Perspective

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
08.31.08; Rev. John An and Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 90; Romans 12: 9-21

How long did this summer seem to you?

It seems like only yesterday that school was getting out.

Kids were feeling happy.

Kids were finally free!

No school!

Yay!

Parents were trying to figure out how to juggle them and work.

Parents were trying to get kids to summer programs and into camps.

No school!

Boo!

And now another summer is over.

When you’re an adult, those few months of summer are gone like the blink of an eye.

For that, we are truly grateful.

But when you’re young, a summer can seem like forever.

Those few months stretch out to the far horizon.

The distance between June and August is unimaginably large.

But when you’re young, your sense of time is very different.

Even a single afternoon can seem like an eternity.

Especially if you don’t have cable.

It is a matter of perspective.

As you become older, every day represents a slightly smaller fraction of your life.

Because of this, they seem to pass more quickly.

When you’ve seen more of life, time itself seems to grow smaller.

It’s a bit like looking down at this church.

It seems like a big place when you’re standing on the roof clearing the gutters.

It’s less so when you’re at 10,000 feet.

It so tiny as not to be visible at all when you’re in orbit.

It’s a matter of perspective.

Today’s reading from the 90^th Psalm is all about perspective

It’s an interesting Psalm for many reasons.

The Book of Psalms is a collection of 150 individual praise songs.

Those 150 songs are divided up into five separate collections.

Some scholars believe this is to match the five books of the Torah.

Psalm 90 begins the fourth collection of Psalms.

Of all of the Psalms, the 90^th is the only one to be attributed to Moses.

It describes human life, but not from our viewpoint.

This song, this prayer, is about how God sees us and all we do.

For God, a thousand years are as “yesterday when it is past.”

“Yesterday when it is past” is another way of saying no time at all.

Even the rise and fall of great nations, of whole civilizations, are less than a blinking of an eye to God.

For the Almighty God, all of our days of struggling and our planning are as fleeting as a dream.

How can we respond to One so immense and seemingly terrifying?

The Psalmist tells us.

In verse twelve, we hear that we are to count or number our days.

This will give us wisdom.

But what does wisdom teach?

What is the value of our lives, if they are so itty bitty in the eyes of God?

What should guide our decisions, as we move through the transitions of life?

It can’t be the pursuit of wealth, because wealth means nothing to God.

It can’t be the pursuit of power, because everything we have will pass away.

Each of us is moving towards a new stage in our lives.

For many, it means going into a new school year.

There are new classes to take.

There are new teachers to get to know.

There are new friendships to make and old friendships to make anew.

Change is everywhere.

We may struggle to know how to act in a time of change.

How to approach this new part of our lives?

How are we to decide?

Look at your life from God’s perspective.

Many of us think that we can put off living the life God is calling us to.

“I’ve got to get through this one thing, and then I’ll get right with God,” we say.

“I’m not mature enough in my spiritual journey,” we say.

“I’ll get around to living that life later,” we argue.

But God sees your life…all of your life…right now.

The way you live in this moment matters.

The way you deal with every instant matters.

Because in the eyes of your Maker, your whole life is just an instant.

But how are we to live joyously in those moments?

In the Book of Romans, chapter 12, the Apostle Paul tells us.

For life to be joyous, we are to love.

Not just love a little.

We are to love abundantly.

We are to show affection to those within the church.

We are to show love and care even to our enemies.

Every moment, every action, every deed needs to be filled with God’s love.

Because as we approach every change and every choice in our lives,

We have to remember that God’s perspective isn’t just eternal.

It is also defined by a love that claims authority over every tiny fraction of our lives.

So count your days as God counts them.

Be filled with the wisdom that brings joy.

Whatever may come in the weeks ahead

See it and respond to it with that love.

Send/Receive

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
03.30.08; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson: John 20:19-31

We breathe in, we breathe out. It’s a simple and basic part of our existence, so simple that we don’t really even think about it. The muscles of our diaphragm contract, and pull air deep into our lungs. The muscles of our diaphragm relax, and the air is released. That action happens between 8-15 times a minute, around 17,000 times a day. We do it mostly without thinking, without thought, and we do it alot.

We can control it, sure. You can breathe really really fast...but if you keep that up, you’ll hyperventilate and pass out. You can stop your breathing entirely for a while......but that ends up having the same effect. For breathing to work, we have to take the air in, and give the air out. We receive it, and we send it. We send it, and we receive it. If we don’t, we die.

Our lungs are partnered with our heart, which functions in a similar way. The oxygen taken in by our lungs enters our blood, and needs to get out to the body. Our heart is like the heart of any other mammal, and has four chambers. The left atrium receives oxygen rich blood, and the left ventricle sends that blood to the body. The right atrium receives the oxygen-depleted blood back, and the right ventricle sends it back to the lungs. All this happens without our thinking, 72 times a minute, 2.5 billion times over an average lifetime. Receiving and sending, sending and receiving. It’s absolutely necessary if we are to live.

Breathing and sending and receiving are at the heart of what Jesus was proclaiming in today’s passage from the Gospel of John. This little chunk of John’s Gospel is full of intriguing stories, like, for instance, the description of the doubts that Thomas felt and Christ’s response, as He told us what it meant to believe.

If you read it closely, you might also notice that this was probably the point where some early version of John’s Gospel actually ended. Take a look at the last two verses, at John 20:30-31. Those verses read like the conclusion of a book. They wrap things up, telling us that there were other witnesses to Christ, and telling us why John’s Gospel was written. Of course, after that, we get a whole ‘nutha chapter...but that’s fine. It’s just part of the story..one of the “many other signs”...that was remembered later, and that they absolutely had to include.

But what I want to raise up about this final section of John’s Gospel has everything to do with sending and receiving. The story comes after the resurrection, after Mary had met the risen Jesus in the garden. It’s John’s post-Easter story, but when we encounter the disciples, we don’t find them happy and uplifted and never wanting to see another chocolate bunny again. Instead, they are frightened and isolated, huddled behind locked doors and unwilling to move out into a world that has just taken the life of the rabbi that they loved.

Suddenly, Jesus is among them. He just is, right there, in the flesh. Though they’ve closed ranks, he works his way among them. They are, understandably, overjoyed.
But his arrival isn’t without purpose. First, he offers them his shalom, his peace. Then he tells them that peace will be with them a second time. Having promised them peace, he presents them with a challenge. They’ve received him in. They’ve been filled with rejoicing at his impossible presence.

So he tells them this: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He has found them holed up, locked away, and he wants them out in the world. This is, as John’s Gospel tells it, the equivalent of the Great Commission. Get out there. Be sent, as I was sent.

And then Jesus breathes on them. It’s not something that we’d usually expect someone to do when they’ve asked us to do something. Giving marching orders? Sure. Giving instructions? Fine. Pointing us to the door and telling us not to let it whap us in the behind on the way out? We’d expect that. But Jesus breathes on them.

In the Greek that John’s Gospel uses to tell the story of Christ, of course, the words for “breath” and the words for “spirit” are the same. So out flows Christ’s breath, and it carries with it the words “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Having given them the breath and the spirit, Jesus then makes a radical statement. He tells them that they have been charged with the ability to forgive or retain sins. That’s an odd mirror of such passages as Luke 7:49, where people can’t believe that Jesus would have the audacity to forgive sins himself. But remember, right here Christ is sending them, just as he was sent, using the same Spirit, the same breath, the same hope, the same Gospel.

Just as He also sends us. That is a difficult thing to grasp here, even if we are sorta right in the middle of a church. I mean, here we are on Sunday, as always. We’re doing the stuff we do, praising and worshiping and eating Cheez Doodles afterwards. We listen to passages like this and we think, great! Good for them. I’m so glad Jesus sent them!

But passages like this aren’t meant to be heard as referring to some long distant time, or as being intended only for the ones gathered there in that room. They are spoken just as directly to us. It is we who need to receive them, we who need to know that we are sent, we who need to feel the warm sweetness of that breath upon our brow.

And if we can allow ourselves to be grasped by that truth, then we have to ask ourselves...having received this Spirit, having been entrusted with this Spirit and this calling...what are we supposed to do?

What we cannot do is hold it in. We can’t just receive and receive and receive and not send it out ourselves, any more than lungs can fill themselves with air and not breathe it out, or a heart can fill with blood and not send it on. Holding it back, keeping it to ourselves, trying to grasp it and keep it...none of these things can lead to our own spiritual life. If we receive only, and do not act and send...we’ve missed the point.


How do we send? Being willing to share our faith, to speak it and breathe it out into the world...these things are important. But we also have to be able to live and act in such a way that those who hear us talk about our faith know that we aren’t holding back.

Take, for simple instance, Christ’s affirmation that we are empowered to forgive. Sure, we can also retain sins, keeping a careful log of all the ways that we have been wronged or slighted or disrespected. We can do that. Problem is, most of us were doing a great job of that before Jesus came along. Human beings have that one down pat.

Do those around you...and *particularly* those you’ve gotten into disagreements with, who are on your bad side...have any idea that you’ve been given the power to forgive? We’ve all received that forgiveness ourselves, from the one whom we crucified...all of us...with the nails of our selfishness and the hammer of our hatred. But do we give that forgiveness out in return...or do we sop it up like a heart that refuses to beat, or a chest that refuses to breathe?

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Receive.

Send.

It’s as simple as living.