I am really enjoying reading the Bible and studying in preparation for my weekly sermons!  There was a time when sermon-writing was quite a chore, but now it is an absolute delight!  I begin by reading the lectionary selections for the next Sunday, and usually a word or a phrase grabs my attention – it reaches out and grabs me – and I have to see why.  Then I have to make it say something to you also. Such was the case this week.  I had never noticed these words from Jesus: “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation.”  What in the world does it mean to have one’s heart weighed down with dissipation?  And if you get dissipated, would a dose of Metamucil fix you?  “Dissipation” is the word for this week!

Each year as we begin the Advent Season, the Gospel lesson is a passage calling attention to the return of the Lord, the commonly-called “Second Coming” of Jesus.  Jesus and the Disciples were admiring the beauty of the Temple when Jesus said that a time was coming when the Temple would be destroyed.  Not one stone would be left on another.  The Disciples wanted to know when this would happen.  Jesus’ answer predicts the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, a prophecy fulfilled in 70 A. D.  Historian Josephus stated that 1.1 million Jews were slain by the Romans and another 97,000 were put into prisons, making this a First Century holocaust.  Jesus then spoke of the time following the destruction of the Temple as a time when Jerusalem would be “trodden down” by the Gentiles.  Then He said that some time after all this destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, there would come a time of great anguish upon the nations of the earth, complete with cosmic signs and surging of the seas.  That’s when the Son of Man is coming, Jesus said, so take heart and look up, for your redemption is getting close!

I am almost hesitant to talk about all this right now, but maybe I should.  There are many pastors who never preach about anything else but the Second Coming, and they are sure that it will happen any day now.  We do live in an “apocalyptic” time in human history when things seem ripe for the return of Jesus.  Herman Van Rompuy, the new head of the European Union, has some folks already calling him the Anti-Christ!  I heard that just the other day at the Waffle House, and so you know it must be so!  The fact that the Mayan Calendar ends in 2012 has many people more afraid than they were of Y2K when the new millennium was approaching.  Never mind the fact that the Mayan civilization died off very suddenly before they had time to add another year to their calendar; there must be some other reason than their destruction for the ending of their calendar.  Experts say that there was something about the election of the first African-American President of the United States that seemed to unsettle some folks.  Since his election, gun sales have risen through the roof!  Lots of folks who claim “In God We Trust” seem to trust in Smith and Wesson more!  Maybe if our new President’s name had been more American sounding, something like Herr Eisenhower or Spiro T. Agnew…  Pardon my facetiousness…

If you are almost frozen by end-time fears, let me give you the insight of an old man about to turn 60.  We’ve lived in fearful times my entire life!  I was born during the Korean War, and I graduated from high school during the Vietnam War.  I was just 12 years old when John F. Kennedy called out the Russians for putting nuclear warheads in Cuba and aiming them at us.  Do you remember all of the bomb shelters that people put in their backyards in 1962?  A preacher I know has a bomb shelter at his parsonage – which he might need because I’ve heard him preach!  Do you people my age remember being in elementary school when we had atomic bomb emergency drills?  A warning buzzer would sound, and we children would crawl up underneath our desks and put our heads between our legs, and we must not look at the window where a flash from a nuclear blast might make us blind.  I was thirteen when President Kennedy was assassinated, and I was still in high school when the Old South died and our schools, hospitals, and restaurants became fully racially integrated.  Some folks saw Civil Rights for minorities and Equal Rights for Women as sure signs of the soon coming of Christ.  The Cold War between Communist Russia and the Free World began before I was born and didn’t end until I was forty years old – if it has ended.  My friends, the world has been about to end my whole life!  Maybe that is why I am not fearful of the age we live in; however, I am a bit apprehensive about the age I have become and the number of candles on my birthday cake!  Did you know that last year on my birthday, we lit the candles on my cake, and my neighbor Marney Hannon called to make sure that our parsonage was not on fire?  He said that it looked like the sun was rising in our den!

We live in very scary times!  And if, with God’s help, our world leaders manage to keep the nations living in peace during the next decade, you can bet that there will be other threats to world peace in 2030 and beyond.  The world will not end, nor will Jesus return, before God intends for these things to happen.  But while I would not have you paralyzed in fear as we race toward 2012 and beyond, neither would I want you to make the opposite mistake and live like Jesus is never returning!  A time is coming when Jesus will return, and He Himself urged us to keep this fact before us and we live each day.  Being aware of His coming effects how we live each day.  Specifically, He doesn’t want us to fall victim to dissipation!

So, what is dissipation?  The Greek word that is translated as dissipation means “indulging in extravagant, intemperate, or promiscuous pleasure.” Along with drunkenness and worry, dissipation is something that Jesus was concerned might weigh down our hearts and minds.  The English word dissipation can also be defined as “a process in which energy is used or lost without accomplishing useful work.”  Let me repeat that: dissipation is a process in which energy is used or lost without accomplishing useful work. It is spinning our wheels but going nowhere.  It is wasting our time in meaningless or degrading activities when the time could be better used to help somebody or in personal growth.

Methodist Bishops ask this historic question of pastors being ordained, a question that was formulated by John Wesley himself: “Will you observe the following directions: (a) Be diligent. Never trifle away time; neither spend any more time at one place than is strictly necessary. (b) Be punctual.  Do everything exactly at the time. (c) Do not mend our rules, but keep them, not for wrath, but for conscience sake.”  Wesley was concerned that his pastors might become dissipated, that our energies would be used or lost without useful work being accomplished for God’s Kingdom.

Every year after Christmas is over, I look back at the season, feeling like I have crowded my December hours with so many activities – including shopping and decorating – that I haven’t had time to think about the real meaning of Christmas.  To a certain degree, I am dissipated by the Christmas Season!  If Jesus were to return during the Advent Season, I just might be too busy to notice!

Worry weighs us down, doesn’t it?  Worry makes me spin my wheels more than any other emotion.  I spend huge amounts of mental and emotional energy worrying about things that never come to pass.  And while I am worrying about tomorrow, I miss the chance to live today.  Worry serves a purpose if it causes us to make plans for the future, but wringing my hands never accomplished much for me.  It is dissipation.

Rev. Arthur F. Hebbeler III of the Lutheran Church of the Abiding Presence in Beltsville, Maryland, sees something different in Jesus’ words regarding drunkenness.  Of course, there is the usual meaning.  But Rev. Hebbeler points out that some people get drunk, not on any liquid substance, but on the thirst for power, wealth, and prestige.  They become addicted to gaining more and more power over others and more and more wealth.  Meanwhile people are starving for love and attention and the Gospel.  I know that our nation has a terrific problem right now with illegal aliens and I know that something has to be done about this problem, but someday God is not going to ask us why we didn’t secure our borders.  He is going to ask us why we didn’t use the flood of immigrants as an opportunity to spread the Good News about Jesus.  He will ask us why didn’t we do more to make sure that our illegal alien brothers and sisters came to know Jesus.  Why were we more concerned with keeping them out of our country than getting them into heaven?  That’s what God is going to ask us.  Sometimes we are dissipated by forgetting our main purpose here on earth.  Rev. Hebbeler concludes, “God has set out a plan for us, and the road map is fairly straightforward. Don’t get drunk with power, or the things that make up the secular world, or a consumer‑driven secular lifestyle. Don’t waste energy on details that don’t move the kingdom of God forward. Don’t worry about the small stuff that makes up everyday life, because there is no way to get out of life alive.”

Dissipation, drunkenness, and worry weigh us down. If our hearts are weighed down by them, we might find ourselves caught in a trap of unexpectedness when the time comes for the world to pass away.  Advent comes around each year, calling us to examine our lives to see if we are living them as God has called us to do.  The prospect of the end of the world and the return of Christ is good news for believers in Christ.  We aren’t supposed to be frightened by this prospect, and if we are, maybe we need to examine why.  What changes do we need to make in order to be excited about the return of Jesus, perhaps in our lifetimes?

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, beautifully captures the spirit of Jesus’ words this way: “And then‑‑then!‑‑they’ll see the Son of Man welcomed in grand style‑‑a glorious welcome! When all this starts to happen, up on your feet. Stand tall with your heads high. Help is on the way! But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap, for it’s going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once.  So, whatever you do, don’t go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man.”  Amen.

Today is quite a Sunday!  It is the last Sunday of the Christian Year, also known as “Christ the King” Sunday when we remember that, after the end of the world and human history, Christ will rule in final victory for endless ages to come.  It is also “Thanksgiving Sunday,” the Sunday that the sermon is supposed to be about giving thanks to God.  But it is also “Bible Sunday,” and the sermon is supposed to be about the importance of the Bible in our lives.  If those are not enough, we at Memorial decided that today was the best date for our annual Consecration Sunday, and that means that the sermon is supposed to be about pledging and giving to the church.  So, here is a one sentence sermon that captures all the significance of this day: Since Christ is King for all ages, just as the Bible teaches, let us eat turkey and give God thanks, showing God how thankful we are by pledging our support to His church.  I think about does it!  I guess that now we can go eat!  Well, not quite yet…

In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul ties together the themes of thanksgiving and giving.  In verse 11 he says that generosity gives birth to thanksgiving.  Our giving makes others and even ourselves thankful.  In verse 5 he also speaks about preparing ahead of time, planning what you are going to give: “I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given.”  That is what we are doing today – making arrangements for the generous gifts we plan to give during 2010, remembering how we promised God when we joined the church that we would support His church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service.  Pledging is one way we can make these arrangements.

Some people make a pledge to their church out of a sense of duty, and that is certainly a worthy motivation.  Claiming Christ as our King reminds us that, as citizens of His Kingdom, there are duties that we owe to Christ.  We don’t speak of duty much anymore, except in Boy Scouts and in the military, but duty is a very good concept.  Duty comes from an awareness that we owe somebody something for what we have been given.  Duty to country is the result of being aware of the gift and responsibility of freedom.  Duty to God comes from being aware of His grace to us.

I arrived here at Memorial in 2004 just barely in time to know one of your beloved saints, Ed McClimon.  For a while, I didn’t know that Ed McClimon and John Rush were two different people, they looked so much alike.  Then I saw Dick Cheney and thought he and Ed and John were triplets! Ed loved scouting and he loved his church and he was active in both of these plus the Kiwanis Club.  People used to ask Ed why he thought that church attendance was so important, and Ed would look away and sigh deeply, as if someone had asked him why they should take another breath, and then Ed would simply respond, “It is just what you are supposed to do.”  He approached giving with that same resolve.  It was something we were just supposed to do without questioning.  You just did it.  That is the blessedness of doing something from a sense of duty that you owe something to God for His goodness to us.  If duty is your motivation for making a pledge and giving to God’s Kingdom, then may you experience the joy of fulfilled duty!  May you rest assured that a day will come when Christ the King will say to you, “Well done, you good and faithful servant!”

Our Gospel lesson tells us about a second motive for giving, one that is more akin to our emotions than to a reasoned sense of duty.  Luke tells us the story of the time that Jesus freely healed ten men of a dreaded, fatal skin disease, a disease that had made them leave their homes and families to go live in a leper colony.  Only one of the healed men returned to Jesus to give God thanks for his healing, but he came with his joy overflowing, praising God in a loud voice, throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, thanking Him.  There is nothing at all wrong with a good feeling, joy overflowing as the motive for our giving to the church.  Our faith ought to make us happy!  Giving in gratitude ought to be a joyful experience for us. As it turns out, gratitude is something we need to have as a part of our lives every day for our survival.

Recently I was driving my rented van up Interstate 81 toward New Jersey, I found an NPR radio program where M. J. Ryan was being interviewed about her new book, Adaptability: How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For.  A member of Professional Thinking Partners who is recognized as a leading expert in change, she was fascinating to hear!  She said that one thing we can do to survive when life spins out of control is to start a new activity or hobby that we can control.  Being able to control one thing in our lives gives us strength to live with all the things we cannot control.  Many people learn to play a musical instrument during these times of crisis, she said, and I immediately thought of our own Andy Watson who learned to play guitar during his freshman year in college after some girl dumped him!  Sometimes we sing the first song he learned to play, and we always tease him unmercifully when we do because we are so thankful he learned to play guitar, even if it was at the cost of a broken heart.  Never mind that he would never have found Kelly if that girl hadn’t dumped him; we wouldn’t have a lead guitarist for our band!

Next Ms. Ryan talked about the power of gratitude to help us survive in life.  Now she is not a religious author, and this interview was not conducted on a religious radio station, but she still spoke about the power of gratitude to help us survive.  This story is from her book:

… what in your life or yourself can you be grateful for right now?  As an author of books on gratitude, I’ve been awed by its power to uplift and focus us on what is still right, good, and whole in our lives.

The other day, I was introduced via mail to a seventeen-year-old named Lauren.  Lauren has lived in twelve different foster homes since she was eight.  When she moves from place to place, her possessions fit in one plastic trash bag.  She’s about to “age out” of the California foster system, with no place to live, no money, no job. But she’s happy, nonetheless.  Because when she was ten, she lived with Mommy Jean.  Mommy Jean gave Lauren a rock and told her to carry it always in her pocket.  Each time she felt it, she was to think of something she was grateful for.  Every day since, no matter where she lives, Lauren’s been touching that rock and finding things to be grateful for.”

And then Ryan adds, “If I could, I would hand [a rock] to you right now – not only to help you practice gratitude but to remind you that, like Lauren, you can survive the changes life hurls your way.”

I wonder how life might be richer for us if we could be reminded to find something to be thankful for in the midst of a difficulty?  A few times in my life, I have been reminded to give God thanks when I really didn’t feel much like doing so, and it made what I was doing a happy, meaningful task.  One that is carved in my brain happened in 1982 when it was my night to get up with the crying baby!  I know… The doctor said to let her cry, but her Cryer could outlast our Ignorers. So we decided to just get up and try to rock her back to sleep rather than just lie there, listening to her scream.  Penny and I lost so much sleep.  One dear lady in our church sneered at me and said, “What would you have done if you had had twins like I did?” and I answered, “I guess we would have frozen one and waited a year to thaw it out!”  Every other night, it was my turn to get up, and I was begrudgingly warming a bottle of milk one night when I thought to myself, “A day is coming when this won’t ever happen again, and I will miss it then.”  That little thankful thought caused me to savor the moment rather than begrudge it.  That thought was the rock reminding me to be grateful for the little life I had helped bring into the world, and I remembered to be thankful on my night of duty from then on.

What hard task has life given you that could be made more meaningful if you found something to be thankful for?  Are you providing care for an elderly parent?  You will be relieved of that duty someday and you will miss them then!  Do you get tired of cleaning up your house because you have messy kids?  In just a few years those kids will be grown up and gone away from home, and you will be willing then to trade all of the neatness of your home for just one more day with your little kids!

What if we did good deeds not because we are trying to earn God’s approval but rather as a way of expressing thanks to God?  Then every action of kindness, every get-well card we mail, and every act of service to our church could be a way of saying thanks to God.  A former president of Princeton University put it this way: “As a young man I accepted Christ and the gift of eternal life. All the rest of my life was simply a P.S. to that day saying, ‘Thank you, Lord, for what you gave me then.’” What if everything you did for others was a way of telling God thanks for His gift of salvation?

I wonder if giving our money to the Lord could be done the same way?  Instead of it being a chore or an obligation, what if we found a rock of gratitude every time we reached into our pockets for our donation?  What would our giving be like if every offering envelope reminded us how fortunate we are to have a job, to have some income, to have a home with food on the table?  What if writing a check to our church made us think, “There could come a day when I won’t be able to do this, and then I will really miss having something to give to the work of the Lord”?  Wouldn’t it be more meaningful to you if your offering was a way that you tell God how thankful you are rather than being paid like it was just another bill?

Today we are going to conclude this service without a hymn.  Our ushers are going to come now and distribute pledge cards for 2010.  When your card is completed, you may come forward and place it on the Communion rail.  Our Financial Secretary will collect them after the service ends; no one else will see your card.  Parents, we invite you to encourage your children to fill out a pledge card.  They are not too young to learn.  If you prefer to give monthly, please mark out “weekly” and write in “monthly.”

Again we invite our visitors and those who have not signed up for the meal to please come join us in the Family Life Center!  I am going to say a blessing for that meal, after which we will ask Ann Mayfield to softly play music as we complete our pledge cards and present them to the Lord.

(Blessing of the meal)  Amen.

“You can observe a lot by just watching,” says baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra.  Observing people is a fascinating hobby.  Have you even noticed those poor men who have been dragged to the mall or to a department store by their wives?  Those are the sad looking chaps who are sitting in chairs or on benches, looking like vegetables as they wait for their wives to quit shopping and come back for them.  So I join them whenever Penny makes me go shopping with her, and together we look so pathetic.  But as I sit there, I watch people.  You wouldn’t believe what people wear these days when they go out in public.  Never mind having sobriety checkpoints!  Just have clothing approval checkpoints in all stores, please.  Someone is maintaining a website to display pictures of shoppers at Walmart, and you ought to check it out!  Or maybe you shouldn’t!

The Gospel lesson today tells of a time when Jesus engaged in the fine art of people watching.  He had been teaching a large crowd in the Temple Courtyard, but by now the sermon was over and the crowd had dispersed, leaving Jesus alone with His Disciples.  Jesus found a seat across from the receptacle for Temple offerings and watched people placing their offerings in it.

It is worth noting that generosity toward the poor was promoted in ancient Judaism.  The community’s poor people were supported by a graduated tax which was supplemented by donations received at schools and synagogues.  I am sure that some of the donations were used to pay maintenance and salaries, but some of the money went to support ministries to the poor, even as our offerings do today.  To encourage giving, trumpets were sometimes sounded when generous offerings were made to express appreciation for the gift and to encourage other gifts.  If you ever watch telethons for “Jerry’s Kids” or for ETV, you will hear the telephone operators cheer and ring bells to signify generous pledges.  But in the Temple the offering receptacles themselves made loud noises.  They resembled trumpets with a flared bell at the top, a narrow hole in the center, and a wide base, and they were made of metal.  A generous offering of gold coins made quite a racket going around the bell and into the base.  Scholars debate as to which of these trumpet sounds bothered Jesus more – the actual playing of an instrument when donations were being made or the loud sound of money ringing in the offering receptacle.  Either way, Jesus didn’t think that people ought to have attention drawn to themselves when they are giving to the poor.  It was better, He said, to give in such a way that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.  That way God alone would reward our generosity.  God would notice!

I certainly don’t want to engage in arm-twisting or heavy-handed tactics this morning, but it is difficult to avoid the obvious implication of this fact in this story: Jesus watches people as they make their offerings.  Jesus sees what people give to the church.  He pays attention to our stinginess and our generosity, especially where His Father’s house in concerned and where the needs of people are addressed.  We are not saved by our offerings; we are saved by God’s grace.  But saved people show their faith in a number of ways, one of which is through our giving.

A preacher-friend got audited by the Infernal Revenuers.  The auditor wanted to see canceled checks and other documents to prove that he had given as much to his church as he had claimed on his 1040.  Fortunately, my friend had the proof.  The auditor examined the checks and then said, “Thank you for restoring my faith in Christian charity!  I didn’t think anyone could have given as much as you said you did.  You must really believe!”  I wonder if my banker and the IRS know what Jesus means to me?  Jesus watches us when we give.  I trust that He is honored by our gifts.

As Jesus watched people, He noticed a number of well-to-do people making very generous donations to the Temple.  There were people who had inherited great wealth and others who had earned great wealth in their businesses who came to give God thanks by giving and to support those who were less fortunate.  Jesus noticed them all, and I am sure He noticed that many were sincere in their generosity.  Perhaps a few people called attention to themselves as they gave – tooting their own horn, as we say.  But He did make one comment about one particular donor, but it wasn’t the one you and I might expect Him to call attention to.

Jesus called His Disciples over to Him because there was something important to teach them about giving as it would be practiced in His Church.  After a parade of very rich people had made their offerings, an obviously poor older widow made her donation.  Her humble attire testified to her poverty.  Perhaps her very thin frame made Jesus wonder when the woman had last eaten.  Her face showed a life of hardship, wear, and tear.  She was all alone, not accompanied by a husband as were other women.  Women in that day were totally dependent on men.  Was her husband dead?  Were there no sons to take care of her?  Her donation also spoke of her poverty.  She gave two very small copper coins worth only a fraction of a penny.  They sounded so very different from the gold and silver coins the other people had been placing in the offering.  Everybody who was nearby noticed the thud of the copper coins in the metal trumpet.  Some rich folks probably chuckled or at least made fun of her in their hearts.  It took a lot of courage for this poor woman to join in the parade of rich folks who were making their loud offerings.

Perhaps it was her courage that made her noteworthy to Jesus.  Whereas some rich folks had made quite a show of their offerings, this woman would have preferred a less public way of giving to God, a way that didn’t call attention to her and to the small value of her donation.  I have actually had people tell me that the reason they don’t come to church is that they were embarrassed by the fact that they didn’t have anything to put in the offering plate.  Would you believe that there are some churches in our day that never pass the offering plates because they don’t want anyone to be embarrassed in this way?  They have other, more private places to receive offerings, but they don’t pass the plates!  This poor widow was courageous!  She didn’t have much financial wealth, but she was rich in faith and rich in love for God and she wanted to express her love to God.  Jesus noticed her faith and her love.

Perhaps Jesus also noticed the deep trust that this widow had in God.  A wise trapeze artist doesn’t let go of the rope unless he or she has confidence that the net will catch them when they fall.  This woman knew that she could trust God to catch her, to help her with her daily needs for food, clothing, and shelter, and her generous donation testified to that trust.  She could let go of her belongings because she knew she belonged to God.

Jesus also noticed that her gift was huge when measured in terms of proportionate giving.  A millionaire might put in a thousand dollars, a huge donation, but that would not be 10% or even 1% but one-tenth of a percent of his wealth. This poor widow gave close to 100% of her income. The millionaire gave out of his great wealth; she gave out of her poverty all she had to live on.  In Jesus’ eyes, this poor widow put more into the Temple treasury than anyone else because it was a greater proportion of her income.  This was a very generous soul!

One of the things we stress here and that the Bible also teaches is proportionate giving.  It isn’t the value of the gift that Jesus praises; it is the proportion of our possession that we give.  If you have only a very little to give but it represents a fair proportion of your income, then give that gift proudly with love and thanksgiving!  God notices and considers that a noteworthy gift.

The Old Testament standard was the tithe – a tenth.  I often hear people say that the tithe is no longer God’s standard under the new covenant, that we do not operate under the law any longer.  I like to point out to these folks that the New Testament standard was 100% – leaving home, vocations, family, everything for Jesus sake.  That makes the Old Testament standard look much more appealing!  God calls us to give a portion of our time, energy, abilities, and wealth to the work of His Kingdom as an expression of our faith in Him and love for Him.  I would expect that this poor widow who gave nearly all the money she had to live on was also very generous with her time, serving her neighbors, working in her synagogue.  You will have your opportunity next Sunday to set a proportionate giving goal for yourself for 2010, and I hope you will be inspired by the courage, the love, and the trust of the widow’s mighty mite as you set your own proportionate giving goal.

Jesus learned that He could observe a lot by just watching.  He seems to be one who enjoyed the hobby of people-watching!  He watched people as they gave their offerings to God, and He also watches us today.  But what caught His attention was not the huge gifts of the very rich but the small but sacrificial gift of a very poor person who gave all that she had to live on out of love to God.  May we follow the widow’s example in giving generously and sacrificially, expressing our love for God and our trust in Him to take care of us during 2010.  Amen.

For today’s sermon, I will be using the 23^rd Psalm for my text.  We are all familiar with this psalm. It is probably the most popular of the psalms.  It is usually used at funerals.  The gentle and serene images of this pastoral psalm seem to calm the soul.  However, many never pay attention to the last couple of verses. This is not just a psalm about a shepherd; it is also a psalm about a king.  David is the author, and he had been a shepherd in his boyhood and was probably king at the time he wrote this psalm.  He knew a thing or two about shepherds and kings.  In this psalm he gives us a picture of God the shepherd and of God the king.  In this psalm we are likened to both sheep and guests of the king.  David is presenting two very different but complementary ways of looking at our relationship with God.

First, let’s consider how we are sheep, and God is our shepherd. Sheep are dumb.  They are not stupid. They have rather high intelligence compared to all the farmyard animals, but they are dumb. Why you say?  Because their herd mentality trumps their intelligence every time.  Sheep will literally follow the herd over a cliff.  Now, I think you can see how we might resemble the sheep in this aspect. As humans, we are incredibly intelligent, but we are equally dumb. We tend to follow the herd despite the danger, despite our intelligence, despite our ability to reason.  It reminds me of a story about a young boy in grade school in the early 1900’s:

“Johnnie.”

“Yes, teacher.”

“If there are twenty sheep in a field, and one gets out through a hole in the fence, how many sheep are left in the field?”

“None, teacher.”

“Johnnie, there are still nineteen sheep left in the field. Obviously you don’t know arithmetic.”

“Sorry, teacher, but I do know arithmetic. Obviously you don’t know sheep.”

A second way in which we are like sheep is that we are prone to wander.  Without a shepherd sheep tend to wander. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.”Not only do sheep wander, they also have a very poor sense of direction.  Isn’t that the way we are too. We wander away from God, and we get lost. We need a shepherd who will keep us close, keep us safe.

Now, if God is our shepherd, as the psalm says, then he knows all about his sheep. He knows how to care for them. He knows what they need, therefore, they shall not want, for he will provide it, he will lead them to green pastures and beside the still waters.

He knows we wander, he knows when we are lost, and therefore, he restores our soul.  The Hebrew word here literally means to “bring back”.  What a wonderful image, which is echoed in Christ’s words in Luke 15 when he says that a shepherd will leave 99 sheep to find the one lost one. He compares the return of that sheep to the salvation of a sinner and says all heaven rejoices over the one which was lost, but is now found. As our shepherd, God knows we have a herd mentality; that is why HE leads us in right paths.

Now let’s consider how we are guest of God the king.  Rarely do we consider this portion of the psalm.  We tend to like the pastoral setting of the first 3 verses.  However, I think the second part is just as important as the first.  In ancient times, in the east, many would seek refuge from enemies in another kingdom.  When a king would greet such a guest he would prepare a feast. It was common practice for the King to anoint his guest’s head with oil, and fill his cup until it ran over. This was a sign of the abundant provision the kings had.

We too are the guests of a King. Often times we come to God fleeing from enemies, seeking refuge. Not usually physical enemies but often enemies of our soul. We run to God when life’s troubles mount up against us, when we are overrun by the sin in our lives, when we experience the ravages of disease.  And as the psalmist says, we come to the right place; a place where God provides abundantly.  Where we can actually find nourishment in the face of adversity, where we are cleansed with oil, where our cup overflows. Then, we find that we do not want to leave, we feel such relief, such sustenance that we can also exclaim with David, that surely goodness and mercy shall follow us. We will dwell in the house of the Lord forever; no longer as guests, but as citizens.

Now we have left out one verse in our examination of this psalm.  Verse 4.  The reason for that is because it is intended to be the central thought of the whole poem.  Many Hebrew psalms follow chiastic structure.  A Chiasm is a literary form in which similar ideas are expressed around one central theme in a symmetrical pattern.  Think of it like a pattern: ABCCBA.

So that leaves us with Verse 4.  Believing and living as if we are sheep and God is our shepherd requires faith, and believing and living as if we are guests seeking refuge and God is our welcoming King requires faith.  The central Idea here is that verse 4 provides the basis for David’s faith as well as ours; “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”  David knew what it was like to find his soul restored after wandering off on his own path, and David knew what is was like to find refuge in God’s kingdom as he ran from his enemies.  He had been through the valley of the shadow of death, and God, as shepherd or king had been with him.

Most people assume that the rod and the staff were the shepherd’s tools, but I don’t believe that is accurate. If verse 4 is indeed the central idea, then it would make sense that the rod is the king’s instrument of ruling, and the staff is the shepherd’s instrument of guidance and rescue.  The rod, the awesome ruling power of God the king had rescued David from his enemies, and the staff, the gentle guiding power of God the shepherd had rescued David from himself and his own destructive ways.

Do you know God as both Shepherd and King?  Have you been through the valley of the shadow of death? It is often during the dark times of our life that we learn the most about who God is, and how much he loves and cares for us.

The New Testament affirms this psalm in so many ways.  In John 10 Jesus declares that he is the good shepherd, laying down his life for the sheep.  The second part of Isaiah 53:6 that we read earlier prophesies, “and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  Jesus, the good shepherd died so that our souls could be restored, that our paths might be righteous, and that we might have life abundant, life to the full, life without want.  Jesus is our Good Shepherd.

Jesus also told Pilate that he was a king, but that his kingdom was not of this world. He spent most of his time preaching about the Kingdom of God, and 2 peter 1:11 says that we receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Jesus is our King, he reigns on high with God almighty, that we might find refuge from our enemies, abundance in this age and the next, that we might dwell with him forever and experience his goodness and mercy, his grace, forever.

Now you probably know more about the psalm than you may care to.  But one question still remains; is it a personal psalm for you.  David said that the lord is MY shepherd, not our shepherd.  Only when you have a personal relationship with both the shepherd and the king, can the real power of this psalm be yours.  Only when you experience the salvation of your soul and the citizenship in the kingdom of God can you really understand what David was talking about.

There is power in this psalm, power to comfort and heal.  But what you take away from this beautiful poem depends on how you say the first line.  The way you say the first line is the key to knowing how to recite the 23rd psalm. If you say, the Lord is my shepherd, you miss it. You need to say the first line correctly, like this: the Lord is … MY… shepherd.  You have to say it correctly, and using the fingers of your left hand and saying with each finger, the Lord is … MY …on the fourth finger…shepherd. Let’s all say it correctly together, using our fingers of our left hand. The Lord is … MY… shepherd.  And you grab the finger when you say the word, my. … I would like to leave you with a story that illustrates the power of this psalm when it is personal.

It was about 1850, March, snow flurries, frozen ground, a log cabin, and in that little log cabin on the prairie was a boy by the name of Timmy, who was dying of diphtheria. The pastor who came to that log cabin that day was a Methodist circuit rider; that is, he rode his horse hundreds of miles to cabins and churches, visiting them every two months or so. This pastor came into the cabin and inquired about Timmy, whom he had heard was sick. The pastor was ushered through an opening in the curtain to a back room where Timmy was sick in bed.

The pastor said, “Timmy, do you know how to say the 23rd psalm?” “O yes, I learned it when I was in second grade, in Sunday School. It goes like this. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.” Timmy rattled the 23rd psalm off rapidly. “No Timmy, that is not the way to say it.” “Ok, pastor, I will say it more slowly.” “Timmy,” the pastor said, “I want to teach you how to say the 23rd psalm. As you begin the first sentence, you count your fingers and when you get to the fourth word, the word, “my,” you grab that finger. A wedding ring is on the fourth finger of your mother’s and father’s hand. It is the finger of love. Say the words of the first sentence as you count your fingers, and then grab the fourth finger when you say the word, my. That will remind you that Jesus is always your personal shepherd, my personal shepherd. OK?” So Timmy practiced saying the first sentence of the psalm. The pastor was satisfied. They said their goodbyes and the pastor left.

The pastor returned to the log cabin two months later and it was now spring. The snow was gone and as he approached the log cabin, he saw a little mound of dirt near the cabin with a cross on it. He knew Timmy had died. The pastor went into the log cabin and they talked. They talked about Timmy; they talked about his death; and finally the mother asked. “You know pastor, something strange happened when Timmy died. We kissed him goodnight. In the morning, first thing, we went through the curtain to see him and he was gone; he had died. But it was so strange. His right hand was still wrapped around the ring finger of his left hand. Do you know what that means, pastor?”

So today, will you claim the beautiful words of Psalm 23 for your own?  Christ, both Shepherd and King, stands guard over all his sheep and citizens.  Will you join the flock, and have your soul restored? Will you become a citizen, and take your seat at the abundant feast he has prepared for you.  Will you say, “The lord is MY shepherd”?

Andy Watson

If you are wondering why it is called “Halloween,” it is because it is the evening before All Saints Day.  It is, therefore, a hallowed eve.  Since the saints were to be honored on their day, it became the assumption that the evening before belonged to the un-saintly, the doomed of hell, and thus we have our scary costumes and masks.  The church has always thought that near the end of the year it was important  to reflect upon the lives of those who had departed earth and joined the heavenly church triumphant during the previous year.  I always like to be more inclusive than that, to remember all whom we once knew during our lifetimes.  It is good to remember.

I think I can tell you this without getting too big a lump in my throat!  My Dad’s birthday was just three months after his death.  My Mom told Hillary and John, then 8 and 5 years old, that we would all go to the cemetery on Granddaddy’s birthday to place flowers on his grave.  The kids thought that they were going to get to pick out the flowers, and so they were disappointed when Grandmommy showed up with the floral arrangement.  It was a windy evening, and as we walked back toward the car from the grave, we walked through flower petals being blown around by the gusty wind.  That is when we noticed Hillary and John gathering up those petals and carrying them to their Grandfather’s grave, laying them gently upon it. They had found a way to gather their own floral arrangement for their grandfather. It is good at any age to remember someone who has blessed your life!

Today’s Gospel lesson takes place in a cemetery. Jesus arrived there during the days which were being observed for all the funeral customs.  We are told “Jesus wept.”  That’s the shortest verse in the Bible, and back when we had to show our Sunday School teachers that we were memorizing scripture, we all hoped to get to quote that short verse first.

In every culture, it takes a lot to make a grown man cry.  To make us really lose it and begin weeping and wailing uncontrollably takes even more.  But the death of a parent or spouse or very close friend will cause a man to lose all of his self-control.  John tells us that Jesus “was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”  He wasn’t just misty eyed.  A tear didn’t just roll down His face.  Jesus was about to totally lose His composure.

I want you to stay with this image of the weeping Christ, sobbing out loud, with tears streaming down his face.  Don’t run away from this just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.  This picture tells us so much about Jesus and about God.  Jesus wept in the presence of His friends who were also crying because a brother and friend, Lazarus, had died.  Jesus who had no doubt about God’s power or about how He could raise Lazarus, who believed that people lived on in heaven after death, the man of inexhaustible faith, wept.

The next time life knocks you off of your feet, and you find yourself critical of your reactions, when you are telling yourself that a person with real faith wouldn’t be reacting as you are, remember the weeping Christ.  Jesus was the bravest, the strongest, the most faith-filled person that ever walked on earth, and yet He was so overcome with His own grief and the grief of His friends that He wept uncontrollably.  Remember this and take comfort.

Also picture the weeping Christ as a reminder that when we cry, God cries with us.  Jesus deeply feels our pain, and our pain is His pain.  Since Jesus’ heart is a reflection of God’s, remember that God was in Christ weeping with His children, sharing their pain and sense of loss.  Did you hear what the people said when they saw Jesus weeping?  “Look at how Jesus loved Lazarus.”  The tears of Jesus tell us how much He loves us.  Rev. Phyllis Kersten writes, “What we see in Jesus… is a reflection of the one Jesus calls Father.  Jesus’ tears and ‘tortured emotions’ reflect God’s agony and anger and tears at the ‘ravaging of humanity by pain and death’” (Christian Century, 10/20/09).

The story of Jesus weeping also is a snapshot of our relationship with God through prayer.  Mary and Martha had sent servants to find Jesus because Lazarus was sick.  We send our prayers up from our hearts to the throne of grace.  But Jesus didn’t answer the summons in a timely manner; often it seems like God doesn’t answer our prayers in a timely manner or in a way we expect Him to.  Mary and Martha feel like Jesus failed to take care them; we sometimes feel that God has failed us and we feel uncared of by God.  Like those sisters who blamed Lazarus’ death on Jesus’ late arrival, don’t we blame God when things beyond our control happen?  When Jesus does arrive at Lazarus’ tomb, Mary and Martha both express their disappointment and anger to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.” Have you ever expressed your disappointment and anger to God?  It is OK to do this, and it can be therapeutic. “Lord, where were you?  How could you let this happen?  Are you there?  Do you care?”  If your experience in prayer is ever disappointing, remember how broken Mary and Martha were when they felt like Jesus had failed them. You aren’t alone.  There were many in the cemetery crowd that day who said, “Couldn’t Jesus have done something to prevent Lazarus from dying?”  But when the accusing words of His friends fell on Jesus’ ears, He responded with love, understanding, and compassion, just as God responds to our accusing words.

In the midst of all this pain and grief, Jesus wept.  He felt the pain of His friends’ grief and this caused Him to weep.  He felt His personal sense of loss over the death of His close friend Lazarus.  Whenever we are in personal anguish, Jesus is in anguish with us.  Whenever we cry, Jesus joins us in weeping.  God always feels the pain of His children.  Rev. Kersten says, “In the process of blaming we miss seeing the most important reality of the Bethany graveyard – the presence there on the one who weeps unashamedly out of love for Lazarus and for us, and who acts on our behalf.”  By His presence and His shared grief, we can find strength.  How blessed we are when we find ourselves in the presence of the weeping Christ.  How blessed we are when we, like Mary and Martha, are surrounded by a circle of friends who also feel our pain and share our grief.

My mother was born in 1916.  That was just half a century after the emancipation of slaves here in the South.  Many of those former slaves lived on the land of their former masters, working the farm, sharing the produce of the farm.  Some of them became cooks and nannies for Americans of European descent.  Aunt Caroline was a beloved nanny for my great-grandmother’s children, so beloved that my mother was given her name – Caroline.  One of the lessons my grandmother learned from Aunt Caroline was the value of sharing the grief of others.  The bell at Aunt Caroline’s church would ring and she would stop whatever she was doing, put on her Sunday clothes, and start walking to the church for the funeral.  My grandmother would ask, “Aunt Caroline, who died?” and Aunt Caroline would answer, “Child, I won’t know ‘til I get there.”  It really didn’t matter who it was.  What mattered was that the community of faith would gather to support the bereaved family by sharing their grief.  When they did, Jesus stood among them, weeping with them.

Jesus wept.  Even though he knew that Lazarus was at God’s side in heaven, no longer sick and no longer suffering, Jesus wept.  Even though He knew what God’s power in Him could still do for Lazarus, Jesus wept.  There was the general expectation in those days that they were living in the last days leading up to the day of resurrection.  “I know that my brother will live again after the resurrection on the last day,” Martha had told Jesus.  What the people didn’t know and were about to find out was that the resurrection wasn’t an event; it was a Person.  In Jesus the day of resurrection had already arrived on earth.  He had already started the work of resurrecting people from the deadness of their sinful lives, and what He did to Lazarus that day showed people that in Jesus we can find resurrection and new life here and now.  “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”

It should be remembered that the raising of Lazarus was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” as far as Jesus’ enemies were concerned.  This miracle steeled their resolve to have Jesus put to death.  Jesus gave His life for Lazarus, quite literally, as He also gave Himself for us.  Just as Jesus is the resurrection, so is He also Judgment Day.  “Those who believe in him are not condemned (i.e., judged)  (John 3:18).

On this All Saints Day, we remember that Jesus still can be found with us when we grieve the passing of one of His children, His saints.  They are saints because God has sanctified them by Jesus’ death, and when they died, like Lazarus they heard a loud voice calling their name, “Come forth.”  They came out of their graves to live forever with Jesus in glory because He is resurrection and life. Amen.

If you are wondering why it is called “Halloween,” it is because it is the evening before All Saints Day.  It is, therefore, a hallowed eve.  Since the saints were to be honored on their day, it became the assumption that the evening before belonged to the un-saintly, the doomed of hell, and thus we have our scary costumes and masks.  The church has always thought that near the end of the year it was important  to reflect upon the lives of those who had departed earth and joined the heavenly church triumphant during the previous year.  I always like to be more inclusive than that, to remember all whom we once knew during our lifetimes.  It is good to remember.

I think I can tell you this without getting too big a lump in my throat!  My Dad’s birthday was just three months after his death.  My Mom told Hillary and John, then 8 and 5 years old, that we would all go to the cemetery on Granddaddy’s birthday to place flowers on his grave.  The kids thought that they were going to get to pick out the flowers, and so they were disappointed when Grandmommy showed up with the floral arrangement.  It was a windy evening, and as we walked back toward the car from the grave, we walked through flower petals being blown around by the gusty wind.  That is when we noticed Hillary and John gathering up those petals and carrying them to their Grandfather’s grave, laying them gently upon it. They had found a way to gather their own floral arrangement for their grandfather. It is good at any age to remember someone who has blessed your life!

Today’s Gospel lesson takes place in a cemetery. Jesus arrived there during the days which were being observed for all the funeral customs.  We are told “Jesus wept.”  That’s the shortest verse in the Bible, and back when we had to show our Sunday School teachers that we were memorizing scripture, we all hoped to get to quote that short verse first.

In every culture, it takes a lot to make a grown man cry.  To make us really lose it and begin weeping and wailing uncontrollably takes even more.  But the death of a parent or spouse or very close friend will cause a man to lose all of his self-control.  John tells us that Jesus “was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”  He wasn’t just misty eyed.  A tear didn’t just roll down His face.  Jesus was about to totally lose His composure.

I want you to stay with this image of the weeping Christ, sobbing out loud, with tears streaming down his face.  Don’t run away from this just because it makes you feel uncomfortable.  This picture tells us so much about Jesus and about God.  Jesus wept in the presence of His friends who were also crying because a brother and friend, Lazarus, had died.  Jesus who had no doubt about God’s power or about how He could raise Lazarus, who believed that people lived on in heaven after death, the man of inexhaustible faith, wept.

The next time life knocks you off of your feet, and you find yourself critical of your reactions, when you are telling yourself that a person with real faith wouldn’t be reacting as you are, remember the weeping Christ.  Jesus was the bravest, the strongest, the most faith-filled person that ever walked on earth, and yet He was so overcome with His own grief and the grief of His friends that He wept uncontrollably.  Remember this and take comfort.

Also picture the weeping Christ as a reminder that when we cry, God cries with us.  Jesus deeply feels our pain, and our pain is His pain.  Since Jesus’ heart is a reflection of God’s, remember that God was in Christ weeping with His children, sharing their pain and sense of loss.  Did you hear what the people said when they saw Jesus weeping?  “Look at how Jesus loved Lazarus.”  The tears of Jesus tell us how much He loves us.  Rev. Phyllis Kersten writes, “What we see in Jesus… is a reflection of the one Jesus calls Father.  Jesus’ tears and ‘tortured emotions’ reflect God’s agony and anger and tears at the ‘ravaging of humanity by pain and death’” (Christian Century, 10/20/09).

The story of Jesus weeping also is a snapshot of our relationship with God through prayer.  Mary and Martha had sent servants to find Jesus because Lazarus was sick.  We send our prayers up from our hearts to the throne of grace.  But Jesus didn’t answer the summons in a timely manner; often it seems like God doesn’t answer our prayers in a timely manner or in a way we expect Him to.  Mary and Martha feel like Jesus failed to take care them; we sometimes feel that God has failed us and we feel uncared of by God.  Like those sisters who blamed Lazarus’ death on Jesus’ late arrival, don’t we blame God when things beyond our control happen?  When Jesus does arrive at Lazarus’ tomb, Mary and Martha both express their disappointment and anger to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.” Have you ever expressed your disappointment and anger to God?  It is OK to do this, and it can be therapeutic. “Lord, where were you?  How could you let this happen?  Are you there?  Do you care?”  If your experience in prayer is ever disappointing, remember how broken Mary and Martha were when they felt like Jesus had failed them. You aren’t alone.  There were many in the cemetery crowd that day who said, “Couldn’t Jesus have done something to prevent Lazarus from dying?”  But when the accusing words of His friends fell on Jesus’ ears, He responded with love, understanding, and compassion, just as God responds to our accusing words.

In the midst of all this pain and grief, Jesus wept.  He felt the pain of His friends’ grief and this caused Him to weep.  He felt His personal sense of loss over the death of His close friend Lazarus.  Whenever we are in personal anguish, Jesus is in anguish with us.  Whenever we cry, Jesus joins us in weeping.  God always feels the pain of His children.  Rev. Kersten says, “In the process of blaming we miss seeing the most important reality of the Bethany graveyard – the presence there on the one who weeps unashamedly out of love for Lazarus and for us, and who acts on our behalf.”  By His presence and His shared grief, we can find strength.  How blessed we are when we find ourselves in the presence of the weeping Christ.  How blessed we are when we, like Mary and Martha, are surrounded by a circle of friends who also feel our pain and share our grief.

My mother was born in 1916.  That was just half a century after the emancipation of slaves here in the South.  Many of those former slaves lived on the land of their former masters, working the farm, sharing the produce of the farm.  Some of them became cooks and nannies for Americans of European descent.  Aunt Caroline was a beloved nanny for my great-grandmother’s children, so beloved that my mother was given her name – Caroline.  One of the lessons my grandmother learned from Aunt Caroline was the value of sharing the grief of others.  The bell at Aunt Caroline’s church would ring and she would stop whatever she was doing, put on her Sunday clothes, and start walking to the church for the funeral.  My grandmother would ask, “Aunt Caroline, who died?” and Aunt Caroline would answer, “Child, I won’t know ‘til I get there.”  It really didn’t matter who it was.  What mattered was that the community of faith would gather to support the bereaved family by sharing their grief.  When they did, Jesus stood among them, weeping with them.

Jesus wept.  Even though he knew that Lazarus was at God’s side in heaven, no longer sick and no longer suffering, Jesus wept.  Even though He knew what God’s power in Him could still do for Lazarus, Jesus wept.  There was the general expectation in those days that they were living in the last days leading up to the day of resurrection.  “I know that my brother will live again after the resurrection on the last day,” Martha had told Jesus.  What the people didn’t know and were about to find out was that the resurrection wasn’t an event; it was a Person.  In Jesus the day of resurrection had already arrived on earth.  He had already started the work of resurrecting people from the deadness of their sinful lives, and what He did to Lazarus that day showed people that in Jesus we can find resurrection and new life here and now.  “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”

It should be remembered that the raising of Lazarus was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” as far as Jesus’ enemies were concerned.  This miracle steeled their resolve to have Jesus put to death.  Jesus gave His life for Lazarus, quite literally, as He also gave Himself for us.  Just as Jesus is the resurrection, so is He also Judgment Day.  “Those who believe in him are not condemned (i.e., judged)  (John 3:18).

On this All Saints Day, we remember that Jesus still can be found with us when we grieve the passing of one of His children, His saints.  They are saints because God has sanctified them by Jesus’ death, and when they died, like Lazarus they heard a loud voice calling their name, “Come forth.”  They came out of their graves to live forever with Jesus in glory because He is resurrection and life. Amen.

Arthur H. Holt