Sermon on Psalm 13

Psalm 13

Sarah Schoeffel

29 June, 2104

I am 18 years old, but I think I will always have one fear I won’t be able to overcome. That fear showed itself when I went up to Washington DC for orientation this past week. That fear is being alone. It started when my mom and I were shopping. She went a separate direction while I was getting some gummy bears. Right after I grabbed them I went looking for her but couldn’t find her. Panic set it. Fear set in, but lone behold I saw my mom a few minutes later because I was determined to find her. I remained hopeful that we would be reunited soon. I mean it was a very small store, and I had the hotel room key, so she needed me.

In the reading I chose today from the lectionary, David is feeling abandoned by God. He cries out for help, but he fails to hear anything in return. He longs for God, but as the psalm progresses, he holds onto hope because he believes in the salvation God has promised. Hear now, Psalm 13.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The Word of the Lord.

(Thanks be to God.)

I chose this reading today because I had shared my desire to write with Pastor Elizabeth. Through writing I want to better understand God’s placement in the world when such horrors from natural disasters to human made atrocities occur. This psalm strikingly reflects how humans question God, but it has helped me to redirect some of that questioning to trust. God is present in the world. He will not control our lives nor will He make them easy, but He will also produce hope, much hope and splendor through the form of marriages, births, and kindness from strangers. Yes, each of us will face dark days, but God will always provide us light to get through. We may trudge through the darkness, but no one can take that which He gave to you from you, hope and salvation.

But I think we can all say that we’ve felt like David before. We think God has abandoned us that He isn’t listening, but He has a plan. David is feeling afraid and alone but he is also reassured from God’s promise of salvation. That hope keeps him nourished and strong against those enemies who wish to defeat him. He trusts the Lord will uphold His promise. David keeps his faith in the Lord that He shall deliver, and we need to follow David’s example.

I know I myself have had times where I felt abandoned by God. When I went to China a few years back, any form of Christianity outwardly shown had to be void from my life. Being in a foreign country not knowing anyone and not being able to simply call my parents I relied on God to get me through the first night of loneliness. I cried a lot the first night. I was 16 years old and I didn’t know anyone and it was around 1:30 AM on arrival so no one wanted to stay up, but God stayed up with me. Sure enough the darkness of night turned into a promise of hope in the weeks to come as the sun rose the next morning. There are always brighter days ahead I would remember, and by the end of the 8 weeks I can conclude that I had a marvelous time. We as humans can be afraid of the unknown, but God doesn’t leave our sides. He can be relied on as a comfort across time span and physical distance.

Feeling left out or alone isn’t taboo, but it’s important to remember and recognize the real support that lingers around you. Sometimes you, as any human would, need reassurance or comfort. I encourage you to seek support when you need it whether it be from a counselor, a pastor, a good friend, Stephen Minister, or even God. God is on call 24/7 365 days a year, and He loves to hear from you, so don’t put Him on hold then complain He doesn’t answer you. Call out to Him, and He will answer and support you through the good times and the bad. He is here for the long haul.

Loneliness can be felt in a multitude of issues that each of us experience from a dedicated wife leaving the familiar to support her husband in a new job to when your spouse or parent dies, but David tells us to be reassured. God will always be present to be that support that the world in its current form cannot always provide. The world has continuously been challenged with these problems like during the Civil War when African American slaves sang hymns stemming from the “How Long” repetition in this psalm. They longed for freedom, and God did answer their prayers like in the form of President Lincoln and the abolitionist movement. Many people today still have tough questions for the Church. Where God is? Why there are unexplainable atrocities and natural disasters?  Why war exists as well as innocent children dying of hunger? Though we as humans cannot do but guess at the reasons, the Lord reminds us to trust in Him whom will always deliver. Maybe not in the time frame we want or the way we want him to but He will.

“I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.”

-Eat, Pray, Love

Our lives are ever changing. New jobs. New friends. New books. New movies. New houses. New lives. Keep God your constant. He is the one sure thing in this world that you can rely 100% on.

The Trinitarian Life

Trinity Sunday

2 Corinthians 13:11-13                                                    
15 June 2014
Elizabeth M Deibert                                                          

The Bible never mentions a Trinitarian life.   The Bible never mentions the Trinity.   The Bible never says, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”   But the Trinity is a crucial doctrine in the church, which first began to be debated after one hundred years of church life.   It is one of those particulars that makes us who we are as Christians.   Usually when I say this in new members’ classes, people get this glazed over look on their faces or they say, “Yeah, I know, but I sure don’t understand it.   Do I need to understand it?   What’s the big deal about the Trinity?”  Well, first of all, you should know that the doctrine of the Trinity was a very hot topic for the first thousand years of the church and misunderstandings of the Trinity are still causing trouble in the church.   But having said the words, Trinitarian and Trinity are not in the Bible, the references to the persons of the Trinity are there, and we are reading today two of the passages which speak in terms that lead to a Trinitarian life.    

First it is appropriate that we should read this farewell of Paul to the Corinthians, as I bid you farewell for seven weeks, praying that this will be a time of renewal for all of us,  as I know that the God of love and peace will be with you, when I am not.    There are many talented and faithful leaders in this church.   You have elected a strong group of elders with diverse gifts.   You have two very capable, devoted, and gifted professionals in Gia and Neil, and beyond them, you have seven outstanding ordained ministers in the congregation.  These folks and others will do a good job with worship and will be there for you in times of pastoral need.   Paul would have been glad to have had so many great leaders in Corinth.

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

¹¹ Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell.  Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. ¹² Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

¹³ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Our second reading is the Great Commission.   It is another significant reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.   It’s Christ’s charge to us that we make disciples and baptize them in this Trinitarian formula, and his promise to be with us forever.   It is great to be reading this text on the day we send our young mission workers to Guatemala and Haiti for a week as messengers of the peace of Christ.

Matthew 28:16-20

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So with some help from the late theology professor Guthrie, our friend, who wrote Christian Doctrine, let’s talk a little bit about misunderstandings of the Trinity:  Some people talk about God like a heavenly board of directors with three persons who are equal partners.  The Father handles creation (or in corporate terms, production and maintenance).   The Son handles salvation (sales and distribution), and the Spirit handles the life and growth (customer satisfaction and the development office).   But this separates out the persons of the Trinity and puts them in fixed roles.  This approach does not understand that there is one God whose works cannot be cleanly separated.

Or we might mistakenly think that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three players on a team, who takes turns playing in the game.   God the Father comes out in the first half to do the work of creation (the Old Testament).   Then Jesus comes out to do the work of salvation at half time, as we see in the Gospels.   Then finally the Spirit comes at Pentecost in the second half of the game of life to carry the church forward. 

But scripture teaches that Jesus, the Word made flesh was there from the beginning, and likewise the Spirit.   So we cannot really go with this understanding.

Many people think of God the Father as the big boss and Jesus and the Spirit being under God’s authority.   When you hear people talk about Jesus saving us from the wrath of an angry God, or that the God of the Old Testament is a judge and the God of the New Testament is love, this is a faulty understanding of the Trinity.   Because all of the Triune God is love, wanting our very best, all of the Triune God will not tolerate our sin, all of the Triune God forgives us and helps us.   So it is not that Daddy is mad with you and Brother Jesus is getting you off the hook by taking your spanking for you, all while your mothering Spirit is providing for your comfort and protection.    No, the one who hangs on the cross is God incarnate and the same One who dwells with you in your joy and in the mess of life that you sometimes make.   And that Spirit is called in scripture, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ.

Some people might want to say that God is one person who puts on different hats – like the person who is a Father, a Son, and an employee.   Or God is like an actor, who plays different roles, changing costumes.   But even that is problematic, because God is always and at the same time being with all people the Loving Creator and Ruler, and the Saving Friend and Reconciler and the Loyal Companion and Transformer of all life.   All of this is happening all the time with all people.     (See Christian Doctrine, 2^nd edition by Shirley Guthrie)

So where are we?    We are left with this simple definition of the Trinity – one God who is very personal who lives and works in three different ways at the same time.    There is an ancient Greek word called perichoresis which St John of Damascus used in the 7^th Century to describe the holy dance that is the Trinity.   Peri is like perimeter and choresis is like choreography.    This is really the best way to think about God.

So you might not have noticed this, but I am very intentional about using nearly the same Trinitarian language almost every single Sunday as our blessing, to help us all remember the holy dance.   The words are straight out of 2 Corinthians 13 that we read a moment ago – the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.  

So let’s talk about what’s helpful about a life defined by the Trinity, but not by Triangulation.   Psychologists will warn about triangulation and by that they usually mean, one person gets upset with another, and instead of talking to that person about it, she goes to another person and complains about the first person.   Darn it, this happens all the time in families and in churches and in workplaces.     And it is not healthy.    If you are having conflict with a person, it is nearly always best to address the conflict with that person, unless that person or you are so out of control or hot tempered that the conversation cannot be calm and kind and productive.   Oh, but it is so much easier to go to another.   God, forgive us for all our unhealthy triangulation, which disrupts the work of your Trinity, instead of helping you.

So do you see how this connects with a faulty understanding of the Trinity? God the Father is mad at you, so you go ask Jesus to help out, and he rescues you from God’s wrath.    That raises all kinds of theological problems – why would a good God take his wrath out on a good Son, because the rascal children needed a second chance?

Every time we try to understand God with human images it doesn’t quite do the job.   It is better when we understand our life with Trinitarian images.    If the Trinity is a dance of Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer – a dance of maleness, femaleness and childlikeness, a dance of Father, Son, and Spirit, then so should all our life be a dance of listening, cooperating, never dominating, always appreciating and treasuring the steps of the other, as we make our own moves, always organic and flowing, a harmony of lovely sounds which belong together but rise and fall and change and develop in ways that are interesting and challenging and more beautiful together than they are separate.

If all goes well at the General Assembly this week, it will be because our commissioners danced instead of arguing.  If all goes well for Peace Church this summer and even further into the future, it will be because we engage in perichoresis, a Trinitarian dance of life.    Yes, involving three people, in multiple Trinitarian friendships but never triangulating people by two taking sides against another, building an unhealthy bond of tightness to close out another or one breaking off, separating because there is no longer room for three.  

For three to be one, there must be a perfectly blended dance of freedom and responsibility, of joy and struggle, of love and justice, of transcendence and immanence, of separateness and togetherness, of balance in cooperation between each of the three.  Too often in our human relationships, two grow close and begin to exclude one.   It happens with elementary age girls in threesomes – two become too close and exclude the other.   It happens with teen boys – two or three compete until one has won the prize of dominance.   It happens with only child families – one parent & child close, one parent excluded.   It happens with couples who have a troubled or sick child.   Parents get so busy caring for child, they forget their own relationship.   It happens in churches that forget the Holy Spirit because the Spirit is so mysterious, or talk so much about God, God, God, you might as well be in the synagogue for that Jesus, who is God with us, is never mentioned.  There are churches that fixate on Jesus because they assume wrongly that God the Father is angry – better keep a distance from that one!

I love to see a Trinitarian life in this church when an elder and ministry team leader work in concert with their team.   Elder, leader, team.  Also the elder, team leader, and pastor can function in a Trinitarian harmony.  We saw it happen beautifully this past year with our Building Vision Team under stress.   We have seen it a beautiful new harmonious unit with the treasury team – hands working in concert and balance.   The Fellowship Team has been dancing lately too.   I cannot name them all, but when relationships are balanced and strong, the Trinitarian life of the Godhead is at work in you.   Several teams can work together on a common goal like authentic relationships, nurturing discipleship or responsive stewardship.   

Think about this dance, and the importance of giving room for others steps and voices.    Think about it as you struggle with family life and friendship.   We sometimes need the counsel of another, or need to release some frustration, but in that tight moment, do not let it become exclusive.   Don’t triangulate by being excessively critical, judging another’s character or work, or by drawing too close to one, and excluding another.   Good strong marriages are Trinitarian because God is one of three partners in the marriage. 

The Trinitarian life is a dance of grace, mercy, and peace.   It is dance of faith, hope, and love.   It is a dance of justice, kindness, and humility.   It is a life of communing well with God and others.   Not only does the Great Commission have the power of the Trinitarian formula, but the Great Commandment is a Trinity of love between God and others and us.   Love the Lord your God, Love your neighbor and love yourself.    

So stop glazing over when you hear about the Trinity.   Celebrate the wonder and the beauty of God in three persons – blessed Trinity.   Get excited.   Put on your dancing shoes!

 

 

 

Unity + Diversity = Community

Pentecost

1 Corinthians 12:4-13                                                                   
June 8, 2014
Elizabeth M. Deibert                                                                     

I was a child in the Presbyterian Church in small town North Carolina.   It was the 70’s as I was growing up, but our service was classic 1950’s Protestantism-- intellectual sermon at the end of the service, and sacrament only four times/year.   My parents, having been raised Baptist, missed the more personal, pietistic experience of that tradition.   So when the charismatic movement began in our area when I was an adolescent, I spent Sunday nights worshiping with praise choruses, occasionally people speaking in tongues, highly energized sermons and emotional prayers, which invited a close and personal relationship with Jesus.   All the while Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights were at the very staid Presbyterian Church where I was loved and taught a much calmer version of loving Jesus that involved my mind as much as my heart.   In high school each summer my parents took me and a few others to a week long youth conference not in Montreat, but led by a guy named Bill Gothard who taught a very literal interpretation of scripture.   It was there that I heard that the Bible taught me to be submissive to my father until I was married, at which time I could submit to my husband.   It wasn’t long before I realized I did not have to read the Bible that way, but that I could understand the extremely patriarchal cultural context in which the scripture came to us.  What I appreciated about that conference was its clear invitation to make living for Christ my number one priority, and to make scripture reading a joyful, faith-building practice.

In college, I was engaged in dorm Bible studies and worship and services experiences through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.   I attended a Presbyterian Church for half of my college years, and then a Bible Church, one of the earliest of the fast-growing non-denominational guitar and piano contemporary churches that were springing up in the 1980’s.   

Then I began seminary, and came to a new awareness of people who loved Jesus just as much as I did, but came to seminary from a radically different experience of Christian faith.   The words they used to pray were different from mine.   They were so liberal, compared to twenty-three year old me, but they loved Jesus too.    

I was invited to consider that God was not just a grandfather figure in the sky, but so much more, including images that were feminine.   I was challenged to see that God calls all women and men into ministry, that worship and service belong together, just as Word and Sacrament belong together.   Richard and I affiliated with a church that was predominantly African American and learned just a touch of how it feels to be in the minority and among people whose cultural self-image has been damaged by years of racism.   We learned that loving God without loving humanity, all of humanity, is impossible.   

Then in a first call as pastor, I developed close friendships with homosexual persons, church members, who loved Jesus as much as I did, some of them in long-term relationships, loving their partners as much as I loved Richard.   I found through study and reflection with these brothers and sisters that my mind was changed about what the Bible was really teaching us about that – cultural context of the scriptures again.    This was the 90’s.    Then we moved to England and worshiped with  Anglicans in Cambridge, and I came to a new appreciation for what it means to be Christian in a culture that was post-Christian, only 3% of the population being church-goers there.   I learned in that context that to be evangelical was to live out my faith long before trying to speak about it with friends who were not part of the church and had serious misgivings about all Christians.  

For the first time in my life, I began to appreciate the power of a common prayer book, where repeated prayers come to life, through the repetition of them, with careful attention to the movement of God’s Spirit.  How lighting candles and smelling incense and hearing chants and meditating with icons can help us to pray.   Having circled back to my childhood church for a couple of years of interim pastoring, we came here to help shape the early life of Peace, and I think I’ve learned even more what it means to be a diverse people, from different parts of the Uni4ted States and the world, with different experiences of the Church, different attitudes about politics and the social issues of our day, with different expectations of who this church should be.    And I’m still learning what it means to be unified in Christ, yet diverse in perspective, such that authentic community, even communion in the Spirit is not only possible but indeed our reality most of the time.  

We are learning at Peace and at the presbytery how to listen to one another, without saying “yes but.”   We are learning that relationships are more important than being right or agreeing about everything.

Paul tried to help the Corinthians see that loving relationships were more important than being right.    The Corinthians struggled with this.   In the opening of the letter, we hear Paul telling them that it not about which leader they follow – Paul or Apollos or Cephas – but that they are united in Christ.   It is not about being wise in the eyes of the world, but being foolish for Christ’s sake.    He goes on to explain that how you live does in fact matter.   It does.   We should glorify God in our relationships.    It is not anything goes, with God, because God’s love will always be there.   All things are lawful because of our freedom in Christ, but not all things build up.   We are to seek that which builds up the other.    We are not to judge the other, not to do things that offend another, but seek always to build up the church.    Paul addressed conflict over leadership, conflict over marriage, conflict over foods, conflict over appropriate clothing, conflict over how to celebrate communion, conflict over circumcision, conflict over lawsuits, conflict which gifts are most important in the church.    Hear now what he says about gifts:

1 Corinthians 12:4-13

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵ and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶ and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷ To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸ To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. ¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (NRSV)

 

The same Spirit.  The same Lord.   The same God.    Of the Spirit, through the Spirit, according to the same Spirit, by the same Spirit, by the one Spirit.  

By one and the same Spirit, just as the Spirit chooses.   One body, one Spirit, one body, of the one Spirit.   Varieties of gifts, varieties of services, variesties of activities.  Many members.  Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing powers, miracles, vision or prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation of tongues.

We must not confuse unity with uniformity.    We are different in gifts as we are in appearance.   God speaks to us, and gifts us differently.    But God puts in us a desire for unity, so we are always looking for ways to connect with other people.    But that desire to find unity should never be forced by trying to be identical to other people or trying to insist that other people be identical to us.

Have you ever noticed how when someone starts telling a story and you find a connecting point, you are often in such a hurry to interrupt and say how your story connects with theirs?    Slow down, my friends.    Slow down.   In trying to rush to unity, you are not hearing their whole story, and the nuaces that make their story unique.   DO NOT rush in with your story.     Hear theirs, all the way.    Ask questions to keep them talking.   Dominant voices crowd out quiet ones, but quiet voices have something to say.  

The other thing we do that is even worse that interrupting with our point of unity, is bringing up hastily our point of disagreement.    They begin to speak their truth, and we interrupt with “Yes but…”    or “How you can say….”   Slow down and be more discerning.    Do you really think you need to “correct” their truth?  Does the Spirit really want you to assert your point.   Or is there a gentler, kinder way of hearing them out, and asking more questions, and finally expressing yourself in a less antagonistic way?

When someone is getting on your last nerve by expressing a faith or sharing a gift or service or activity that you cannot appreciate very much, think of Paul’s word:   Variety…but the same Spirit.    Many members but one body.    To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.    For the common good.    Is there a way to appreciate this gift, this activity, this service as being for the common good?   If not, then is there a way for you to encourage the person to be more concerned for the common good as they share their wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, discernment or whatever it is that they do?

Can we hold on to both unity and diversity?    Yes, in the Christ’s Spirit who meets us in the communion of wine and bread, and in the true community of brothers and sisters, who value one another’s dignity completely, yes we can.  

But it is hard work, requiring us to listen more than speak, to care about another’s experience more than sharing our own experience, to value relationships more than being right.   It means we do not rush to conclude discussions and make decisions.   When relationships matter more than being right, the Spirit has room to breathe in us and to move among us, and to make our unity something that transcends our diversity.   It takes patience and discernment.  Remember that Paul ends this discussion of the variety of gifts by saying no gift is of value without love.    If I have all powers but have not love, it is worth nothing.

On Pentecost Day, after all that wind and flame and people speaking in different languages, Peter addresses the congregation.   He quotes the prophet Joel who declared God word saying:  I will pour out my Spirit upon all, and your sons and daughters will prophecy, and your young men shall see visions while your old men dream dreams.  Today we give to the Pentecost Offering believing that the Spirit of Christ is still giving visions to our young adults and youth.  We will hear from Russ Kerr, who has been accepted in the Young Adult Volunteer program to serve in an inner city mission for the next year, while being in an intentional community with other YAVs.   Our prayers and support are with you Russ.

Our prayers are also with Matt Grantham and three elders and three ministers from Peace River Presbytery as they travel this week to join the other six hundred commissioners from 172 presbyteries for the General Assembly in Detroit this year.   We pray that all will treasure the variety of gifts being from the same Spirit, that no respectful voice will be silenced, even though it may articulate a different perspective.  To each is given the experience, the presence, and the power of the Holy Spirit – for the common good.   The Holy Spirit’s different manifestation in each person’s gifts may be a unique as our facial features and fingerprints, but it is one Spirit.   May unity and diversity come together into a beautiful spirit-filled community – both here at Peace and with all the Presbyterians in Detroit, and with all the Christians around the world, and with all the people everywhere, and with all of God’s beautiful and wondrous creation.   

 

Hope, Riches, and Greatness

Sunday after Ascension

Ephesians 1:15-23                                                             
1 June 2014
Elizabeth M. Deibert                                                         

Thursday was the fortieth day of Easter season when we remember Jesus’ Ascension.   The disciples watched as he was taken up and away to greater tasks, beyond us with God, praying with us and for us, accomplishing work far more than we can ask or imagine, though we do see in a mirror dimly and with the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we get glimpses into this glory.    This week-end, we have seven young women at Peace have ascended the platform of their high school graduation to commence a whole new life as young adults.   Sarah, Emily, Liz, Danielle, Julie, Amanda and Abigail, you have ascended to adulthood, although we do offer you this grace period in young adulthood called college, a time when you get to focus on your calling and your purpose in life.    It is a rich season of life filled with hope for the future, a time to grow in your awareness of value of your inheritance, and to harness the greatness of power that God has given you to do good things.

Ephesians 1:15-23

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason ¹⁶ I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. ¹⁷ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, ¹⁸ so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. ²⁰ God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. ²² And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (NRSV)

Paul gave thanks for the new Christians in Ephesus, and we give thanks for the young Christians we have watched mature in faith over these last several years.    As most of you know, Neil, our youth pastor, hated to be away this Sunday.   

Here are his words to you:   There are few things that would keep me away from being with you today, and holding my granddaughter for the first time is one of them.  

My guess is that there's somebody sitting beside you right now who remembers when you were that little. And seated around you are a lot of "old" people who, when they look at you, remember their own children and grandchildren, and their own graduation. That's why all these people around you (that you hardly know) are smiling. They see your bright face, and see memories and hope; they feel joy and laughter. They probably want to pick you up and hug you, but that would be weird, so they just shake your hand and beam. 

The thing I love so much about babies is that they remind me of the relationship I aspire to have with my Father: blissful, content, fed, assured ...held in a warm embrace. And so that's my personal, rather un-theological advice to you this graduation. Don't become an adult. Instead, seek to be a child of your Father in heaven. For from him you have come, and to him you will return. And in-between, hug.

Neil sent me an email today saying, “Holding the granddaughter is more special than I imagined. It's like hope in a blanket.”   Grads, your parents experienced that hope when they first held you, and they had that hope fill their hearts with gratitude again when they watched you walk across the stage at graduation.   And now instead of you, it is they who need a security blanket as you are leaving some of you, and even if you’re not leaving yet, you are definitely moving to a new level of responsibility.   They have given you roots, now it is time for you to use your wings and soar like eagles.

Paul prays for his friends, as we pray for all of you that may have a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you grow in your relationship with Christ.  

In relationship to Christ, the eyes of your heart are enlightened, and you are given eyes to see with your heart, so that you may know the hope to which God has called you.   That hope is your future, which you are now going out to discover, with more independence than ever before.   Whether you are living at home or going away to college, this next season of life is one of discovering who you are called to be and what you are called to do.   Remember that your calling is from God, and whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God.   Whatever you do with your life, glorify God in it.    That’s what it means to have a vocation when you are a Christian – to serve Christ in whatever you are doing.

With God you always have a future filled with hope because fulfilling your calling is to become more like Christ, whether you are living or dying.    It’s like the story Peg told me yesterday about the young man who got up at his grandma’s funeral to speak after several people had made their heart-wrenching eulogies.   He walked to down the aisle and to the pulpit saying, “This is NOT a sad day.   My grandma loved the Lord.   This is NOT a sad day.”   As Christians, no matter what happens in our future, we are people of hope, like that young man and his grandma.   For we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope never disappoints us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the power of Christ’s Spirit at work in us.

Your past is your heritage, your parentage, what you inherit from your family and special friends.   What Christ has done for you in the past and what Christ’s Spirit is doing for you in the present is what gives you that hope for the future.   Don’t think of your past, in terms of error.  Yes, learn from your experiences of failure, but don’t live in fear of the future because of past failures, or you will rob yourself of a fruitful present.  

With your past pains and griefs, as well as all the things of your inheritance that give you hope, remember this:  you can take out the photo album whenever you want.   You can take a whirl through the pics on your phone or Facebook whenever you want.   And as someone who is grieving said to me this week, “I can take the pain off the shelf and cry about it, and then I can put away.”  That’s the nature of hope, knowing that you can deal with the pain of life, and put it away through prayer.  As the late Maya Angelou, a woman who survived both rape and racism said, You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Remember that you are beloved by God and made children of God, not because of your good behavior in life or your good grades in college, but by Jesus Christ’s human-divine nature.   That’s why you have a glorious inheritance.   You don’t earn an inheritance.  It is passed to you.    You have inherited through Christ, the glory of God.   Wow, now that is wealth – the kind of wealth the world cannot give!  God takes all the mess of your human condition, all the failures, all the frauds, all the wounded feelings, and says to you, “Here, I am making you perfect.   Work with me on this.   I am creating a masterpiece of you.    Cooperate with me.  

By my grace and love you are becoming just you are intended to be – even if right now you feel like a hot mess.  You are not.  You are my beloved - always will be.   Operate out of that identity, not all the name-calling and labels that others and you yourself have slapped on your back to weigh you down with shame and insignificance.   Shine in the light of my love, Christ says to you.  The Spirit whispers this to you every day.   Are you listening?   It’s like cute little 2 year-old Lia, whom Catherine babysits, who when she is lying down for her nap, looking up with adoration in her eyes, and saying to Catherine, “Capin, you are my best friend.”   That’s the kind of childlike adoration and trust and joy we can have in the loving embrace of the Holy Spirit, our caregiver.       

Your future is full of hope.   From your past, you have a wonderful inheritance in Christ with all the saints.   But we are Christ’s body moving in the future.   We have a legacy in Christ, and we create a legacy for Christ by how we live in the present by his power.    Let’s try to live in the present.   I know often with high school seniors, it gets tiresome to hear the same question all year:   So what’s next?   What college?   Then in college, the question is always, “What are you majoring in? And what are you going to do with that degree?”   That’s when it is important to live in the present.   Older people need to live in the present too –not fretting too much over the things that are past, and not worrying about the things in the future, when they will most assuredly have less control.

Live in the present because the present is full of possibilities.  Sometimes people get stuck worrying about their past, and they get depressed because all they can see of their past is disappointments or failures.   They forget the inheritance of the saints, made saints by Christ’s love.   Sometimes people get stuck worrying about the future.   The future is filled with hope but also with uncertainties and yes some hurts and disappointments there too.   Don’t be anxious, but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving, let your needs be known to God.  Uncertainties and disappointments cannot be avoided.   We can only prepare for them with confident hope that all things ultimately work together for good to those who love God and are called according to God’s purposes.

So as the saying goes, the past is behind, learn from it.   The future is ahead, prepare for it.   But the present is now, live in it.    If you are depressed you are living to much in the past.  If you are anxious you are living too much in the future.  Be at peace with God and with humanity by living in the present. 

The present is pregnant with possibility because of the immeasurable greatness of the power of God at work in you.  

When you know to whom you belong and the wealth of your inheritance as a child of God, when you know that your future is promising not because you will roll from success to success, but because your future is in growing in Christ-like-ness, then you will have the power to live with greatness in the present.   Your present will be great because you are not troubled by your past but empowered by your experience of it.   Your present will be great not because you have your future secured, but by the fact that you know the One in whom you have ultimate security and hope – Jesus Christ.   And in him and with him and through him, you will one day graduate not from high school or college, but you will graduate from this earthly life and all of its struggles. 

I opened with words from Pastor Neil to you, and I want to close with words from your former youth pastor to you.   Tricia sends these words to you from Montreat, where she is currently preparing small group leaders for weeks 1 &2.

Remember your faith. Remember it by reading your scriptures, by going to worship, and by praying. Faith does not happen alone, it takes a community.

And remember to love. To love God with all you have, to love yourself, and to love one another. This community we’re called to be in can be such a mess that sometimes we’d rather walk away. Don’t. Don’t walk. Don’t turn away. Love even when it really hurts. It will. But love anyway. Remember we are all children of God, and some days it’s easier to love God’s children than others. That applies to you, too.

And finally, remember hope. I think this can be one of the hardest things to remember. Because when you put yourself out there, and you have prayed, and you have loved, and nothing changes, or worse-it seems the whole world is against you, remember to choose hope. Remember you are a vessel for God’s deep love in this world.  Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we get it wrong, but when we are faced with the two options of cynicism or hope, I pray you choose hope.