Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
05.25.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 6:24-34
Of all of the passages in the Bible, perhaps none is quite so frustrating to Presbyterians as the one you’ve just heard. Presbyterians, you see, like things to be orderly. Everything you do needs to be carefully planned out, from the first moment you have a planning session to determine the parameters of an action to insuring that the survey data from event participants is correctly tabulated.
This is, perhaps, why some Presbyterians have so much trouble getting second dates. If you think about it, maybe giving her an evaluation form and a self-addressed postage-paid envelope afterwards makes it lack a little bit of...I don’t know...spontaneity.
So when we hear Jesus commending that people not worry about what’s going to happen in the future, and instead suggesting that we should focus most intently on the present, it rubs us completely the wrong way. What? But then we’ll be completely unprepared! That’s utterly irresponsible! You need to have goals, and you need to work hard towards those goals, or you’ll never ever succeed in this life, young man! This invariably degenerates into a long rant about kids these days not appreciating hard work and planning ahead, after which many Presbyterians need to go and take a nap.
It’s hard to avoid interpreting it that way, though. Don’t worry about your life? Don’t worry about what you’ll eat, or what you’ll wear? Is Jesus suggesting that we skip along through our lives just doing whatever? That can’t possibly be the case.
Just what is Jesus talking about here, then? Is he suggesting that we just do what we want now, and not pay a lick of attention to the future? Hardly. But what he’s saying here is deeply important, part of one of the most essential teachings of his ministry. How do we know this?
We know this because this little reading comes to us right out of the thick of the Sermon on the Mount, that great soaring proclamation that begins at the beginning of chapter 5 of Matthew and ends at the end of chapter 7. So here in the thick of the most vital moral and ethical teaching in this Gospel, what is Jesus saying?
The essence of his focus is clear at the very beginning of the passage, where Christ says that you can’t serve two masters. You just can’t. You either serve God, or you serve...well...Mammon. Although mammon often is interpreted as meaning any range of things, it isn’t really one thing. Mammon means wealth, or money, or power, or attainment. It means worldly prosperity, any of the measures by which we determine how we’re doing relative to the next guy. Where do we stand in the great social and economic pecking order? That’s a mammon question.
How do we succeed in the world of Mammon? Well, you’ve got to have a plan. You’ve got to be thinking ahead. You’ve got to be figuring out how to compete, how to claw your way past the other guy on your way to the top. The end goal is happiness, pure material blissful happiness, and it doesn’t matter how many skulls you have to break to get there. You’ve got your eyes on the prize, baby. By any means necessary, as they say.
But Jesus takes things in a totally different direction. He knows, as anyone who’s lived for more than thirty seconds in America could tell you, that the struggles of our day to day lives create unbelievable stresses. Our relentlessly pursuing the goals of material prosperity causes us to chew our nails to the quick, and to completely fail to embrace the moment in which we are living. And missing out on the possibility of your present moment is a pretty dangerous thing, particularly if you understand what it was Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God. In each of the first three Gospels, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, parables and teachings about God’s Reign are the central part of what Jesus taught. What does Jesus have to say about God’s Kingdom? Well, he has two things to say. First, it is just about to happen, so you’d better be ready. Second, it is happening, right here, right now. It is now and not yet. It has arrived and it is still on it’s way.
What that means, and what Jesus is trying to get across in that little passage, is that this moment and every moment of a Christian’s life aren’t just lived with the idea that some day the Kingdom of God will arrive. The awareness of the Kingdom of God has to do more than just be something that we expect will come some time after the publication of the last book in the Left Behind Series. It has to drive how we act in the now. It’s something we need to seek every single day, something that needs to guide every single action that we take. That awareness will color our tomorrows, sure. But we’ve got to get to tomorrow first, and to do that, we’ve got to make our way through today’s worries. And the thing we need to worry about, as Christians, each and every day, is that the Kingdom of God is at hand.
What does that mean?
In your life, there are countless opportunities to act as you would act in the presence of God. You may encounter some of those opportunities today, before you’ve even left this building. There might come a moment when you’re given a choice of making a remark that cuts someone down to size or saying something that builds them up. There might come a moment when you’re given the choice between ignoring that person that you’d really rather not have to waste a moment with, or actually surprising them with a greeting. If you are living into the reality of the Kingdom of God, the way Jesus meant it...how are you going to deal with those simple moments?
The answer is simple. You deal with today’s worries according to the law of the Kingdom of God, and according to the righteousness of God. Every choice, every decision, every option needs to be guided by the awareness of real and present authority of the God who is love, and whose Son preached love, and whose Spirit guides us in love.
When we fail to hold ourselves to that immediate and inescapable measure is when our world comes apart. For when we allow ourselves to seek something other than the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, we start seeking in ways that tear down others, and shatter the very peace that we yearn for.
That’s our worry for today. That’s our worry for tomorrow. But don’t just worry about it.
Act on it.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Lickin' Stick
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
05.18.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: 1 Corinthians 14:1-25
Some sermons, you just gotta see and hear:
Lickin' Stick from David Williams on Vimeo.
05.18.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: 1 Corinthians 14:1-25
Some sermons, you just gotta see and hear:
Lickin' Stick from David Williams on Vimeo.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Pushing Them Out
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda/United Korean Presbyterian Church
Pentecost Sunday, 2008 Rev. John An, Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Acts 2:1-12
Being a mom is not easy.
It’s hard for all kinds of different reasons.
Taking care of kids is hard.
They take your time.
Are they hungry?
They’ll let you know.
Are they thirsty?
Guess who gets asked to get them a drink.
They’re almost as bad as husbands that way.
Who gets to worry over kids when they’re sick?
The mom.
Who gets the call when they mess up at school?
The mom.
Who is always, always going to worry about her babies?
And they’re still your babies, even when they’re about to turn forty.
They’re always your babies.
But the part that we men always marvel about
The one that seems impossibly hard
Is how moms manage to shove the babies out in the first place.
Here you’ve got this tiny person, growing in the womb.
But they don’t stay tiny for long.
They get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And mom gets bigger and bigger
Going from that cute little size 2 you buy at Macy’s
To dresses that look like you’d buy them at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Not the clothes section.
The tent section.
The whole time, the baby is happy as a clam.
It’s warm.
It’s comfy.
It’s completely safe.
But when the time comes to go out into the world
Who manages to push it out?
The mom.
Remember that scriptural saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle?
Remember how impossible that seems?
Well, giving birth is only very slightly easier than that.
Through efforts that most men can’t even grasp
And might not want to even grasp.
It happens.
And something new is born into the world.
It’s a new person, full of life and potential.
They’re no longer hidden away inside the womb.
They’re out there for all the world to see.
Today is Pentecost Sunday
It’s the day we Christians remember the birth of the church
We heard today about the gathering of the disciples
They were all together in a house.
Those who had gathered were still huddling together.
They were excited at the knowledge that Christ had risen.
But they weren’t out there in the world.
Jesus has promised them that something would happen.
So they were waiting around
They were comfortably ensconced in their closed circle
Surrounded by other disciples
Secure in a safe house
But when the Spirit descended, that all changed.
When the Spirit descended, they could no longer remain inside.
Instead of being isolated from the world
Talking only to each other
Unseen by all and unheard by all.
Suddenly all those around were aware of them
As they proclaimed and cried out
Telling the whole world that something new had begun.
That moment fulfills a promise made earlier in the book of Acts.
Back in Acts chapter 1, verses five and eight,
Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will arrive.
It also fulfills a promise that was made back in Luke’s Gospel.
Luke is, remember, the first part of the one book we call Luke/Acts.
In Luke chapter 24, verse 49, we also find that promise.
Jesus pledges that the disciples will be “clothed with power from on high.”
This is the day we remember that moment of power
That moment when the church was born
And this is also the day we remember that moment
That moment when a mom becomes a mom
And as we remember those two moments
We remember what they have in common.
They both mark a great effort
That moves a people out into the world
As we look towards the days beyond this day
We must strive to remember the way that God’s Spirit works.
The Holy Spirit is all about movement and life.
All of the words that describe it in scripture are about movement and action.
In the Bible, the Spirit is ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek
Both words mean “wind” and “breath”
Which are the embodiment of movement and life.
The Gospels proclaim the Spirit as the one who Comforts
And giving comfort or showing caring requires action.
The Gospels proclaim the Spirit as the Advocate
And a silent and motionless Advocate would be useless.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t call us to close ranks around one another
The Holy Spirit doesn’t promise us a comfy and quiet place
Where we can ignore the cries of the rest of humanity.
The Spirit labors to heave us out into the world
Out into a world that needs to hear Christ’s message
A message of both forgiveness and repentance
A message of both love and justice
As God strives through the Spirit to work in us,
That work drives us out into the world.
Like a mother, it gives us life and pushes us out
So that we can bear witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ
To our friends
To our neighbors
To our city
And to the ends of the earth.
Pentecost Sunday, 2008 Rev. John An, Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Acts 2:1-12
Being a mom is not easy.
It’s hard for all kinds of different reasons.
Taking care of kids is hard.
They take your time.
Are they hungry?
They’ll let you know.
Are they thirsty?
Guess who gets asked to get them a drink.
They’re almost as bad as husbands that way.
Who gets to worry over kids when they’re sick?
The mom.
Who gets the call when they mess up at school?
The mom.
Who is always, always going to worry about her babies?
And they’re still your babies, even when they’re about to turn forty.
They’re always your babies.
But the part that we men always marvel about
The one that seems impossibly hard
Is how moms manage to shove the babies out in the first place.
Here you’ve got this tiny person, growing in the womb.
But they don’t stay tiny for long.
They get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And mom gets bigger and bigger
Going from that cute little size 2 you buy at Macy’s
To dresses that look like you’d buy them at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Not the clothes section.
The tent section.
The whole time, the baby is happy as a clam.
It’s warm.
It’s comfy.
It’s completely safe.
But when the time comes to go out into the world
Who manages to push it out?
The mom.
Remember that scriptural saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle?
Remember how impossible that seems?
Well, giving birth is only very slightly easier than that.
Through efforts that most men can’t even grasp
And might not want to even grasp.
It happens.
And something new is born into the world.
It’s a new person, full of life and potential.
They’re no longer hidden away inside the womb.
They’re out there for all the world to see.
Today is Pentecost Sunday
It’s the day we Christians remember the birth of the church
We heard today about the gathering of the disciples
They were all together in a house.
Those who had gathered were still huddling together.
They were excited at the knowledge that Christ had risen.
But they weren’t out there in the world.
Jesus has promised them that something would happen.
So they were waiting around
They were comfortably ensconced in their closed circle
Surrounded by other disciples
Secure in a safe house
But when the Spirit descended, that all changed.
When the Spirit descended, they could no longer remain inside.
Instead of being isolated from the world
Talking only to each other
Unseen by all and unheard by all.
Suddenly all those around were aware of them
As they proclaimed and cried out
Telling the whole world that something new had begun.
That moment fulfills a promise made earlier in the book of Acts.
Back in Acts chapter 1, verses five and eight,
Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will arrive.
It also fulfills a promise that was made back in Luke’s Gospel.
Luke is, remember, the first part of the one book we call Luke/Acts.
In Luke chapter 24, verse 49, we also find that promise.
Jesus pledges that the disciples will be “clothed with power from on high.”
This is the day we remember that moment of power
That moment when the church was born
And this is also the day we remember that moment
That moment when a mom becomes a mom
And as we remember those two moments
We remember what they have in common.
They both mark a great effort
That moves a people out into the world
As we look towards the days beyond this day
We must strive to remember the way that God’s Spirit works.
The Holy Spirit is all about movement and life.
All of the words that describe it in scripture are about movement and action.
In the Bible, the Spirit is ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek
Both words mean “wind” and “breath”
Which are the embodiment of movement and life.
The Gospels proclaim the Spirit as the one who Comforts
And giving comfort or showing caring requires action.
The Gospels proclaim the Spirit as the Advocate
And a silent and motionless Advocate would be useless.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t call us to close ranks around one another
The Holy Spirit doesn’t promise us a comfy and quiet place
Where we can ignore the cries of the rest of humanity.
The Spirit labors to heave us out into the world
Out into a world that needs to hear Christ’s message
A message of both forgiveness and repentance
A message of both love and justice
As God strives through the Spirit to work in us,
That work drives us out into the world.
Like a mother, it gives us life and pushes us out
So that we can bear witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ
To our friends
To our neighbors
To our city
And to the ends of the earth.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Staring Into Space
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
05.04.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Acts 1:6-14
If you’ve ever worked as part of team, or been part of a group project at school, you know there are as many different ways to mess a project up as there are human beings. Every project meeting is blessed with at least one or two of these personalities...maybe they’ll seem familiar.
There’s the perfectionist control freak, who immediately assumes that they are in charge of the project and starts giving orders to everyone and presenting everyone with the graphs and timelines and flow charts that show how this project fits neatly within their six year plan for world domination. You’re right there on their chart, no, not there, there, that little dot down there, right below the market capitalization plan for the factory in Indonesia that will build their giant army of mechanized warbots.
There’s the attention-seeking hypersensitive, who immediately assumes that that comment that you just made about maybe going out to get lunch afterwards was your snide way of saying that they had personally failed to bring snacks, and who then requires everyone to spend the rest of the meeting telling them that, no, no, you do a great job, that wasn’t what we meant at all. It’s worth noting that attention-seeking hypersensitives are unusually susceptible to the effect of tasers.
Not that I’m suggesting that. I’m just saying.
There’s the monologuer, who when asked to give their perspective about the direction of the project immediately begins telling the whole group about this time when they were at this place where they met this very important person you’ve never heard of, who told them something sort of related to the project that was said by this other very important person you’ve never heard of, and then proceeds to talk for 45 minutes straight without apparently ever pausing to breathe. I know what you’re thinking, but unfortunately, tasers have no effect whatsoever on the monologuer.
There’s the attention-deficit-disorder multitasker, who spends the whole time trying to listen while simultaneously responding to emails on their BlackBerry, texting on their iPhone, rereading the background material for the meeting, checking their voicemail, and furtively searching for a relevant document on their laptop. Though they’re the busiest person you’ve ever known, you’ve recently noticed that they haven’t actually finished anything, including a complete sentence, since August of 2003.
Then there’s the space cadet, who appears, well, they appear not to be there at all. Their eyes have this far away look, their focus cast far away to the distant horizon outside of the meeting room walls. They’ve gone to their happy place, and are completely and utterly inert, in a Zen state of complete and utter nonproductive disengagement. They’re so far into their journey into never-never land that if everyone gets up and leaves very quietly, they’ll probably still be there when you get back, a little trickle of blissful drool running down from one corner of their slightly open mouth. We actually did this at our last session meeting, but I’ll leave you to guess who it was.
It is our human tendency to become this last one, the space cadet, the witless dude-where’s-my-project person, that gets a little bit of attention during the planning meeting up on top of Mount Olivet.
We’re at the very beginning of the Book of Acts. The first handful of verses connect our story to the end of Luke’s Gospel, and now we’re told more detail about what Jesus did as he prepared for his departure. The disciples have gathered together with the risen Christ, and during the question and answer session at the end of the meeting, they’re trying to figure out what in the world is going to happen next. Is this it? Is God’s Kingdom finally here?
Jesus tells them pretty clearly that things aren’t going to happen as they originally thought. They’d been hoping that this was the thing they’d expected, the arrival of Jesus as the great warrior who would liberate all of Israel, bringing about the fulfillment of the Kingdom. Jesus tells that that this isn’t how it’s going down. When exactly things are going to completed, when the age of messianic fulfillment will come, none of those things are to be known by anyone but God. It’s not on the table. It’s not going to be shared, at least, not in the way that they expect. But something else, something they had not expected, is going to happen.
In response to their question about the Kingdom, Jesus goes on to tell them that power will come to them through the Holy Spirit, and that from that, the disciples will become witnesses to Christ in Jerusalem, in the southern kingdom of Judea, in the northern kingdom of Israel, and to the ends of the earth itself. Having told them what was important, Jesus then gets up and leaves the meeting, and by getting up, I mean really, really up.
The disciples watch him go, staring gape-mouthed into the sky, frozen and inert. As they continue to stand there, unable to act, unable to move, two “men in white robes” appear. “Men in white robes” is just a different way of saying angels, and the word aggelion in the Greek just means “messenger.” These two messengers have something very specific to say to the disciples.
What they have to say is this: “Hey! You! Jesus already told you what you what you’re going to need to do, and what’s going to happen! This book’s supposed to be called the Acts of the Apostles, not the Standing-Around-and-Staring-into-Space of the Apostles! Get moving!”
And so they do. What are they moving towards? They’re moving towards what Jesus tells them in verse eight of chapter 1, which is also proclaimed in verse five of chapter one, which is also proclaimed in verse forty-nine of the last chapter of the Gospel of Luke. They are moving towards an event that is deeply vital and pivotal to the Gospel proclamation in Luke and Acts. They are moving towards the arrival of Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, God’s own Spirit, which comes down from heaven and fills them with the power that they’d need to spread the message of Christ’s love and justice and salvation throughout the entire world.
Oddly enough, next Sunday is Pentecost, though it’s close to two thousand years later. And over those two thousand years, we Christians have done a whole bunch of staring into space. We’re waiting for Jesus to return. We’re waiting for that one perfect impossible moment when we’ll have it all together, for that moment when the stars in the night sky align and say, Hey! You! It’s finally time for you to act.
So some don’t act at all, but most of us look towards that distant and impossible future, keep staring towards the heavens, and we wait. And we wait. And we wait. And our eyes are glazed, and we’re off in our happy place. We don’t see the task at hand, which is to share Christ’s saving love with the world. We don’t see the task at hand, in the here and now, in a human being in need of a kind word or an open ear. We don’t see the task at hand, in a world that burns with the fires of war and the cries of hungry children.
That’s a pity, because the guy in charge of this project really, really does not want us to mess it up.
05.04.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Acts 1:6-14
If you’ve ever worked as part of team, or been part of a group project at school, you know there are as many different ways to mess a project up as there are human beings. Every project meeting is blessed with at least one or two of these personalities...maybe they’ll seem familiar.
There’s the perfectionist control freak, who immediately assumes that they are in charge of the project and starts giving orders to everyone and presenting everyone with the graphs and timelines and flow charts that show how this project fits neatly within their six year plan for world domination. You’re right there on their chart, no, not there, there, that little dot down there, right below the market capitalization plan for the factory in Indonesia that will build their giant army of mechanized warbots.
There’s the attention-seeking hypersensitive, who immediately assumes that that comment that you just made about maybe going out to get lunch afterwards was your snide way of saying that they had personally failed to bring snacks, and who then requires everyone to spend the rest of the meeting telling them that, no, no, you do a great job, that wasn’t what we meant at all. It’s worth noting that attention-seeking hypersensitives are unusually susceptible to the effect of tasers.
Not that I’m suggesting that. I’m just saying.
There’s the monologuer, who when asked to give their perspective about the direction of the project immediately begins telling the whole group about this time when they were at this place where they met this very important person you’ve never heard of, who told them something sort of related to the project that was said by this other very important person you’ve never heard of, and then proceeds to talk for 45 minutes straight without apparently ever pausing to breathe. I know what you’re thinking, but unfortunately, tasers have no effect whatsoever on the monologuer.
There’s the attention-deficit-disorder multitasker, who spends the whole time trying to listen while simultaneously responding to emails on their BlackBerry, texting on their iPhone, rereading the background material for the meeting, checking their voicemail, and furtively searching for a relevant document on their laptop. Though they’re the busiest person you’ve ever known, you’ve recently noticed that they haven’t actually finished anything, including a complete sentence, since August of 2003.
Then there’s the space cadet, who appears, well, they appear not to be there at all. Their eyes have this far away look, their focus cast far away to the distant horizon outside of the meeting room walls. They’ve gone to their happy place, and are completely and utterly inert, in a Zen state of complete and utter nonproductive disengagement. They’re so far into their journey into never-never land that if everyone gets up and leaves very quietly, they’ll probably still be there when you get back, a little trickle of blissful drool running down from one corner of their slightly open mouth. We actually did this at our last session meeting, but I’ll leave you to guess who it was.
It is our human tendency to become this last one, the space cadet, the witless dude-where’s-my-project person, that gets a little bit of attention during the planning meeting up on top of Mount Olivet.
We’re at the very beginning of the Book of Acts. The first handful of verses connect our story to the end of Luke’s Gospel, and now we’re told more detail about what Jesus did as he prepared for his departure. The disciples have gathered together with the risen Christ, and during the question and answer session at the end of the meeting, they’re trying to figure out what in the world is going to happen next. Is this it? Is God’s Kingdom finally here?
Jesus tells them pretty clearly that things aren’t going to happen as they originally thought. They’d been hoping that this was the thing they’d expected, the arrival of Jesus as the great warrior who would liberate all of Israel, bringing about the fulfillment of the Kingdom. Jesus tells that that this isn’t how it’s going down. When exactly things are going to completed, when the age of messianic fulfillment will come, none of those things are to be known by anyone but God. It’s not on the table. It’s not going to be shared, at least, not in the way that they expect. But something else, something they had not expected, is going to happen.
In response to their question about the Kingdom, Jesus goes on to tell them that power will come to them through the Holy Spirit, and that from that, the disciples will become witnesses to Christ in Jerusalem, in the southern kingdom of Judea, in the northern kingdom of Israel, and to the ends of the earth itself. Having told them what was important, Jesus then gets up and leaves the meeting, and by getting up, I mean really, really up.
The disciples watch him go, staring gape-mouthed into the sky, frozen and inert. As they continue to stand there, unable to act, unable to move, two “men in white robes” appear. “Men in white robes” is just a different way of saying angels, and the word aggelion in the Greek just means “messenger.” These two messengers have something very specific to say to the disciples.
What they have to say is this: “Hey! You! Jesus already told you what you what you’re going to need to do, and what’s going to happen! This book’s supposed to be called the Acts of the Apostles, not the Standing-Around-and-Staring-into-Space of the Apostles! Get moving!”
And so they do. What are they moving towards? They’re moving towards what Jesus tells them in verse eight of chapter 1, which is also proclaimed in verse five of chapter one, which is also proclaimed in verse forty-nine of the last chapter of the Gospel of Luke. They are moving towards an event that is deeply vital and pivotal to the Gospel proclamation in Luke and Acts. They are moving towards the arrival of Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, God’s own Spirit, which comes down from heaven and fills them with the power that they’d need to spread the message of Christ’s love and justice and salvation throughout the entire world.
Oddly enough, next Sunday is Pentecost, though it’s close to two thousand years later. And over those two thousand years, we Christians have done a whole bunch of staring into space. We’re waiting for Jesus to return. We’re waiting for that one perfect impossible moment when we’ll have it all together, for that moment when the stars in the night sky align and say, Hey! You! It’s finally time for you to act.
So some don’t act at all, but most of us look towards that distant and impossible future, keep staring towards the heavens, and we wait. And we wait. And we wait. And our eyes are glazed, and we’re off in our happy place. We don’t see the task at hand, which is to share Christ’s saving love with the world. We don’t see the task at hand, in the here and now, in a human being in need of a kind word or an open ear. We don’t see the task at hand, in a world that burns with the fires of war and the cries of hungry children.
That’s a pity, because the guy in charge of this project really, really does not want us to mess it up.
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