PL 4 When it’s too hot or too cold Cynthia O’Brien
Ephesians 5 October 16, 2005
Galatians 5
EPH 5:15 Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
EPH 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
GAL 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
GAL 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
GAL 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Back in the summer, the elders and deacons suggested that I preach on Christian marriage and parenting, on issues that affect people’s lives. I thought that after preaching on romance and intimacy last week, that this week I might address problems in relationships.
In some marriages, on a given fall evening, the biggest problem they have is whether the room is too cold or too hot. But in other marriages, the cold defines their whole relationship. Jesus even used this metaphor: Their love has grown cold. I wanted to talk about that.
I also wanted to talk about marriages which have grown too hot – where heated arguments and verbal abuse are the norm, where it’s not about submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, but it’s about manipulation and control. I wanted to mention the very real problem of domestic violence.
It’s the latter subject, domestic abuse, that has taken over today’s message, especially since I went to a workshop Saturday about it. This was at Metro Church of Christ in Gresham. I heard an international expert, Nancy Nason-Clark, speaking on the subject of Domestic Abuse: The Silence of Faith Communities.
If I stay silent, I become part of the problem, and I have been part of the problem every time I’ve missed the opportunity to listen to someone who is in trouble. So let me talk to you about it.
The subject of domestic abuse is a sensitive subject in churches. We are nice people. We can’t imagine that the nice woman sitting in the next pew might be afraid to go home after church, or that the nice man who helps out all the time has put his wife in the emergency room three times this year. We see a friend with a black eye and we make a joke about it, rather than rightfully wondering whether she is safe.
Talking about domestic violence is important because it affects lives right here in this church. I know this applies to some of you, but I don’t tell your story to anyone and I won’t tell it today. Others of you may be in a difficult situation unknown to me, and you’ve been afraid to say anything.
Story of Martha and Daniel, First Presbyterian Church of Birch Grove. (No Place for Abuse: Biblical and Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence, Catherine Clark Kroeger and Nancy Nason-Clark, IVP 2001.)
Domestic violence exists in every country, in every neighborhood.
40 percent of pastors say that they have preached a sermon on abuse. But 95% of church women report they have never heard a sermon on abuse.
58 % of church women have helped an abused woman. But many Christian women who have been abused do not feel that the term “abused woman” applies to them.
A seminary student who abused his wife told Nancy Nason Clark, “No one ever told me it was wrong.”
But the church is a safe place, right? Not always.
March 4, 2005 A United Methodist News Feature By Allysa Adams
The first time Debbie Harsh was beaten by her husband, the injuries sent her to the hospital. She was scared, demoralized and confused. When she was released from the hospital, she got out of the house, got a restraining order and immediately turned to the only place she felt safe: her church.
She says now, "I always thought that the church would be the first place you go for help.”
But the pastors at her nondenominational Christian church didn't know how to help Debbie. They had good intentions. They sent her to a Christian counselor. The counselor urged her to forgive her husband and drop the order of protection against him.
Debbie says, “The counselor's message was that wives submit to your husband and husbands are the head of the house ... and he pointed out to me that I didn't have my husband's permission for that order of protection.”
When she returned to her husband, the violence continued. She was afraid for her life and the safety of their two daughters, Debbie finally left her 16-year marriage for good in 2000 - against the advice of her pastors and church leaders.
She said, "The pastors wanted to be sure that I wouldn't pursue a divorce, and being beat up by a husband wasn't grounds for divorce. Only sexual (in)fidelity was grounds for divorce."
Debbie founded Domestic Violence Education: An Interfaith Project, and now she works to educate the faith community in Tucson, Ariz., about domestic violence. Since 2003, she has spoken to churches, synagogues, Sunday school classes, church social action committees and other religious groups.
She says, "I can't think of any better place than a faith community-a church-to help victims of family violence.”
The Rev. Paul Caseman, senior pastor at St. Marks United Methodist Church in Tucson, participated in one of the program's seminars to prepare himself to deal with incidents of domestic violence in his congregation and community.
"Sometimes domestic violence is one of those issues we put on the back burner and say, 'Surely domestic violence is not happening in our church,'" Caseman said. "That's naiveté on our part to believe that."
According to the Faith Trust Institute, one-third of all women in relationships report being abused in some way by their husband or boyfriend.
"I think we're all aware that domestic violence is out there. I think when we hear the personal stories and the roles that the churches so often do not play, we realize our unawareness leads to more domestic violence," he said.
__________
Honestly, the good people in most churches simply cannot believe that domestic violence is in their congregations. Abusers can be good at hiding it, and women don’t want to report it. They say that it takes an average of 35 incidents before a woman will report that she is being abused.
Certainly, if her church doesn’t want to hear about it, if her pastor is not supportive, she will not turn to her church for help. But if she hears it preached from the pulpit, and if she finds friends who have time to listen, she might just tell her story.
Every time a pastor preaches about domestic violence and affirms the church’s care for victims, someone always comes forward afterwards and says, “Yes, that’s my story, but I didn’t tell before because I didn’t know how you would react.”
If that’s you, please know I am willing to hear your story, and to care for you, and to respect what you are going through, and to give you resources and find help. Your deacons and elders and church staff and I will be there for you.
I’m going to pick this up again next week. I had planned to talk about wedding vows next Sunday, and I will in a couple of weeks, but there’s more I want to share with you on this subject. What should you be able to expect in the way of safety from a marriage? What does God require of a battered wife?
Next Sunday is the day to bring a friend who needs to hear a message from God. It is a message to women that she should be able to be safe in her home, that she is worth something even if she has had a lifetime of people saying she is worthless and stupid.
It will also be a message to those in positions of power, that the Bible is clear that it is never OK to abuse another person, and that God offers help for the person with an anger problem. We will have resources available in the bulletin. We will also talk about what you should do when you suspect someone is being abused, or when a victim confides in you.
Today is the day that the elders and I offer prayers for healing with the laying on of hands and the anointing with oil. Anyone is welcome to come forward and kneel, or go back to the narthex, and let the elder pray for you. Michael will be in the narthex, Bob and Eric and I will be here at the front. In addition to our usual prayers for healing, if you know someone who is a victim or a perpetrator, I want you to come up and receive a prayer for them. No one is watching you or judging you – if others see you come forward, they are simply praying for God to answer your prayer.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Monday, October 10, 2005
Sermon: On Romance
PL 5 – On Romance Cynthia O’Brien
Song of Solomon chapters 1 and 7 October 9, 2005
I learned fairly early that God was interested in romance.
I used to go to Junior High retreat at Forest Home Christian Conference Center in Redlands, California, every winter and every summer. There would be worship, and recreation, and ice cream sundaes, and shopping in the camp bookstore, and mischief in the cabins, big teaching sessions and small workshops. One time, they had a workshop called Love, Sex and Dating.
Fearlessly, I signed up. Everybody was going to the Love, Sex and Dating class. We called it LSD for short.
The pastor who led the class was one of those very cool young pastors we had in the 1970’s, with long hair and all. He talked frankly about the temptations and the pleasures ahead of us, and I’m sure I was in a swoon for most of it – (swoon is an old fashioned word for being so completely out of it that you can’t get a grip) – but what I do remember is that God was interested in romance.
You could look at this a couple of different ways. If you were going to be bad, you could think of God as a snoopy old chaperone who found you at Lookout Point and shone his flashlight into your ‘69 Chevy. Or, if you were going to be good, you could think of God more as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, feeding you peeled grapes and fanning you with palm brances in the Garden of Delight.
Personally, I think God is much more about the Garden of Delight, and like any parent, wishes that he could spend more time encouraging us to be romantic and less time telling us to put on the brakes. So let’s talk about God’s romantic aspirations for us, include a word to the old and a word to the young, and then a word of hope.
1. GOD IS A ROMANTIC
First, God is a romantic.
I am so glad the Song of Solomon made it into the Bible, but I’m kind of surprised that it’s there. So much of the Old Testament is about bad sex and violence. My husband teaches Old Testament to all the 9th and 10th graders at Portland Lutheran School, and now, one month into it, one of the students raised his hand and asked, “Pastor O’Brien, why do you talk about sex so much?” Believe me, no teacher wants THAT message going home to parents, but what the student meant was that he couldn’t believe there was so much sex in the Bible.
But not good sex. Not really. Not until you get to the Song of Solomon. Thank God. It is a celebration of romantic love in all its beauty. It is an amazing example of how a piece of literature can be both explicit in its language and yet pure and lovely at the same time. A lot of people don’t even know it’s in there, and when they read it, they can’t believe how wonderful it is.
The book is a dialogue between a man and a woman who are completely in love with each other and delight in each other. It is a celebration of love and physical intimacy, with no shame, no guilt, no embarrassment.
The other is an allegorical reading, that is, that it describes the intimate relationship between God and the believer, or between Christ and the church.
Over the centuries, Christians have argued over whether you should read it as an allegory for God’s love for people. Jovinan, a Roman monk, said that the Song of Songs should be read literally and that it was a defense of the virtue of marital sexual love.
But St. Augustine and Jerome condemned him and said that it couldn’t possibly be read literally, but was a spiritual allegory. The Council of Constantinople in 550 outlawed the literal reading of the Song of Songs, saying it was only to be interpreted allegorically. Some rationalists argued that if you were to read it literally, it was so graphic that it would be obscene and unsuitable for the Christian reader.
But people started appreciating Song of Songs again in its fullness after the Reformation. Over the centuries, Christians have asked why a description of human love and intimacy should trouble us .
See the couple in the text. Their relationship is growing and deepening. The more familiar they are with each other, the more exciting it is. God intends husband and wife to enjoy exploring each other and delighting in each other.
The wife says:
Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
The husband says:
7:6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!… 9 and your mouth like the best wine.
Complimentary words, sincerely presented – don’t you think that would yield some good results?
An elementary school class was asked to give advice to a new husband. Ricky, age 10 suggested: "Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck."
I really did mean, complimentary words, sincerely spoken.
Proverbs 5 backs up the message of Song of Songs: “May you rejoice in the wife of your youth, may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.” Proverbs 5.
This is God’s idea of pillow talk, and it’s beautiful.
When you read through the book, you might find it strange… All this talk of “your body is” a gazelle – a wall -- towers and pomegranites. But that’s the 2,000 year cultural barrier talking. Read modern poets and you will find language that is just as beautiful, just as interesting.
2. A WORD TO THE OLD AND TO THE YOUNG
Let me say a brief word to the older people here, and then to the younger ones. I’ll start with a little story.
A worship design team was meeting to choose hymns for the variety of sermon topics coming up. The leader called out the topics: “OK, first is grace.” A few people suggested “Amazing Grace.” The next topic was alcohol. Someone suggested “Fill Me Jesus, Fill Me Now.” They all thought that was pretty funny. The next topic was sex. No one could think of anything, until an elderly lady started humming, “Precious Memories…”
This one is difficult, and I approach it tenderly. For some of you, your days of romance are behind you. Perhaps they ended in a divorce, or in death. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be without your knight in shining armor, or the woman who brightened up each day. I’ve known many of your loved ones who have died, and they were truly wonderful people. I don’t forget them.
For you, this Scripture may be a message of remembrance. Even though it might hurt, remembering can be a blessing, and every time you remember, you can thank God for every romantic moment. Who knows, maybe there is another romance in your future. Or maybe you take that romantic energy and channel it into building loving relationships with your grandkids. Send an “I Love You” letter to your granddaughter at college.
Now here’s a note for the young people. God made romantic love for you, too. It was God that made your body change and God who gave you all these feelings. God designed you to give and receive pleasure with your husband or wife. You get to choose this person, and he or she gets to choose you, and you will leave your parents and become one flesh with each other. It is with your husband that you’ll play the games that Solomon and the Shulamite played. It is with your wife that you will have complete trust and intimacy. There will be no one else in the whole world with whom you will have this joy. It is just for you two.
So I recommend that you do everything in your power to save yourself for marriage, and when the time is right, to choose a marriage partner with whom you can discover these pleasures.
3. SO, IF YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ROMANCE, TAKE IT
What about the rest of us in the middle, neither old nor young? If you’re looking for love, pray to the God who is love, the God who made romance. Ask God to make you the kind of person that would atttact the right mate – Become a person with high moral character, kindness and personal strength. Be alert to the opportunities around you. Watch for an unexpected blessing.
And if you are like I am, married to the man of your dreams, or if at least you’re married, raise the romance quotient in your daily life. Surprise your mate. Take a risk. Remember what used to be fun, and see where it goes.
In the online magazine Salon, Garrison Keillor wrote this week about “having fun” (Salon.com, October 5, 2005)
Having fun is up to you; nobody else can manage it for you.
Women get broody sometimes and want to sit in front of a fire with a glass of merlot and discuss The Relationship, which is never a good idea. You know this. If you were captured by Unitarian terrorists and sat on by a fat lady and told that you absolutely must discuss your relationship, you should say no, no, no.
Never use the word "relationship." You can say "marriage" or "romance" or "partnership" or "living arrangement" or "hubba hubba ding dong," but the word "relationship" is like the hissing of vipers. If the romance or marriage needs help, the answer almost always is Have More Fun. Drop your list of grievances and go ride a roller coaster. Take a brisk walk. Dance. Take a trip to Duluth. Read Dickens. There is almost no marital problem that can't be helped enormously by taking off your clothes.
Other people can't do that for you…. you're grown up now and it's time to get some fun in your life.
This is a gift that God gave us. You may remember it fondly, or look forward to it hopefully. But if you are so blessed that you can enjoy it now, cherish it.
Amen.
Song of Solomon chapters 1 and 7 October 9, 2005
I learned fairly early that God was interested in romance.
I used to go to Junior High retreat at Forest Home Christian Conference Center in Redlands, California, every winter and every summer. There would be worship, and recreation, and ice cream sundaes, and shopping in the camp bookstore, and mischief in the cabins, big teaching sessions and small workshops. One time, they had a workshop called Love, Sex and Dating.
Fearlessly, I signed up. Everybody was going to the Love, Sex and Dating class. We called it LSD for short.
The pastor who led the class was one of those very cool young pastors we had in the 1970’s, with long hair and all. He talked frankly about the temptations and the pleasures ahead of us, and I’m sure I was in a swoon for most of it – (swoon is an old fashioned word for being so completely out of it that you can’t get a grip) – but what I do remember is that God was interested in romance.
You could look at this a couple of different ways. If you were going to be bad, you could think of God as a snoopy old chaperone who found you at Lookout Point and shone his flashlight into your ‘69 Chevy. Or, if you were going to be good, you could think of God more as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, feeding you peeled grapes and fanning you with palm brances in the Garden of Delight.
Personally, I think God is much more about the Garden of Delight, and like any parent, wishes that he could spend more time encouraging us to be romantic and less time telling us to put on the brakes. So let’s talk about God’s romantic aspirations for us, include a word to the old and a word to the young, and then a word of hope.
1. GOD IS A ROMANTIC
First, God is a romantic.
I am so glad the Song of Solomon made it into the Bible, but I’m kind of surprised that it’s there. So much of the Old Testament is about bad sex and violence. My husband teaches Old Testament to all the 9th and 10th graders at Portland Lutheran School, and now, one month into it, one of the students raised his hand and asked, “Pastor O’Brien, why do you talk about sex so much?” Believe me, no teacher wants THAT message going home to parents, but what the student meant was that he couldn’t believe there was so much sex in the Bible.
But not good sex. Not really. Not until you get to the Song of Solomon. Thank God. It is a celebration of romantic love in all its beauty. It is an amazing example of how a piece of literature can be both explicit in its language and yet pure and lovely at the same time. A lot of people don’t even know it’s in there, and when they read it, they can’t believe how wonderful it is.
The book is a dialogue between a man and a woman who are completely in love with each other and delight in each other. It is a celebration of love and physical intimacy, with no shame, no guilt, no embarrassment.
The other is an allegorical reading, that is, that it describes the intimate relationship between God and the believer, or between Christ and the church.
Over the centuries, Christians have argued over whether you should read it as an allegory for God’s love for people. Jovinan, a Roman monk, said that the Song of Songs should be read literally and that it was a defense of the virtue of marital sexual love.
But St. Augustine and Jerome condemned him and said that it couldn’t possibly be read literally, but was a spiritual allegory. The Council of Constantinople in 550 outlawed the literal reading of the Song of Songs, saying it was only to be interpreted allegorically. Some rationalists argued that if you were to read it literally, it was so graphic that it would be obscene and unsuitable for the Christian reader.
But people started appreciating Song of Songs again in its fullness after the Reformation. Over the centuries, Christians have asked why a description of human love and intimacy should trouble us .
See the couple in the text. Their relationship is growing and deepening. The more familiar they are with each other, the more exciting it is. God intends husband and wife to enjoy exploring each other and delighting in each other.
The wife says:
Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
The husband says:
7:6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights!… 9 and your mouth like the best wine.
Complimentary words, sincerely presented – don’t you think that would yield some good results?
An elementary school class was asked to give advice to a new husband. Ricky, age 10 suggested: "Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck."
I really did mean, complimentary words, sincerely spoken.
Proverbs 5 backs up the message of Song of Songs: “May you rejoice in the wife of your youth, may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.” Proverbs 5.
This is God’s idea of pillow talk, and it’s beautiful.
When you read through the book, you might find it strange… All this talk of “your body is” a gazelle – a wall -- towers and pomegranites. But that’s the 2,000 year cultural barrier talking. Read modern poets and you will find language that is just as beautiful, just as interesting.
2. A WORD TO THE OLD AND TO THE YOUNG
Let me say a brief word to the older people here, and then to the younger ones. I’ll start with a little story.
A worship design team was meeting to choose hymns for the variety of sermon topics coming up. The leader called out the topics: “OK, first is grace.” A few people suggested “Amazing Grace.” The next topic was alcohol. Someone suggested “Fill Me Jesus, Fill Me Now.” They all thought that was pretty funny. The next topic was sex. No one could think of anything, until an elderly lady started humming, “Precious Memories…”
This one is difficult, and I approach it tenderly. For some of you, your days of romance are behind you. Perhaps they ended in a divorce, or in death. I can’t imagine how hard it is to be without your knight in shining armor, or the woman who brightened up each day. I’ve known many of your loved ones who have died, and they were truly wonderful people. I don’t forget them.
For you, this Scripture may be a message of remembrance. Even though it might hurt, remembering can be a blessing, and every time you remember, you can thank God for every romantic moment. Who knows, maybe there is another romance in your future. Or maybe you take that romantic energy and channel it into building loving relationships with your grandkids. Send an “I Love You” letter to your granddaughter at college.
Now here’s a note for the young people. God made romantic love for you, too. It was God that made your body change and God who gave you all these feelings. God designed you to give and receive pleasure with your husband or wife. You get to choose this person, and he or she gets to choose you, and you will leave your parents and become one flesh with each other. It is with your husband that you’ll play the games that Solomon and the Shulamite played. It is with your wife that you will have complete trust and intimacy. There will be no one else in the whole world with whom you will have this joy. It is just for you two.
So I recommend that you do everything in your power to save yourself for marriage, and when the time is right, to choose a marriage partner with whom you can discover these pleasures.
3. SO, IF YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ROMANCE, TAKE IT
What about the rest of us in the middle, neither old nor young? If you’re looking for love, pray to the God who is love, the God who made romance. Ask God to make you the kind of person that would atttact the right mate – Become a person with high moral character, kindness and personal strength. Be alert to the opportunities around you. Watch for an unexpected blessing.
And if you are like I am, married to the man of your dreams, or if at least you’re married, raise the romance quotient in your daily life. Surprise your mate. Take a risk. Remember what used to be fun, and see where it goes.
In the online magazine Salon, Garrison Keillor wrote this week about “having fun” (Salon.com, October 5, 2005)
Having fun is up to you; nobody else can manage it for you.
Women get broody sometimes and want to sit in front of a fire with a glass of merlot and discuss The Relationship, which is never a good idea. You know this. If you were captured by Unitarian terrorists and sat on by a fat lady and told that you absolutely must discuss your relationship, you should say no, no, no.
Never use the word "relationship." You can say "marriage" or "romance" or "partnership" or "living arrangement" or "hubba hubba ding dong," but the word "relationship" is like the hissing of vipers. If the romance or marriage needs help, the answer almost always is Have More Fun. Drop your list of grievances and go ride a roller coaster. Take a brisk walk. Dance. Take a trip to Duluth. Read Dickens. There is almost no marital problem that can't be helped enormously by taking off your clothes.
Other people can't do that for you…. you're grown up now and it's time to get some fun in your life.
This is a gift that God gave us. You may remember it fondly, or look forward to it hopefully. But if you are so blessed that you can enjoy it now, cherish it.
Amen.
Monday, October 03, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, September 26, 2005
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.
"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.
Monday, September 19, 2005
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
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
Monday, September 12, 2005
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
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
Sunday, September 11, 2005
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
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
Monday, September 05, 2005
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
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
Monday, August 29, 2005
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!
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!
Monday, August 22, 2005
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.
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.
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