2 Thessalonians 1:1-4 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving

We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

I have pastored four churches. With a couple of youth ministries before that. The first church I pastored, Madison Indiana, I started as the youth minister while a student in seminary. As I nearing the end of seminary, the Church’s Pastor retired. The congregation asked me if I would be interested in becoming the pastor. As one member said it, “better the devil we know than one we don’t.”

I ended up being in Madison for 20 years.

After Madison, we moved to Rapid City South Dakota where I pastored the First Baptist Church for almost 4 years.

Following that I was in Decatur, Ill at First Baptist Church for five years before becoming the pastor at Second.

I have been incredibly fortunate in that I have has wonderful churches with whom I pastored. In Each congregation we stretched and grew together, with very few points of friction or frustration. I have been able, my entire ministerial career, to honestly brag about the churches that I have pastored.

Second Baptist church is no exception, except that it is so exceptional. Just as Paul could say that he bragged about the church in Thessalonica, so I tell you openly that I brag about you all the time when I get to talk about this wonderful church I pastor.

I brag to denominational bigwigs, and other pastors, and to neighbors and friends and family about this wonderful congregation that finds it self situated at the corner of McKnight and Clayton Roads.

I brag about your kindness.

In my own personal walk of faith, I have come to realize that kindness is it. It is the main thing. Kindness is the living out of love and as Paul says, “without love our faith is just annoying.” It is through our acts of kindness that others see the graciousness of God. It is not just the profound words we say or the mighty deeds we do it is the kindness with which we respond to each other.

Kindness is the main thing. And at Second Baptist Church, I see it everywhere. I see it in the way we relate to each other in the classroom, in the hallway, in the fellowship hall and in the sanctuary. I see it in the way we relate to others as we encounter them in very different situations every day. I see it in our response to the world that can sometimes seem very unkind. I brag about you and your kindness.

I brag about your generosity. You are such great givers. And not just to the ongoing ministry here but in everything we bring before you, all the special stuff and we are confident that you will respond with outrageous generosity.

Be it raising money for an orphanage in a refugee camp in Thailand, or a school in Nicaragua, or collecting canned goods to put in Thanksgiving baskets with our good friends at the Antioch Baptist Church, or buying goats and oxen for people around the world for whom those animals are a lifeline, or responding to natural disasters and tragedies, or sending our kids to camp with no cost to them, or supporting our friends and members as they raise money for any number of charities and worthwhile organization’s.

Your generosity is amazing.

I brag about your openness.

We like to say that Second Baptist Church is a different kind of church, and I really think it is. We’re not big on Pat answers, or cookie cutter responses. We encourage questions and love challenges.

Nobody here is afraid to say “I don’t know, let’s find out together!”

If you attend one of our adult Sunday school classes, You know there’s a bit of a free-for-all factor to them as people are encouraged to question and present different ideas and to share real struggles with scripture and faith. I think our openness to working on these things together makes us special. And I love that openness and allows us to share both our orthodoxy and our heresy.

I brag about the way you challenge and encourage me. In other pastorate, I saw myself as the one who pushed grace and openness but at Second Baptist Church I feel pushed (in such a good way), and I tell people this all the time, I feel sometimes like I’m catching up to you. You challenge me to think and to rethink and to reassess and to see experience faith anew. You encourage me to be me, and we encourage each other to be the people God created us to be and not the people that culture and society tries to force us to become.

I brag about the staff here. It strikes me that an office manager has two basic responsibilities, one to do the stuff, and two, to relate to people. Linda is great with the stuff and she is exceptional at dealing with folks. I hear her on the phone sometimes as she ministers to someone in need it’s really phenomenal.

Brad & Marilyn lead our music ministry with grace and generosity. They are beloved. They are kind. In all things their motivation is what is best for Second Baptist church. And they are consummate professionals with whom I am privileged and honored to share leadership.

Henry works with our young people and his heart is ripe for God and cares so much about people. I have appreciated his friendship and his help.

I know that the bulletin lists Carey San as our custodian. But in so many ways Carey (along with Mirian) is a co-pastor as they minister to all of us and specifically to the significant part of our congregation that has immigrated here from Thailand and Burma.

I brag about the other pastors here. All I have ever felt from any of them is support and encouragement and a willingness to serve in whatever way I might need Yeah. Let me tell you, not every pastor can talk about the other pastors in his or her congregation that way.

I brag about our leadership here. Our church council is truly phenomenal as they work together as they stay focused and as they care more about this congregation than they do about personal glory.

I brag about your desire to get it and your recognition that you’re not there yet. Spiritual arrogance is unbecoming and is one of my least favorite attributes among many Christians. That look down your nose at others, I’m holier than thou, thank God I’m not like that tax collector attitude drives me nuts.

At Second Baptist Church, I think most of us recognize that we are feeble, frail, an apt to fall. It allows us to stay connected with the grace and mercy of God.

I brag about this Incredible space, the first time I walked into the sanctuary of the beatitudes I felt at home and sensed that it was a very special space for meeting God. This space has created a place for great conversations and a place where we Can learn and grow together.

I brag about your faithfulness-

Your Commitment to Christ,

Your commitment to this church,

Your commitment to each other.

I brag about our sense of community.

We would not be categorized as a large church, but we are certainly a community of faith that is vibrant, and alive.

We do not have large children’s programs or youth programs but we have developed a sense of community wherein our children are a part of all our lives.

We know each other. We care about each other.

And so, at the talent show, when Esther or Joey play the piano, we don’t think to ourselves ‘that’s nice.” Rather, we revel in their playing and say to ourselves “that’s our Esther,” “that’s our Joey,” and we are amazed as we watch them grow.

I love the community we are building here.

Amen.

Jeremiah 31:27-34 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say:

“The parents have eaten sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,[a] says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

-------

It had been quite the ordeal. They had watched as a foreign power marched through their country, destroying towns, homes and crops.

They had watched fellow citizens killed by Babylonian swords.

They had taken refuge in the city, in the walled city of Jerusalem, the home of temple, the home of Yahweh. Surely they would be safe there.

They soon experienced what it is to be under siege as the Babylonian army surrounded the walled city. They had not been able to leave the city because Neb’s troops would not allow it. They had not been able to bring anything into the city for the same reason. Nothing in, nothing out. They were just there and they waited, hoping the Babylonians would leave. They didn’t. The inhabitants of Jerusalem got hungry, and got sick, and they began to wonder where their great and wonderful God was.

Their hunger turned to starvation and they watched family and friends die all around them. They watched as corpses were stacked in the streets.

Finally, the Babylonians ended the siege by pouring into the city, tearing down building after building, setting fires and destroying the long trusted walls. Soldiers of Neb executed many inhabitants. They tore down the beloved temple, and corralled remaining citizens together. Some they killed, others they let go, and still others, the most educated, the wealthiest, the leaders- they marched 600 miles away to Babylon,

In Babylon, in several cities, the folks from Judah were ghettoized. They lived as

Strangers in that strange land.

Refugees. 1000 kilometers from their home, stranded with fellow Jews, a name they were now being called, in this strange place with customs and traditions and religious configurations that were new and confusing and strange. The Babylonians, generally were suspicious of them and treated them as oddities, as freaks, as other.

The musical Godspell contains a beautiful song addressing the captivity,

On the willows, there

We hung up our lyres

For our captors there

Required

Of us songs

And our tormentor's mirth

Saying

Sing us one

Of the songs of Zion

Sing us one

Of the songs of Zion

But how can we sing?

Sing the Lord's songs?

In a foreign land?

They were distraught and cried out to God.

As they cried out to God, “where are you, God?” “Why is this happening God? “When will you fix it God?” Their prophet declared to them that they should should chill out, plant Gardens, build homes, continue to have children and wait for God to show up.

And now, decades into their captivity, the prophets begin to sound as if change is coming, The people of Judah will soon return home, they are told, but there will be a caveat to their return. As they return home, there will be a new and different relationship with God- A more personal, intimate relationship of the heart.

Jeremiah says it this way,

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will remember their sin no more.

Ezekiel says it this way.

Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel. I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Now I am sure that the people heard this as wonderful news. They would wish that it would come right now, but they were also learning to be patient, and so they lived out life in Babylon, but with a promise of hope for the future- that they would return home.

Not only would they return home but they would return with new hearts, hearts on which the law of God was infused intuitively.

Later, followers of Jesus would claim that the law that is written on the heart is the law of love, but for the exiles in 550 b.c.e it had to be a little confusing.

What does that mean, a new heart?

How will it feel to have law written on my heart?

How might life be different under a new covenant with the rules written in my heart?

What does a new heart feel like?

If my heart now is a heart of stone, how might might a heart of flesh feel, will it sting a little?

Will I, with this new heart of mine, instinctively know and understand God. The prophet seems to say so.

Remember the old days when you bought a computer and that was it, a device with space to put programming, but it was your responsibility to load in or type in all the needed software. Now, computers come fully stocked with most programming you would ever need and any other wanted software is simply downloaded from the App Store. Is this what a heart with the law written on it is, a complete ready to use heart with an understanding and relationship with God built in?

I am sure for those who listened and believed the prophets, excitement raged at the idea of going home but there may of been some uneasiness about this new heart business. What could it possibly mean?

That which we have not experienced, no matter how good it sounds, is a little scary.

I traveled to El Salvador in 2001.

The church I was pastoring at the time entered into sister church relationship with Shekinah Baptist church in Santa Ana at the end of the year 2000.

One month later, massive earthquakes struck at the heart of western El Salvador destroying homes, burying neighborhoods, killing 100s.

Shekinah, a church of about 80 people, in the time of tragedy, made the bold decision that they would become voice of the poor and the hands of Jesus in their country. Leaders from the church contacted me to see if we could send money for them to buy building materials to rebuild homes for those who had lost theirs in the earthquakes. For a one time Easter offering, our church raised over $10,000, enough to replace over 20 destroyed homes with new tin sided structures and we sent that money, and more that had been donated, to our new sister Church.

In August 2001, I flew down to El Salvador to see what our money had done and to continue building this new sister church kinship that we had with Shekinah.

I had never been to Central America but had worked at developing relationship with church leaders there for months.

The people I was going to meet and the experiences we were going to have sounded wonderful. I was excited to do this new thing.

But, I was also reading about El Salvador and it sounded pretty scary, earthquakes, a recent Civil War, gangs, crimes against foreigners, kidnappings, areas where our state department urged people not to go.

I couldn’t wait to go, but also was a little apprehensive about what was going to happen. Because That which we have not experienced, no matter how good it sounds, is a little scary.

My time in El Salvador changed my life and the life of the church I pastored. I met the coolest people, teachers, shop owners, plantation workers, carpenters, clergy, many of whom I am still in continual contact.

And I also spent significant time with some of the poorest people in our hemisphere and learned the meaning of kindness and grace through them. Hiking through the jungles with machete in hand, toting bags of food while walking along mountain trails, riding on buses stuffed with people and chickens, sitting on dirt floors of one room tin houses, realizing that people who offered me something to eat were literally offering me all they had, connecting with people with whom I could not converse because of language barriers, hearing the English words “thank you” as people were told that my church had supplied the materials for their house, laughing, crying, and petting flauko Chochos (skinny dogs) changed my life.

But before the experience, there was some apprehension, as there always is when confronted with a new thing.

The refugees in Babylon were offered a new heart. A heart on which the love and law of God would be written. The prophet was clear, be ready for a new way of life. I am certain, that along with excitement, there was some apprehension.

As a follower of Jesus, I realize that this new way of life is an ongoing transformative thing. And transformation is scary.

Throughout my journey, as I make new discoveries about faith, and life and my relationship with Christ, as I find myself feeling again in exile as a stranger in a strange land, I re-learn the promise, that my heart is always in the process of being re-fleshed and renewed by the love and grace of God.

That is our abiding promise through Jesus Christ. A promise that excites us, and maybe scares us a little bit as well. But that’s okay, because the new thing God is doing in us is far greater than the fear.

Amen.

Jeremiah 29:4-7 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Habakkuk 2:1-4 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

I will stand at my watchpost,

and station myself on the rampart;

I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,

and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

Write the vision;

make it plain on tablets,

so that a runner may read it.

For there is still a vision for the appointed time;

it speaks of the end, and does not lie.

If it seems to tarry, wait for it;

it will surely come, it will not delay.

Look at the proud!

Their spirit is not right in them,

but the righteous live by their faith.

There are some old timey words that I wish we still used. They sound great and there is a quality to to them it makes them just sound special.

You know what I’m talking about…

A word like Wisenheimer. Basically, it means smart aleck but the word is just so great. “Don’t be such a wisenheimer.”

Or the word horsefeathers. I just love the sound of the word. It means claptrap.

Or the word claptrap which means nonsense.

Help me. Any old timey you words that you love?

In the south, when your child gets in trouble and you’re talking to an old timer about it, he may just say to you “did you give them down the road?” Did you chew them out.

Perhaps you have heard the word shinnicked which simply means being really cold, so cold you’re paralyzed by it.

Certainly you have heard the word tommyrot, utter foolishness

Or hogwash, which means untruth, a lie,

Oh Steve, so far your sermon is just piffle, which means hooey, Which means lacking in substance.

Whatever you do, don’t lollygag or you’ll be late.

In our scripture today, there is one of those old timey words that is just wonderful in the way it sounds.

Listen for it,

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint. Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.

“Tarry” means held up, or taking its sweet time.

“Tarry” also means to wait, hold back. So Jesus says to his disciples in the garden, “Tarry ye with me,” wait with me.

If you are a King James Bible reader you will read the word Tarry 53 times as you read through its pages.

If you read the New Revised Standard Version, you’ll find the word Tarry only four times.

If you’re reading one of the newer translations like the Common English Bible, you will not see the word at all. It’s kind of a shame because it’s a great sounding word - Tarry

When one preaches or teachers on this passage in Habakkuk, one usually focuses on the phrase “the just shall live by faith,” because that is the phrase Paul picks up and uses in Romans as he argues that people are reconciled to God not by rules and regulations but by faith alone.

It is these same verses, and Paul’s use of them, that so impact Martin Luther that they become central to his teachings and actions that spirited the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

But as I was reading these verses, I got caught up in the one word “Tarry.”

In the context of the passage, the concern that is expressed is that God’s judgment and his new thing is taking too long to unfold. And so the prophet reminds the readers, even if God tarries, if it seems to take too long, hang in there, because it is coming.

Waiting is a way of life.

I remember when I was a kid and I would order something from the back page of a comic book or catalog, I would pine away waiting for it to arrive. Every day as I would come home from school expecting that the package containing the new record album or new comic book or whatever would be waiting at our front door. And I remember times when I felt like that which I wanted to arrive would never come. The longer I Tarried, the more helpless I felt.

The first Star Wars movie came out in the spring of 1977. It was the first date that Judi and I had where actual money was spent.

Do you remember the way the first Star Wars movie ended, with Darth Vader spinning out of control in his fighter. I didn’t know it at the time but I quickly surmised that another Star Wars movie must be on its way. And I waited for it, and it came and went, and I waited for the next one, and so on, and so on, and now I wait because on the December 20th of this year the ninth and final of the original series comes to theaters. So it would be a true statement that my entire Adult life, (42 years) has been spent waiting for the next Star Wars movie to come out.

When you’ve been to the doctor, and they’ve ordered the tests, and then you have to wait for the results, it can feel so long. And then for some reason, the results are held up. And you wait even longer. Tarrying can be so hard.

I did a phone interview with the search committee from Second Baptist Church in the early part of 2012. And after that phone interview, which went pretty well, I found myself waiting to hear back from the committee. And while they were not long in returning to me, it felt like long, as I waited hoping we would be pursuing our relationship.

The thing about waiting, is that waiting is hard. Quite often during the waiting period, We begin to see the possibilities for the worst or anticipate the best, and the end result can end up as either a great surprise or a unraveling disappointment.

Another thing that’s really hard about waiting is that while we are waiting we sometimes change, so the thing that we are waiting for has lost its appeal. When I It was a kid, I was a huge Black Sabbath fan, (truth be told, I still am) and I had waited months for the release of their newest album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I knew the drop date and I waited all fall and into the winter for the new album to be available. I waited and waited.

The album came out on a Monday, but the Friday before that Monday, I went to see a Jesus Christ Superstar and the Frankfort movie theater, and as a result of that movie I became a follower of Christ. So I became a Christian on Friday evening, and my favorite band put out an album for which I had been waiting forever on Monday. As soon as school was over on Monday, I walked over to Grant’s department store and picked up the album. I took it home, went up to my room put it on my turntable and let it rip.

I studied the album cover, it was a depiction of a man being tortured By demons while he died in the bed with the number 666 on the headboard. As I listened to the music and read the lyrics sheet it struck me, all of a sudden, that that which I had waited months to get meant very little because of my new found faith. The lyrics, the art, the vibe, didn’t fit with the new me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the album, one of Sabbath’s best, but in that moment in time, I realized that that which I had waited for seemed insignificant to that which I just found.

A wonderful thing about Waiting is that it serves as a time to learn. We often don’t see it until the waiting is over, but it is in the times of waiting, in the times of Tarry, that we learn who we are and who we are not, we learn of our strength, and our ability to hang on just a little longer.

Another interesting thing about waiting is that it shapes us. The waiting process is a molding process where we learn what it means to pray, to believe, to practice patience, to learn truth about ourselves and the world we live in.

And perhaps the most frustrating experience of waiting is when we are waiting for God to act. We believe, we trust, we hope, we hold on, but still we wait. Sometimes we want to yell out like Job, enough of this waiting - God show up.

And the promise in the waiting is this, God will show up (for God has never been away from us). It may not be in the way we want God to show up, maybe not the way we’d like it to be, but God will be present with us and we will discover, even if we have to wait, that God is always with us, always beside us.

As we wait, on God, we hold onto the words that tradition says were written on the wall in the Jewish ghetto in Poland during the Nazi occupation,

‘I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining,

I believe in love even when I cannot feel it

I believe in God even when God is silent.”

If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Sometimes, that’s all we have to hold on to.

Amen.

Zephaniah 3:17 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,

a warrior who gives victory;

he will rejoice over you with gladness,

he will renew you[a] in his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing

Zephaniah 317 has long been one of my favorite verses of Hebrew Bible.

I don't remember the first time I read Zephaniah 3:17. I did read through the entire Bible when I was 17 years old, so it was probably then, and at that point in my life I was a King James Version only guy so I assume the first time I read this passage I read it like this,

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.”

It didn’t impact me then, but it would later.

The first time I preached a sermon based on Zephaniah 3:17 was May 26, 1991, it was the 445 sermon I ever preached.

The sermon, entitled A God who Sings, came shortly after I was re-introduced to the verse and was blown away by it.

In the early 1990’s I was using the New International Version of the Bible and was simply overwhelmed as I read the words.

“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

I was smitten by second part of the verse:

“He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

The line, rejoice over you with singing, painted a very specific picture for me.

In 1991, I was a parent of young children, Luke was 9 and Caleb was 5. Part of the routine was spending time with them as they were getting ready for bed.

Often, I would sit on the side of their bed, stroking their heads, telling them stories, and singing them songs. I have a ridiculous singing voice but they didn’t mind it then. Later they would ask me to just be quiet and drive as the rest of the family had sing-a-longs in the car, when as itty bits, they liked (and giggled at) my singing.

Often, after they were asleep I would linger, just staring at them, and quietly singing over them.

And that is what I envisioned when I read Zeph. 3:17

God, like a loving parent watches over us, and holds us tight, and sings lullabies over us.

It took me to a whole new level of understanding the nature of God,

God’s Love for me,

God’s Kindness to me,

The Joy God takes in me being me,

God’s Graciousness toward me.

And that is how I have understood this passage for years, three decades, until just a few weeks ago.

As you may or may not know, I plan my yearly sermon schedule and get it in the hands of Brad, Marilyn, Mary and Linda well before the year begins. They already have my 2020 preaching schedule.

I set up my sermons so that I am in the gospels from the new year to Easter and then I use the lectionary from Easter to Advent.

A few weeks ago, Brad or Mary, can’t remember which one, emailed me to say I didn’t have a sermon listed for September 29. And sure enough, I had neglected to list September 29 in my 2019 schedule.

And rather than look up the prescribed passage in the lectionary I simply decided to go with Zeph. 3:17. It is an old standby for me and I love it so much and I haven’t worked with it in awhile so I thought it would be fun.

But as I started working with the verse, I was greatly surprised by the rendering of the words (well, one word) in the New Revised Standard Version.

“The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

“Exult over you with loud singing” is very different, in my opinion, from “he will rejoice over you with singing”

That word “loud” completely changes the meaning for me.

God is no longer looking over the child’s bed singing lullabies to the beloved. All of a sudden, God is loud and unruly, singing to us at the top of God’s lungs.

I was confused. Why translate it thusly? I am not great at Hebrew but I did a little work and came to the verb the writer uses in Zeph. 3:17, ranan.

Elsewhere in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, ranan is translated as “ringing cry, sing loudly, to shout, to sing super joyfully.”

To be loud

Where I grew up, in a Midwest small town, high school graduation ceremonies were big events. They were always held in the school gym. The gym was packed. It was always hot, sweat through your shirt hot. High school graduations were kind of solemn affairs, with lots of decorum and restrained behavior, with prayers, Choirs, a community speaker (often a preacher). When it came time to hand out diplomas, The audience was encouraged (multiple times) to refrain from applause until all the students received their diplomas. A few families would whoop and holler when their kids names were called, but generally, people were mid-western polite.

I have had the privilege of attending two or three graduation ceremonies every year since I moved here and generally they are not quaint quiet reserved ceremonies. There is sometimes non-stop whooping and hollering and singing and dancing in the aisles. The sense of celebration is profound and a bit exhaustive.

Ranan- a ringing shout of celebration.

Both are valid expressions of celebration!

Here is the thing- Parents sweetly sing lullabies to their kids at bedtime and parents also shout and scream encouragement at their kids’ gymnastic meets.

My introduction to the word and idea of ranan has helped me understand God as parent and guardian in more profound way.

God as a loving parent, who rejoices over God’s children, shushing them with sweet lullabies.

God, as a loving parent, cheers us on loudly as We journey on in this life.

Music fills the air as God sings over us, to us, and with us.

In the joys of life, God celebrates with us, like the parent who has held her breath while her child played his piece at the piano recital, and exhales in celebration when the last note is played and then hums the tune all the way home in the car.

In the heartaches of life, God comes alongside, as a parent who leaves the stands and rushes to the track to help their child who has fallen and sprained an ankle. Helping her up and putting an arm around her they slowly move to the finish line while ‘chariots of Fire’ blasts out over the loudspeaker.

In the journey of life, God is by our side, just as a parent who sits down with his son and sings out Queen’s “we are the champions” as his son opens his “you are accepted letter’ for his first choice university.

In the frustrations, God is like the parent who after his daughter misspells the last word of the spelling bee, takes her for ice cream and plays all the Taylor Swift songs on the retro-jukebox. Or the mom who embraces her son after he is cut from the basketball team and reminds to him how Michael was cut as a freshmen as well. She can’t help herself as she quietly sings, “I get knocked down but I get up again,’ and before long he is singing it too.

God, like a parent, is unbelievably loud as her child has broken away from the pack and she moves down the pitch toward the open goal. Only one word in this song, gggoooaaal!

God sings over you, in loving comfort or in exhilarating encouragement. Know that wherever you are, whatever you are doing, however it is going, God is present, singing over you just what you need to hear!

Amen.

Amos 8:4-7 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,

and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

saying, “When will the new moon be over

so that we may sell grain;

and the sabbath,

so that we may offer wheat for sale?

We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,

and practice deceit with false balances,

buying the poor for silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:

Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

So, a couple of Sundays ago, I presented to you a brief synopsis of my simplistic understanding of the evolution in humanity’s thinking about God.

First, I said that I believe that humanity, from the beginning, has an intuition for the Creator- a God space built into their beings.

In the beginning, people used that intuition to explain weird stuff by saying God must be in the water, the fire, the earthquake and anything else that was mysterious.

Soon, God not only caused the weird stuff, God must be the weird stuff, so there is a water God, a fire God, a sun God.

As the evolution of God continued, human beings began to use the idea of God to justify human behaviors and God became a warrior God, a God of vengeance and retribution.

The next step in the evolution of our thinking about God turned God from warrior to protector and the one who keeps order in society. God becomes the rule maker.

God orders the world into a workable system with punishments and judgements for those who break the rules.

And finally, my argument goes, the apex in the evolution in our thinking is that God is not only concerned about the rules, but about the creation as well. That concern is based in the concept of love. God loves that which God has created.

And to go one step further, God not only loves but is, by God’s very nature, love. It is The essence of God.

And for followers of Jesus, there is an understanding that God is love and that we see in Jesus what “God is love” is like.

The foundational truths of my life are that God is love and Jesus embodies and models that love.

Onto a different characteristic of God. The Bible also talks about judgement, a lot.

Granted, different judgement episodes in the scripture reflect different eras in the evolutionary process. But the idea of judgement runs throughout the scripture, from the garden to the flood to the plagues to the creators of the golden calf to the poor guys who tried to keep the ark from falling to the Baal prophets on mt Carmel to Jesus’ parable about goats and sheep to the great judgement scenes in Revelation.

And judgement is usually perceived as a negative where we get ours for all the lousy stuff we have done.

And many of us were raised in religious settings where we were taught to be afraid of God the Judge. We believed if we did something wrong, God was waiting to Judge us as bad. Some of you are still afraid of God.

But, God is love and loves casts out fear.

So, what about Judgement in a theology where God is love.

The Bible, and other religions’ scripture as well, portray God as the final judge, the one one who passes judgement on human beings.

We tend think of judgement in these contravening terms, so the idea that God is love and the idea that God is judge can create major problems for a person who thinks like I think.

Here’s my take.

God is love. It is God’s nature, God’s character, God’s persona, God’s essence.

So if God is love and God is Judge as well, that Judgement has to be based in love- unconditional, gracious, merciful love. It just can’t be any other way.

So judgement doesn’t serve to exact punishment, or retribution or even vengeance.

Rather, Judgement is intended to make things right.

“When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.” Wrote the author and speaker, Earl Nightingale.

What might we learn about God by the way God judges?

What do we learn as we look at a couple of judgement scenes from the scripture? This is just a super small sampling, and there is lots of room to argue, but I think it’s telling.

Amos 8 is a passage of judgement

First the sin . . .

Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land.

We will practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

What’s being judged?

Those who trample on the poor

Those who are corrupt, using their power to take advantage over the poor and needy.

“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”

And then the threat of judgement. . .

“On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head.”

The point of the passage is clear. It is a call for justice for the poor, the

underdogs, and the absolute reality that God stands with the dispossessed.

Many of the judgment passages in the scripture, rather than being about the literal passing of a sentence, are about admonishing those who are mistreating the “least of these” to get their act together and start acting with integrity and justice.

Now let’s turn to Jesus’ great Judgement parable, remembering that Jesus embodies the way God is.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and helped you?’

And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’

Then they also will answer, ‘when?’

Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Please understand that this is a parable and not an actual depiction of judgement, and please notice Jesus’ point- that he is in the struggling and the hurting and the mistreated, and when we ignore them, we are ignoring Jesus. The point of the parable is to remind us, encourage us, admonish us to care for the struggling.

Judgement is about coming to a new understanding of the way life is supposed to work.

When I hear modern evangelical leaders make ridiculous claims that this tragedy or that tragedy is God‘s judgment because of gay people, or feminism, or secularism, or allowing people to practice the religion of their choice, or whatever, I think to myself, if this tragedy is really an act of God’s judgement, scripture would indicate that it would be because of our mistreatment the poor and the downtrodden and our mistreatment of the very people that the evangelical leaders are blaming for judgement.

Frankly, I think an earthquake is an earthquake, I think a hurricane is a hurricane, more influenced by climate change than God’s judgement. A terrorist attack is a terrorist attack and behind that attack are any number of variables, but God’s judgment is not one of them. I think a mass shooting is a mass shooting because the wrong people have the wrong kind of weapons that can kill large numbers of people.

To blame tragedies, natural or human, as judgements from God is dishonest because it perverts the very nature of God- God is love.

And any judging God does comes from the depths of God very character - love, unconditional, gracious, merciful.

Amen.

Psalm 51:1-4 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned,

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence

and blameless when you pass judgment.

Luke 15:20-25 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[a] 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.

I don’t know for sure but the scripture read by Judi and Cary comes from one of the most well-known of all Jesus parables. Perhaps it would fall behind only the parable of the Good Samaritan as the most well known of the Gospel parables.

This parable is a about a son who leaves home, a parent love-sick for his child’s return and an older brother’s contempt for both his brother and his parent.

It is commonly known as The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Actually this name isn’t original to the parable but got attached to it pretty quickly- thank the early church fathers.

The parable has been given other names, but nothing has stuck like the “parable of the Prodigal Son.”

It is also known as

The parable of a loving father, or

The parable of the older brother, or

The parable of the lost son, and also

The parable of the two brothers.

I personally like the title,

“The parable of the fatted calf‘s really bad day.” But that’s a sermon for another day.

As I contemplate the parable, I find the title,

“The parable of what a parent sees” both constructive and instructive.

In the story, the son has left his childhood home, his dad, his bro, his friends, his way of life. He has been absent for quite a while having gone off to the far country with his share of the inheritance.

In the far off country, he goes crazy, shoots through the money, and finds himself destitute, homeless and eating pig slop.

Back at home, life goes on at the farm, but dad appears to have relocated his life to the front porch as he can keeps an eye out for a son who has been gone too long. He appears to be a broken man, heart aching to hear news of his child.

And one day, as the Dad looks out, he sees a figure coming in the distance. He squints, but can’t make out who it is.

Could be a messenger with particular news about his boy,

Or the mail carrier with a arm full of junk mail,

Or the milk man.

Dad stands up, steps off the porch, and strains to see. He notices the way the person walks before he can recognize his face. It’s his boy. He lets out a whoop and starts running toward the walker in the distance.

What do you think it is that the dad sees as his son comes into focus?

Perhaps he sees the shame his son has brought upon the family as he claimed his inheritance early, mocking his father and the traditions of his family, but that is not what he sees.

Perhaps he sees his son, looking haggard and spent, and judges him on how he got that way, stupid kid deserves what he gets, but I don’t think that is what he sees.

Perhaps as he sees his boy, he imagines the disgusting behavior that brought him to this low down place, vividly sensing his sins against God, nature and his family, but I don’t think so.

Perhaps as he sees him in tattered clothes with no shoes and without so much as knapsack, he sees him as an ingrate who has wasted much of the family’s hard earned money. Nope, that isn’t it either.

Perhaps he sees him as an Outcast, but this one is no outcast, he had left on his own, which could make a parent seethe. But there is no seething here.

Perhaps as the dad looks at his boy coming back from the far off land, he is reminded of his other son’s loyalty to him and to the farm. If only his wayward son could be as worthwhile as the son who stayed home. That one worked hard every day, while dad stood on the porch, but honestly, in this moment, I don’t think he is thinking too much about this other son.

Perhaps, as the dad gets closer to the homecoming child, he sees the scabs, and the scars, the exposed ribs, the tangled hair, and the smells of pigs in the air. And he thinks to himself, What a Mess!!!

But I don’t think so.

This parent, looking at his boy coming home, can see only one thing- love!

As he sees his child, he is filled with love and his memories run wild- of his beautiful child.

He sees the little boy with a scraped knee who cried for his mom and dad to comfort him,

He sees the 7 year old as he learned to swim in the pond, clinging to his dad until eventually letting go and venturing outward to the deeper water.

He sees the four year eating broccoli for the first time. His mind explodes with laughter as he remembers the squished up, snarling face.

Like they say that you see your life flash before your eyes in your last seconds, this dad, sees, in rapid succession, every hug ever given over the boys short life.

He sees his 13 year at his bar mitzvah, celebrating adult hood by consecrating himself to God.

He sees his 15 year old son commanding the oxen to plow a straight furrow. They don’t.

And now he sees his son again, not the mess, not the waste, not the shame. He sees his child.

Every day since his son has left home, the dad has pushed all the memories down, and now they are erupting like a geyser.

He reaches his son, who has stopped to make his oft practiced speech, but before he opens his mouth the dad drapes himself over him.

“Welcome home Son!”

Today we eat the fatted calf and celebrate you, my son.

The ability to see the beauty in the mess is what allows a “welcome home.“ The ability to see beauty in the oops is what turns a bus terminal in Traverse City into party central. The ability to see beauty when others see something worthy only of judgement is what turns a fictional farm in first century Galilee into a dancing, singing, fatted calf eating hootenanny. The ability to understand that oops, no matter how big or small provides the opportunity for something beautiful to appear is the full-on meaning of grace.

As the U2 lyric declares, “Grace sees beauty in everything.”

On the other side of grace, As the other brother catches on to what is happening, he feels nothing but contempt for his dad and his brother. He rants and raves at his dad.

Me, me, me, him!

The dad responds gently, without yelling back.

Son, look at your brother

This mess he has experienced has paved the way for us, all of us, to be home together!

Beautiful oops!

No matter, the mess something beautiful can emerge.

While the father in this parable is almost always understood to be God, may I suggest the the church, when it is done right, is much like the father in this story. From the beginning community of faith has been meant to be a space where beautiful oops are expected, are nourished, are real. The beloved community can reject judgement and celebrate acceptance and inclusion because oops can be a beautiful thing.

The church was never intended to be a place for the spiritually complete, and the morally justified and the holier than thou-ers.

The church is a gathering of the beautiful oops. People who have striven and failed, who have climbed and fallen. People who have held on, . . . by a thread. People who are who they are, smudges and smear and all that stuff.

The reason we can see the beauty in oops is because we all come from a place of brokeness and confusion, of mediocre attempts and stunning disappointments. But together, with Jesus as Lord, we help each other become beautiful.

Oops.

Welcome Home.

Amen.

Hebrews 1:13 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

But to which of the angels has he ever said,

“Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

Hebrews 12:28-29 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.