September 24, 2006 — 5:57 PM
Chew On This
Psalm 1
James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a
Well ... here we are. Was it hard for you to get up and get going this morning? Did you find your feet dragging a little more than they normally do? You knew that many people whom you know and love would be here waiting to greet you, but that didn't help erase the fact that three very important people would not be here - the now former pastors Chuck and Lonna and their daughter Ruby.
We've had about a month to get used to this idea, but now it's really true. They are no longer the pastors of Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church. This is a normal event in the life of churches, but knowing that fact doesn't make it any easier to accept. Many of us would like to turn back the hands of the clock and bring them back again. But we cannot do that. Instead, we are left feeling their absence from us and grieving the loss of the close relationships that we had with them.
Does their absence make God seem absent from you as well? I have to admit, that it does, at least a little, for me. I strongly believe that God makes God's self known through people as well as all of creation. I believe that God works through others to provide and to care for God's creation. Pastor Chuck and Pastor Lonna as well as Ruby made God very present for me. And I know that I am not alone in feeling that. The good-byes that were said last week in the worship service and in the potluck following it show that many people felt God working in their lives through their relationships with Pastor Chuck and Pastor Lonna and little Ruby.
They are strong examples of people of faith. And I know that God has used them to help us know who God is and how God would have us live. But, unfortunately for us, God now wants to reveal God's self to other people through these three incredible people. So we find ourselves here this morning facing a future without these God-showing people in our day-to-day lives. And we are left asking, "God? Are you still there?"
And James answers us: "Yes. God is here." But James adds an important caveat in chapter 4 verse 8 when he says: "You need to get near to God and then God will get near to you."
Get near to God. We've taken an important step in that direction this morning - we have shown up in this place. We have come to worship God and to give God a chance to speak to us through the people who have gathered here with us.
Maybe you came here grudgingly not really sure that this is a place you want to continue coming to now that such a major change has occurred. But the force of habit got you out the door and now here you are.
Or maybe you came here willingly, hoping to see familiar faces to remind you that this place is not completely different than it was before last week. Three important people are no longer here, but there are many, many more of you who still are. God shows God's self through each of us when we let God.
So we've shown up. But that is only the first step of getting near to God. We also have to open ourselves up to recognize when God is getting near to us. It doesn't help us much if God shows up for us and we're busy looking the other way - not noticing at all that God is there right beside us.
But how do we do that? How do we recognize God standing in our midst? The people that James' letter was originally addressing obviously weren't being very successful at noticing God in their midst. James spends several verses from our selection this morning admonishing them and trying to help them understand the hurtful behavior in which they are engaged - behavior that hides God instead of revealing God.
James lists the disruptive behavior that he notices in their community. He sees two hurtful behaviors that have nothing to do with drawing near to God - bitter envy and selfish ambition. He is especially concerned about these two behaviors because, as he says,"where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind." And disorder and wickedness lead to conflicts and disputes between the people in the community.
The actions in which the people are engaging are pushing them further away from God instead of drawing them near to God. These actions are breaking down the ties of the community instead of building them up. And a community will not last long when the ties between its members are strained or broken. This is why James feels the need to write to these people.
And this is an important message for the community of Ocean Avenue Presbyterian Church this morning. A group without a clear leader often devolves into conflicts and disputes stemming from exactly these two hurtful behaviors - bitter envy and selfish ambition.
This community has to work together to make sure that everyone doesn't just go off and work towards what he or she thinks is best for this church. A transition in pastoral leadership is often a good time to try new things. But if everyone goes and tries something different, the church will be pulled in too many directions and few if any of the new initiatives will succeed.
It would be easy for some in the congregation to say, "Well, I've been a member here for 30 or 40 years. I know what's best for the church so I'm going to work to make sure what I think should happen does."
It would also be easy for someone to say, "Well, I'm pretty new here. I don't think I should really speak up about the ideas I have for what this church could become. I'll just let the people who have been leading continue to do so."
Everyone who is a member or friend of this church is called by God to contribute to the life of this church. Every person here this morning, as well as all those who could not join us but are here in spirit, is a God-showing person. It is especially important during this time of transition for every member of this community to look to one another to see God working.
Encourage one another in faith as you go about the work of finding an interim pastor. And continue to do so as you do the work of the interim period - learning who you are as a community, learning more about the community of the Excelsior, writing the mission study, developing a Church Information Form from that study, and eventually calling a new pastor.
When we draw near to one another we are drawing near to God. We need to open ourselves up to see God in one another and to listen for the voice of God speaking through the voices of those around us.
We will be better able to see God in others when we follow James' command to submit ourselves to God and resist the Devil. These sound like pretty straight-forward commands. "Submit to God; resist the Devil." Do you find yourself nodding your head and saying, "Yep. Got that right. That's what we've gotta do."
They sound like great advice, but if that is all you hear while you're here today, I would be doing us all a great disservice. If I stopped there, I imagine that you would find yourself scratching your head later trying to figure out what exactly submitting to God and resisting the Devil looks like. I often wonder that very thing.
For help in discovering what following these commands might look like, let's turn to our reading this morning from Psalm 1. At first, you might not think that the psalm has much to offer as far as practical advice is concerned. I mean, it's talking in broad generalities about the wicked and those who resist following the advice of such people. That doesn't really help us to understand concrete ways to submit to God and to resist the Devil.
But there is one very important verse in this psalm that will help us. It is verse 2. That verse says: "But their delight [that being the delight of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked], their delight is in the law of the Lord, on this law they meditate day and night."
For the Hebrew people the law of the Lord was found in the Torah - what we have as the first five books of our Old Testament. We as Christians are called to meditate not just on those books but on all of the books in our Bible. When we keep the words that God spoke there in our hearts day and night we will be submitting to God and resisting the Devil - we will be drawing near to God and opening ourselves to see God drawing near to us.
But what is meant by that word "meditate"? That's a rather churchy sounding word. It sounds good and pious, but it's not something that most of us do in our every day lives. One picture that comes to my mind when I hear the word is of a Bhuddist monk, sitting cross-legged, quietly somewhere with his or her eyes closed for hours at a time. Another picture is of Christian monks or nuns spending time in sanctuaries kneeling as they hear Scripture read and as they say prayers.
Meditation is often something we think of in rather passive, quiet terms - it's something that we do by sitting and thinking. But Eugene Peterson, who wrote a modern American English translation of the Bible called The Message, would have us understand this verse differently. Here is how he translated verse 2: "Instead you thrill to God's Word, you chew on Scripture day and night."
"Chew on Scripture." That's quite a bit different than sitting and thinking. It's much more active in its participation with Scripture.
In his book Eat This Book, Peterson likens it to what his dog does when he gets a bone to chew on. His dog will take the bone off to some place away from distraction or threat and really dig into chewing on the thing - turning his head this way and that to get the best bites in. As the dog is working away at the bone, every now and then he will give a satisfied little growl over the work of chewing on it.
That's what this psalm is calling us to do with Scripture - get in there and really work on it. Turn it (or yourself) this way and that to really examine it from every angle. Don't just sit there passively, use your voice. Speak it out loud so that the words can wash over you and really sink in.
Peterson admits that it is a good thing that people through the ages decided to write down the stories and advice that have become our Scriptures. These writings have allowed people throughout the ages to know who God is and what God has done for all of creation.
And yet, he laments this very act. He laments it because the act of writing down the stories flattened them. What once were three-dimensional words spoken with nuance and inflection full of meaning are now two-dimensional words void of contextual clues to help us understand their meaning.
Peterson encourages us to pick those words back up of of the page so that God can breath life back into them. He explains: "There is only one way of reading that is congruent with our Holy Scriptures, writing that trusts in the power of words to penetrate our lives and create truth and beauty and goodness, writing that requires a reader who, in the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, 'does not always remain bent over his pages; he often leans back and closes his eyes over a line he has been reading again, and its meaning spreads through his blood.' "
When we lift the words back off the page then we get away from the rather abstract action of meditation and we involve ourselves in the very concrete action of chewing. And that will have very real consequences in how we live our lives.
Peterson describes it in this way: "Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolized into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son."
When we chew on the Scriptures, we will become God-showing people. We won't be able to help it. The words will get so deeply inside of us that they will form us and transform us into people in whom and through whom God acts and speaks.
And when we allow Scripture to work in us in such a way we will be engaging in what Peterson calls "Spiritual theology." As he understands it, "Spiritual theology, using Scripture as text, does not present us with a moral code and tell us 'Live up to this'; nor does it set out a system of doctrine and say, 'Think like this and you will live well.' The biblical way is to tell a story and in the telling invite: 'Live into this - this is what it looks like to be human in this God-made and God-ruled world; this is what is involved in becoming and maturing as a human being.' "
We are called to chew on Scripture so that we might live into what God made us to be - God-bearers to the world. And our world is in deep need of seeing such people. They, and we, need to hear God's message of hope that God is here, standing right alongside of us, offering to carry our burdens and lighten our loads. Offering us peace - like the peace of the tree that the psalmist imagines, the tree planted near a stream that has ready access to all it needs to survive and flourish.
God has called away three special God-bearers from our midst. But God invites us to look around and see all of the God-bearers who are still here, ready to be God's hands, and feet, and mouth. No one will bear God for us in the way that Pastor Chuck or Pastor Lonna or Ruby have. But God continues to work in and through other people in ways that may just surprise us - if we only will let God do so.
So let's get near God and let God get near us. Amen.
