Word and Table

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The posting of this sermon, even though it is out of order as far as the liturgical year is concerned,was prompted by a post written by Julie of Lone Prairie Blog.  Her post begins with the same quote by Norman Maclean that I used to frame the worship service and sermon I wrote over six years ago.  Make sure to read her reflections, as well as anything you might read here.

Introduction to the Service:
Norman Maclean in his wonderful novella, A River Runs Through It, writes:

“But when I am alone in the half light of the canyon all existence seems to fade to a being with my soul, and memories. And the sounds of the Big Black Foot River, and a four count rhythm, and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”

This Sunday we remember the Baptism of our Lord.
This is a Sunday in which we too, are to be “haunted by waters.”
We are to be touched by reminders and symbols,
which remind us of all the ways that God has touched us by and through the grace symbolized in the waters of our baptism.

Leonard Sweet (Aquachurch):
You die without water, physically and spiritually.
It takes less than a 1% deficiency in our body’s water to make us thirsty.
A 5% deficiency causes a slight fever.
An 8% shortage causes the glands to stop producing saliva and the skin to turn blue. A person cannot walk with a 10% deficiency,
and a 12% deficiency brings death.
Every day 9500 children die from lack of water or from diseases caused by polluted water.”

Opening Prayer:
Loving and Inspiring God, breathe once more your spirit into our souls. We come together today God as people who need your love, people who need your healing, people who need your power. Our lives are not always what they should be, our deeds are not always in keeping with our words, our dreams are easily distracted by the world’s whisperings, and our highest aspirations are sometimes forgotten in the day to day strife of life. But you hold out your hand to us, affirming our being, assuring us of your understanding and forgiveness, and inviting us to walk with you still. Thank you, God, Creator, Savior, and Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Streams and Rivers of Grace

Shall we gather at the river – where bright angel feet have trod,
with its crystal tide forever, flowing from the throne of God.
Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river that flows from the throne of God

Ere we reach the shining river, lay we every burden down;
grace our spirits will deliver and provide a robe and a crown
Yes, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river that flows from the throne of God

In the faith of my youth,
this was the song we sang every time we made the journey from the church building  down to Simpson Creek for baptismal services.
As those being baptized waded out into the waters along with the ministers,
the rest of the congregation would begin to hum and then to sing the song
shall we gather at the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.

Now Simpson Creek was no river, mind you,
it was little more than a stream,
but the grace found between the banks of that creek was tremendous;
it was immeasurable,
as men and women and children came to experience the love of God,
and the grace of a God of who accepted them,
who cared for them,
and who welcomed them into his own family.
These were often people on the lowest level of the totem pole in society’s eyes.
These were folks who had lived rough and tumble lives,
people who knew all too well the sinfulness of the human condition.
Oftentimes, the ones descending the bank of that creek included the town drunk,
or that woman no one really ever talked to,
or when they did, they didn’t ever look her in the eyes.
People not numbered among the well-to-do,
and more sneered at and jeered than cheered,
and yet, in those waters they found grace,
the undeserved love and acceptance of God

I guess because of my own experiences,
I have always seen any creek, stream, or river in a different light.
I can’t look at any of them without being reminded of my own past,
of the time I waded into the waters,
and felt the cool of the running stream overcome by the warmth of grace that surrounded me there.
As Norman Maclean said,
I am haunted by waters.

Of course the same was true for the people of Israel.
Led through the waters of the Red Sea to their freedom,
crossing through the Jordan River into the promised land,
they too, were a people haunted by waters.
And as you would expect for a people who lived in a virtual desert,
water held a special place in their hearts and minds.
For them visions of water came to symbolize the grace of a God, who would,
even after they had turned their backs on them,
ultimately repay their unfaithfulness with grace and new life.
And let us never forget that their unfaithfulness was legendary by the time the prophets began to proclaim their stern words of judgement.
They would be punished for their idolatry,
they would suffer for their sins,
but, when the time was right,
God would welcome them back,
God would forgive them,
God would give them a second, a third, even endless chances,
and along with their harsh words of condemnation,
the prophets often found words of pure grace streaming from their mouths.
Words that could have only come from God,
words of such grace,
that they amaze even us today with their beauty.

Ezekiel was one such prophet who was none too reluctant to pronounce judgement,
but when the time came he also spoke of mercy and grace,
and the grace of God was seen in the gift of refreshing and renewing waters.
Hear again his words.
Then the man brought me back to the entrance of the Temple.
There I saw a stream flowing eastward from beneath the Temple threshold.
This stream then passed to the right of the altar on its south side.
The man brought me outside the wall through the north gateway and led me around to the eastern entrance.
There I could see the stream flowing out through the south side of the east gateway.
Telling me to keep in mind what I had seen;
he then led me along the riverbank.
Suddenly, to my surprise, many trees were now growing on both sides of the river!
Then he said to me, “This river flows east through the desert into the Jordan Valley, where it enters the Dead Sea.
The waters of this stream will heal the salty waters of the Dead Sea and make them fresh and pure.
Everything that touches the water of this river will live.
Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will be healed.
Wherever this water flows, everything will live.
Fishermen will stand along the shores of the Dead Sea,
fishing all the way from En-gedi to En-eglaim.
The shores will be covered with nets drying in the sun.
Fish of every kind will fill the Dead Sea, just as they fill the great sea to the east!
And all kinds of fruit trees will grow along both sides of the river.
The leaves of these trees will never turn brown and fall, and there will always be fruit on their branches.
There will be a new crop every month, without fail!
For they are watered by the river flowing from the Temple,
and the fruit will be for food and the leaves for healing.”

Ezekial’s vision was an echo of a vision Isaiah had seen years before when he wrote of God’s mercy:
Even the wilderness will rejoice in those days.
The desert will blossom with flowers.
Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy!
The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon,
as lovely as Mount Carmel’s pastures and the plain of Sharon.
There the LORD will display his glory, the splendor of our God.
With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands,
and encourage those who have weak knees.
Say to those who are afraid,
“Be strong, and do not fear, for your God is coming to save you.”
And when he comes,
God will open the eyes of the blind and unstop the ears of the deaf.
The lame will leap like a deer,
and those who cannot speak will shout and sing!
Springs will gush forth in the wilderness,
and streams will water the desert.
The parched ground will become a pool,
and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land.

Visions such as these were marvelous to hear,
but they become even more marvelous when we consider to whom they were given:
to a people wholly undeserving of them.
A people who had rejected God time and time again.
A people who did not then, if they ever had, merit such divine favor.

They were people much like us, weren’t they.
People who take the goodness of God for granted,
people who, as often as not, turn their backs on the one who has loved them with a neverending love.
People who don’t deserve such graciousness.

It would be good for us to remember this from time to time,
as we celebrate the grace God pours upon and into our lives.
The grace we find in Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper and in the everyday and ordinary things like prayer, reading the bible and being the church.
And that’s what these things really are:
channels of Grace,
streams and rivers of mercy.
John Wesley, taking the language of his day,
said just that:
the sacraments are an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
They are channels of God’s grace into our lives,
ways in which God shows us who and whose we are,
ways in which God’s Spirit flows into us,
and then through us,
to others.

All too often we forget,
as the Israelites forgot,
who were are and whose we are.
We forget that we have been shown grace,
we forget that we have been extended mercy,
and in forgetting we sometimes block the channels of grace,
the streams and rivers of mercy.
We keep them bottled up in ourselves,
and they never reach some of those most in need of their healing touch.

The church can become more like a dam,
holding back the waters of God’s love,
rather than a conduit, a channel, for that love to reach others.

It was so in the church of my youth.
I will never forget the pain I felt when my mother and father divorced.
It was bad enough that my family had been torn apart,
so imagine my surprise and the pain I felt when our family was ostracized and looked down upon by so many of those good church folk we had grown to know and love over the years.
Folk who had waded into the same waters we had,
folks who had felt the same touch of grace that we had felt,
but who now, were unable or unwilling to share that grace to us just when we needed it most.
It was these experiences which ultimately led me to leave the church I had grown up in – for though grace was proclaimed,
I could find little evidence of its reality.

And unfortunately that is the experience that many have of the church.
Philip Yancey in his book What’s So Amazing about Grace writes a story that was shared to him by a friend who works with the down and out in Chicago.
He says this story continues to haunted him today:

Yancey’s friend recounts:
A prostitute came to me in wretched straits,
homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter.
Through sobs and tears,
she told me she had been renting out her daughter – two years old! –
To men interested in kinky sex.
She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night.
She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit.
I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story.
For one thing, it made me legally liable –
I’m required to report cases of child abuse.
I had no idea what to say to this woman.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help.
I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face.
“Church!” she cried.
“Why would I ever go there?
I was already feeling terrible about myself.
They’d just make me feel worse.”

The church, which is supposed to be the body of Christ in the world today,
rarely lives up to the graciousness exhibited by Jesus.
The down and out of Jesus’ day flocked to hear him speak,
they came running to experience his grace.
But all too often in today’s world,
the church is the last place where we might see such folks.
People who desperately need the message of grace that we have,
won’t come near us,
because they have experienced  judgment and condemnation rather than love and mercy.

And I have to confess that that is what I sometimes expect.
This past year was the worst year of my life.
My seven-year marriage to Cheryl came to an end,
and I was devastated by what happened to our family.
I have never felt so lonely or deserted,
so desperate for a word or a touch of grace.
But I wondered if I would find it,
especially in the church.
I guess the experiences of my youth as concerns my parent’s divorce were too much with me.
As Fred (our District Superintendent, who was in worship this Sunday) can tell you,
I wondered if you, the church, the people of Elysburg United Methodist,
would reject me or turn your backs on me because of what had happened.
It would not be the first time such a thing has happened.
Lord knows, I felt unworthy to be your pastor,
not because I had committed some horrible sin,
but because I had failed in my marriage.
What would your response be, I wondered.
How would you react to me and what had happened?

Imagine my surprise, my joyful surprise,
that instead of the judgement I had expected,
I found grace instead.
Several of you wrote me such beautiful cards and letters,
others gave me hugs and words of support,
still others helped me through the difficult transition by giving me furniture, towels, sheets, dishes, even money,
which helped me set up my home again.
I have felt supported by your prayers and your thoughtfulness in asking me how I am doing.
You have been for me a stream, a river of God’s grace.
And you have shown me what the church can be,
what the people of God should be,
channels of grace into the world around us.
Streams and rivers of grace that flow to all,
regardless of who they are,
what they have done,
what has happened to them.
Unmerited loved and mercy,
shown by God’s redeemed sinners to other sinners,
just like them.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan.
We may think Jesus was too holy, or too pure, too sinless,
to need to be baptized.
But just as Jesus takes our place on the cross and assumes upon himself there our sinfulness,
so Jesus allows himself to be baptized to show his unity with us,
all of us sinners.
And because Jesus is one of us, but also God,
he is able to redeem us, forgive our sins, by dying on the cross.
He makes us children of God through his grace, his love,
regardless of our worthiness.
And he calls us to show that same grace and love to the world.

A story comes from the Civil War.
Winter had just settled over Virginia, and both sides had slowed their fighting considerably.
In the Confederate camps there ministered a devout chaplain by the name of Willie Ragland.
Reverend Ragland preached the Gospel quite fervently,
and a soldier by the name of Goodwin was converted.
Goodwin seized upon the idea of being baptized in the nearby Rapidan River,
which was the dividing line between the Confederate and Union troops in that area. Confederate officers tried to discourage the idea,
knowing that any man who approached the river was sure to picked off by Union snipers.
But Goodwin was determined to be baptized into his newfound faith,
so the officers finally agreed.

Reverend Ragland, Goodwin, and about fifty Confederate soldiers left their weapons behind and made their way cautiously down to the river.
Union soldiers, perplexed by these unarmed men wading out into icy waters,
held their fire.
Then, the Confederate soldiers began to sing:
“There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.”
Some of the Union soldiers, moved by the sight, left their weapons too,
and, lining up along the opposite side of riverbank, joined their voices in singing:” And since, by faith, I saw the stream, Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love, redeeming grace  has been my theme,
And shall be ‘ till die.”

Granted, it was just a moment,
a few minutes of peace in a long and bloody conflict,
but it was a time of sheer peace and grace.
Peace, for obvious reasons.
Grace, because it came from God,
and it came undeserved.

In a few moments we will take the time to remember how God has graced us in at least two ways:
we will reaffirm our baptisms,
feel again the water of life and healing applied.
And we will remember the gift of grace incarnate in Jesus Christ,
who became flesh and blood for our sake,
and who for our sake, gave his flesh and blood:
this is my body, he said, broken for you
this is my blood, he said, poured out for you and for many
And in remembering this things,
we will feel again streams and even rivers of grace flow into our souls.
And having felt them,
then let us let them flow through us to those around us,
to those with us in these pews,
to our friends and family,
our co-workers and fellow students,
to all those with whom we come into contact.

And in doing so we will help bring about the vision that Ezekial and Isaiah and John wrote about:
There will come a time when the broken spirited will soar . . .
When the fears of our lives will be banished.
Our God will come for us and God will save us.
Those of us who have not been able to see will enjoy the splendid visions that God intended for us.
Those of us, who could not hear will witness even the smallest whispers of his voice.
Bodies that have been worn down by this world will be restored to perfection and the wonder of God’s intent.
And those of us who had no voice will be able to sing like the angels . . .
And there will be streams in the desert.

Let us share those life-giving waters, my friends.
Let us give of them freely.
These streams and rivers of grace.

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