Sermon Texts

Who was Moses Drury Hoge?

These are some words from the Richmond Dispatch – the city’s paper.

The dawn of Friday, January 6th, 1899, brought with it to the people of Richmond, Va., the knowledge of an event, which in the heart of every one, was as a public calamity; and the occasion of grief to all. The animating spark of the so-endeared citizen and minister, Dr. Hoge, had passed gently to God. . . . His death was not unexpected, but it was not the less sorrowful. Scarce ever, has the rubric gem—‘Faith, Hope, Charity,’ been more impressively and touchingly exemplified in man, and in not another, have the elementary virtues, it is felt, more abounded. Indeed, words seem at fault, and inadequate to depict a life so benignant, so beneficent.

I stand right now in the same pulpit where Dr. Moses Drury Hoge, the first pastor of Second Presbyterian, served from 1845 (when the church was founded) to the day he died in 1899. 54 years!

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We find ourselves in the midst of momentous issues that call forth the very best from us – as citizens of this nation, as human beings, as followers of Jesus.

I want to begin today with a direct quote. Listen:

I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by (people) of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all are created equal, and that the rights of every person are diminished when the rights of one person are threatened. . . . We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.

That quote comes from President John F. Kennedy, in a televised speech to the nation, in response to the racial injustice and unrest at the University of Alabama in June 1963. Exactly 57 years ago this month . . . . . . . and very little seems to have changed! The words are still unbelievably pertinent.

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What are the voices that you listen to?

That feels like a very important question in these days of the pandemic. There are so many voices coming at us. Some days, some nights, I sense these voices playing constantly in my head. There is scientific data to digest. There is the 24-hour news cycle – with lots of unrest and rioting in these days in response to George Floyd’s death. There is social media – posts, tweets, podcasts, and more, about everything. So much information, and mis-information, and we have to be careful not to be overwhelmed.

But I want to press this a bit further. What are the voices that you listen to, and really, what are the forces, the powers, that shape your life?

You have no doubt seen images of people who have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, with each seeking to influence them. Or, maybe you have heard of the native American parable about how we each have two wolves inside us. One wolf is loving, kind, patient, helpful, full of self-control. The other wolf is angry, envious, greedy, hurtful, mean, quick to rage out of control. “Which wolf wins inside of us?” the young boy asks his grandfather. And the wise grandfather replies, “The one you feed.”

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My first word on this Easter Sunday is THANK YOU.

If you are joining the Easter service – via the internet – via live-streaming – you are choosing to take a pause from the isolation and the statistics of COVID-19 . . . and you are choosing to venture into the poetry and the passion of God.

If you are deciding to watch this Easter worship – during this horrific virus that is threatening the world – you are choosing to step back from the chaos and uncertainty of our lives and step INTO WONDER, into mystery, into worship that affirms life over death.

If you are choosing to be with us on this sacred day, THANK YOU. You are seeking to engage your heart with the good news of God – with a message of hope in the midst of all the despair and death. You are affirming – or you are at least open to the idea - that God and the God-life are bigger, better than we ever know – and we are always loved and held by God, no matter what.

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Here is a question I get from time to time: How come Presbyterians almost never talk about the DEVIL?

I try to answer this question – sometimes with humor – but also with some strong affirmations: First, the Bible is not about the DEVIL. The Bible is about God – God’s presence and promises, God’s claim on our lives, God steadfast love which is from everlasting to everlasting, God’s victory over evil and death such that nothing can separate us from God’s love. That is the message of Christian faith.

We affirm this good news again today in the Baptism of little Grayson. Our lives belong to God – not the devil. We are to live our lives loving and serving God – not the devil.

Second, the DEVIL is NOT a very prominent figure in the Bible. He appears in a few places. In nearly every instance where the devil appears, he is the instigator of evil, one who is opposed to God or against God. His very name, “the Devil,” means, actually, “the tempter,” or maybe even better, “the splitting one” – the one who split

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Have you heard about the Coronavirus?

Of course, you have. It continues to be the lead news-story – even with many other pressing and frightening issues. The Coronavirus has killed 1500 people worldwide, and many thousands of cases have been recorded., which generates such fear and concern. And there is the quarantined cruise ship in Japan with now more than 200 infected people onboard.

Coronavirus is a respiratory illness with pneumonia like symptoms that originated in a central province in China and has been spreading across the world, so it is called a pandemic. Both the World Health Organization and the US have declared public health emergencies.

Standard recommendations to prevent infection are familiar - regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs. We are also asked to avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing. Unfortunately, in some parts of the world, coughing on public transportation has become as threatening as pulling out a gun.

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            The gospel stories – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John – which give us the story of Jesus’ life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection, move along at a quick pace. It was just some days ago when we were singing “Away In A Manger,” celebrating the birth of Jesus, singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Today, we have already heard the story of Jesus’ Baptism – and it is not an infant baptism: “Jesus came from Galilee to John at the river Jordan.” He was an adult – who came out of the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended, like a dove, and then the voice from heaven: “this is my son, the Beloved.”

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   Approximately 10 days ago, most of us gathered for worship on Christmas Eve – here in this sanctuary, or maybe somewhere else. We read the Christmas story from Luke’s gospel. We sang lovely Christmas carols. We gathered at the Communion table; and then, at least in this Sanctuary, we formed a large circle and lit candles and affirmed the great promises of Christmas –

-          the Light of the world comes into the human world;

-          the Light shines in the darkness and no darkness can overcome Christ’s light.

These are powerful and memorable moments – holding candles, singing – that intend to shape our faith and form us for living faithfully.

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            In 1997, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen coined the phrase “disruptive innovation.” Before that, DISRUPTION – our word for the day - had a negative connotation. Power outages disrupted our lives. Children disrupted our sleep. Illness and diagnoses disrupted our plans. Well, no longer. Within a few years following 1997, Silicon Valley was disrupting everything with innovation – how we buy things, from household items, to clothes, to cars. We have seen disruptive changes in the publishing industry, the news industry, the travel industry, and almost every other aspect of our lives. (Sports Illustrated, 12/2/2019, p.72)

Ginger and I recently saw the latest Tom Hanks movie “It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” – about the wonderful Presbyterian minister from Pittsburgh, Fred Rogers. It is less a movie about Fred Rogers and his important ministry. It is a more a movie of the impact that Fred Rogers had on people – his compassion, his sensitivity, his presence with people all helped to create a DISRUPTION in the way people think about life, relate to one another, connect with one another.

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  If you have not seen the new movie, “Harriet,” – about the inspiring life and amazing accomplishments of Harriet Tubman - I hope you will see it soon. Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in eastern Maryland; but she determined as a young woman that she would either live free or die.

In one most memorable scene in the movie, as she is running for her freedom, Harriet’s father told her to stop by the church; the preacher could help her. The preacher tried hard to dissuade Harriet from running away – she could not read, she was so young, it was too dangerous, and she would be caught, and maybe killed. Harriet insisted that she was not turning back. She would, as she says numerous times, “either live free, or die.”

Then the preacher said, “Ok, Harriet. I have two things you must know, and never forget.” He said, “First, fear is your enemy.” If you give into fear, he said, you have no chance. Then, second, he told her which way to go and the name and address of a person in Philadelphia. And off she went – going 100 miles to Philadelphia, going not just to freedom, but to a life committed to freeing so many slaves, serving in the Union army, giving all her energy to destroy the horrific institution of slavery.

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  When you notice the sermon title today, I wonder what comes to mind. Is “SALVATION” a positive word or a negative word for you?

            SALVATION is a very important word for people of faith. It intends to name the yearning, the desire, the hope, the purpose of faithful life.

            But it is also a word that can carry a lot of baggage for people.

            Is it more a positive word or a negative word for you?

            Unfortunately, SALVATION has too often been associated with “going to heaven.” It has been assumed to be about the afterlife. Many of us might have connected SALVATION with the either/or proposition of heaven or hell. Through the generations, Christianity has been, unfortunately, presented as mostly about being saved, which gives us SALVATION. But that can be very negative – do you believe enough, or behave well enough, to really appreciate SALVATION that comes from God? SALVATION conversations can easily generate anxiety and fear. SALVATION conversations have certainly led to exclusion – people being told they are not worthy, do not belong.  Where is the grace of God? Where is the good news in a faith that mostly generates anxiety, fear, and exclusion? SALVATION can be a very complicated and negative word.

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As you may know, fall is the time when it is best to tend to the grass in your yard. We have a very small plot of grass in our backyard, but the heat of the summer and the aridness of the fall makes our backyard look more like a wasteland. We have big patches where the grass is really struggling, and other areas where the grass has disappeared. So we gave the yard some attention this week – aerating and putting out new grass seed in hopes that the yard might regenerate itself by springtime. We did this on Tuesday. On Wednesday we had so much rain that everything we did was washed away. And today with all the rain, maybe it is washing away again.

​New grass seed is really not that important. But what happened this week just reminds me again that life is often a never ending struggle – pushing back, fighting against the destructive forces - working for beauty, peace, serenity, and calm. It is ongoing.

My former professor and renowned Biblical scholar, Walter Brueggemann, speaks often about how "the world comes at us in destructive and pathological ways.”

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   There is an interesting and wonderful line in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and the main character in that book, Gandalf, speaks well with a biblical response.

            Describing the difficult days they were facing, Frodo says this: “I wish it need not have happened in my time.”

            “So do I, says Gandalf, “and so do all who live in such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given.” (see J. Wallis, Christ in Crisis, “the Road Ahead,” loc 3750)

            We have only so much control of what happens in the world. We often wish things did not happen in our times. But Gandalf speaks such truth – “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given.”

            We certainly find ourselves in difficult times in these days – so much rancor and division, perhaps a constitutional crisis. The situation seems to change, maybe worsen, everyday. We also have climate issues,  and world tensions, and a volatile global economy, and more.

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Our eschatology shapes our ethics. (I hope you will lean in and think with me on this.)

            Eschatology is a theological word for “last things.” How we think about “last things” should shape how we live – our ethics.

Put another way - what you believe about the future shapes, informs, and determines how you live now.

So, our eschatology shapes our ethics. Does that make sense?

Now, what Jesus taught, what the prophets taught, what so much of the Jewish tradition pointed to, and everything that Jesus lived in anticipation of, was that day when earth and heaven would be one.

What the whole Bible points toward – what Jesus preached and embodied - the Kingdom of God - the day when God’s will would be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus comes to inaugurate the Kingdom of God – it is already here in him and his teachings and actions – and it is also yet to come in fullness. Last things.

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The year was July, 1970. Serene Jones was a little girl living in Richardson, TX. Her father was a professor at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. It was also Serene’s eleventh birthday.

            Here is how Serene recounts it: “My parents had planned a pool party at my request, and I had, in the days prior, turned the event into an overdramatic, self-involved stage play. The car weaved through the neighborhood as we picked up friend after friend, and each girl squeezed into the back seat, filling it with new bits of gossip and girl-speak, . . . We picked up the last invitee, and she had to stretch out across our laps to fit in. None of us were wearing seatbelts, of course. . . .

            We pulled up to the Richardson public pool and it was clear to everyone that it was closed. My dad drove closer to the entrance and got out. I could make out the hand-written sign: CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE.

            My dad looked up at the sky like he always did when he faced a conundrum. He wasn’t praying or asking for divine intervention, but I think the habit of praying and the sensation of being perplexed had somehow become one and the same for him.

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Here we are on Rally Day – the fresh start on a new church year. Church School kicks off with new classes and good opportunities for fellowship and nurture. Worship returns to 11:00am – making it easier for some of us to get to church. The choir is back – thanks be to God! –offering so much with their gifts and voices to our worship experience.  We have other opportunities in place too to engage us, encourage us, and deepen connections and faith as we move into this new season.

            But here is a question: are we – the congregation gathered – mostly good people who come to church to be a little bit better? Are we here so that Christian faith can mostly just help us along our way?

            I remember a wonderful quote from one of my mentors – William Sloane Coffin: “It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it’s a crutch. But what makes you think you don’t limp?” (Credo, p. 137)

            We do need a crutch for our limp: community, worship, encouragement in faith, places to grow and serve together – all these help us with our limp.

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  In some quiet moments of study and reflection in my 3rd floor office this week, a certain old book from my shelf got my attention ( I got lots of books!). I purchased this book while in Seminary in the mid-1980’s. The author is a world famous Catholic theologian named Hans Kung. The book is small and succinct and entitled, Why I Am Still A Christian. This book was next to another book that I was looking for – but it is this one by Kung that got my rapt attention.

            This is how the book opens: “What can I rely on today? What can we hold to? I am not a pessimist, but we scarcely need reminding that we are now in a ‘crisis’ of values as profound as it is far-reaching.”  Kung continues: “This large scale crisis of values has thrown modern society into conflicts which have not yet by any means been resolved. . . . How do we lay down priorities and preferences? . . .How do we know what we can rely on?”  (see H. Kung, p. 19-20)

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