Sermon: My Father's World

“My Father’s World”
Cynthia O’Brien
August 21, 2005
Healing service

ISA 55:12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

ISA 55:13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

Maltbie L. Babcock was born in Syracuse, New York in1858 into a socially prominent family, At Syracuse University, he was a champion baseball pitcher and an outstanding varsity swimmer. His friendliness, coupled with a magnetic personality, made him a natural leader. In the years that followed, he was ordained into the Presbyterian Church and had a distinguished ministry in Baltimore and New York City's Brick Presbyterian Church. He died at the age of 43, while on a Mediterranean tour. Rev. Maltbie Babcock would, by now, be totally forgotten except for one thing: he wrote a song.

He was a skilled musician and a lover of nature. He enjoyed the "great out of doors." While pastoring a church in Lockport, New York, Rev. Babcock was in the habit of taking morning walks to the top of a hill north of Lockport where he had a full view of Lake Ontario and the surrounding countryside. He would say to his wife, "I'm going out to see my Father's world." It was on one of these early morning walks that he was inspired to write these words:

This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world, I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees of skies and seas, his hand the wonders wrought

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their maker’s praise
This is my Father’s world, he shines in all that’s fair
In the rustling grass I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere

Have you ever had a mountain top experience? That’s what we called it when I was in junior high, when we went to camp, you went up the mountain, like when Moses went to meet the Lord, then you came down the mountain, back to school, back to your parents, down to find your heathen friends worshiping the golden calf, so to speak.

I was a camp kid all the way. Starting in Junior High, I went to church retreats every winter and church camp every summer. I also attended a deeply Christian YMCA camp on Catalina Island every summer, and became a perennial counselor and staff person for them over about 10 years. That’s where I took first place in the backgammon tournament, that’s where I learned to row a boat and swallow goldfish, that’s where I had my first kiss, that’s where I fell into a cactus, that’s where I played my guitar until my fingers bled, that’s where I first taught younger people about God. Just mention Catalina and I am back at the place where God is.

And they weren’t really goldfish, they were canned peach slices that we kept in a big bucket of water, pulled them out and wiggled to make them look alive.

Funny how we reach far back in our lifetimes to remember these mountaintop experiences. Fran Sunderland wrote to me of an experience she had:

When I was in junior high I attended a church camp at Silver Creek Falls, now known, I think as Silver Falls. Part of our daily routine right after having breakfast was to go solitary to a place one chose to have devotions. I remember sitting on a slight rise looking down over the small creek and being surrounded by large and numerous fir trees. It was a wondrous sight and one I carry in my memory to this day. It was during this week, being outdoors and having quiet time, that I really began to feel and think of God more closely and deeply by what I viewed from my perch. It was then I my faith became more real to me and I am still awed by His creative hand.

It may not sound like thunder and lightening, but that experience was so meaningful to Fran that it is the one she chooses to tell, some six decades later.

Mountaintop experiences. When you looked out over that vista and you heard the birds sing, even the music of the spheres, when you felt like the planets were aligned and you were at one with the universe. Whether you were on a retreat, or on vacation, or you had a meaningful conversation with someone important, or heard an inspiring message, whether you were hearing some wisdom for the first time, and it was coming to you in a play or in a song. For the time that you were looking at that painting, or hearing that message, you were focused, you were hearing clearly, you were lifted to a higher place.

This is the mountain top experience, when we get away from the distractions of the newspaper or tv, the neighbors, the job, the housework, maybe even from the family, where it’s just you and your best or worst self and God, waiting to be discovered.

It’s on the mountaintop that we find out God is real, that God loves us, that God wants to talk to us. It’s on the mountaintop that we see things as they once were, when God created Paradise, before it was spoiled. It’s on the mountaintop that we get a vision of what we could be, if the way were only clear. God rules on this mountaintop, and that’s the reason we love it so much.

--

We used to sing a song in my high school youth group
And I’d love to live on a mountaintop, fellowshipping with the Lord…
cause I’d love to feel my spirit soar
But I’ve got to come down from the mountaintop, to the people in the valley below
Or they’ll never know that they can go to the mountain of the Lord.

So the mountaintop was not a place you could stay. You had to come down, if only to promote the retreat center to the pagan unbelievers then get yourself back up there where it’s nice.

Well, we do talk about coming down off the mountaintop. Oftentimes we call it “back to reality.” As in, “How was your vacation?” “Great, but now it’s back to reality.”

When we say “reality,” we usually mean, back to the house and the housework, back to work and my insane boss, back to school and having to get up early, back to bad news about Iraq and politics and why do I have to spend $50 on paper towels and markers and paints for my kids’ classroom?

For some of you, “reality” means living with someone who doesn’t treat you well. Not having enough money for the things you need. Spending every morning going to a doctor or trying to straighten out your health care. Worrying about things and people for good reason.

The mountaintop was good, but now here we are. It’s enough to make you discouraged. You were in a place where you said, “This is my Father’s world.” You heard the bees buzz and the birds sing. You were at one with the universe. You saw things as they might have been, as they could be again. But now, “back in reality,” the mountaintop seems like a dream. It was a nice escape, but it’s not real.

Others before me have suggested what I’m about to suggest: Let’s think of the mountaintop as being the reality. Let’s say that reality is what God created and what God rules. It’s not an escape, it’s not a dream, it is the ultimate reality, that God is Lord of creation. God rules that world. It’s love, joy, peace and all the attributes of God. It’s not a retreat, not a getaway.

That’s good news. The great news is that the same creator who made your Paradise, who created your Mountaintop place, is also the creator and ruler of the world you live in. Maybe you work in a place where management yells or cheats. Or you live on a street where all your neighbors are letting developers build homes in between the homes. Or the generation gap is so wide at your family that you’ve given up trying to understand.

God rules your world, too. The God who made the birds sing and the planets converge on your mountaintop is also in the city. God rules your world, and God is just as near as when you were having that lovely moment together.

Rev Babcock didn’t just write about his hilltop view. He had a third verse that talked about how God is the ruler of our troubled world:

This is my Father’s world, O let me ne’er forget,
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.

Then he looked forward to the hope of the future:

This is my Father’s world, the battle is not done
Jesus who died shall be satisfied and earth and heaven be one.

Read in Rev. 21, how this heaven and this earth will pass away, but there will be a new heaven and earth. It won’t be a return to the Garden of Eden, in fact, it’s not a nature scene at all. It is a city, the new Jerusalem, and God will dwell with the people in the city.

It’s easy to see God’s rule in nature. It’s harder to see it in our so-called “back to reality”. So let’s be reminded of this good news:

God cares for you. No matter what you’ve done, or how you’ve messed up, God loves you. And he forgives you. Remember the words we read after our prayer of confession:


PS 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

PS 103:12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

And when your body is falling apart, when you have a migraine or you’re diagnosed with a serious disease, when your heart is aching with loneliness or when you’re filled with anger, God has compassion on you, too. That’s why we pray for healing, because God is compassionate.

I hope you have had some great mountain top experiences, especially the times when you’ve come away with a sure sense of God’s love for you. And when you come back to this part of your life, recognize that God’s rule is the reality, and God rules our daily life just as much as those special times. God wants to be near you now, as well as on your retreat. God wants to forgive you now. God wants to heal you now.