Sermon: I'd Die For You

The Power of Love, sermon #4
God So Loved the World Cynthia O’Brien
1 Thessalonians 5:4-18 John 3:16 October 2, 2005

1 Thessalonians

9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.


John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Romans 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.


Continuing our series on Love…

We are exploring examples of love found in scripture, and for these first few weeks we have learned about God’s love, beginning with the love that existed within God, in the Trinity, before the creation of the world. There is also God’s love for his chosen people, a love that was so strong that when the people turned away from God, God felt like the longsuffering husband of an unfaithful wife.

Today we consider John 3:16, God’s love for the world. God’s sacrificial and all-encompassing love for the world.

We are fascinated by sacrificial love. The more scandalous or strange, the more we like it.

People who follow celebrity culture will recall the strange public face of the marriage of Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton five years ago. The public was fascinated by their matching tattoos, and how they wore vials of each other’s blood around their necks. If they were looking for exposure, they certainly got it.

We love stories of what people sacrifice for love. Many of you know the story of the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor. It was 1936 when King Edward VIII spoke on the radio the words that would end his reign:
“You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.”

He had fallen in love with Wallis Warfield Simpson, a twice divorced American, and he had no choice but to abdicate the throne if he were to marry her. They married in 1937, and for the next 35 years of their marriage they were ostracized by the royal family.

Despite the scandal that surrounded the couple, millions of people in Britain and around the world were moved by the King’s sacrifice for love.

This is what makes the sacrament of communion so meaningful and even strange to us: That God, in Christ, would make the greatest sacrifice, giving his life for us. We accept it, but even with our interest in sacrificial love, we really don’t understand it.

---
Nicodemus took a great risk the night he went to meet Jesus. He didn’t want to be seen, but he had encountered something – someone that he wanted to know more.

He was one of the best theological minds, and even he could not understand what Jesus was trying to tell him, about being born again, about being born of the spirit, about eternal life.

Jesus tried to explain this eternal life to a very smart man who was open to learning but who still didn’t understand. It is in this context that Jesus said the words that every Christian child memorizes, words that give perhaps the broadest declaration of God’s love:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

We say it as if it’s obvious, but a man with a high theological intelligence and an open heart couldn’t grasp it.

God loved the world.
If you ask average Americans who follow celebrity news what Angelina Jolie has been doing this year, they’d probably say, “Having an affair with Brad Pitt… or denying it.” But Jolie, who is just 30 years old, has been very, very busy with another love affair that doesn’t make Entertainment Tonight. I might call it a love affair with the world.

In March she was in Washington, D.C to launch a new organization she helped fund, the National Center For Refugee And Immigrant Children, which will provide free legal aid to the thousands of children who arrive alone to the United States each year as refugees and immigrants.

As a United Nations goodwill ambassador, she went to Pakistan in May to tour refugee camps on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. She was calling attention to approximately 3 million Afghan refugees who are still in Pakistan, despite the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

This is not a new thing. Her first big action movie, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” was filmed in Cambodia, and she was moved by the poverty and need there. She adopted a Cambodian baby and looked for other ways to help. Since then, she has taken regular trips to places of the greatest need to raise awareness, including Kosovo, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Chechnya. You can read her journals online at www.unrefugees.org

And this summer she went to Ethiopia and adopted a sickly, malnourished 6-month old girl, who reportedly is now gaining weight and improving. These are just some of her charity efforts this year.

She is in love with the world, specifically with the displaced people of the world.

Do you love the world? You don’t have to be a famous actress to show love on an international scale. In fact, you would be surprised at how many people are sacrificing to help the world, many right here in our church. There’s a good chance that a person occupying the next pew delivered Meals on Wheels last week, or sent a check to Mercy Corps, or wrote a letter to a child they sponsor in Indonesia.

There isn’t enough newsprint to report all the great things that people are doing to love the world.

This is the world that God loves, that God loved enough that he gave his only son. We are called also to have the same great vision – to love the world as God does.

Sermon: You Dun Stomped on My Heart

You Dun Stomped on My Heart
"The Power of Love" series, sermon 3
Hosea chapters 1, 3, 11
Rev. Cynthia O'Brien
September 25, 2005

HOS 1:2 When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." 3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

HOS 1:4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel. 5 In that day I will break Israel's bow in the Valley of Jezreel."

HOS 1:6 Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. 7 Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them--not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God."

HOS 1:8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the LORD said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

HOS 1:10 "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, `You are not my people,' they will be called `sons of the living God.'


HOS 11:1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

HOS 11:2 But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me.
They sacrificed to the Baals
and they burned incense to images.

HOS 11:3 It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.

HOS 11:4 I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them.


There is one kind of music that I just don’t understand, and that’s country music. Well, two kinds, as a club owner once said, “We play both kinds of music here – country AND western.”

Just look at the titles of some of these songs. They frighten me, because the subjects are really serious but the images are so strange:

* Mama Get The Hammer (There's A Fly On Papa's Head)
* You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly
* Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger (When You Go Out at Night)
*Thanks to the Cathouse I'm in the Doghouse with You.
* You're Out Doing What I'm Here Doing Without
*I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling.
*I'm Going to Hire a Wino To Decorate Our Home.
* You Stuck My Heart In a Old Tin Can and Shot It Off a Log
* She Made Toothpicks Out Of The Timber Of My Heart
*I've Been Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart.
* I Got Tears in My Ears From Lying on My Back Crying on My Pillow Over You
* You Done Stomped on My Heart
That last one is the one I actually know. John Denver did that one as one of his comedy songs. I may hate country but I LOVE John Denver. He had a great sense of humor and this was one of the sillier ones

You dun stomped on my heartAnd you mashed that sucker flat
You just kinda sorta stomped on my aorta

I try never to miss an opportunity to make fun of country music. Of all the jokes I tell, this is one I can actually remember past Sunday:

What happens when you play a country song backwards?
You get your girl back, you get your truck fixed,
your mom gets better, and your dog is raised from the dead.

One thing you have to say about country music is that it has a good sense of humor and can poke fun at itself. And here’s something else good about it – It really does get into the salt and pepper of daily life in the Heartland. Songs about your dog and your vehicles, love and loss. Maybe we need these songs. And maybe we need them to be so over-the-top and ludicrous that we laugh. Because the pain that the songs describe is so great.

The story of Hosea and his wife Gomer would make such a bad country song that I’ll bet even my boot-scootin’ friends wouldn’t listen to it.


the LORD began to speak through Hosea,
I don’t think any of these Old Testament prophets really wanted to BE prophets. It’s not a glamorous life like being a television preacher. It’s not warm and inspiring like pastoring a nice church. Prophets had a hard life. And of all the prophets, I think Hosea got the worst deal.

the LORD said to him, "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness,

In chapter 3 Hosea must not only marry but also love a woman who has another lover and who is an adultress.

Nobody wants to marry someone who’s going to cheat on you. It will ruin your life and you probably won’t even get a good country song out of it.

It also ruins your reputation. Every minister looking for a job, every church member whose name is put up for elder or deacon, knows that your spouse reflects on you. The character of your spouse can boost your credibility, or it can trash you. I am very surprised we don’t have a record of Hosea protesting, “No, Lord, don’t make me do this.”

God wants Hosea to marry a loose woman who is going to break his heart.

Most prophets are spokespersons for God and they actually speak. They receive a message from the Lord, and they broadcast it wherever people will listen – in the Temple, in the marketplace, in the streets. But in Chapter 1 Hosea doesn’t speak at all. This isn’t going to be a ministry of words. It is all action.

3 So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim,

Everyone in town knows him and everyone knows Gomer. This is shocking. Can you see the best man taking Hosea aside before the wedding and saying, “Get a grip, man, you can’t marry her, she’s no good.” But the Lord is making him do it, and this is the reason:
because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD."

This is not about Hosea and Gomer’s marriage. Marriage is about joy and mutual love and commitment. It’s too bad that Hosea won’t get to have the joy of marriage. This will be something completely different. It is going to be a dramatic way to tell the people of Israel about their unfaithfulness to God.

They had three children. Children are supposed to be a blessing, but here there’s another plan.

HOS 1:4 Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call him Jezreel,
the place where there was a brutal massacre. God will punish Israel for slaughtering those people

Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, which means literally “she is not pitied.” and means that God will not have compassion on the people.

This is sad. Children’s names are important, and especially in that day, your name meant everything. These kids’ lives will be ruined by these names.

Gomer had another son.

9 Then the LORD said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, which means, “not my people,” for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

This is like after saying “I do,” and you process down the aisle to joyful music, your new husband or wife turns to you and says, “I don’t.” Remember God had made a covenant, saying “You will be my people and I will be your God.” Read it in Exodus 6, Leviticus 26, Jeremiah 11 and so forth. “You will be my people and I will be your God.” It is an exact nullification of the covenant that God had with Israel. “Not my people.”

The three children’s names are God’s threats to Israel.
-I will destroy you
- I will not have compassion on you
- You are not my people.

Yet there is a note of hope
I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them-

So Hosea is trying to hold a marriage together with a woman who couldn’t care less about his feelings, who stays out all night and comes home with her shirt on backwards, who takes care of the kids when it suits her and just leaves them when she’s got something better to do. It’s horrible.

So what does Hosea? What are his prophecies all about? They are desperate words as he tries everything to get her back. In chapter 2 he says he will punish her, or build a wall around her so that she can’t pursue her lovers. He tries to set her straight on who’s providing for her; She thinks all her bread, wool and silver come from her lovers, but he says that he is her provider and that they all come from him.

Before we know what’s happened, this is not about Hosea and Gomer at all. It’s about Israel, the people, the chosen people, who have been unfaithful to God. It’s about God as a desperate husband who loves a slutty wife and still wants to give her everything, if she will only come home.

Now Hosea feels what God feels. Hosea’s bitter experience of his wife’s unfaithfulness gives him insight into God’s relationship with Israel. God said, “You will be my people” but then they were unfaithful.

God made them free to receive his love, but they made some crazy looking idols and loved them instead.
God provided for their needs, but they gave false gods the credit for providing for them.

That was a long time ago, halfway around the world, but people for the most part haven’t changed. Unbelievers may ignore God, but when believers turn away, it breaks God’s heart. Think of a time that you turned away from God. It could be when you were a young adult, or it might be now. You may have felt far from God, or you may have been busy, wrapped up in your own concerns. Did you ever think of how God felt? God cares about you, God weeps for you, and when you turn away from God it’s like a kick in the teeth.

God wanted us to know how he felt, that’s why he made Hosea suffer. God wanted us to know that he is always faithful to us. God wanted us to know that there are consequences to our unfaithfulness to him. One of those consequences is the pain and hurt God feels.

Are we unfaithful to God in the way we live our lives? In our work, in our family, in the way we use our money, in how we spend our time? God weeps over you and wants you back.

Leslie Brandt wrote some contemporary reflections on the prophets in his book Prophets Now. ... [page 74-75]

Let us pray.

Faithful God, forgive our unfaithfulness. Thank you for Hosea, who suffered so that we could understand the depth of your sadness and the extent of your love. Thank you for pursuing us, and for your never ending quest to bring us back to you. Amen.

Sermon: Where Love Began

PL 2 Where Love Began
Cynthia O’Brien
September 18, 2005
Proverbs 8:22-35, Hebrews 1:1-9

Proverbs 8

"The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old;
PR 8:23 I was appointed from eternity,
from the beginning, before the world began.
PR 8:24 When there were no oceans, I was given birth,
when there were no springs abounding with water;
PR 8:25 before the mountains were settled in place,
before the hills, I was given birth,
PR 8:26 before he made the earth or its fields
or any of the dust of the world.
PR 8:27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
PR 8:28 when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
PR 8:29 when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
PR 8:30 Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence,
PR 8:31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.
PR 8:32 "Now then, my sons, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways.
PR 8:33 Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not ignore it.
PR 8:34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors,
waiting at my doorway.
PR 8:35 For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.

.
HEB 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

“Where Love Began”

[Main point: The strongest, most intimate love that exists in the universe is the love within the Divine. It is the love between the Father and the Son, so strong that it generates the Holy Spirit. This is the origin of all intimacy. It is so strong that it generates the Spirit. ]


I read an essay that Cole Kazdin of New York wrote for Salon called “Sex in a Time of Terror.”[1] He described how about a week after 9/11, his friend Ruby had met a man in a bar and he walked her home.

They stood in an awkward moment in front of her building. She said, “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but do you want to come up?” Pause. He hesitated, so she jumped in to reassure him: “No, no, no, not for terror sex – just to see my apartment.”

Terror sex? What was that? Who would even think of sex at this terrible time when thousands had been lost? But Ruby had been noticing a new phenomenon among her friends since that Tuesday. People were having sex like it was the end of the world.

Kazdin interviewed sociology professors at the University of Washington and Yale, who said that people craved sex because it was a way they could say, “I’m alive, I’m functioning.” All of a sudden you didn’t know whether this night would be your last.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. One grandmother described what it was like back in the 1940’s. “Boys were going away and you didn’t know if you were going to see them again.” She married quickly. All her friends did, too. She said, “We were war brides. We used to talk about how the world was going to end.”

In a time of tragedy and terror after 9/11, people needed that closeness. A married couple who had drifted apart physically and preferred their own space found themselves sleeping close to each other again. A single looked for someone he could be with. The natural drive that we have for intimacy was intensified.

Peter Salovey of Yale University, said, “It is wanting the security and closness that it represents.”

Where did we get this need for intimacy? Why do children want to be with Mama or Daddy all the time, and teenage girls have the phone glued to their ear, and young men think about sex an average of 65 times a day?

Go back in history, back to Biblical times, back into the Old Testament, back to Adam and Eve. But they are not the beginning of intimacy, because they were created in the image of God, so we go back before Adam and Eve, to the creation of the world. Before the creation of the world. When there was just God.

The intimacy that you and I crave can be traced all the way back to the existence of God before the creation of the world, and I’d like to explore that with you for a few minutes. It will take some thought, but see if this helps you understand how it is that God is love.

Remember last week we read in 1 John that “God is love.” I was challenged on this by one of my professors, Daniel Fuller, who is the son of the founder of Fuller Seminary. I took his class, "The Unity of the Bible" in which he attempts to explain the great themes and understand why God did what God did. I was his teaching assistant for the class, and later taught the same themes in San Diego, and I still struggle with it. But he also said that we needed to be able to explain these concepts to a junior higher, so I will try to present this clearly.

Dan Fuller said that you can’t say God is love if God didn’t have anyone to love before the creation of the world. Love requires an object. Singers and poets from Mary Martin to Reba Macintire have been singing, “Love isn’t love til you give it away.” To do that requires another person.

Since none of us were around before the creation of the world, and Genesis 1 starts with, In the beginning, God created, is there any hope of knowing what God was like before the creation of the world? It’s in the Bible, but you have to look for it.

In Proverbs 8, “wisdom” speaks of her joy in enabling God to plan the world:

PR 8:30 Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,

But if God is to be pleasing to himself, God has to behold himself. According to American theologian Jonathan Edwards over 100 years ago, “If God beholds himself so as thence to have delight and joy in himself he must become his own Object.”

This is accomplished in the Son, Jesus Christ.

The Son is a completely separate person or center of consciousness. When John 1:18 says that “God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made God known,” there is no other way to understand it than to understand that Jesus from all eternity was both Gopd and also a separate person from God the Father. Further, John 1:1 mentions the Word, regarded as Jesus, as having existed always, alongside of God.

Other religions do not have a Trinity. Judaism and Islam say that God is only one center of consciousness. But God is love. That has no meaning unless God contains at least two Persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person before the world was made, he was not love, and in order to be love, he would be compelled to create a world to love.

When Michael was a kid, he asked a Sunday School teacher why God created everything. She said, “Because God was lonely.” That would be wrong, according to our understanding of Scripture. That would mean God was incomplete and needed us to be fulfilled.

Our catechism and confessions make it clear that God was not compelled to make the world.

Question 25. Did God need the world in order to be God?

No. God would still be God, eternally perfect and inexhaustibly rich, even if no creatures had ever been made. …

Question 26. Why then did God create the world?

God's decision to create the world was an act of grace. In this decision God chose to grant existence to the world simply in order to bless it. God created the world to reveal God's glory, to share the love and freedom at the heart of God's triune being, and to give us eternal life in fellowship with God.

God has a perfect fellowship with the Son, who has always existed alongside him, so you can affirm that God is love. Hebrews 1:3 says,

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being,

Jonathan Edwards reasoned that since the Son, Jesus, “is the very image of the Father, the Father enjoys the glory of the deity by enjoying him.” From all eternity God the Father has enjoyed his son’s love and companionship.

Throughout the Gospels you hear God saying that he loves the Son, and Jesus saying that his Father loves him.

They both have the perfection of beauty, the omniscience to appreciate each other’s glory. They are omnipotent to adore each other. This generates a vital spirit. It is so strong that it is a separate center of consciousness, the Holy Spirit, proceeding from both the Father and the Son in such a way that a third person exists who has all the divine attributes of the Father and Son.

C.S. Lewis explained it well:

“The union between the father and the son is such a live concrete thing that this union itself is also a Person. I know that’s almost inconceivable, but look at it this way.

“You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family, or a club, or a trades union, people talk about the “spirit” of that family, or club, or union. They talk about its “spirit” because the individual members, when they’re together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn’t have if they were apart.

“It is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course it isn’t a real person, it is only rather like a person. But that’s just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and the Son is a real Person, in fact it is the Third of the there persons who are God.”

This is not a new thought. You can find it in the Nicene Creed, which established Christian doctrine in the year 325, and which says that the Spirit proceeds from the father and the son, and who with the father and the son is worshiped and glorified.

So try to get your mind around it: When we say “God is love,” it’s not just about God loving us and caring for us. It would be pretty self centered to think it’s all about us. Rather, there is a love and delight within God’self, and that frees God to love us without needing us to assuage some cosmic loneliness.

So, we can trace our need for intimacy all the way back to the pre-existent trinity. We were created in the image of this loving God, male and female we were created in God’s image. So we crave closeness, companionship, and that’s why God gave us marriage and the family, to provide a place for us to have this deep love.


Opening statement of the Nicene Creed:
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;through him all things were made...


[1] Cole Kazdin, “Sex In a Time of Terror” in essays collected by Salon.com

Sermon: The Power of Love

"The Power of Love"

Sermon # 1 in the series "The Power of Love"
Rev. Cynthia O’Brien
September 11, 2005

Proverbs 3:1-8
Matthew 22:34-40
1 John 4:7-12

PR 3:3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
PR 3:4 Then you will win favor and a good name
in the sight of God and man.
PR 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
PR 3:6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.


MT 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

MT 22:37 Jesus replied: " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."


1JN 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.


This month we are starting a series called “The Power of Love.” Along the way we will hear great stories, ponder the wisdom of the ages, discover helps for our marriages and friendships, and learn more about God’s love for us and our love for God.
We will consult the Bible and learned theologians, counselors and philosophers. We will also share our common wisdom and experience with each other. My hope is that after church, over a cup of coffee, after hearing a sermon together, we can share our thoughts with each other on the topic, and maybe tell some great stories.

I promise you in each sermon a good story about love, a verse you can hold on to during the week, and a good joke you can tell tomorrow at work.

Here’s a joke today:

Husband says to wife, “What’s the matter?”
She says, “You never tell me you love me.”
Husband says, “Come on, honey. I told you I loved you 35 years ago on the day we were married… and if anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

What does it take to have the power of love in our lives?

Today we look at one of the strongest messages of love in the Bible, in 1 John.


1JN 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

This is where love started. We didn’t think it up; God loved us first.

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Out of love Jesus spent time with people like Samaritans who would ruin his reputation. Out of love he welcomed children. Out of love he gave himself for us.

We love because God first loved us.

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

How do we do that?

In preschool I learned that love meant to be friendly, share the crayons, don’t push in the snack line, and don’t call each other names.
In junior high, I learned that love meant having the right person pay attention to me.
In high school, I learned that love meant following my heart and my feelings and trying to get the object of my affection to go to the dance with me.

Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

What kind of love is this? It’s not just affection, or acceptance, or passion.
The kind of love that God gives us for one another is the highest kind of love. The Bible calls it agape, or self-giving love, like the kind of love Christ showed for us.

9/11 Story: The Love of Father Mychal

On 9/11, the first recorded death was Father Mychal Judge. He was the Fire Department Chaplain, who was killed by debris while administering last rites to a firefighter who had been struck by a body falling from the towers. Rescue workers would not leave him there. They carried the chaplain’s body several blocks to St. Peter’s Church and placed it on the altar.

Father Mychael was dearly loved by thousands of people. He was the kind of person who made you feel like you were important to him. He "treated everyone like family."

Back in 1996, Father Judge was informed about the crash of TWA flight 800 off Long Island in which all 230 people aboard were killed. For more than two weeks straight, Father Judge drove daily from Manhattan to the Ramada Inn near J.F.K. Airport. There he spent 12 hours a day consoling friends and families who had lost loved ones.

The moment he heard about the World Trade Center, he drove straight down there with a couple of firemen, and went to work.

At his funeral, the Rev Michael Duffy said, “He was where the action was, he was praying, talking to God,helping someone. Can you honestly think of a better way to die? Three hundred firemen are still buried there. It would have been impossible for him to minister to all of them in this life. In the next life he’ll greet them with that big Irish smile and say, ‘Welcome. Let me take you to our father.”

-- from “September 11, 2001: A Record of Tragedy, Heroism and Hope
compiled by the editors of New York Magazine


These kinds of stories inspire us. Father Mike. Mother Theresa. The great people who gave so generously. Then about an hour later, we’re no longer inspired. I go home from church and yell at my kids and realize that I’m never going to be like that. Why can’t I love like they do? It’s hard enough just to love the people in your immediate space.


A man went in to see his pastor and said, “My marriage is over.” The pastor said, “The Bible says to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Can you do that?” “Oh, no, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Well, the Bible says love your neighbor as yourself. Can you love her as your neighbor?” “No, I don’t think I can do that either.”
“Fine,” said the pastor. “The Bible says you should love your enemies and pray for them. Start there.”


C. S. Lewis had the same idea when he wrote about loving your neighbor in his book, Mere Christianity:
“It would be quite wrong to think that the way to become "loving" is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings. Some people are "cold" by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is sin; and it does not cut them off from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning "love." The rule for us all is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you "love" your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we learn one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love them.

Whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made like us by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.


If you want the power of love to be at work in your life, you have to love others, there’s no getting around it. But you can start small. Baby steps, as they say. Just start where you are.

I knew a woman who was depressed and lonely much of the time, and she didn’t feel like loving anyone. But there was one thing that helped her. She said, “When I find someone else who is worse off than I am, and I try to help them, that makes me feel better.”

On September 11 there was a woman who lived in Staten Island who was concerned about all the people who would be displaced by the devastation and would be coming her way. What could she do? She had three phone lines in her home, so she put the phones at tables along one wall, called the local pizza and her friends to bring over food, and went down to the ferry with a sign, telling people that they could come to her house for a shower, food and to use her telephone. She started with what she could do.

The Bible says, God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
So Dear friends, let us love one another

Let us pray.

God of love, reassure us of your love, and help us to love others. We pray in the name of Jesus, who gave himself for us. Amen.

Memory Verse

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Proverbs 3:3

NEW SERIES: The Power of Love

From the Pastor
Fall Series Lifts Up “The Power of Love”

The power of love is a curious thing. Make one man weep, make another man sing…Don’t need money, don’t take fame, don’t need no credit card to ride this train.It’s strong and it’s sudden and it’s cruel sometimes, but it might just save your life…
Huey Lewis and The News, “The Power of Love”

An elder told me that he thought people at our church would appreciate sermons on Christian marriage and Christian parenting. My first reaction was, “Let me try to find someone who knows something about that!” But with 15 years experience at one and six at the other, I’m right in the middle of the journey along with so many of you. I am married to a wonderful man with whom I have great communication, and who inspires me to try to be the best wife I can be. And you know my two Beauties and may have your own opinion on my parenting skills. (Help! I have to go start the service! Somebody find Laurel!)

Besides being a wife and a parent, I have many interesting resources from doing premarital counseling – topics like communication and common vision – that can be applied to different life situations. And for over 20 years I’ve collected books about love, including love poems, love around the world, love letters and quotes about love. As I seek to fill my life with love, I think I’ll have fun preparing these messages.

The larger context: Christian love
But don’t think the “love” sermons will be just about relationships. That’s the way our society thinks of love, and it’s very limiting. Love is a much broader topic than what you find in romance novels, movies and television. Theologian Leon Morris wrote that the idea of love as sexually oriented passion “is much more limited than the wide-ranging, sacrificial love to which Christians aspire. If we look to modern novelists or modern western society to define love, we will not understand Christian love.”

So while the sermons will have lots of helpful ideas for marriage and parenting, they will be set in the larger context of a whole series called “The Power of Love,” including messages on God’s love for us and our love for God. My goal for each Sunday is to bring you a strong message of the power of love which can inspire all of us, regardless of our marital status or stage of life.

I recognize that not all experiences of love are positive. “Whoever thought up the idea of love is no friend of mine,” says a bitter woman in a song by Dar Williams. If you are wishing you knew how to love better, if you are desperate to find love, or if you are in recovery from the loss of a love, you are in my thoughts and prayers as I prepare these messages. Plan to bring a friend to church to get inspired and receive God’s love for you.

I would love to hear your stories or ideas. I can also recommend books if you want to do additional reading. Call me, come see me, or e-mail at riverandvine@verizon.net.

Here are some of the topics I’m working on and books I’m looking at.

God’s love for the unlovable
The faithful and unconditional love of God
The cross as the foundation for Christian love
Our love for God – feeling it, expressing it
Love and wrath – closer than you imagine
Is love an emotion or a decision?
When love hurts
Loving your enemies or people who are just annoying
Parenting with love
Affection and true friendship
Self-love and acceptance
Love for humanity and for those in need
Neil Warren’s The Triumphant Marriage: 100 Extremely Successful Couples Reveal Their Secrets
Ed Wright’s Understanding the Men in your Life and Before You Say I Do
Les and Leslie Parrott’s Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
Gary Smalley’s The Five Love Languages and Winning Your Wife Back
Sandra Gray Bender’s Recreating Marriage with the Same Old Spouse
Leon Morris’ Testaments of Love will be my guiding theological framework.

INXS host gets it

Rock Star: INXS is a TV show in which singers compete to be the new lead singer of the Australian band INXS. Mig, a 35-year old musician from London, brought the house down August 16 with a heartfelt rendition of Peter Frampton’s “Baby I Love Your Way.” After the performance, host/judge Dave Navarro (guitarist for Jane’s Addiction and husband of Carmen Electra) told Mig, “Every week we sit here, I'm usually thinking about what my comments are going to be. Tonight all I could think about is how much I love my wife."

Isn’t that the purpose of a love song? That’s what we’ll be after with this series on love. Not just to give you important information about God’s love and how to love each other, but to invite the Word of God to transform us, so that we are filled with love. It is the same thing that our church musicians aspire to. They are not interested in having us evaluate and applaud a “performance”; rather, they hope that you’ll be drawn close to God and be empowered to praise God when they are singing and playing.

A new opportunity: TalkBack on Mondays

Michael and I are opening our home on Monday nights in the fall to anyone who wants to join us for dinner and discussion of the previous day’s sermon. It may include: Q and A on the sermon, additional information and stories that didn’t make it from my desk to the pulpit, relevant jokes and quotes that were not suitable for preaching, sharing ideas for applying the message to our lives, supporting each other, and a preview of next week’s message. We also might share songs (live or on CD) and even watch video clips that relate to the topic of love.

Sign up on Sunday morning at church to come over the following evening. We will provide a simple supper at 6:30 p.m. and be finished around 8 or 8:30. Your children are welcome. Briefly turning on our TV to check the football scores is also OK. For more information, give me a call, and I look forward to spending time with you!

Cynthia O’Brien

The Story in Our Stained Glass Windows

The Story of Christ and the Church
in the Stained Glass Windows
Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church
Fairview, Oregon

most recently presented September 4, 2005
by Rev. Cynthia O'Brien

NOTE: You can print out this guide and take your own self-guided tour of the windows. Visit the church any weekday during office hours (we close at noon on Fridays) or on Sunday morning.

St. Augustine said, “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” Of course he was speaking about our lives as examples of the transforming power of the good news.

We have a story that is good news for the world, a story of hope in the midst of uncertainty, a story of peace in a time of tragic conflict.
Today I hope to tell you the good news in such a way that you’ll be reminded of it every time you step into this sanctuary, and in such a way that you’ll be able to easily explain it to someone else.

From early times artists used translucent glass set in plaster to form a design and give a sparkling effect when placed against the light. During the 10th century, windows began to be used to tell a story or describe an event. In times when very few people could read the Bible for themselves, art and church windows in particular became a big part of the Christian education of the common people. Medieval church windows were called the Biblia Pauperum, or, “The Poor Man’s Bible,” because they told Bible stories in a way that everyone could understand.

Nearly everyone who comes into church here can read, although there will always be some who can’t, including small children. But everybody who can see can gain something from this art.

Like those medieval windows, our window tells a story – our story – of the Christian faith and the Christian church. This design is unique to our church. It was generated by a group of thoughtful church members who wanted to reflect the values and interests of Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church. It has not been reproduced anywhere else. But it speaks to more than just the members of our congregation. It is admired by people who come here for weddings, baptisms, funerals and other special occasions. Because it is symbolic, it crosses barriers of language and culture.

Walk with me, and let’s look with fresh eyes.

The Story of the North Windows
Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church
Fairview, Oregon


I. The North West Section. God’s gift of love to us.
Running through all the windows is the RIVER. Imagery of water runs through the entire Bible, beginning in Genesis
(Gen 1:1-2 NIV) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
God gave water in the wilderness.
(Num 20:11 NIV) Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

Also running through all the windows is the VINE. The vine is a symbol of how we are connected to Christ. Jesus said,
(John 15:5 NIV) "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

God loved us so much that he gave us Jesus.
The SWORD is the word of God.
(Heb 4:12 NIV) For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Its yellow rays pierce, expose and bring light to everything.
God’s word cuts through darkness and everything that is wrong, bringing light and truth. Jesus is the Word. He is truth and light.

(John 1:1-18 NIV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. {2} He was with God in the beginning. {4} In him was life, and that life was the light of men. {5} The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

{9} The true light that gives light to every one was coming into the world. {14} The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. {18} No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

The sword points directly to the MANGER where light and truth broke into our world.
(Luke 2:16 NIV) So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

(Phil 2:5-8 NIV) Christ Jesus, being in very nature God, made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. {8} And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself

One of the rays pierces a VASE which is an early church symbol for the virgin birth.
(Mat 1:23 NIV) "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" --which means, "God with us."
The Word of God pierces Mary but does not break the vase. She remains a virgin, and is a vessel for the birth of the son of God. But there will be pain in her life:
(Luke 2:35 NIV) And a sword will pierce your soul.

The ADULT CHRIST wears red symbolizing royalty.
And Jesus grew in stature and in wisdom and in favor with God and with people.

The RIVER continues here. Jesus is the bringer of living water.
(John 4:10 NIV) Jesus answered the woman at the well, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

The TRANSFIGURATION of Christ. (Panel 3)
(Luke 9:28-31 NIV) As Jesus was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening,.. in glorious splendor.
His deity is revealed, his divine essence depicted here by the red gem stones.

THE CRUCIFIXION. The red on the cross reminds us of Christ’s blood shed for us.
The RIVER continues here: When Jesus is on the cross and a soldier pierces his side with a spear, water flows out.
(John 19:34 NIV) one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

The WHEAT and the SEED rolling off the cross remind us that Jesus said,
(John 12:23-25 NIV) "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. {24} I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. {25} The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

II. The North Section: Jesus Overcomes Death
Watch the SEED falling from the cross, signifying death.

Panel 2. The empty TOMB, with the stone rolled away in panel 3.
(Mat 28:2 NIV) an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

The YELLOW LIGHT is the power of God which raised Jesus from the grave. The SWALLOWS are another early church symbol of resurrection life. The SEED from the cross falls, dies, and then bursts into new life. Jesus has conquered death.

The RIVER now meets the blue waters of baptism. As Christ died and was raised, so in our baptism we share in Christ’s death and in the promise of being raised up with him.
(Rom 6:4-5 NIV) We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life… We will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

Next to the tomb are large GRAPES, with a wine DECANTER, another symbol of Christ’s blood shed for us.

A heavenly and earthly scene in one. The RAINBOW reminds us of God’s promises. Worship in heaven is taking place along with worship on earth as the church gathers around the COMMUNION TABLE to celebrate Christ’s presence with his church, as Christ himself gives us nourishment for our souls. This is Christ, again in red, presiding at his table with the BREAD and CUP. The gem stones again symbolize his deity.

The communion table is parallel with the burial stone. This is an image from the Eastern Orthodox church: the tomb of sacrifice becomes the table of communion. Communion celebrates Christ overcoming death. Now he calls us also from death to life.

Here is pentecostal FIRE symbolizing the birth of the church and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2: The believers were praying, and then the Spirit came and rested upon each of them, looking like tongues of fire.

III. North East Section – Jesus sends us out in mission

God has given us a precious gift in Jesus Christ, and Christ has overcome death. Now he invites us to be the church, and this panel describes the life and mission of the church.

This faith is so important, it’s even worth dying for. The early church was characterized by martyrdom, in other words, believers being killed for their faith. The three brown stones are for the first martyr, Stephen, in Acts 7.
Stephen said "Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." {57} At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him…While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
Here is the gray ALTAR.
(Rev 6:9-11 NIV) When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. {10} They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" {11} Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.
The ALTAR with the SWORD reminds us of the church suffering through the centuries until Christ’s return. Even now, in many parts of the world, Christians are dying for their faith.

But even in this time when God’s kingdom is not completely realized, we do not lose heart. Here the grape vine becomes a PALM BRANCH which is a symbol of triumph and victory.
(John 12:12-13 NIV) The great crowd heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. {13} They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna! " "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" "Blessed is the King of Israel!"

In Panels 3-5 we find the mission of the church. At the top of the windows are fields of golden wheat, representing the many people and nations who do not know God.
(Luke 10:2 NIV) Jesus told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Jesus called his church to “Go, make disciples of all nations.” Matt 28. The waters remind us of the disciples who fished at the shore, and the green NET of Jesus calling the disciples. It reminds us to evangelize the world, as Jesus said, “I will make you fishers of men. From now on, you will fish for people.” Matthew 13:47

The TOWEL and BASIN and PITCHER OF WATER. Jesus used these to wash his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper, to show them the extent of his love. So we are called to serve one another in Christian love. An important defense of Christianity has always been that they loved each other so completely.

The story doesn’t end here. The waters continues all the way to heaven:
(Rev 22:1-2 NIV) Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb {2} down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Healing waters flow from the throne of God in that great day, when the Kingdom of God has been fully realized. John writes about it in the Revelation:

(Rev 21:1-5 NIV) Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. {2} I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. {3} And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. {4} He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." {5} He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

This is the story of how much God loves us, how Christ overcame death, how we are called to life with him and the hope of glory. That Christ is
The Light in the darkness
The Eternal Word
The living water
The Seed that grows
The Resurrection and the Life
The host at the great communion

And that the church is based on
The foundation of Christ
The courage of the martyrs
The assurance of victory.

Our mision is to go forth into the world to proclaim this good news, to gather others in, to love and serve one another even as Christ loves and serves us.
to the glory of God -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

April 2, 2000

Sermon: Earth and All Stars

Psalm 8, Acts 17:22-34
Cynthia O’Brien
"Earth and all Stars"
August 28, 2005

PS 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
PS 8:2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise
because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

PS 8:3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
PS 8:4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
PS 8:5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
PS 8:6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
PS 8:7 all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, PS 8:8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

PS 8:9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

AC 17:22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

AC 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 `For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.'


In Sunday School, the little ones were learning about creation. The teacher asked, “Who made the sun?”
The students said, “God!”
“Who made the moon?”
“God!”
“Who made the stars?”
“God,” they all said, except for Tyler, who said, “Grandma.”
When the teacher asked him about it, Tyler stuck by his story, that Grandma made the stars.
Later the teacher caught up with the grandma and told her about it. The grandma reacted with surprise: “O, my stars!”


When was the last time you were out at night and looked at the stars? Has anyone been camping this summer or away from the city and looked at the stars? I did when I was up in Leavenworth earlier this summer, since the artist’s guild is located in a valley where there is hardly any artificial light. Also, earlier this summer there was a night when I heard the weatherman on the late news say that the moon appeared very large, and I hadn’t seen it, and since I live on the northwest side of Gresham Butte I had to get in my car and drive around in the middle of the night looking for a good view.

Psalm 8 reminds me to look up.

PS 8:3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

This is a night time scene. Over the last couple of weeks, we have reflected on some texts that have beautiful daytime imagery, “For the beauty of the earth,” “the birds their carols raise, the morning light, the lily white”

But I see the opening of Psalm 8 as a night time scene. In the day, you can look around at what God has made on the earth. But at night, when you lift your eyes you look far beyond the earth.

We are fascinated by space. When Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau returned from a flight on the space shuttle, someone asked him what was most memorable. He said, “The view of the Earth! It was incredibly beautiful. The hardest thing I had to do up there was tear myself away from the window.”

Fewer than 500 people have had that view. Only 12 have actually walked on the moon. But now, our generation has been able to reach out to space through robot probes and powerful telescopes and photographs.

The night sky has a powerful attraction for us, at least for me. When I was about 12 years old, my mom went to work for Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA in Pasadena, and over the 20 years she worked there she brought home all the latest color photographs from Voyager, pictures of the moon and planets and space. In college I took an astronomy class and subscribed to Astronomy magazine and went out late at night to look through telescopes. Even now, when I read that the Perseid Meteor Shower is coming, I always mark it on my calendar even though I can’t usually go out to Rooster Rock in the middle of the night with the astronomy club.

When you look at the stars, you are seeing history. You are not seeing what they are now, but what they were, decades or centuries ago.

If you are 75 years old and you look at the Big Dipper, you are seeing those stars as they were when you were born. It takes that long for the light to get from there to here. They are 75 light years away.

Other stars you see are 7,000 light years away, yet they are still part of our galaxy, the Milky Way. There is one other galaxy that you can see with the naked eye. It is the nearest one to us, the Andromeda Galaxy, and you can find it in the late fall sky directly south of the constellation Cassiopia’s famous W shape. It looks hazy because it is two million light years away. And that’s the nearest galaxy.

Now, the Hubble space telescope can detect galaxies 13 billion light years away. In 1996 it made a landmark photograph – They pointed the telescope at an unremarkable piece of sky that is about the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, about the size of a dime 75 feet away. They made an exposure for 275 hours – Most pictures you take are a fraction of a second, this was 10 days. This image penetrates deep into space. Everything you see here is a galaxy. This yellow spiral galaxy is about 800 million light years away.

We marvel at supernovas and quasars. We wonder at black holes and dark matter.


People in ancient times had many questions about the universe. Carl Sagan said, “Finally, in our generation, the answers we seek are within our reach.” I say, some of them are, many are not. Our increasing knowledge about the universe does not stop us from wondering how it all began, who, if anyone, created it, and what our place is in it.

PS 8:3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

This is God’s work. It rolled off God’s fingertips. God set the moon and stars in place.

Space is mostly empty space, even though the photographs make it look like there’s a lot there. In one episode of “Cosmos,” Carl Sagan took a big straw and a bowl of soapy water to demonstrate this. He blew bubbles in it and explained that the galaxies are arranged as if they were on the surface of bubbles in your bubble bath. The stars are on curved planes, with lots of empty space in the bubble, and they bump into other curved planes of galaxies. But, he said, he wasn’t saying whether he knew if there was a bubble blower who arranged them.


You may have heard how some people are advocating teaching “Intelligent Design” in the schools. Proponents of ID say that life was created, although it is silent about who that creator might be.

It doesn’t flatly reject evolution. The movement’s main positive claim is that there are things in the world, most notably life, that cannot be accounted for by known natural causes and show features that, in any other context, we would attribute to intelligence. Living organisms are too complex to be explained by any natural—or, more precisely, by any mindless—process. Instead, the design inherent in organisms can be accounted for only by invoking a designer, and one who is very, very smart.

All of which puts I.D. squarely at odds with Darwin. Darwin’s theory of evolution was meant to show how the fantastically complex features of organisms—eyes, beaks, brains—could arise without the intervention of a designing mind.

We believe that God designed and created our universe, and not only that, but God made human beings. When David wrote this, he juxtaposed the greatness of the heavens with his small self.

PS 8:4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

This line demonstrates tremendous humility, but people haven’t demonstrated a tendency towards being humble. We believe we are special because we are naturally self centered. Ancient people believed that the sun, moon, planets and stars all revolved around us, and who could blame them? When astronomers discovered red shifts that indicated that other stars and galaxies were moving away from us, not slowly, but at millions of miles per hour, who could blame them for believing that our galaxy was the center of the universe?

Now we know that we spin around on this medium sized planet around a medium sized star that is located on an edge of a spiral galaxy that is one of an unrecordable number of galaxies.

If a man is small in comparison to creation, a man’s son is even smaller. Let’s look back at verse 2

PS 8:2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise
because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

Little weaklings are powerful to God. Nursing babies and toddlers can silence the enemies of God. We are learning something complicated about humanity: We are weak, but God has given us a place of honor, and the responsibility to care for the creation.

By the universe’s standard’s we are insignificantly small and unimportant. But God has given us a speical place in this universe. We have the ability to know God and understand our world. This should do two very important things for us. It should makes us humble, and it should also remind us that we are special to God, the apple of his eye. In ourselves, we are nothing. To God, we are precious. And that is perhaps even more wondrous and awe-inspiring than the greatest mysteries of the universe.

The hymns that we are singing today remind us of these mysteries, if we will pay attention.


JOYFUL, JOYFUL WE ADORE THEE was written by Henry van Dyke graduated from Princeton, served as a pastor for 20 years and became a professor of English Literature. While serving as guest preacher at Williams College, he wrote a hymn, and presented it the next morning to President Garfield saying, "Here is a hymn for you. Your mountains were my inspiration. It must be sung to the music of 'Beethoven's Hymn to Joy.'" which is from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The poem was first published in 1911 and it was called “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” It included these words:

All Thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays, Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise.

Later, van Dyke wrote about it: "These verses are simple expressions of common Christian feelings and desires in this present time, hymns of today that may be sung together by people who know the thought of the age, and are not afraid that any truth of science will destroy religion, or that any revolution on earth overthrow the kingdom of heaven. Therefore these are hymns of trust and joy and hope."

EARTH AND ALL STARS

The hymn “Earth and All Stars” by Herbert F. Brokering is a modern treatment of psalms such as Ps 19 “the heavens are telling the glory of God.” It was written for a Lutheran University and has many more verses includingClassrooms and labs, Loud boiling test tubes Sing to the Lord a new song! Athletes and band, Loud cheering people Sing to the Lord a new song!

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.

Sermon: In Search of the Historical Jesus

Seeing Jesus Sermon #2 Cynthia O’Brien
In Search of the Historical Jesus April 17, 2005


ISA 53:1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

ISA 53:2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

ISA 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.


Mark 6:1-6

MK 6:1 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.
"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3 Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.

MK 6:4 Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.


What was Jesus really like?
Tall? Short? Overweight?
Handsome? Maybe, but maybe not. Isaiah 53, which the Bible seems to indicate describes Jesus, says “He had no beauty or majesty, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
You see a lot of pictures of Jesus with blue eyes and sandy hair. But Jesus was thoroughly Jewish. What if he looked more like someone from Iraq or Saudi Arabia? Would that bother you?

Philip Yancey, in his book The Jesus I Never Knew writes that someone in the 16th century forged a document under the name of Publius Lentulus, the Roman governor who succeeded Pontius Pilate, which contained this description of Jesus:

"He is a tall man, well shaped and of an amiable and reverend aspect; his hair is of a color that can hardly be matched, falling into graceful curls... parted on the crown of his head, running as a stream to the front after the fashion of the Nazarites; his forehead high, large and imposing; his cheeks without spot or wrinkle, beautiful with a lovely red; his nose and mouth formed with exquisite symmetry; his beard, and of a color suitable to his hair, reaching below his chin and parted in the middle like a fork; his eyes bright blue, clear and serene...

Yancey continues: "I recognize that Jesus from the oil paintings hanging on the concrete-block walls of my childhood church. The forger gave himself away, however, with his next sentence: No man has seen him laugh."

Some movies about Jesus have given us that very image, where he is portrayed as having an otherworldly quality. But in the gospels, we see that Jesus was a person of humor. See him performing his first miracle at a wedding, giving playful nicknames to his disciples, and gaining a reputation as a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber..." (Yancey, p. 86)

There’s much we don’t know about Jesus. But for a long time scholars have been asking the question, who was the historical Jesus? Who was the pre-Easter Jesus? What did he say? What did he really do? What did he know and when did he know it?

In Mark, there’s much that we learn in these few short verses.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. 2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed.
"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! 3 Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.

MK 6:4 Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." 5 He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.

He was amazed. Surprised. Truly.

We often ascribe to Jesus total omniscience, as if he knew everything that was going to happen. But if he was fully human, how could he know?

Maybe you can think of a time you were successful…

but when you came home…

Imagine if the Gresham Gophers won three away games in a row, then came back for a home game, and started to play an amazing game but people didn’t cheer.

Or like, remember last year, Josh, when your Gresham High School choir traveled to New York and won the national choral competition, what would it have been like if you came home, did your home concert and people said, “Oh, it’s just Josh Taylor and his friends, we know him, that competition must not have been as hard as we thought."

Jesus had just returned to his hometown from a very successful string of events. (Mark 5) He healed someone of a long term illness, he had shown power over a demon, and he had even raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead.

He then returns to his home town.

Maybe you’ve had this experience, when you went away to college and gained valuable education and skills and grew in wisdom, only to have people not appreciate it.

At my 10 year high school reunion, a group of us were commenting on how radically some people had changed. Then Linda, who looked exactly the same as she had 10 years before, pointed around the circle and said “You’re the same, you’re the same, you’re the same” and to me “you’re the same.”

I wasn’t the same!

I remember before I came here, looking for a pastoral position, and the way the Presbyterians do it, churches and pastors are free to contact each other and choose whomever they want as long as the final choice is approved by the presbytery. In addition to that, we have a kind of computer dating. A pastor seeking a church will put his or her resume in the system, then all the churches seeking pastors put their resumes in the system, and there’s a computer matching based on certain qualifications and interests.

If a pastor sends a resume to the church, you probably should acknowledge it, but if the computer dating gives you a pastor’s name, you don’t have to contact that pastor.

So I was surprised to get a terse letter from my home church, the church where I was a high schooler and on the leadership team in the college group, where I taught young adult Bible study and sang in the adult choir and directed the Spanish speaking choir, and the letter said, we have received your resume for Associate Pastor and we’re sorry but your gifts don’t meet our needs at this time. (which is how they usually say that Puerto Vallarta will freeze over before they'll consider you.)

I couldn’t understand why they would bother, until I read the signature of the chair of the associate pastor seeking committee – it was the sister of one of my classmates.

Then all my teenage stuff came back to me and I thought, even though this church trained me for the ministry, they could never see me as one of their pastors.

This is not all that hard to believe.

Would you want to go to a church where your son or daughter was the pastor? Probably not.

I do know of an exception. Last year you might remember we did the 40 Days of Purpose and studied the book The Purpose Driven Life, and I was working with Pastor Reed Mueller from Columbia Ridge church in Troutdale. I had a few conversations with a woman from that church, Dawn is her name, and about the second or third time we talked, she said, “You may not know that I’m Reed’s mother.”

I said, “You go to church where your son is the pastor?”

Well it turns out that Reed and his family had been attending that church for a while, and he had stepped up out of the congregation to become the pastor. And Dawn loved Reed’s teaching and thought he was a great pastor and had no problem with it.

This is how it should have been for Jesus. The people who knew Jesus best should have been the first to follow him. But they asked, “Whose son is this?” And it may just have been an insult. They were scandalized by his human origins.

The truth is that this happens in families all the time we may be highly skilled in solving all kinds of problems, but we can’t fix our own families. And we’re very familiar with the idea of a prophet being without honor in his or her hometown.

So the question will be: Will Jesus’ family believe? Will those who already have social ties to Jesus, will they believe?

And will you and I, who have such close ties to Jesus already, when God is doing a new thing, will we believe?

Sermon: Holy Humor

“A Reason to Laugh” Cynthia O’Brien
Luke 15 April 10, 2005

This Gospel reading was straight from the version you have in the pew. But sometimes a different translation can help you understand it better.
For example, the story of the Forgiving Father… in the key of F.

“Melody in F”
The story of the Prodigal Son in the Key of F
from “Greatest Skits on Earth, vol. 2” by Wayne Rice and Mike Yaconelli

Feeling Foot-loose and Frisky, a Feather-brained Fellow
Forced his Fond Father to Fork over the Farthings,
And Flew Far to Foreign Fields
And Frittered his Fortune Feasting Fabulously with Faithless Friends.

Fleeced by his Fellows in Folly, and Facing Famine,
He Found himself A Feed Flinger in a Filthy Farmyard.
Fairly Famishing, He Fain would’ve Filled his Frame
With Foraged Food from Fodder Fragments.
“Fooey, my Father’s Flunkies Fare Far Finer,”
The Frazzled Fugitive Forlornly Fumbled, Frankly Facing Facts.
Frustrated by Failure, and Filled with Foreboding,
He Fled Forthwith to his Family.
Falling at his Father’s Feet, he Forlornly Fumbled,
“Father, I’ve Flunked.
And Fruitlessly Forfeited Family Favor.”

The Far-sighted Father, Forestalling Further Flinching,
Frantically Flagged the Flunkies to
Fetch a Fatling from the Flock and Fix a Feast.

The Fugitive’s Fault-Finding brother Frowned on
Fickle Forgiveness of Former Folderol.
But the Faithful Father Figured,
“Filial Fidelity is Fine, but the Fugitive is Found!
What Forbids Fervent Festivity?
Let Flags be un-Furled! Let Fanfares Flare!”

Father’s Forgiveness Formed the Foundation
For the Former Fugitive’s Future Fortitude.

_____________________________________________

Why did Jesus tell these outrageous stories? Why didn’t he tell about perfect families with brothers who get along with each other and who respect their father? Why did he tell about banquets where everything goes wrong, unjust judges and unmerciful slaves?

Maybe because God has a sense of humor. Read the Bible this way and you’ll get it. From the very beginning, people are being funny.

God told Adam " I could create you a partner, that will always adore you, serve you, never be angry and treat you as a King, the only problem is that you must give up an arn or an leg for it" Adam "Hmmm, I don’t know - what can I get for a rib?"

OK, that’s not in the Bible, but you see Eve doing exactly what she shouldn’t, then she cons Adam into it, then when they get caught, Adam blames Eve and God (it was the woman you gave me) and all of a sudden being naked is a bad thing. You can just imagine God slapping God’s forehead and saying, “OK, here we go.”

Abraham and Sarah.
(Frederick Buechner, The Gospel as Comedy)
They are laughing at the idea of a baby’s being born in the geriatric ward and Medicare’s picking up the tab. They are laughing because with part of themselves they do believe it. They are laughing because with another part of themselves they know it would take a fool to believe it. They are laughing because laughing is better than crying and maybe not even all that different. They are laughing because if by some crazy chance it should just happen to come true, then they would really have something to laugh about. They are laughing at God and with God, and they are laughing at themselves too because laughter has that in common with weeping. No matter what the immediate occasion is of either your laughter or your tears, the object of both ends up being yourself and your own life.
God asked about Sarah’s laughter, and Sarah was scared stiff and denied the whole thing. Then God said, “No but you did laugh,” and of course, he was right. Maybe the most interesting part of it all is that far from getting angry at them for laughing, God told them that when the baby was born he wanted them to name him Isaac, which in Hebrew means laughter. So you can say that god not only tolerated their laughter but blessed it and in a sense joined in it himself, which makes it a very special laughter indeed – God and man laughing together, sharing a glorious joke in which both of them are involved.

Jesus shares these kinds of stories.

Take the story of the prodigal son.
This isn’t a story about two brothers who get along perfectly and their successful father. If it were, it would be impossible for us to live with the brothers and fathers and sons that we have. But in the humor of this fractured family, we can find hope for our own families.

What about the apostles? What changed Jesus’ disciples after the crucifixion from a scattered, frightened band of fugitives into the most remarkable collection of human beings the world has ever seen?

Luke 24:51-52 “Now it came to pass, while Jesus blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”

Sherwood Wliot Wirt says: “Joy was what changed them. .. Joy was the atmosphere in the early church. It was euphoria, hilarity, unspeakable gladness. The believers had become aware that the bars of nature had been broken through by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.” [1]

Then Paul writes to the Corinthians about being fools for Christ.

1 Corinthians
“We are fools for Christ’s sake. God is foolish too. God is foolish to choose for his holy work in the world the kind of lamebrains and misfits and nit-pickers and odd ducks and stuffed shirts and egomaniacs and milquetoasts and closet sensualists as are vividly represented by us all.

Frederick Buechner:
“God is foolish to send us out to speak hope to a world that slogs along heart-deep in the conviction that things can only get worse.. He is foolish to have us speak of loving our enemies when we have a hard enough time just loving our friends… God is foolish to have us proclaim eternal life to a world that is half I love with death… God is foolish to send us out on a journey for which there are not maps, and to aim us in the direction of a goal we can never know until we get there. Such is the foolishness of God. And yet, and yet, Paul says, ‘the foolishness of God is wiser than men.’ ”


The followers of Jesus met regularly to share food, to celebrate, to worship. Sharing in the Lord’s supper was a grateful thanksgiving.

In the early Greek Orthodox tradition, an Easter custom developed, in which on the day after Easter, clergy and laity gathered to tell jokes and stories. The theology behind this was that they were celebrating the greatest joke of all, the joke God had pulled on the devil – the Resurrection. Theologians called it Riscus paschalis, the Easter laugh.

We can so easily miss our Easter joy. Once the comedian Groucho Marx was getting off an elevator and he happened to meet a clergyman. The clergyman came up to him, put out his hand and said, “I want to thank you for all the joy you’ve put into the world.” Groucho shook his hand and replied, “Thank you, Reverend. I want to thank you for all the joy you’ve taken out of it.” [2] How often do we go around looking like Easter never happened?

I learned from Jim Moiso that in 390, Chrysostom preached a sermon against it. He said, “This world is not a theatre in which we can laugh, and we are not assembled together in order to burst into peals of laughter, but to weep for our sins… It is not God who gives us the chance to play, but the devil.” [3]

But many Christian theologians through the ages have had a joyful point of view. Martin Luther, a very serious professor and reformer, was also a fun loving spirit and said that the Christian can and should be a joyful person.

Evangelist Paul Rader, pastor of Moody Church in Chicago in the 1920’s, said that laughter is from God. He said, “When God chooses a man, he puts laughter into his life. God is delighted to fill the hearts of men with laughter. The anointing oil that was poured upon the head of David put laughter into David’s life…. It is the oil of Jesus’ presence that makes holy laughter in life – not only in the disposition to laugh at a joke, but the ability to laugh at calamity, to laugh at death, to laugh at the victory which the devil thought he had won.” [4]

Do you laugh at death? Neither do I, but that’s not exactly what is being said here. It’s more of a life attitude, a confidence in knowing you are in God’s hands.

Last Thursday I was driving with Rachel and Laurel when a 4x4 truck hit us. The young man, driving without a license, made a quick turn, didn’t see me and my first view of him was the front of his truck coming right at my window. It was a terrible crash, glass everywhere, pushed us into the curb and totaled my 96 Taurus. This is where you ask me if we’re all OK. Yes, I got the worst of it but the doctor thinks I’ll be better in just a couple of weeks, and the girls are fine.
One thing that was odd is that I wasn’t hysterical after it happened. When the other driver came up to me and told me he was the one who hit us, the first words out of my mouth were “God bless you.” After that, he pretty much avoided me.

If there’s ever a legitimate time for cussing, that was probably it, but I missed the opportunity, maybe because I am just a different person. I’m not laughing, but I know that I’m in God’s hands, and my automatic response this time was thankfulness. If it had been worse, I don’t know what I would have done. But when there’s laughter in your life on a regular basis, when you are enjoying God, when you have the hope that God is good and that God loves you, you handle everything differently.

I am reading this book by Philip Yancey, “The Jesus I Never Knew” – the one we are going to have the study on Monday nights --

He talks about people who had hope. Like the slaves on the plantation, who could keep going because they had hope in God.

Yancey writes, “My wife, Janet, worked with senior citizens near a Chicago housing project judged the poorest community in the United States. About half her clients were white, half were black. All of them had lived through harsh times – two world ward, the Great Depression, social upheavals – and all of them, in their seventies and eighties, lived in awareness of death. Yet Janet noted a striking difference in the way the whites and the balcks faced death. There were exceptions, of course, but the trend was this: many of the whites became increasingly fearful and anxious. They complained about their lives, their families, and their deteriorating health. The blacks, in contrast, maintained a good humor and triumphant spirit even though they had more aparent reason for bitterness and despair.

What caused the difference in outlooks? Janet concluded the answer was hope, a hope that traced directly to the blacks’ bedrock belief in heaven. (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew)

Pope John Paul II was speaking in Trent, Italy, to a crowd of several thousand rain-soaked young people. After warming up the crowd with some jokes, he said,
“Don’t tell your colleagues, and above all the press, that the pope made jokes instead of making a serious meditation on the council… Being holy means living in profound communion with the God of joy, having a heart free from sin and from the sadness of the world.”

[1] Sherwood Eliot Wirt in More Holy Humor P. 175

[2] Joyful Noiseletter 4/2000, p. 7
[3] And God Created Laughter, p. 26
[4] Paul Rader, quoted by Sherwood Eliot Wirt, quoted by Cal Samra, More Holy Humor, page ix