taught how to reason between right and wrong. Without such education children become little more than animals fighting and manipulating for what they desire. That leads to the conclusion then that what God saw before the flood is in fact the reality of human behavior. The truth is we are born with a self-centered brain focused on what we need, desire and want. Our very nature then is selfish and evil in that we don’t consider the impact on others, only that we are satisfied in our desires. We know for example that there is a ruler in China. We may even have seen his picture or heard his name, but if we were to meet him on the street would probably not know him. So it is with God. If we never have the chance to meet God, the opportunity to learn of God, we would not know God nor desire a relationship with God. No human being loves God by our very nature anymore than we might love a rock or a sunset. So in our inherent nature we invent God. That is why we create idols to replace the emptiness we sense without the knowledge of what that emptiness represents. So we go about our lives doing what we want and to who we want because it is our inherent nature to do so.

So what then separates us from goats or other types of animal? Wesley would suggest that nothing does. The strong among us would find a way to bully the weak and control them into submission. What we see we desire and our nature is to have it any cost. So what then is the answer?

God loves us unconditionally and unendingly. I have often been told that my answer is too simple, that is truly must be more complicated than what I say. There must be rules, doctrines and guidelines that I am not telling and I am using this simplistic explanation to suck people in. But the reality is that it is simply that God loves us unconditionally and unendingly, nothing more, nothing less. We make it difficult because we want to believe that life everything else it life, it can’t be simple and uncomplicated. God loves us unconditionally and unendingly.

In a sense we need to be glad that Adam fell. “For if Adam had not fallen, Christ had not died.”[ii] Could God have prevented Adam’s indiscretion? Absolutely but to what end. If Adam had not had the freedom to sin then “free will” meant nothing and the love of God means nothing. God did not create human beings with intelligence and choice only to attach strings that made creation out to be a puppet show. Because Adam sinned, the world has the ability to know and experience grace. If we never fail we can never truly succeed since it is in failure that we recognize our weakness and seek to find our strength. So our failures led God to send us Jesus out of God’s love for us. Through Jesus we have the opportunity to experience that love first hand.

This week we celebrate the day we celebrate love. It is if you will, one day we set apart during the year to recognize relationship and we find ways to express our relationship with each other especially those special to us. But why only one day each year? Why not every day? Well the answer is probably buried in the background of Hallmark, Candy makers and those who stand to gain millions of dollars from setting aside one day. God wants us to know love every single day of the year. Jesus came to the earth not to bring atonement for sin alone, but more importantly to bring the knowledge of relationship and love. If we view Jesus from the viewpoint of atonement alone, then we center our human existence on what Adam did as the central view of what God created. But God created us perfect, created the world in a desire to bring love into physical reality, and we are the ones that perverted that, not God.

Richard Rohr writes that it was God’s plan all along to bring Jesus into the world. That the 14.8 million years since creation began, God has intended all along to bring Jesus into the world. Not to bring atonement but to allow us to learn about God. Jesus came not to change how God is in relationship with us but how we are in relationship with God.

So what does perfect love look like? I read a poster just the other day that sums up perfect love in a wonderful way. It said, “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. Jesus came to teach us to look at the world perfectly. To see the love that weaves its way in the flaws of humanity, in the creases of age, in the beauty of a sunset and in the imperfections of our bodies. What lies within all of those things is the love that God gives each day, reaching out to us in a desire for us to feel the warmth of an embrace, the whisper of a kiss and the fullness of being loved. Today is the day when we have the opportunity to go out and change the world. It cannot be done through violence, deceit or manipulation. It can only be done when people understand that you care about them in an authentic genuine way. Paul sums it up well when he wrote these words, “⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant  ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  ⁸ Love never ends.”

Jesus summed it up a different way. He said that true love, perfect love is the willingness to lay down your life for it. Complete submission is the way of love for Jesus. It is a love where we give all that we have to another without regard to promises, conditions, strings or even life itself. Imagine with me for a moment that kind of love. Imagine if the world around us learned to love one another in a such a way, that we would be willing to give our lives to secure that love. That is the essence of this scripture this morning and of the one from Corinthians. If we, the people of God, were willing to sacrifice everything so that everyone else in the world could experience that kind of love, then I believe we could and would create paradise here on earth. I believe that is the reason that Jesus came into the world, to show us what that love looks like and to go to the cross that we might experience it.

As we go from this place today let us go with a desire to open our hearts to the world around us. Let us go forth from this place in a desire to share love with everyone we encounter. That is the way of the early disciples. Let it be our way too.   

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[i] Outler, Albert and Heitzenrater, Richard, John Wesley’s Sermons, 1991, Abingdon Press, Nashville, page 326

[ii] Ibid, page 477