Who Is The Potter? November 27, 2011, Sermon

WHO IS THE POTTER?

Dr. Thomas R. McCormick

November 27, 2011—University Christian Church

Have you heard the news? 

US economy takes a hit with the news of the debt panel’s failure.

Legislators appear to be deadlocked along partisan lines, preventing progress toward reasonable solutions.

The occupy Seattle movement continues, with demonstrations against the inequalities of wealth in this country.

400 families in America possess as much wealth as 50% of our population

Over 1,700 homeless in Seattle, about one-third are living in autos.

US stock market drops on word of a debt crisis in Euro-zone countries.

Rise in murders in Northern Mexico attributed to drug cartels—fueled by a seeming insatiable demand for drugs coming from the US.

Economic sanctions have not halted Iran’s nuclear program.

> > > > >

        So, much of the news hitting our newspapers and television screens can clearly be classified as “bad news.”  The world picture looks pretty bleak and the future doesn’t appear to offer many viable solutions to the problems confronting us as individuals, states, or nations. Ordinary Americans face a winter of discontent.  Workers who desperately want to work cannot find a job.  Many university students graduate in debt from student loans and are unable to find a job.  Many laid-off workers remain unemployed.  Many older citizens have seen their retirement funds dwindle and face the threat that Social Security and Medicare benefits they have counted on may be significantly reduced in the future by a national economy hobbled by recession and debt..  Our world picture looks bad---editorials claim that our good days are behind us.  How do Christian people make sense out of this world picture and where is God in all of this?

        Can anyone find a parallel, bad-news situation, in our Old Testament Scripture this morning, from the 64^th chapter of Isaiah?

        Around  740 BC, Isaiah began his work as a prophet and continued for about forty four years, he outlived Hezekiah, the king. His foray into prophesy coincided with the time when the Assyrian empire was beginning its westward expansion. A threat to Israel, the expansion was proclaimed by Isaiah as a warning from God to his people to forsake their sinful ways and to return to the Lord.  “Behold, you were angry and we sinned; In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?”

        Although a member of the aristocracy, with access to the royal family and the ruling class, Isaiah often spoke against their corruption and the oppression of the common people.  He also warned the rulers of Judah to trust in God and not to form alliances with other countries.  Some in Israel favored an alliance with Egypt, others favored an alliance with the Assyrians---in hopes of finding security under the protection of a more powerful military force.  Under their alliance with Assyria, the people chafed under the imposition of Assyrian bondage.

        Then, Hezekiah, contrary to the wishes of Isaiah, formed an alliance with the Egyptians. Isaiah had advised the king to turn only to Yaweh for assistance, calling upon the people for repentance and a return to God. Hezekiah, along with Egyptians, planned a revolt against the oppressors, only to face disastrous consequences. As a result, the Kingdom of Judah was almost destroyed. Finally, the people turned to God, begging Him for help.  Isaiah said that they could find a respite only by mending their evil ways.

        Beginning in verse 3, the prophet recalls times when God had shown up in the past in a game-changing way. However, the prophet also acknowledges that the reason that the people of God find themselves in their current situation is their own sin and God's consequent abandonment of them into exile. He confesses this openly in verses 5b-7. It is on the basis of this confession of sin that the prophet makes a second appeal for God to act. Yes, the people are surely sinful, but they also are God's handiwork. Remember us, he cries, and come to us if only because you made us and we are yours. Isaiah invokes God’s Covenant with Israel—“I will be your God and you will be my people. . .”  A covenant often broken---but never forgotten by the prophets, who see their work as calling God’s people back into relationship.

 Here are the words of Isaiah:

Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou art our potter; we are all the work of thy hand.  Be not exceedingly angry, O Lord, and remember not our iniquity for ever.  Behold, consider, we are all thy people.”

        Is this not a powerful metaphor---God is the potter---we are the clay?  Similar ideas are scattered throughout scripture, particularly in the poetry of the Psalmists.  Consider, for example, Psalms 8:3----“When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established;  what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou doest care for him?”  The Psalmist pondered how a God who created the far flung universe had time or interest in the particular problems of humans, yet he was convinced of such care.

        Or, consider Genesis 2:7---“And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth, breathing into him the breath of life: and man became a living soul.”  Again, notice the beauty and the poetry of scripture;  Science speaks in a different language, claiming that after the Big Bang, about 14 billion years ago, and after the first million years, the temperature dropped enough that atoms could begin to form.  Our sun, a second or third generation star, was formed about 5 billlion years ago and the earth and planets were formed from materials not swept up into the coalescence of the sun.  Our earth gradually cooled and became potentially hospitable to living things by about 4 billion years ago.  About 150 million years after that, the earth became teeming with life. About 100,000 years ago, our human ancestors walked upon the earth. (Collins, Francis S., The Language of God. 2006, Free Press)

Psalms 139:13---“For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb”

        In is book, The Language of God, Dr. Francis Collins describes how he went from being an atheist to becoming a Christian.  He recounts an incident when he was a 3^rd year medical student, caring for a woman in North Carolina, suffering daily pain from untreatable angina.  Yet, she had a serenity and peacefulness about her that she attributed to her faith in God.  One day, she asked Collins, “do you believe?”  Collins recalls stammering: “I’m not sure. . .”  From this encounter, one of the foremost scientists of our time began a journey that led him to become a Christian, with a world view that allowed a synthesis of his understanding of science and his belief about God. 

        Dr. Francis Collins and Craig Venter stood in the East Room of the White House on June 26, 2000 to announce to then president Clinton, and to the world---that a first draft of the human instruction book had been determined.  President Clinton claimed: “Today we are learning the language in which God created life.”  The Human Genome project was completed and all of that information entered into the computer shortly afterward, in April, 2003---50 years after Watson and Crick had first described the double helix of DNA.  Francis Collins describes his sense of awe claiming, “This book was written in the DNA language by which God spoke life into being. 

        It also turns out, that when there is (could we call it a typo—a spelling error), a “G” instead of a “C” in a specific position—the error causes an inborn genetic illness. (fetal hemoglobin) or, (cystic fibrosis from a faulty gene sequence on the 7^th chromosome) or an extra chromosome in the 21^st pair  resulting in (Down Syndrome.) Genetic illnesses are indeed a source of suffering in our world and medical scientists are working to determine if we can use our new found information to prevent, or to remove genetic illnesses.

        Over the years, the ever questioning methods of science have helped provide a clearer picture of the origins of the earth and its people.  What we have learned does not refute the existence of God and in fact may offer us a deeper sense of awe and wonderment about the creative processes of God.  It helps us see something of the patience of God if God waited a billion years for the earth to cool, another 150 million for life forms to evolve, and finally the emergence of human kind.  

        If God is the Potter---and we are the clay---then that potter gave an amazing gift to human kind, the gift of free will.  It means we may choose God and choose to follow in his paths---or we may reject God and go our own way. In the words of the hymn, “Have Thine Own Way Lord” the author writes, “mold me and make me, after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.” I think that is far too docile a picture.  In granting human beings a free will, it is up to each individual to shape his or her will in harmony with God’s will—and it turns out that this is a mighty struggle.  Who among us is without sin?  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Yet, it seems to be within our nature to seek God; it seems to be in our nature to seek to follow the moral law; it appears to be in our nature to be able to perform acts of altruism. 

  The stories of the prophets—like this account from Isaiah in this morning’s scriptures---shows a history of the people of Israel where rebellious disobedience occurred over and over.  The prophets called their people back to the covenant, to repent and to choose God’s way.

        Most of the suffering we observe in the world today is a result of human beings choosing to use their freedom of choice to pursue their own narrow goals—resulting in the suffering of others.  For example, the fact that people are starving in our world is not because we can’t raise enough food---it is the mal-distribution of food or the resources to buy food.  It isn’t because we don’t understand medicine that leads to the deaths of so many---but the lack of access to medical care.  Today in Africa, one million children could be protected from malaria by a treated mosquito net, that costs $10.00 each.

        It is in this context that we observe the season of Advent, the in-breaking of God into the powers of this world, bringing light in the midst of darkness and hope in the midst of despair.  We read again, this Advent: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God’s incarnation in Jesus is a radical step in God’s effort to bridge the gap between God and his human creation.  In Jesus, we not only have an example of one who chose to live a life of obedience to God, but the conviction that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.”  We see the power of God’s presence when Schindler risked his own life to save over 1,000 Jews during the holocaust; when Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to German to confront the Nazi regime, leading to his own imprisonment and hanging just 3 weeks before the war ended; or Mother Teresa, devoting her life to the care of the poorest poor.  Startling examples of agape---of God with us---of God becoming flesh, reconciling the world to himself.

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A Church For These Times - November 13, 2011 Sermon

A Church for These Times

 Hubert G. Locke

Joshua 4: 1-7

 I like to preach from the lectionary – that semi-sacred rotation of readings from the Good Book that cover the entire Christian year. Preaching from the lectionary forces one to wrestle with texts one might not ordinarily choose; it’s one way of forcing the preacher to remember that s/he is obliged to try and bring forth God’s word - not his or her own - to God’s people. And so I found myself fairly well along in thinking about what today’s message ought to be when I discovered that I had been wrestling with the wrong lectionary reading! I thought about blaming the Holy Spirit for my error but I suspect as I’m most certain you do that either dyslexia or an early onslaught of what my dad used to call the “old-timer’s disease” is more likely to blame– whatever the reason, for those of you who do follow the lectionary, the Scriptures read this morning are not those that are assigned for this Sunday and for that you have my apologies. Let me quickly add, to compound my error, that today’s sermon also comes in two parts – you get half today and the remainder next Sunday.

 The mistaken reading from Joshua tells of one of those dramatic moments in the saga of the children of Israel’s escape from Egypt when they were crossing the Jordan river, and God once again performed a hydrodynamic miracle and cut off the waters of the Jordon so the Israelites could cross over on dry ground – just as God had done earlier we are told at the Red Sea. And Joshua is told to select twelve chaps, one from each tribe, who then are told to each carry a stone across the river which they pile up on the other side of the river as a kind of memorial so, Joshua says, “in the future, when your children ask what do these stones mean” you can tell them of the miracle God did in bringing us to this place on our journey.

 What do these stones mean? Do you think, at some distant moment in the future, our children’s children –five, six, ten generations hence – will ever ask that question about these stones that our spiritual forbearers erected as a memorial to God?  Might there come the day, when all of us are long gone that people will ask, I wonder what or  who that old place represented and what stories it might tell if its walls could speak?

We come here Sunday after Sunday, month upon month, year in and year out and today I ask us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves: what does it all mean? Why do we do it –gather for an hour to sing a few hymns, hear several passages read from the Bible, listen to the choir and the sermon, partake of an ancient ritual called the Lord’s Supper and leave a contribution – but what’s it all really mean? Do we do it out of sheer habit – something our parents taught us to do so we do it almost on automatic pilot? Is there some need- either mildly or deeply felt – that brings us here? Are we running from something that haunts our every waking moment and this is the one time in the week when we manage to center our thoughts on something else – something other than our worries and anxieties?

 I suspect these stones – this old house of worship, this sacred space in the midst of this bustling city and this throbbing neighborhood – these old stones have as many different meanings as the number of people who come here to worship. But there is one thing they ought to mean to all of us, for as long as we gather here. They ought to be a constant and continual reminder of who we really are and what we are meant to be and do. It is here, you see, that we come face to face with the fact and the reality of our humanness – that our time on this earth is really quite brief, that we sometimes have to face problems of poor health and fractured relationships with others, and that we often find it just plain difficult to cope with it all. And yet we try to do the best we can, with all our manifold limitations. We sing the hymns because they carry messages of hope and strength and we listen to the Scriptures because they talk about the lives of people just like ourselves – striving, hoping, struggling, occasionally happy, now-and-then disappointed, sometimes dispirited, often uncertain of what comes next …

 These old stones form a peculiar kind of place for those who come here. If we go up the street we may be praised and prized for our intellectual brilliance or our skillfulness in mastering the various human professions; a few blocks away on automobile row or down in University Village we are eagerly welcomed in the hope that we have lots of bucks to spend; here we are asked: how goes the struggle of your life? What are you doing with it and is what you are doing with it really worthwhile?

 Ah, we say, I’m trying my best to be a good spouse or parent or grandparent or in-law or co-worker or business person - and all that is fine and commendable but that’s being commendable toward those who are close to me, with whom I enjoy special bonds or relationships. What about the stranger, what about that ill-clothed, peculiar-acting person I pass on the street downtown or with the cardboard sign at the traffic light? What about the idea that somehow, as we go about our daily rounds, we ought to reflect in our lives what life in the kingdom of God is really like?

 Sunday after Sunday, every time we enter these sacred precincts and fall under its spell, these stones force us, to ask ourselves – again and again – who we really are and whether we engaged in the things of true importance in this world and what the church should really mean and be in the midst of what Paul called “a crooked and perverse generation.” And that brings us to the heart of the matter. 

 This place is a memorial – a monument to a glorious past when its pews were filled every Sunday and some of our denomination’s most renowned preachers filled its pulpit. The question we face as a congregation is whether that’s all it will be – a grand old pile of stones, a monument and a memorial of a glorious past or whether we will get with it and search earnestly for whatever the future holds.

 I submit to you, dear friends and dear congregants, that in one respect, at least, the answer to that question is already before us. Whatever we do in the future, the present stares us boldly in the face. Just look around us! Our Disciples tradition is one of unerring commitment to ecumenism – to the idea that the church of Jesus Christ – in all of its manifold variations – is essentially and substantially one body of believers. We have been wrestling with that ecumenical challenge now for several years, in concert and in conversation with other churches in this university community. But look at what has happened here in this old pile of stones over the course of the past year! Over in the chapel, the Baptist tradition is faithfully followed each Sunday. Upstairs a small space has been transformed into a chapel for one of the oldest of the Christian traditions –followers of that tradition meet for worship as members of the Church of the Holy Wisdom while in the old church parlor – in what was the original worship space for our congregation eight decades or so ago, a congregation of the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church meets to celebrate its divine liturgy.

 And scattered through the old north building, what we term the Peace and Justice Center houses all sorts of groups and causes devoted to trying to make this society just a bit more decent and compassionate than it is – a group collecting and distributing books for prisoners, another trying to abolish the barbaric practice of the death penalty in this state, a neighborhood food bank, a group working on the challenge to create an equitable health care system….

 My friends, God has already made us into an ecumenical community– not as a future dream but as a present reality! Whatever our future is here, it ought to begin with this wonderful, glorious fact: all sorts of people of God, united only by their faith in Jesus Christ, speaking different languages and expressing that faith in all sorts of different liturgical forms are gathering in this grand old space to praise the Creator of us all and to do his work in the world. Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift!

 And so the only question before us is: what’s God going to do with us next? This has been the story of God’s people in every age, ever since the church of the first days. Paul was so sure he was doing what God wanted him to do as a righteous Pharisee, persecuting the little sect of Jews who called themselves Christians till God grabbed him in the middle of a Damascus street and pointedly made clear that he had a better way for Paul to follow. Peter had an eye-opening experience at the home of Cornelius and was reminded that God had a larger and different idea for the kingdom of God than Peter thought was proper.

 We each have our ideas of where we ought to go and what we ought to be and what we ought to do as a congregation. But the real question is whether we’ll hear the voice of God in our midst – whether we will both listen with love and discernment to one another and be awake and alive and alert to the movement of God’s Spirit among us. More of that next week.

Happiness

>It is poignant to me, that this is my last sermon to you as your pastor. There is a lot I would like to say, probably more in my ministry that has gone unsaid, and we could go on a long time about this scripture, the Beatitudes. Such a rich text. And yet, I am aware of the size of our bulletin and the tolerance of our bums, and if I preach any longer than about 2 minutes, we may never get out of worship.

If I am ever fortunate enough to create a class on discipleship for a church I serve, it would be based on the Beatitudes – the word Beatitudes meaning “blessed,” or in a “privileged position.” These 9 steps have been called the 12 steps of Christian living. Practiced together, they form a person, orient them to the ways of God. Blessed are the poor is not unlike the 1^st step of AA – in which a person acknowledges their powerlessness in their situation and their dependence on God. The poor have been a characterization of the true people of God, those people who understand that their lives are not in their own control and that they are dependent on God.

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Aiming For the Kingdom

I swear, the meeting went on for 3 hours. That’s what my colleague told me, serving a congregation in middle Kentucky. 

A 3 hour meeting. 

Not about, he said, 

the state of the church, 

or the details around the job description for the new associate pastor, 

or about the planning for the Fall Festival they would be doing for the neighborhood.

A 3 hour meeting

about dirty bathrooms.

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Your Life's Story

It’s the end of the line.

Moses dies.

I’ve been preaching on the Old Testament, tracking the progress of the Israelite people from their origins in the book of Genesis, through their enslavement in Egypt, and finally their trek across the wilderness,

and they have arrived.

Finally.

We’re at the end of the story.

And this is my last sermon in the sermon series on the Israelite people.

Their story isn’t done of course, but this part of the chapter in their life is coming to a close.

I thought about Moses, hiking to the top of the mountain, after having led his people through the wilderness for 40 years and able to see the promised land

but not able to go there himself

he had brought the people this far

to the point of being able to view the land that God had promised them

he had led them to the point of introducing them to the next chapter of their life together as a community

but he wasn’t able to go there himself.

and I thought,

it’s too bad this isn’t the text for my last Sunday.

I could preach that sermon.

This could be a sermon about our journey together as pastor and congregation. How we have journeyed together for a little over 3 years, trying to find the destination promised for this congregation, searching for this church’s purpose and mission. I journeyed with you as far as I could take you, but the future, which is yet to be determined, isn’t something I will be able to walk with you into. With only 2 more Sundays together, I couldn’t help but

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