A Faithful Presence

I invite you this morning just to join me in a word of prayer. Almighty God, we come so ever grateful for this wonderful gift of life and the present that you have set before us. So now we ask that we might be mindful of your presence with us and your love towards us. So now we ask that you would cover us, you would draw us, that you would unite us. And we ask on this day that you would fill us for all the places you are preparing to send us. This we ask in your wonderful name. Amen. You may be seated.

It is once again a joy and a privilege to be found in this space and in this place to gather with those who have come from so many different directions, that on this morning we might assemble ourselves for what is yet to come. There are certain days when this privilege of preaching is perhaps clearer than others, when given the texts that are offered on this day, that perhaps like some of my colleagues on certain days, you’re drawn to one in particular. But it was the thread that was running through all of the readings that I pray you were listening to, that you were paying attention to, that you were hearing on this day. The thread of presence in all, in each and every one of them, that we might for just a moment try to travel along that thread.

It was many years ago now, but during the well-known lectures that take place at Yale known as the Lyman Beecher Lectures that the noted preacher and theologian, Philips Brooks, offered his often-quoted definition of this exercise, that I am currently attempting to fulfill, called preaching. He defined it as “the communication of truth through personality”. And all of us have come here this morning with different experiences, different roads that we have traveled. Many times seeing the same thing and telling it different ways. While every one of us will find ourselves in moments where we are seeking to communicate truth, the communication of truth is always filtered through our unique personalities, our human experiences, our knowledge, our beliefs, and our understandings. No matter how we experience the same thing, all of us might tell it in a different way. But in this gathering, we recognize that in listening to the prayers that have been prayed, the songs that have already been sung, the scriptures that have been read in our hearing, and even at the appropriate time, the preaching that is being offered, we must acknowledge that somewhere within all of these efforts there is a search taking place for truth. Not just any truth, but a truth that will lift us, a truth that will heal us, a truth that will transform us, and a truth that will empower us, guide us, and prayerfully at some point in time, unite us.

We gather on this morning prayerfully, not limiting ourselves to the restating of simple facts that we have picked up through the course of life. Facts that are readily available and that we have been inundated with from the major broadcast news outlets. Facts from research organizations and institutions, facts that have been, at times, cherrypicked from the buffet menu of the internet and social media. Sites that are even being offered today at lightning speed through the techno technological existence of AI intelligence. I wish I could understand it better, talk about AI more. All I know is that no matter where I turn, it’s speaking to me. What I’m afraid of at any point is that it will consider itself more intelligent than me.

We assemble in this space, in spaces beyond, in the internet, in living rooms, in homes, and in similar places like this. In spaces beyond we find ourselves examining, reflecting upon the numerous facts presented to us, passed to us and experienced by us. While there are facts present in every moment, it is the interpretation of and the telling of these facts when brought together through time and circumstances of human condition, that shape our ultimate and subsequent actions. But I stand here as a witness this morning knowing that life is more than just a collection of facts. Life is multidimensional and dynamic. I say here this morning, declaring that there is a divine element to this experience of life.

There is a divine element and a truth that the declares that God has been moving through time and eternity. Whether we are recounting the moments of joy or sadness, harmony or uproar, confidence or confusion, God’s presence has been calling us to wrestle with perhaps two major questions. Who are we really and where are we going? You can approach those questions from so many different perspectives. We approach it individually; we approach them collectively. We approach them as a society, we approach them as a nation and even find ourselves in a world with so much division and hear separation, where we have to ask ourselves at the level of even basic humanity, who are we and where are we going?

I’m appreciative this morning and was caught by all of the readings, as I was walking my way and working my way, to this Sunday morning. Caught by all of the readings and the thread that was running through them, being reminded of a God whose presence is in every moment. Because what I love about this book we know as the Bible, is that it speaks to us about a God who has been present and moving throughout the history of human experience. I love in the readings that were read and shared with us throughout this particular gathering, I love how truth rises up and good news comes out of the forever developing and moving moments of life. Looking at the different moments in time, the different writers who has shared the different portions that were lifted, that no matter where there’s a thread running through them all. We heard it and can hear it this morning through the witnesses that were offered in each of the readings.

Think about it for a moment. The prophet Jeremiah, the Psalm of David, the writer to the church at Ephesus, and even in Mark’s gospel, we can all hear them recognizing and giving witness to God’s moving presence. It is their witness that strengthens our faith as we move through our present circumstances. And move through these circumstances while at the same time being touched by the historical, the sociopolitical, the cultural, and even the intellectual context experienced individually and collectively. When we look, not just at the text, but I invite you when you’re given time to go back and look at everything that you’ve heard and pay attention not just to the words of the text, but the context of the text, of each of these texts.

They were shared with us and there is in all of them, a great witness that rises up and is revealed while they face questionable and challenging moments of life. It is in these questionable and challenging moments of life that we have to wrestle with a moment that as Canon Duncan reminded us last week, that calls us to make a decision. As she said, “We have a decision to make.” A decision that happens every day of our lives. Consciously or unconsciously, visibly or discreetly. Decisions are always made. And this morning, what is it that rises up from us? What is it that rises up out of us, out of the words that we’ve heard, but the words that we share in questionable, challenging moments? What is it that is seen in our actions in questionable and challenging times? What is the witness that others can hear and see that reveals the depths of our hearts and the conviction of our beliefs? The scriptures that have been offered this morning, all of them offered to us and help us if we are prepared to truly wrestle with them.

For just a moment quickly think about Jeremiah, who speaks of God’s presence even in the midst of facing careless leadership. Shepherds of the people which have been dividing and not uniting children of God. Oh, their form may have given a certain appearance, but it was their character that placed a spiritual weight upon the people. It was their character that prevented full fellowship and resulted in the loss of faith, a lack of vision and hindrance of progress. It was their imposing upon the people with their pretending and pretended inspirations, that plagued them and failed to bless them. Yet, out of all of that, Jeremiah still heard a promise, and a promise was made from a God that spoke about gathering a remnant and a bright future. Putting loving shepherds over them, under whom they would increase and not decrease, of whom they would be comforted, particularly putting one in their presence who would be called a Righteous Savior. One who would help them to prosper, one who would be the author of righteousness and where they’re living in their lives would be different.

We can step from Jeremiah and move through the centuries very quickly where we hear the writer to the church’s Ephesus, as that writer wrote to a divided community. And the writer speaks of a God, that through the sending of his son, Jesus Christ, has made two groups. One who stood on one side, one who stood on another side. And truth is I could put more labels on that today, but a divided group, here made those two groups one. And that through the sending of Jesus destroyed the barrier, destroyed the dividing wall of hostility that was not just present in that time, but present in this time. Because of the presence, there would be no more defining people as outsiders and insiders. No more calling people foreigners or strangers, but fellow citizens who are God’s people and members of God’s household. Removing all the ways we define ourselves and simply seeing ourselves as children of God. Moving quickly, we hear Mark who shares with us a moment when the disciples were tired of the demands and the realities that they were called to face, and sometimes we do get tired. They were tired of dealing with the disappointments that come from tragedy after tragedy. They were tired of the ever present condition of hunger, sickness, poverty, government, regulations, and subjugation.

Yet in the midst of this God’s presence through Jesus Christ was with them, invited them to ‘come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while’. And if you were listening closely, the disciples climbed into the boat with Jesus only to get to the other side and find more of the same circumstances they had just left from the previous side. But if we read too quickly and miss the moments, what the disciples had to learn was that with Jesus we can find rest in unexpected places in the between time. Resting on water instead of on the land, resting on the water where we have to balance and sometimes even let circumstances rock us to rest. They rested on the water and in order to do the work that God has called us to do, we have to learn how to find rest in unexpected places. And so I back up for just a moment to even the Psalm that was so beautifully sung, the Psalm of David. And I have to admit, I love that Psalm, David’s song, but I pray that you would hear it afresh and anew. I pray that you would pay attention to it. I pray that it would capture you like it always captures me.

Just like me, perhaps growing up you heard it not only read in the assemblies of faith, but read in your homes, picked it up off printed material. Heard it, parents and grandparents and others reading it. A psalm here that is powerfully poetic but is filled with so much promise of God’s presence. And so I just share it with you again that you might hear it and it might remind you of God, that God is with us. Think of David and all that He went through when he said, “The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along right paths for his name’s sake. And even though I walked through the darkest valley”. I pause for a moment because I was reminded early as a boy from one preacher, and just like him, that here I did not grow up knowing much about valleys. I grew up a Brooklyn boy. There weren’t too many valleys there. I was fortunate enough to come and pastor a church that was in the valley of South Arlington, but it was an urbanized valley. And in that I don’t know much about it and what I was told that even to get what I needed out of this, all I had to do was to hear that and drop the ‘V’ and say it this way. “Even though I walk through the darkest alley’. Oh, I know something about alleys. I know something about dark alleys. “Thy will fear no evil for thou art with me. Th arrived thy staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil. My cup runneth over”.

And here I pause for just a moment, that here there ought to be and there is a divine pause in my spirit when it says, ‘surely’. O fill in the blank any way you want. ‘Surely’ in times of trouble, ‘surely’ in difficult moments, ‘surely’ when it’s dark all around me, ‘surely’ in the dark night of the soul, “Surely your goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. What I’m grateful for is that we have an opportunity to carry that kind of witness. We have a kind of witness that even in the hottest time of the summer, in these hundred degree and sweltering moments, we have the opportunity, as was said in a movie years ago, to Do The Right Thing. You know I love that movie ’cause it’s also based in Brooklyn.

To do the right thing. When we think about it, it is what’s it is with God’s help. We say it so often, it is with God’s help, that we remember his presence and that we can do the right thing. It is with God’s help that we can be more than conquerors because we serve a mighty God. A God, who as Pastor William Augustus Jones, out of Brooklyn, New York, would describe as, ‘a God who operates at a level above time and beyond historical consequences. A God who is beyond time and made time and order time to become the servant of eternity. A God who a thousand years is but as a day in their sight, who neither slumbers, slumbers nor sleep’. As he said, ‘A God who sweep is from everlasting and a God who is always going where he’s coming from’. On this day, we need to tell our story. On this day, we need to have the kind of assurance that God is with us. And on this day, know that his presence will never leave us, nor forsake us, when we’re seeking to do the right thing. Amen.