Sermon Texts

There is a certain exercise – a test – that challenges your ability to concentrate. It is quite interesting. This comes in a video. In the video, there are people with white shirts and people with dark shirts. The white-shirt people throw a ball to other white- shirt people and the dark-shirt people throw a ball to other dark-shirt people. To test your ability to concentrate, your job is to pick one of the shirts – white or dark - and count the number of times that that team throws to a member of their team.

The instructions in this test say “Ignore everything else. Just focus on that.” So, the concentration test unfolds. You watch people run around and throw a ball. You count. “Seven, eight, nine, twelve, fourteen, seventeen, twenty-one. Twenty- one!”

At the end of the video, you answer the questions – if you followed the white shirts, how many times did they pass the ball? And if you followed the dark shirts, same question - “sixteen, seventeen, nineteen,” and there is a right answer – but it moves along fast.

And then – after you guess the number of throws to test your concentration – there is this question: “Did you see the gorilla?”

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Ginger and I used to have a dog – a beautiful golden retriever – who was such a part of our family when our kids were growing up. His name was “Shadow” – because he followed around one of our daughters so closely – like a shadow.

Here is the thing about Shadow, our dog. If you ever spoke the word “Walk,” his ears perked up, he got up and went and waited by the front door. This one, simple word, motivated him. He loved going on walks. Saying “walk,” brought him to life, to attention, to the door, ready to go.

What is it that motivates us, . . . . gets our attention, gets us focused on responsible faithfulness, on the tasks at hand? We are all ministers!

Before I went to seminary, some of you know that I was a teacher and a lacrosse coach. Our team had some good players, but we were mostly average compared to the other teams. So, as a coach I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to motivate – to get the best out of the players. Sometimes it led to yelling and screaming. Sometimes it meant devising new schemes. Sometimes it meant praising, pampering, and rewarding them. Various approaches worked.

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What do you say to people who need encouragement in the midst of life’s trials and tribulations? What would be a helpful word to a community that feels burdened, stressed out, lost, bewildered?

Those are pressing questions right now, right?

We continue in this long and unsettling season of a global pandemic. We keep hoping we have “turned the corner,” but COVID 19 seems stronger and more persistent that our best hopes.

We are also on pins and needles with a presidential election this week. There is good reason to wonder if the very fabric of our society may be in peril. Election worries, foreign interference, uncertainty about when we might know the results, concerns about violence and unrest – all cause anxiety and stress.

And we all have other circumstances and issues that burden us – racial and economic challenges, more protests in the streets because of killings by police, personal crises, and more.

Most scholars agree that the letters of Peter, near the back of the New Testament, were written near the end of the first century as Christian communities were emerging in various parts of the Mediterranean region. Peter, a prominent disciple of Jesus, writes these letters to encourage the early church, especially as they faced trials and tribulations, persecutions and peril.

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The Old Testament has lots of stories about brothers. Today, I want to talk about two brothers from the book of Exodus: Aaron and Moses.

“Moses was three years younger than his brother, Aaron, but starting with the day Pharaoh's daughter fished Moses out of the bulrushes and adopted him, Moses was the one who always got the headlines.”

Moses really got famous when he was around 80 years old. As Frederick Buechner puts it: “Out of a burning bush God himself voted Moses ‘Man of the Year.’” God called Moses to confront Pharaoh and tell him, “let God’s people go.”

Moses, you recall, led the people out of slavery, out of Egypt. His leadership, faith, and fortitude continue to teach and inspire all of us.

But Aaron - “Aaron appears in the story along the way, but always playing second fiddle, which he did well enough until he got the break he'd been waiting for at last, . . . . and then he blew it.

With Moses lingering so long on Mt. Sinai that some thought he'd settled down and gone into real estate, the people turned to Aaron for leadership, and in no time flat, . . Aaron had them dancing (crazy) around the Golden Calf.”

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Whose AUTHORITY do your respect the most? Maybe someone who has been influential in your life. A mentor or teacher? A close colleague or friend?

AUTHORITY has to do with influence on your heart and life. AUTHORITY has to do with credibility and persuasiveness, someone shaping and forming us, guiding us and encouraging us in a certain way.

Who do you listen to? Who do you follow?

AUTHORITY has also become a troubling subject in recent months. The world continues to face a nasty pandemic and we keep getting confusing messages, even as we count 200,000 deaths in our nation. Who do we listen to with confidence and commitment? Is the virus going away . . . or will it get worse? Is it more important to wear a mask, . . . or more important to maintain your right not to wear one? Should we listen to the politicians, . . . or the scientists?

We have seen wildfires ravaging the west coast, and hurricanes battering the south and east. Is this caused by devastating effects from climate change, . . . or is this just nature doing what nature does.

If we could trust some AUTHORITY on these matters, our responses might be different.

AUTHORITY is a subject that confronted and confounded Jesus on a number of occasions. Listen to this story from Matthew 21 (F. Dale Bruner’s translation):

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The adversaries of Jesus – the Pharisees – thought they had gotten control of their daily schedule. If they knew what day it was, they also knew what they could and could not do.

Getting control of your schedule is no small matter, especially for us – modern people who live in a demanding rat-race economy. We have learned along the way that we are supposed to make the most of the time – we are supposed to achieve, accomplish, succeed, get things done. And we have all kinds of devices and activities and ways to work that keep us engaged 24/7.

One of the biggest challenges in these days – about returning to normal – opening the economy – getting back to in-person school and life – is really all about returning to the rat-race – accomplishing, achieving, producing, succeeding. The insatiable demands of the economy and life dictate so much about us.

Yet, as faithful people, we are instructed to resist life’s insatiable pressures. We are called to live balanced lives, anchored in God and focused on serving God.

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So many questions keep percolating around us.

First, there are so many questions about the pandemic. There are questions about the virus itself – how it spreads, its varying effects on people, how it can be managed and mitigated. Our nation is not doing too well with. And the questions multiply. When will we ever get beyond this virus? How and when will we ever get back to church and what will that be like? Will schools and colleges ever adjust? What will be the lasting effects on the economy, on our way of life? And those are just a few of the endless questions.

So many questions linger about our society in these days. We continue with widespread uprisings and demonstrations across the nation that provide a clarion call to change our culture. Can we finally, truly dismantle racism in this land? Can we find new ways to function that move us away from segregation, injustice, brutality, socio-economic-racial disparities? Can we finally navigate our way to the beloved community where we are judged by “the content of our character?” Can we become “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?”

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On the night of February 11, 1944, white and black Christians gathered in this very sanctuary for a significant event. The speaker was Dr. Howard Thurman, Professor at Howard University in Washington, DC, a very distinguished African- American educator, writer, poet, and theologian. About this momentous event in the life of the church – a mixed congregation of blacks and whites with such a renowned guest speaker – the Blanton book, which records the first 100 years of this church’s history, says this: “to those who know the history of Second Church, it must seem that this meeting of inspiration was the culmination of a hundred years of kindly feeling.” (Blanton, p. 324)

Why was this visit to this pulpit by Dr. Howard Thurman so significant?

It was 1944 - 99 years since the founding of Second Church – and a large inter-racial gathering was happening in this sanctuary – which we would consider commonplace today; but that was 1944, in still segregated Richmond.

There are parts of our congregation’s history of which we can be proud, . . . and not so proud. Certainly, that evening in February 1944 with Howard Thurman in this pulpit, remains one of the very proud moments in the life of this church.

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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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