Sing Alleluia!

When in our music God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia!

~Fred Pratt Green




My mother is a music therapist, and from her I've learned that when people lose their memories to diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia, they may not be able to remember the names of their loved ones, but often they can remember the words and tunes to songs they learned as children. It seems that music gets lodged inside our minds -- and our hearts -- in a fundamentally different way from tuneless words and memories. Music can decrease anxiety before, during, or after a medical procedure and can improve the outcomes of surgery and childbirth. It has the ability to soothe and calm us.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that among his many gifts, David was also a talented musician. When King Saul was tormented by an evil spirit (today we might say "going crazy" or "losing his mind") the only thing that made him feel better was when David played the lyre. David's ability to make beautiful music soothed and calmed the king (read the story in 1 Samuel 16:14-23).

In worship, music might serve to soothe and calm us, but its primary role is to glorify God. Some of my most meaningful worship experiences have involved music of many different kinds. I am often grateful when music expresses what words cannot.

This Sunday in worship we are going to worship God by singing some favorite hymns. Join us at 10a.m. for a hymn sing; we will sing hymns requested by members of our congregation, many of which will be familiar. We will also worship God with prayers and a brief reflection on the next installment of the David story, but mostly, this service is about the music. So come and express your faith by listening to and singing music that glorifies God.

Imagine That (sermon, June 21, 2009)

1 Samuel 17 (selections)
Mark 4:35-41

It’s a classic story. The underdog: weak, untrained, ill-equipped, destined for defeat. The opponent: massive, taunting, arrogant, the obvious victor. Some of the best stories are those in which the underdog, against all the odds, defeats the giant.

The movie Hoosiers is the true story of a tiny Indiana high school basketball team that made it to the state championship. In perhaps the most famous scene -- I’m sure most of you remember it well -- the players enter the arena where they will play the championship game and are instantly dismayed at the size of it. They are used to playing in front of maybe a couple hundred people -- this stadium seats thousands. And it all looks larger than life to them, including the court, which can’t possibly have the same dimensions as the ones back home. Their coach knows just what to do: he gets a tape measure and has the players measure the distance from the foul line to the basket and from the basket to the floor. Turns out the court that looks so huge has the exact same dimensions as all the standard courts they’ve practiced on and played on and won on countless times before.

Another great underdog story is the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team -- told on the big screen in a movie called Miracle. This was the team that beat the powerful Russians in one of the all-time greatest upsets. In fact, the announcer actually cried out a minute or so from the end of the game the now famous line: “Do you believe in miracles?!” Because that feat was nothing short of miraculous.

The earliest recorded story about a victorious underdog might just be the story of David and Goliath. It has all the makings of good cinema: there is a battle in which the two sides are entrenched. There is an enormous giant -- some estimate the Goliath was at least nine feet tall; imagine one and a half Arnold Swarzeneggers! And as if it wasn’t bad enough for the Israelites to have to see the terrifying giant standing in front of the Philistine army across the valley, they also had to hear him. Day after day he taunted them. Day after day he called out in a menacing voice that easily carried over the distance between them: “Come on, you wimps! Send somebody over here to fight me!” Then he added insult to injury: “Of course, it doesn’t matter who you send, I’ll make mincemeat of them! And then all of you will become our slaves!”

Well, the Israelites had been there, done that as far as slavery was concerned. That was the whole reason they ended up in the Promised Land in the first place -- to escape a life of slavery in Egypt. And it was starting to look like a life of slavery was inevitable, because they knew -- they knew -- there was no Israelite who would match up against Goliath. There wasn’t even anyone willing to try.

So the Israelites waited in the valley, doing nothing, trying not to antagonize their enemy. Maybe they thought if they held very, very still, if they barely breathed, maybe, just maybe, Goliath and his army would give up and slink away. The Israelites could only imagine two options before them: send someone to battle Goliath, which meant they would certainly end up enslaved to the Philistines; or do nothing and hope the Philistine army and their awful giant would get bored and leave them alone. Needless to say, the Israelites’ morale was very low. They were paralyzed by fear.

Enter David., Jesse’s youngest son, the youngest of eight; David’s usual job is tending the family’s sheep. But Jesse wants an update from his sons on the battlefield, so he sends David to take some provisions and check on them.

David must have been thrilled at this assignment. Take a day off from the monotony of watching sheep to go to the front lines of an army battle: awesome! Imagine his disappointment when he arrived to find not only King Saul (who was supposed to be nearly a giant himself, standing head and shoulders above everyone else) but also David’s brothers and all the rest of the Israelite army, cowering before the Philistines and their brute Goliath.

In the movie Hoosiers, when the Hickory High School basketball team is waiting nervously in the locker room before the regional finals, their coach gives them a motivational speech. “Forget about the crowds,” he says, “Forget about the size of the school, their fancy uniforms, and remember what got you here. Focus on the fundamentals, and most important, don’t get caught up in thinking about winning or losing this game.”

Well, it appears to be too late for the Israelites. For too many days now, they’ve listened to Goliath taunt them, insulting their army, bragging about the power of his gods; they’ve already gotten caught up in thoughts about winning and losing and they are sure that losing is their only option. But David arrives fresh from tending sheep, from spending days in the pasture contemplating the wonder of God’s creation, keeping an eye out for lions and bears and trusting God to steady his arm and focus his aim with the slingshot when they come. David isn’t thinking about winners and losers. He still remembers what got the Israelites where they are now. He’s focused on the fundamentals: they are the people of the living God, and these soldiers are the army of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of Moses; the God who rained down plagues on Pharaoh and parted the sea so that the Israelites walked on dry land while Pharaoh’s army drowned behind them.

It’s tempting to say that David was really just naive. He was the baby, with no experience but herding sheep, and nothing but peach fuzz on those ruddy, handsome cheeks. It’s tempting until we look closely enough to realize that David was the only one who could imagine an ending other than losing to Goliath because David was the only one who still remembered that with God on their side, the Israelites could never truly suffer defeat.

Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful book Leap Over a Wall, says that what David brought that day was a God-dominated imagination. All of the Israelites facing Goliath on the battlefield have a choice, Peterson says, and that choice is between a God-dominated imagination and a Goliath-dominated imagination. Most of the Israelite army had already made their choice; slowly but surely Goliath and the fear he invoked in them became the center of their universe. In their minds, Goliath was the most important thing in their lives; they could do nothing but watch and listen to every move made and every word he uttered. (1)

The same people who treated Goliath as the most important thing treated David as the least important, as entirely insignificant. David arrived to bring provisions to the men on the battlefield and offer a friendly word from home, but, as Peterson puts it, “their imaginations were so ruined by Goliath-watching that they were incapable of seeing and accepting a simple act of friendship.” (2)

This is what happens when we allow the fear of evil to control us and our imaginations. First it takes over our thoughts and determines our reactions, and then it makes us unable to see what is truly kind and beautiful and life-giving.

David arrives on the scene with fresh eyes and an imagination dominated by his faith in God. David knows without a doubt that God is so much stronger and more powerful than the giant that it is simply inevitable that Goliath is going down.

The soldiers are shocked, of course, when David volunteers to do battle with the giant. King Saul is so worried for the boy that he at first insists David wear his armor -- which would have been comically oversized and heavy for David. Again, David’s awareness of God helps him to see clearly that to succeed against the giant he needs what every underdog needs: to be himself, to use the gifts God has given him, to remember what got him there and to do what he knows how to do. In the end, just one rock and his well-used slingshot are all it takes for David to release the Israelites from their Goliath-dominated mindset.

This story is actually a second introduction to David. It is written as though this is the first time David appears. But it is a crucial story because of all that is to come. At this point, David has the faith of a child. We all know it is easier to have a God-dominated imagination when you haven’t had too many encounters with true evil, when you haven’t learned how scary and dangerous the world can be. When David arrives on that battlefield, he has the perfect combination of inexperience and child-like faith to challenge Goliath. But as David gets older he is going to face challenges that are at least as big as this giant. Saul is going to try to kill him time and time again when it becomes clear that David is next in line for the throne. David will have to live like a fugitive in order to stay alive. Later, when he is a powerful king, he will commit adultery and facilitate the murder of one of his soldiers. And near the end of his life, David will face a coup from his own son, who will eventually be killed. This story of David defeating Goliath needs to be here, at the beginning of David’s story, so that when those giants challenge him, David might have a chance of facing them, not with paralyzing fear and despair, but with the God-dominated imagination that allows him to act in trust and faith that God is with him in all things.

That’s not just true for David. If we can tear ourselves away from the temptation to let evil dominate our imaginations, we too can face whatever awful giant is taunting us, threatening our existence, our freedom.

What would it look like for us to have a God-dominated imagination? Well, it means being able to think creatively even when it looks like there are no good options. It means trusting that God is with us and giving us what we need even when what we’re given is just a handful of stones. It means trusting that whether the giant lives or dies, our past, present, and future is one ruled by none other than the Lord God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the one who can control even the winds and the waves, and the one who loves us fiercely and tenderly.

God chooses us just like God chose David. God is with us just like God was with David. God guides our hands as we pick out our stones. God gives us what we need so that we don’t have to try and wear someone else’s armor into battle. God longs to be the center of our imagination, to help us find a way when we are sure there is no way out. Just imagine what we can do, what giants we can face when we know for certain that God has already won for us the most important battle of our lives. When our imagination is fixed on that, we can truly face anything. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. Peterson, Eugene, Leap Over a Wall. HarperCollins, 1997, p. 40.
2. Ibid., p. 39

Learning the ways of faith

Over the next couple of months I am preaching a series of sermons on David, whose story is told in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. The best book I've read on the David stories is Leap Over a Wall by Eugene Peterson (you can find it on Amazon here). I highly recommend it. Here's a passage that struck me this week in Peterson's chapter on David and Goliath (the story for Sunday's sermon):

Every person learns the way of faith freshly or not at all. We learn to speak; we learn to walk; we learn to believe in God. And as essential as speaking and walking are, the most personal, most significant, most human thing we ever do is believe in God. At the same time it's the most public, the most social, the most political. (p. 43)

Many of us learned to believe in God about the same time we learned to speak and walk because our parents taught us who God was from an early age. Many others did not encounter God until much later in life. No matter when God entered your life, Peterson's point holds true: each of us must learn the way of faith freshly or not at all. Each us us must claim our faith for ourselves, and we must reclaim that faith each and every day.

We are bombarded with messages about what we should put our faith in: money, work, family, government, health, beauty -- the list goes on and on. Learning the way of faith freshly means that we daily choose to put our faith in God. My friend and colleague Mary Rodgers put it in stark real-life terms: it means we "choose hope over despair." It means looking our Goliaths in the eye and echoing David's words: "This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand!" When we choose hope, when we look through the pain and suffering and declare that God is still with us, we make our faith personal, claiming it for ourselves. May you find the courage to claim your faith freshly -- today and every day.

The Greatest Story Ever Told (sermon June 14, 2009)

Note: This sermon was originally titled "The Heart of the Matter" but as it developed I wished I could have titled it differently. So here I have!

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
2 Corinthians 5:16-17

Just to keep things interesting, let’s start this sermon with some audience participation. Raise your hand if you’ve ever read a really good book -- a book that you actually thought about even when you weren’t reading it. How about if you’ve seen a movie that really captured your heart and mind, one that you think about every now and again because it touched you that deeply. Anyone? I won’t put you on the spot and ask if you’ve heard a sermon in the last year that’s stayed with you, because that would just be too much pressure, but the principle is the same for sermons, books, movies, television shows, newspaper articles...and what is it that all of these things have in common? They tell stories.

Stories affect us the way they do because it is through story that we both discover and remember what it is that makes us human. Stories evoke the full range of human emotion; they remind us of experiences we have had in the past and they prepare us for experiences we might face in the future. They also allow us to participate in experiences that we will never have personally -- to travel to countries we will never get to visit or to take on the perspective of a person who is completely different from us.

There are many stories that are well-known and loved -- Romeo and Juliet comes to mind, as well as children’s stories like Cinderella or The Three Little Pigs -- but there is a category of stories that stands apart. These are sacred stories, the stories that tell us who God is and who we are in relation to God. These are the stories contained in our sacred book, the Bible.

Over the next couple of months we are going to explore one of the most important stories of the Old Testament, the story of David, a young, lowly shepherd boy who became a powerful king, the first successful king of Israel. Today we heard the beginning of David’s story, when he was chosen by God through Samuel. Before I explore that story a bit deeper, I want to set up the journey we will take this summer through the books of 1 and 2 Samuel.

The very idea of Israel having a king -- well, a human king; a king other than God -- was a new development in the history of God’s chosen people. The defining story in the Old Testament is the story of the Exodus, when Moses led God’s chosen people out of slavery in Egypt and into the Promised Land. This story reinforces a key theme that shows up again and again in the Bible: that God hears the cries of God’s people and saves them.

Well, once the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, endured forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and finally settled in the Promised Land, it turned out their troubles weren’t over. They had taken the Promised Land by force and from time to time the twelve different tribes of Israelites joined forces to wage defensive wars and keep their land. Each time such a threat appeared, God appointed an individual to lead the people. These individuals were known as “judges” and their stories are told in the book of Judges which comes before 1 Samuel.

From the very beginning of 1 Samuel, it is clear that a major change is taking place in the way Israel is governed. You see, it turns out that the people were growing dissatisfied with having only judges as leaders. In keeping with the old “the grass is greener” motif, they saw that the countries around them were ruled by kings and that was starting to look more and more attractive. But 1 Samuel doesn’t open with the people’s desire for a human king. As is often the case in the Bible, this story begins with a woman and her child. Or, I should say, with a woman who can’t have a child. This woman is named Hannah. [1]

When we meet Hannah, she is distraught. Each year, she and her husband make a journey to a local temple to worship, and when she gets there Hannah weeps and prays and refuses to eat while she begs the Lord to grant her a child. She even promises God that if she has a son, she will dedicate him to the Lord by bringing him back to the temple and making him a priest.

When we recall the Exodus -- the story that reminds us that God hears and saves God’s people -- it should come as no surprise that the Lord listens to Hannah. The Bible says the Lord “remembered” her and opened her womb. The child that grows in Hannah’s womb is Samuel, and, as soon as he is weaned, Hannah returns him to the temple where he is raised by the priest Eli.

Now Eli’s sons are in line to become the next priests and judges, but it turns out that they are not good men. They take the people’s sacrifices -- both animals and money -- for themselves. God is thoroughly displeased with them and lets Eli know it. And God chooses Samuel as the next priest and judge over Israel. Samuel serves in this position until he becomes old and his sons have also become judges. But his sons were like Eli’s: they took bribes and perverted justice and were generally lousy men.

And this is the point when the people of Israel have truly had it with this method of priests and judges ruling over them. Clearly, it’s no longer working. The elders of the tribes visit Samuel and tell him that they want a king, a real king, a human, earthly king, like all the other nations have.

Samuel thinks this is a very bad idea; after all, the only true king of Israel is the Lord God. But the Lord tells Samuel to give the people what they want. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t go well, at least not at first. The first king is Saul, who seems to be chosen primarily on the basis of height, since we are told several times that he stands head and shoulders above all the other people. Saul serves briefly as king, but when he disobeys a command from the Lord, God rejects him and tells Samuel that it is time to find a new king and sends him to the town of Bethlehem to anoint a new king from the sons of Jesse.

Reluctantly, Samuel goes, worried, as he probably should be, that not even Saul knows he is about to be dethroned. But when Samuel meets Jesse and his seven sons, it’s obvious he hit the jackpot. Surely, in this group of handsome, strong young men there is an individual suited to be king. But the Lord isn’t going to let Samuel make the same mistake twice: “Don’t pay any attention to looks or height,” God tells Samuel. “All I care about is a person’s heart.”

Now that may sound like a pretty straightforward task; after all, we’ve all heard the old adage that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The way Paul puts it in his letter to the Corinthians is that, as Christians, we shouldn’t look at people from a human point of view but with the knowledge that Christ makes everyone new. But the reason we need reminders not to judge others by their appearance is because it’s something we all tend to do. In fact, studies have shown that people who are taller and more attractive than their peers tend to get better jobs, make more money, and get bigger raises.

Regardless of how strong or handsome Jesse’s seven oldest sons were, none of them got the job. Samuel keeps looking at one capable man after another thinking, “surely this is the man God has chosen,” but with each interview he grows more certain that he has not yet seen God’s choice. This must have been pretty confusing to Samuel, since he was sent to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons king. We can imagine him scratching his head, puzzled, then turning again to Jesse: “This is Bethelehem, right? And you are Jesse, aren’t you?” When Jesse nods he asks one more question: “Don’t you have any other sons?” [2]

Well, says Jesse, there’s the baby. And the Hebrew word he uses has this derogatory meaning -- a castoff, a second thought, the youngest. It’s even a word that sometimes means the shortest. No wonder they didn’t bother to bring David in from the fields; there was no way the famous prophet Samuel could possibly want anything to do with him. You see, in Old Testament times the youngest son wasn’t the child who was doted on or spoiled; no, he was a second-class citizen with no particular rights or privileges. David isn’t back at home being pampered; he’s out in the field doing the dull but necessary work of tending the family sheep. But when Samuel asks for any other sons, Jesse dutifully has David brought before Samuel. It turns out that, even if he is on the short side, David has the same good looks as his older brothers, because the narrator can’t help but point out how handsome he is. But that’s not what matters here. What matters is that he is God’s choice. God has chosen David, the runt of the litter, the least expected, to be king.

We all need to be reminded from time to time that God isn’t interested in what we look like or what we’ve achieved or what rights and privileges society has granted us. God is interested in being God: in answering our cries of distress, in saving us from the things that hold us hostage, in being with us in our confusion and despair, in choosing us for the tasks God wants us to do. It should come as no surprise to us that God’s choice for king is the most unlikely choice because God is always in the business of choosing and saving unlikely people, even people like us, to do great things for God’s kingdom. Remember, David’s story in 1 Samuel opens not with David’s birth or coronation, but with Hannah -- a woman held captive by her despair, a woman weeping, fasting, praying, worshipping, hoping against hope that God will act in her story...and God does.

So how does this story compare so far with some of your all-time favorite stories? Well, if you’re unimpressed so far, just wait, things will get a lot more interesting in the coming weeks as we trace David’s path from unassuming shepherd boy to ruler over Israel.

In the coming weeks as we hear stories of King David we will hear echoes of today’s stories, the story of Hannah and the story of Samuel choosing David to be king. As this young boy grows into a powerful and deeply flawed ruler, we will see evidence that God hears our cries, both spoken and unspoken; that God sees beyond what the world sees and chooses us in spite of our outward and inward flaws; that God stays with us through our worst failures and greatest successes; and most importantly, that God is the author of each of our stories. And that means that every one of those stories is both deeply moving and deeply meaningful for God. David’s story is our story and when we hear it we remember that we too have been chosen to play a unique role in God’s story, which truly is the greatest story ever told. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. I am indebted to Walter Brueggemann’s work in the book Old Testament Theology for the idea of the connection between Hannah and David.
2. Eugene Peterson, Leap Over a Wall.

Accountability

This morning I did the "hill run." I run with a group of people who meet three times a week at 5:15a.m. to run 6 miles. Usually our routes are pretty flat or have one or two minor inclines, but today I was inducted into the hill run. The entire run is 10 miles and features three major inclines; I did a 6-mile, two-hill version. It was a great workout, and during it, I realized something. If I hadn't been running with someone else, there were multiple points at which I would have given up. In fact, if I didn't know that the group was expecting me to be there, I probably never would have gotten out of bed at 5a.m. in the first place.

That is the value of accountability. Most of us have good intentions that we find ourselves revisiting time and time again, thinking, "why can't I get myself to do that?" It might be a routine of prayer or devotion, restricting certain foods, following an exercise schedule, learning a new skill, or finishing a project around the house. For whatever reason, we human beings are created in such a way that most of us benefit from being held accountable.

It would be immensely helpful if God would hold us personally accountable for our spiritual well-being, giving us a celestial nudge (or swift kick in the rear) when we need it. But God chose instead to give us free will...which doesn't mean that we won't find God working to open our eyes to practices that will benefit us and others in ways God desires. This is what the Old Testament prophets were all about: holding God's people accountable in their relationship with God. Our summer Bible Study at FPPC is on how the prophets are still relevant today -- and they are certainly as relevant as ever in calling us to turn back toward God and seek justice for all people. Come join us on Wednesday evenings at 7p.m. And if you are even considering coming, tell someone so that they'll hold you accountable. I bet you'll be glad you did.

If someone had told me a year ago that I would be running several times a week in the wee hours of the morning, I never would have believed it. But having this running group has not only motivated me to get up and out the door, it has also made me look forward to these early morning outings. I've made some new friends, had lots of interesting conversations, and always come home glad I went. Oh, and it's made me a stronger runner, too.

Practice Makes Perfect (sermon, June 7, 2009)

Isaiah 65:17-25
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13


Although my children haven’t yet learned to play a musical instrument, I can already tell that when the time comes, it’s not going to be easy to decide what they should play. My husband, Derek, wants our kids to play something he thinks is practical, something they can play in their rooms and on church retreats: the guitar. But I want them to learn a classical instrument, preferably my personal favorites, the cello or oboe.

So I asked a friend of mine, Denise, a professional musician, for some advice on the matter. When I did, she told me this story. Her parents signed her up for piano lessons when she was six years old. Although she wanted to learn the piano, she hated to practice. She would fight her parents when they told her to practice and she would fight them when they tried to help her practice. The only thing worse than knowing you needed to work on a particular skill, she said, was having your mother call out from the other room: “Dear, that last part didn’t sound quite right. You’re playing too fast and you hit some wrong notes!”

Of course, the whole reason Denise’s parents wanted her to learn a musical instrument was because they believed it would help her be a better person. It would teach her the value of perseverance, of sticking with something long enough to get good at it. But although this was the original intent, what actually happened was that playing the piano dramatically increased the level of conflict in Denise’s family. Although she kept playing, she deeply resented the pressure her parents put on her to play and their constant nagging to practice, practice, practice.

The prophet Isaiah was like a nagging parent to the people of Israel. He always let them know exactly when they hit a wrong note in living the way God wanted them to live. Isaiah constantly demanded that the people live more righteously and practice justice more faithfully than they were. The gist of his message was this: “You are God’s chosen people! You, yes you, are the children of God. Now start acting like it!” Because, as so often happens, God’s people had turned away from the God who created them and saved them and they had started worshipping other gods. Because then, as now, there was no shortage of other gods to worship and those gods appeared, at first glance, to be more interesting, more powerful, more dynamic than the God of Israel. Sometimes these gods weren’t overtly religious; instead they were things such as money, power, or fame. But Isaiah kept showing up to remind the people who they were, which had everything to do with WHOSE they were. He told them, in no uncertain terms, that they needed to remember their true identity as God’s chosen people and start living out of that identity.

When the Israelites heard Isaiah, it seems that many of them responded with an apathetic, “What’s the point?” Apparently, it seemed to them that this God of whom Isaiah spoke so highly hadn’t really been listening, hadn’t answered their prayers, hadn’t given them what they wanted or saved them from suffering. So why should they have to do the hard work of being God’s people?

In today’s passage from Isaiah, the prophet answers that “What’s the point?” question, painting a stunning picture of what the world will look like when God’s kingdom arrives. Listen again to his description, spoken as if from the very mouth of God: “I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. 20No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed…They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain...”

When the people heard Isaiah’s words, they had three choices, the same choices we have today: they could ignore his words and continue living as they had with no concern for God. They could succumb to despair because the world they lived in was so far from the new heavens and earth Isaiah described and sit around waiting for the prophet’s words to come true. Or they could choose to believe Isaiah’s words and do what they could to make them true.

Ignore God’s word.

Wait for it to come true.

Or live as if it were already true.

Surely we all know how tempting it is to choose the first option and just ignore God’s Word. After all, there are many good arguments to be made that God doesn’t exist. And if God doesn’t exist, then we can decide what we want the world to look like and work to make our own vision a reality. That would certainly be easier than trying to grasp God’s vision for the world and then figure out how we can participate in that vision. But I’m assuming that option is not going to work for you, because, well, because you are here…and just by being here you declare your belief that God exists and that God’s Word matters. If we are truly going to follow Jesus, then ignoring God’s Word is simply not an option.

The second choice is what Paul warned about in the portion of his letter to the Thessalonians that we read. Apparently, many of the first believers were so convinced that Jesus would be coming again in a matter of months, or, at most, a few years, they thought they didn’t really need to do any kind of work or make any contribution to their community. Paul states emphatically that this is not so, even though he too shared the belief that Jesus was coming back sooner rather than later. Regardless of when Jesus comes back, says Paul, we are called to work and live in such a way that we demonstrate our faith to any who see us. This has the added benefit of setting an example for others. So, I think we can safely say that choice number two, sitting around and waiting for God to establish the new heaven and new earth, is not our calling.

So it looks like the only truly faithful response to the promise of God’s coming kingdom is to live as if it that kingdom is already here.

Sometimes, in order to achieve a goal, you have to act as if you’ve reached it before you’ve actually arrived. But if you’ve ever tried to practice any discipline – music, sports, art – you know that there are days when you feel like practicing and days when you don’t. And if you only practiced on the days when you felt like it, you would never improve your skills. Without the commitment to practice regularly, you would never achieve your goals.

In spite of all the conflict it created with her parents, Denise kept practicing the piano. She played all through elementary and middle school and into high school. Eventually she got her driver’s license and was able to drive herself to her weekly lessons. One day, her mother gave her an envelope which she asked Denise to take to the main office of the college where she took lessons. When the woman in the office took the envelope she opened it and then handed Denise a receipt for the check inside. Leaving the office, Denise glanced down at the piece of paper and stopped in her tracks, shocked at the sum of money representing just one semester’s worth of lessons. She saw for the first time the financial sacrifices her parents had made so that she could learn to play the piano. “I felt about this big,” she told me. But from that day on, she had a different attitude toward practicing the piano. “I stopped practicing so that I could say I played the piano and I started practicing to truly be a pianist.”

As Christians, we have already opened the envelope; we’ve seen how much it cost God to bring about the new heaven and new earth. When Jesus walked on this earth, teaching and healing, pockets of God’s kingdom opened up wherever he went. He died on a cross so that there would be a sure and strong connection between God and God’s people, a connection that could not be broken because of our inevitable tendency to turn away from God.

So for those of us who know what it cost God to bring the new heaven and earth to us, our job is to get practicing, to get to work opening up pockets of God’s kingdom even here, in this broken and sinful world. After all, we didn’t accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior so that we could call ourselves Christian but so we could be Christian, which includes doing what we can to make the world a place where grace and justice reign, to make this world, even our tiny corner of it, look a little more perfect, like the new heaven and earth Isaiah promised. Isaiah believed that the new heaven and new earth wasn’t here yet because God’s people kept choosing to turn away from God. He reminds us that when we act like God’s people, we will see that we are God’s people, and we have been all along.

Okay, so here’s the rub: how do we do it? How do we live in such a way that God’s kingdom is visible here and now? Well, like anything worth doing, it requires practice, practice, practice. And we’re not called to practice in order to become more perfect people. We practice in order to make the world a more perfect place, more like the kingdom Jesus showed us, where the blind can see, the lame can walk, the captives are released, and there are enough resources for everyone.

There are lots of ways to manifest God’s kingdom, the new heaven and new earth, here and now. Extend grace to the people around you, the people you love best and the stranger on the street. Be kind even when you are having a lousy day. Instead of assuming the person who cut you off in traffic has a personal vendetta against you, try assuming instead that they might be having a really bad day and pray for them. Cultivate gratitude by praying before meals and at the end of the day, acknowledging that all you have isn’t owed to you but rather it is a gift from God. Give things away – money, time, talents – and watch all your riches multiply. Ask yourself some hard questions about how you contribute to the systems of corruption and injustice in our country and in our world, and find some way, if only very small, to change or offset them.

Oh, and one more thing. Remember, above all, that the only perfection in this world comes from God. We are not called to be perfect. We are human after all, created in such a way that we will inevitably make mistakes, we will fail to live up to our calling as Jesus’ disciples, we will engage in practices that hurt others, sometimes without even realizing it. We can and should strive to follow Jesus ever more faithfully. But we must also remember that the perfection toward which we strive is perfection that only God can achieve. And God will bring it about; someday the world will be a place where peace and grace and life and love will come together in a sublime state of true perfection. In the meantime, may we all do our part in making that perfect world a reality. Amen.