Category: Preaching Notes
Playlist: Sermon Edition
I was gifted the trust of the pulpit for a gathering of our congregations, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in Canadian Co. Oklahoma. These five congregations (First Christian Church Calumet, First Christian Church El Reno, Mustang Christian Church, West Point Christian Church, First Christian Church Yukon) gather for an evening fellowship dinner and worship during Advent and Lent. A theme for these worship services is selected. The theme for Lent is, “When did you start to sing a different song? ”
The texts are Psalms that are part of the weekly Lectionary reading during Lent. I was asked to offer some words on Psalm 63. My companion crafted the sermon summation:
“The psalm allows us to hear and name our desires and our fears/doubts, our joy and our pain. This psalm may help us recognize when we are dehydrated and need to find the Holy — wherever we do that — allowing us to sing a new song.” (Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison)
Several song lyrics were featured in the sermon as I stitched together some thoughts about Psalm 63 and how my life’s soundtrack has influenced how I hear, read, and experience the good news of God, and how the verses of my song have changed as I’ve grown older, but not up.
One way I approach the biblical text is remembering these are stories that can possibly help me learn something about how to bear the weight of:
longing,
questions,
uncertainty,
relationship,
visions and dreams,
joy, anger, and sadness.
Or, as the writer of Psalm 63 describes: thirst, looking, satisfaction, meditation, clinging, and a desire about what should happen to those who seek to destroy.
The summer between 6th and 7th grade, my family moved from deep northeast Texas to deep southeast Texas. I wasn’t happy about it.
But, I made some friends and went to church camp the summer between 7th and 8th grade with a changing tune.
I had grown up going to church and youth group. At summer camp (Camp Wildurr) I experienced the realness of God for the first time. I didn’t know I was thirsty. I left camp with some new verses in my song and the baseline that continues. “No one could change my mind but Mama tried.”
The thing about dehydration is that it can sneak up on you.
A headache is coming on. It must be stress.
I’m fatigued. Tired. Maybe I need a little more rest.
Cramping up a bit. Need more potassium.
I’m a little dizzy. It may be allergies, an inner ear thing, or blood pressure.
I feel a little nauseous. Something I ate must not be sitting well on my stomach.
Those are symptoms of dehydration, which can cause odd behavior and lead to more serious physical, mental, and spiritual health conditions. It can alter your song.
There is a story from the movie, “The American President” that goes something like this.
“People want . . . leadership, spirituality, meaningful existence, companionship, people want (fill in the blank . . .). They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”
When I read the Psalms, I think it’s a glimpse of the writers inner voice. You know, the internal, ongoing dialogue about the experiences of a day, the memories and the feelings you carry, or the things you choose not to say. The writers of the Psalms wrote their inner voice on behalf of their community and for themselves, trusting that God would receive it and be God. Can you imagine your journal becoming a sacred text for someone?
Humans are not bifurcated, from a Hebrew bible perspective, though that is a nice rationalization for the good and evil we humans can commit. “It’s not my fault; the Satan made me do it.” (Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, a Hebrew bible scholar and my companion, can help you understand this perspective and better translations of the Hebrew words hesed and nephesh.)
Psal 63
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my life thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your fierce, restless love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
My life is satisfied as with a rich feast
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My life clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
But those who seek to destroy my life
shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword,
they shall be prey for jackals.
But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by (king or God) shall exult,
for the mouths of liars will be stopped.
When do you meditate on the Lord? Do yourself a favor and get away from your social media, your news silo, and screen for an hour every day. Find some silence. Listen. It can be scary. What song is your internal voice shouting or whispering right now?
“It’s their vault.”
“I’m not good enough?”
“I’m a good person.”
“They are a child of God.”
“I’m a child of God.”
“Why Me, Lord?”
The soundtrack in my life, the playlist, has many tunes that influence my song. It includes verses from two staples and a modern psalm.
Be Thou My Vision
Irish song (8th century); tr. Mary E. Bryne, 1905; versed by Eleanor H. Hull, 1912, alt.
Chalice Hymnal #595
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that thou art
thou my best thought by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with the and thou with me, Lord:
though my redeemer, my love thou has won,
thou in my dwelling, and I with the one.
Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise,
thou mine inheritance, now and always:
thou and thou only, first in my heart,
Great God of heaven, my treasure thou art.
Great God of heaven, my victory won,
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. I wonder what will bubble up for you?
Caring for people. Doing good in the world.
Not long ago, I revisited the stories of Jesus’ temptations while preparing some words for another topic. The specific temptations detailed in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 have been taught as “one off” experiences in the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. They are tests that Jesus passes on his way to living as a meditation on what it means to have faith in God. Maybe they are not “one off.” Your moral compass. Your empire claims. Your use of power. Those are always going to be Jesus’ temptations. They are never “one off.” They keep coming back. That’s the lesson. They always return in different clothing, financial instruments, power structures, political parties, slogans, policies, empires, instruments of injustice, and in the name of the Divine. Jesus dealt with it. Those first generations of disciples dealt with it. Saul, transformed to Paul certainly had his issues as did those claiming apostleship and interpreting a backstory to mean dominate the known world for Jesus. History shows how badly that interpretation coupled with politics can be. The Crusades. The Holocaust. A new PRRI survey indicates it remains a struggle in the 21st century for those that claim Christian faith, be it faith in Jesus or the faith of Jesus.
One of the differences often noted between Matthew and Luke is the order of the temptations. That’s not what caught my attention. In Luke’s version, Jesus has been in the desert forty days being tempted by the Satan. The text says “He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.” It is then that the Satan offers the big three detailed in Luke and Matthew. Famished. I think this is a way of understanding the rise of pop-Christian evangelicalism, the New Apostolic Reformation, Christian nationalism, and the religious fundamentalism that has returned in our Nation. Mainline Protestant Christianity and Catholicism became comfortably numb in its place in society having been popular post WW II and experienced righteousness during the Civil Rights era. A queasy tolerance of secularism and the expansion of rights for women, expanded gender roles, the sexual revolution, voting rights, interracial marriage, and changing cultural norms drove some to a wilderness. These emerged from the wilderness of the second half of the 20th century famished. Everyone was left behind at the turn of the millennium. Jesus didn’t return. For some the search for a purpose driven life has embraced an amoral capitalist turned political leader whose worldview is immoral. We’ve seen what being famished will do to a person, a people. We are seeing Captain Jack Sparrow’s pirate moto in realtime, “Take all you can. Give nothing back.” Two characters from central casting, President Trump and Musk, play their roles well. Savior and villain. It could be understandable had they been born into poverty fighting the man and the man’s systems for their fair share. But, they were born into wealth and privilege, and protected when they failed over and over again because of that wealth. Famished. Have we as a Nation learned nothing from world history and our own history with these temptations?
The good news according to Mark gives no details of the temptations. The text simply says Jesus was driven into the wilderness, tempted by Satan, was with wild beasts and angels waited on Jesus. (Mark 1:12-13). I don’t pretend to know what the wilderness is for people, nor the metaphorical wild beasts of other’s struggles. Everyone experiences both. I don’t believe in the existence of celestial beings called angels, but I think the idea of caring, watching out for people, treating people fairly and tending to our neighbor, is a description of what people are capable of. It might be what President Lincoln meant in his first inaugural address as, “the better angels of our nature.” Based on his behavior pattern this doesn’t interest the 47th President unless the transaction benefits him somehow. Famished.
It was with great surprise last Sunday that my congregation’s minister referenced the podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.” Ted Danson is interviewing his wife, Mary, who mentions how her childhood church was important to her growing up and still is today. It just happens to be part of the little frontier movement in which I serve. She speaks as one who understands the temptations never go away, and that church can embrace the faith of Jesus in simple acts that are super intense. Care for people. Do good in the world. I don’t know if that will stop the pirates ravaging our government today as they attempted to do on January 6, 2021, but it is a place to begin locally when the temptations return. It’s not easy, but the best way to not be fooled again is to not be famished inside or outside the wilderness. Jesus didn’t fall for it. Followers of Jesus do Jesus-like things. You do your best. Persons of other faiths that may pass by this site, I suggest the parts of your holy texts that teach something like the Golden Rule. Maybe you are of no particular faith and consider yourself spiritual, agnostic, or something else. The simplicity of Zoroastrian faith is a place to begin in the wilderness or oasis: Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.