Keep the Lord’s Day Special

If you fancy yourself a would-be author, let me suggest a topic for a definite New York Times best-seller.  

You’ll be working the crowded neighborhood at the intersection of Self-help Street and Spirituality Avenue. Your topic is flung far afield across disciplines – the healing arts, physical and natural sciences, psychology and sociology.

Your economy of words will build a case that, in order to maintain good health, human beings regularly need a day off to recuperate – a break in the action, a sabbath rest, as it were. You’ll deftly argue that body, mind, and spirit need time to get away from it all and thus rejuvenate, re-invigorate, and re-combobulate.  

In this, our overinvolved and overscheduled living; in this, our hyper-busy planning and programming that seem to be wearing everyone to a frazzle – including our kids, a book like yours surely will scratch a common itch, catch on fast, and sell out quick.  

Of course, the field of so-called experts is crowded. You’re not the only one preaching about some aspect of sabbath rest. For the most part, though, your colleagues tend to write “how-to” manuals, recommending as wind for your sails everything from lighting candles at sunset to psycho-therapeutic aroma treatments.  

Thanks to quick-witted marketing teams, such books brag that the experience of wholeness and joy will return again upon their completed reading. Also swarming in that chatty cloud are buzzwords like renewal, delight, and enrichment.  

A quick search of Amazon reveals seductive subtitles: “The antidote for the overworked.” “Live your best life ever.” My favorite was the title of a Jewish book: “Oh No! It’s Sabbath Again and I’m Not Ready: A Homemaker’s Guide to Making Friday the Easiest Day of the Week.” I was surprised that I didn’t find “Spiritual enlightenment and flat abs in 30 days!”  

Making sabbath rest all about us is one approach to unpacking the Lord’s fourth word: Honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

Let’s take a slightly different literary tack. Following this route, however, won’t produce a book that flies off the shelves. Trust me, this yawner be a literary flop.  

That’s because the books that always seem to catch on always seem to make sabbath all about you and me. Practicing sabbath, so go these storylines, will improve your life, your mental state and energy level. Why not throw in whiter teeth and fresh breath too, while you’re at it!  

But as the whole of Scripture interprets the Fourth Command, Sabbath is not all about us and instead all about God. Holy Sabbath affords time to worship God, to chew on lessons and digest of sermons, to practice grateful generosity in tithe and offering, to generate the joyful noise of prayer and song.

And, Sabbath is a weekly reminder that such rest is mostly all about repenting of sin and vowing to live a more holy life on those other six days. Say what? Yes, really!  

Such re-creation and redemption root deeply in the Old Testament. In Scripture’s opening scene, God’s Spirit moves across chaotic darkness to organize a verdant and just world. And after igniting that cosmic explosion and calling it all “good,” God rests.  This short video explores the idea of such seventh-day rest and the biblical concept of Sabbath. Hang with it until the end to learn why Jesus adopts this idea of Sabbath as a major part of his own mission of bringing God’s Kingdom to earth.

What is the Sabbath, really?  

Well, it’s the Lord’s Day! The Day of Resurrection!  

The New Day’s critical mass has shifted: Less so on resting from physical work and more so on resting from sin and brokenness. Who knew?

This latter kind of “rest” thus becomes a glimpse to the ultimate and eternal Sabbath rest that just will be eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Sabbath allows preview and preparation of basking forever in the Lord’s New Heaven and New Earth when Christ returns.  

Until that great day, Sabbath is about enjoying God, enjoying God’s Creation, enjoying other people as the images of God in our midst. You come to church to take the focus off yourself and put it properly onto God, God’s people, and the poor for whom we take offerings. It’s a time to find out how the sick and elderly of the congregation are doing, if the young adults are packed and ready to head off to college, and to pray for each and every one of those blessed saints in joy and concern.

It’s a time to learn a little something more about all the many sacred blessings that God reveals in the Bible.  

Just as every Sunday celebrates “a little Easter,” there ought to be a little Sabbath in our hearts and minds every day – through, with, and in Monday through Saturday, in the sense that you and I aim ourselves toward God and toward others, by repenting of sin and thus reaping the bounty of reconciliation and right living – alone and in community!  

Most of our brokenness essentially arises from selfish blindness, putting our wants ahead of God’s designs and ahead of human need and suffering. Sabbath-living on a Tuesday morning or Friday afternoon means that you take care of others first, not worrying about yourself, because if others do the same, they’ll take care of you.  

So, what is the Sabbath?  

Sabbath is the complete re-orientation of one’s thinking.

Sabbath invites you into God’s grace, into God’s story, into God’s rhythms that prepare you not to re-enter the new week of rat-racing. Sabbath encourages exiting the rat race for good!

Truly recognizing Sabbath for what God intends is to let the Holy Spirit sanctify your living every day. To use the Sabbath as a launching pad for the same, old destructive routines of busyness desecrates the Sabbath and blasphemes God!  

Maybe this helps wrap your head around all that: The “weekend” is for recharging your batteries. The Sabbath is for transforming your mind. Which in the end makes Sabbath all about redemption!  

As Exodus 20 tells of God handing over the Ten Commandments, the Lord commands Sabbath rest based on Creation. “For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, but he rested on the seventh day.” But in the second telling of the Law – in Deuteronomy 5, our lesson for this morning, Sabbath is about Creation and Redemption. “For remember that you were slaves in Egypt but that God led you out of there.”

Second time around, redemption rises from Sabbath rest. Creation and Redemption – two big movements in the story of God with us, and both nestle intimately in Sabbath. The way God made us – and the way we’ve been saved by God – both point us toward Sabbath. Think about how that kind of Sabbath would be a game-changer, as I read to you from the Old Testament’s book of Deuteronomy.  

Moses convened all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today.

You shall learn them and observe them diligently. The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. (At that time I was standing between the LORD and you to declare to you the words of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.)

And he said: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. You shall not do any work – you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male or female servant, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female servant may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:1-15) 

The Good News of Creation looks, sounds, tastes, smells, and feels like this:  

In the end, as in the beginning, and at every point in between, God alone is the Creator. God has taken gracious care to create for us a fitting earthy home. Far from being some remote god who sets the universe a-spinning but then steps back and leaves it alone, we believe that God is still vitally close to every fiber of Creation. God takes care of us, because God alone is the Maker and Caretaker of everything. All that’s left for you and me to do is this: Willingly and joyfully enter into a hallowed work that God already has well under control.

Of course, each of us has many gifts and varied talents, so it’s important that we have jobs and tasks to build meaningful work. And that we labor faithfully and diligently in the timeframes that the needs of God and others demand. And sometimes that means clocking-in on Sundays.

But Sabbath through the lenses Creation and Redemption reminds that neither you nor I can ever do it all – and that we don’t need to, either! You are enough!

If we really are faithful workers who carry out our God-given callings and vocations as best we can during the week, then with relative ease we ought to be able simply to leave those pursuits and pastimes for a while, too. Like on the Sabbath Day! The Lord’s Day! The Day of Creation and Redemption! The Day of Resurrection!  

Since you and I are co-creating participants in God’s larger imaginative work, rest assured that, when we take a break – to rebalance the budget of good food, good exercise, and good rest, for body, mind, soul, and spirit, none of us is skipping out on work and into mere idleness. When you or I take a break, we’re leaving the cares of the world in God’s hands, which is precisely where all our work and all our provision have been abiding all this time anyway!  

Honor God by putting God first.

Elevate God above all others.

Honor God with your lips.

Let God be the rhythmic breath of your time. Yah-Weh! YH-WH!  

Moments of simply being more highly prized than always doing. Yah-Weh! YH-WH!  

All of us, always, everywhere: Waking, sleeping, breathing, with the name of God on our lips, praising the Lord’s down-to-earth love for each and every blessed one of us.   

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.      

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, August 6, 2023. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Scott Hoezee, Stan Mast, Mike Mazzalongo, and The Bible Project, and Jen Wilkin inform the message, which is the fourth in Pastor Grant’s series on The Ten Commandments. 

Take Not in Vain

Unless you live in a monastery or convent, you don’t have to listen too hard these days to hear God’s third commandment take quite a verbal beating.  

Plenty of folks don’t even break a sweat when casually invoking God’s name to make themselves look more trustworthy or electable, even though they oftentimes are actually being misleading and self-serving. Some in our fractious society think that the more we can parade God and Jesus into classrooms, courtrooms, and political debates the better.

Problem is, somehow or other, somewhere along the way – or maybe it’s just always been that way, people have lost their fear of the consequences that await when you mix in God too freely and flippantly in venues where the divine name does not properly belong. Thus the third commandment remains firmly in place as both reminder and warning: God is not our mascot, which is the place where our walk through the Ten Commandments brings us this morning.  

The Lord does not lend us his name to do with what we please but to do with it what pleases him. And what pleases God is honest proclamation of God’s sure promises and covenant faithfulness, which climaxes in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus, and the baptismal arrival of their Holy Spirit.  

God and God alone governs the divine name, and we use it only the ways that God wants it to be used: Namely, in praise, and in worship, and in prayer; in precise witness to God’s identity as the God whose giving knows no ending. All other uses constitute taking God’s name in vain, a profane act that the third commandment forbids.

May this short word study on the name of the Lord capture your mind and heart.

God’s first-time revelation of the divine name “Yahweh” comes when Moses encounters the Lord in a burning bush, early in the Old Testament book of Exodus, more than a dozen chapters before God gives Moses the Ten Commandments.

The name “Yahweh” means either “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.”   And within that heavenly name lies the glory of Good News: Yahweh abides forever and always with us. The Great I Am is life itself – the bright, cosmic center of grace and mercy.

Our use of this name that reveals so much about God – and now our use of the holy name of “Jesus” – deliver some hefty loads of theological weight, trafficking in all that is sacred and hallowed about Father, Son, and Spirit.  

Listen for the Word of the Lord and the reason why you take not in vain the name of God.  

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 

There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 

When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 

Then the LORD said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 

Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” God said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” 

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you. Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations. (Exodus 3:1-15) 

The word “vain” – as in, do not take the Lord’s name in vain –derives from the Latin word vanus, which means “empty.”  

Apparently, it is quite possible to use God’s sacred name in ways that drain dry its river of power and pollute its real beauty. In misusing or misapplying God’s name, God’s reputation gets damaged, and that is the very essence of blasphemy.  

Blasphemy at its core is theft from God – a felony that steals away from God sacred names, words, and symbols, then twists and perverts them for ill-gotten gain, and so makes those names, words, and symbols communicate the exact opposite of heaven’s intent. The names, words, and symbols intended to bring life and rebirth instead bring insult and death.  

An everyday form of this blasphemy is taking the name of Jesus Christ and using it express anger, vent frustration, or belittle someone. What happens next is that “Jesus Christ” becomes associated with the very kinds of negative feelings from which he comes to the release us in the first place. Blasphemy therefore blocks the real meaning of Jesus, and the real character of God, and the real work of the Holy Spirit. It steals the Lord’s own name and language in such ways that God is left with nothing to say and the Spirit has no room to work!  

Think, perhaps, of what happens to the symbol of the Cross when the KKK burns one in front a black family’s home. The Cross becomes a symbol of hatred – a roadblock to peace instead of a doorway to shalom.  

When we survey the wondrous cross, when we contemplate that sacred head now wounded, we are supposed to be filled with such dumbfounded love and speechless longing that we wonder with the hymn, “What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend?”  

But when the Cross, or the name of the Savior on that Cross, becomes blasphemed, then things turn upside down and backward. The Lord himself now has no language to borrow to get the Gospel’s Good News through our thick skulls when his chosen way to communicate is blasphemed to the point that it produces revulsion instead of love. Blasphemy robs God not of his holiness, which cannot be corrupted, but of his ability to display his holiness in the way God prefers.  

The third commandment also governs more than the way we speak of God. No. 3 has just as much to do with how we present God to the people around us.  

How our faith rules our actions and influences our decisions creates associations in people’s minds when it comes to the name of Jesus, the symbol of his Cross, and the imagery of the Christianity in general.

Our behavior as believers either opens up the beauty of God and faith in Christ or throws up a roadblock around which non-believers easily detour. You and I either lead others to feel positively about Christian faith, or they come to associate Christianity with hatred, intolerance, and a harshly judgmental outlook. Small wonder more and more people these days want less and less to do with Christianity and its Church!  

As much as we need to rebuke all those who use the Lord’s name in vain by employing it as profanity, we within the Church need to make very certain – whenever we ourselves invoke God’s holy name, whenever we display the key symbols of our faith – that we do so in ways consistent with the Gospel’s core of grace, love, mercy, and compassion. That is the upside of the third commandment.  

Which bring us to Psalm 99, likely not the most obvious choice to help unpack the Lord’s third word. After all, we’ll shortly hear nothing about blasphemy or taking the holy name in vain. But it well illustrates our call to help people praise God by how we present God to them. We call “all nations” – the whole world – to render praise to God.  

And for that to happen, we ourselves must both speak reverently of our God and ensure that the God we present to the world is the real God as revealed to us in Scripture. The proper use of God’s name, as I shared earlier, helps us to confess God, pray to God, and praise God in all our living. And that same proper use of God’s name helps all others enter these activities as well. This, then, is Psalm 99:  

The LORD is king! Let the nations tremble!

He sits on his throne between the cherubim. Let the whole earth quake! The LORD sits in majesty in Jerusalem, exalted above all the nations. 

Let them praise your great and awesome name. Your name is holy Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established fairness. You have acted with justice and righteousness throughout Israel. 

Exalt the LORD our God! Bow low before his feet, for he is holy! Moses and Aaron were among his priests; Samuel also called on his name. They cried to the LORD for help, and he answered them. He spoke to Israel from the pillar of cloud, and they followed the laws and decrees he gave them. 

O LORD our God, you answered them. You were a forgiving God to them, but you punished them when they went wrong. Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain in Jerusalem, for the LORD our God is holy! (Psalm 99:1-9 NLT) 

Back at that Burning Bush, Moses screws up the nerve to ask God about the divine name.  

As is so typical, the Lord God is gracious enough to answer, and the name God gives Moses is recorded in the original Hebrew as the simple letters Y-H-W-H. Over time someone arbitrarily purchased some seemingly random vowels to add an “a” and an “e,” which is how get to “YaHWeH.”  

Scholars note that the letters YH and WH represent breathing sounds – aspirated consonants, the linguists would call them. When pronounced without those added vowels, Y-H-W-H actually sounds like breathing. YH, inhale; WH, exhale.  

Thus, with the first breath of a baby’s first cry, every newborn speaks the name of God.  

So also the deep sighs and painful groans of mom’s labor were calling God’s name with contractions and constrictions too intense for mere words.  

Even the atheist speaks God’s name, blissfully unaware of each breath giving constant nod to God. Likewise, the saints leave this earthly world when God’s name no longer fills their lungs.  

Indeed, when you cannot utter anything else, your grunts and whimpers forever call out God’s name. Being alive means you express God’s name constantly – always the loudest when you’re most quiet:  

In sadness, breathing heavy sobs.  

In joy, lungs feeling almost like they will burst.  

In fear, holding one’s breath then receiving the encouragement to breathe slowly into a place of calm.  

In the face of insurmountable odds, inhaling deeply and finding courage to shun the taskmasters.  

God chooses a name you can’t help but speak from life’s first cry to final breath!  

All of us, always, everywhere: Waking, sleeping, breathing, with the name of God on our lips, praising the Lord’s down-to-earth love for each and every blessed one of us.  

“Yahweh!” “I am who I am!” “I will be who I will be.”  

The Name of the Lord. The Word of the Lord. Thanks to be God!  

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, July 30, 2023. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Walter Brueggemann , Sandra Thurman Caporale, Scott Hoezee, Stan Mast, and The Bible Project inform the message, which is the third in Pastor Grant’s series on The Ten Commandments. 

No Graven Images

Within the ancient words of the Old Testament dwell 613 commandments regulating everything from soup to nuts.  

And we’re exploring the first 10 – through the lens of the New Testament’s greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself – as you yourself would be loved.  

Historically, scholars have debated how to count the Ten Commandments. God’s Law begins with a shout: As we heard last Sunday, we shall have no other gods, and as we’ll hear this morning, we shall make no graven images.

But are those two different laws, or two sides of the same coin? If you hang around long enough with our Roman Catholic or Lutheran neighbors, you’ll eventually discover that they merge into one law what we regard as the first and second commandments. (They still have 10 commandments, because Catholic and Lutheran math divvies up into two the final commandment about coveting.)  

But we separate the first two commandments, because we believe each covers slightly different territory. The first commandment strongly advises against worshiping gods other than Yahweh. The second commandment says that, even when you worship Yahweh, you may not make any images of the Divine.  

But why? You easily understand why God frowns deeply upon our worship of Marduk, Baal, the Pharaoh of Egypt, Ronald Reagan, or Taylor Swift. But if our hearts are aimed squarely at the true God of the Bible – the God of all time and space, why is it as wrong to make an image of God as it would be to worship a false god in the first place?  

Here’s an explanation that animates God’s emphasis on turning away from false Gods.  

The Golden Calf is the premiere passage with which to unpack the second commandment.

Among the things to note is this: No sooner do the Israelites fashion this blind, deaf, and dumb idol, when they immediately feel authorized to engage in whatever kinds of stupid and idiotic behavior they darn well please.  

The Calf surely isn’t going to say anything about it!  

But isn’t that always the danger when creating our own gods? Or even making over the true God into something more akin to our own image and liking?  

Isn’t that the appeal of idolatry? Neat and tidy authorization of all we wanted to do from the get-go?  When your false god can’t even say “Moo,” he won’t say anything else to upset you, either!  

This is Exodus 32, the story of the Golden Calf, forged while Moses is away on Mount Sinai receiving the Commandments from God. Listen for the Word of the Lord.  

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him,

“Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”

So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”

They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'”

The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.” But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'”

And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.(Exodus 32:1-14)

In terms of our discipleship walk with the Lord, the second commandment intends to spur three behaviors.

The first was part of my introduction: Since we don’t want to worship a false god, and since images of God inevitably lead us to think of God incorrectly, you start to wonder if even benign use of the most-innocent of images in the end leads us to worship a false god after all.   If you want to know, love, serve, and worship the true Creator of the universe, then let that One reveal themselves to you in their written and living Word.

If you step back and take in the full swath of the God who blankets Genesis to Revelation, your weary heart ought to be strangely warmed! Your comfort nestles deeply in the thick pile of a richly complex, incredibly nuanced, and handsomely textured epiphany: An a-ha! moment so vast and complex, that there flat out is absolutely no way to tie a bow atop Yahweh and make things all neat and tidy.  

Whenever you develop one primary way of painting the divine face or depicting the divine presence, you risk tunnel vision that focuses on what that particular image shows, thus conveniently leaving out the multitude of signals and messages you fail to let it convey or conveniently overlook. That’s why the incompleteness of every image of God also makes that image so potentially wrongheaded.  

A second reason for not making images of God is that it violates God’s otherworldly wholeness. When we use stuff of this earth to bring God down to our level, we easily lose sight of the fact that God is at-once everything and everywhere, spanning every level and dimension of reality.  

But the third and final reason is more personal than such galactic, big-bangy perspectives on God and the cosmos.

Namely, we resist static images of God, because we believe God is so very alive, so very gracious, and so very loving, and therefore enjoys such a vital relationship with each and every blessed one of us.  

Maybe this helps: If you are married, you might have a picture of your spouse in your office, or on your desk, or in your cab.   And if you have a good, loving, and solid relationship with your spouse, such that you daily kiss him or her hello and goodbye, and look forward to breaking bread and sharing supper together every evening, then, although you have that picture at work, you probably don’t spend too much time on the average work day staring desirously at the pic of your spouse or significant other.  

But what happens if relationship with that spouse or significant other suddenly dies?  

Probably the value of that snapshot from your couples’ trip to Branson, Missouri, would rise exponentially.   Probably, then, in the days, weeks, and months ahead, you’ll catch yourself unconsciously staring at that workplace picture with longing, yearning, and fond remembrance. Its value explodes, precisely because the relationship it signals has fallen silent.  

Just maybe something similar lies behind the rule about images for God.  

The Lord sees no need for us to spend our precious time mooning after a mere picture, since he is the One who are with us every moment of every day! Close as the nearest prayer. Nearer my God to thee than flesh is to fingernails and white is to rice. God’s free-flowing relationship to us is lively and living, steady and constant.  

Indeed, maybe you don’t have a picture of your spouse at work, in part because you don’t need the image. The real deal wakes up next to you every morning, and gives you a toothpaste kiss each evening before the light goes out. The Lord wants his presence in our lives to be just that – real and meaningful. We don’t need the picture. We’ve got the Lord!  

Of course, having said all that, lest we forget that God themselves have already given us a wholly authorized image in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  

In her book “The Substance of Things Seen,” Robin Jensen tells the story of a young, devout Baptist woman who visited a Greek Orthodox church one Sunday, only to be scandalized by the vast array of icons and images that filled the sanctuary, illuminated by the rich beams of stained glass that seemed to reach up to heaven itself. After the service, she registered her discomfort with the priest.  

“I was always taught,” she protested, “that we may have no images of God.”

The priest thought briefly before gently replying, “But, my dear, you are the image of God, re-made now in Christ, and brimming with the Holy Spirit.”  

The second word of commandment cautions of believing in one’s own publicity, of thinking more highly of one’s self than one ought, of regarding one’s self as wiser than God – in trying to create images that restrict the nature of God and our understanding of God.  

But neither shall we try to be wiser than God, by ignoring the image that God themselves give to us in Jesus, nor how that very image – thanks to the Holy Spirit – must shine steadfastly in all our living, moving, and breathing.  

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!    

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, July 23, 2023. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee, Robin Jensen, and The Bible Project inform the message, which is the second in Pastor Grant’s series on The Ten Commandments.

No Other Gods before Me

Over the years, I’ve preached sermon series on any number of themes, but for no reason in particular, the one topic I haven’t touched in depth is the Ten Commandments.  

So, for the next 10-or-so weeks, we’re going to be unpacking that list of do’s and don’ts – given by God to Moses, a staple of Sunday school for generations – intended to bring some decency and order to a chronically unruly band of former slaves.  

The Ten Commandments are called “The Law” because it was the law.  

Old Testament times were something like the wild, wild, west – long before well-established civil authorities enacted and enforced detailed sets of laws and ordinances to govern vast swaths of the population with liberty and justice. Daily life was dog eat dog, every man for himself, you snooze you lose. The whims of the kings ultimately had the last word.

And into that sewer of exploitation and corruption enters the Ten Commandments.  

But wait, there’s more!  

The big 10 are counted among hundreds of biblical laws, ordinances, and specifications spread far and wide across the launch of the Old Testament, and here’s an explanation of how the Commandments fit into the bigger picture of the story of God with us.

When it comes to teaching about the Ten Commandments, a preacher has a couple options – including the legalistic, follow-the-rules-or-else approach, which goes something like this.  

Tempting as it is to start naming names and specific violations, you simply must view the Commandments through the lens of Jesus and with the eyes of love.  

When first delivered, following the letter of the Law was thought to be the essential ingredient of the recipe for staying in God’s good graces and savoring God’s love. The faithful regarded God’s love as conditional – parceled out in equal measure to one’s adherence to the Law. And with that, determination of your eternal fate.  

Then along comes Jesus: God in human flesh. Son of God, and Son of Man. The living, breathing, laughing, and crying Word of the Lord!  

Turns out – through, with, and in Christ, God’s love is not conditional but unconditional – particularly so for those repentant spirits who receive in their hearts extra measures of healing and forgiving grace. Which alone is sufficient to preserve your life in this world and the next!  

Plain and simple, we love God, because God loved us first, and no other god even comes close to granting that kind of undeserved favor. By the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, we abide in such love, extending it graciously and generously not only to the Lord but also to his people – friend, neighbor, and stranger: The blessed souls whom Jesus calls “the least of these” – the widow and the orphan; the hungry and the homeless; the prisoner and the outcast; the sick and the dying.  

Listen, now, for the Word of the Lord, in two of many, many passages that urge us to share freely the love that’s been given to us. First, from Paul’s letter to the Romans:  

Owe nothing to anyone – except for your obligation to love one another.  

If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. For the commandments say, “You must not commit adultery. You must not murder. You must not steal. You must not covet.” These – and other such commandments – are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law. (Romans 13:8-10 NLT)

And from the Gospel of John, Jesus himself speaks on the eve of his crucifixion:  

As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said,  

“The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory, and God will be glorified because of him. And since God receives glory because of the Son, God will soon give glory to the Son. Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going. So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:31-35 NLT) 

Earthly love accordingly becomes a response to heavenly love.   And again by the Spirit, such love becomes our resurrected instinct – an action that requires about as much conscious thought as we give to breathing air or digesting food. Love simply is who we are – or ought to be, because our hearts have been forever changed – as they need to be!   I’m reading to you from the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah:  

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34) 

“I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.”  

“I have forgiven your iniquity, and I remember your sin no more.”  

“What I require of you will be written on your hearts.”  

Some years back, the neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote a fascinating vignette of an intriguing neurological condition: Tourette’s Syndrome, a disorder of the brain that causes victims to exhibit any number of physical and verbal tics. Some Tourettic people experience constant facial twitches; others find themselves uncontrollably uttering verbal whoops, beeps, and sometimes raunchy swearing.   

One man with Tourette’s whom Dr. Sacks knew was given to verbal shouts; deep, lunging bows toward the ground, and an obsessive-compulsive habit of adjusting and readjusting of his eyeglasses. These sorts of things go on constantly and non-stop for people with Tourette’s.  

The kicker is that the man Dr. Sacks knew was a skilled surgeon! Somehow, and for some unknown reason, when he dons mask and gown and enters the operating theater, all the man’s tics disappear for the duration of the surgery. And when the surgery is finished, the man resumes his shouting, bowing, and adjusting.  

This Tourettic surgeon stands as a very intriguing example of what it can mean to “lose yourself” wholly and completely in a particular role. Your life is transformed whenever and wherever you are focused on just one thing – focused to the point where unhelpful traits disappear, even as the performance of normal, routine tasks becomes all the more meaningful, and remarkable, and holy.

Something like that is our Christian goal as we travel with Jesus.   

Our ingrained desire is to love one another – in the end, to love the whole world, I suppose – as Jesus loves us. To do that, our hearts and minds need infusions of the kind of love that does not arise naturally from the context of a broken and fearful world.  

So, as we lose ourselves in Jesus, and in being his disciples, we find even our ordinary day-to-day activities infused with deep purpose and meaning, as love from a higher place fills out bodies, souls, and spirits. Because even if only a smidgen of sacredness sprouts from within, it will happen among the everyday pots and pans, and tools of the trade – not just on Sundays when we feel particularly jolted by worship or on Tuesdays when we volunteer for some service project.  If we are to love as Jesus loves us, this becomes for us a daily reality made possible if and only when the love of Christ fills us to the brim.  

“I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.”  

“For I have forgiven your iniquity, and I remember your sin no more.”  

“What I require of you will be written on your hearts.”  

Ancient words, ever true: The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!  

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, July 16, 2023. It is the first of a series on the Ten Commandments. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Scott Hoezee, Oliver Sacks, and The Bible Project inform the message.         

Have You Met the Guy?

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message at the funeral for William Mark “Bill” Campbell on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.

Perhaps even more so than the imposing stature of his physical presence, Bill’s sharp wit was nothing with which to trifle.  

His sense of humor blew into a room like a force of nature, and good-natured hijinks and mischievous shenanigans were par for the course if Bill was your partner.  

He wasn’t so much a bull in a china shop as he was an all-enveloping presence who could fill any venue with chuckles and guffaws – usually by telling one of his many jokes that always seemed to begin with a Presbyterian minister, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi walking into a strip club.  

So, when Bill first told me that he was moving to a care facility in Decorah, my first instinct was to call up the admissions director over as Aase Haugen and ask the simple question, “Have you met the guy?! I mean, really … Strap yourselves in, folks! ’Cause Billy Campbell’s going to be in the house!”  

I now wish I’d placed that call, because things quickly flew off the rails soon after Bill arrived.  

As the story was told to me, it was midafternoon on Wednesday, June 21, and two women who lived down the hall from Bill decided to celebrate the first day of summer by stripping down and streaking naked from one end of the nursing home to the other. Their intended course would take them down a hallway and right past Bill, who sat aboard his porta-scooter-seat-mobile in a common area, where he was spinning yarns with his friend Wayne.

Just as Bill was reaching the punchline of his latest tall tale, the two lady streakers came zooming by – or at least as much as mature women of a certain age can zoom. The shocking sight left Bill and Wayne gobsmacked and slack-jawed. Wayne was the first to break the stunned silence. “Don’t see that every day, now do you, Bill?” To which Bill replied:

“That’s for sure! And did you see how wrinkled their pajamas were?”

+++

Shortly before moving to Decorah, Bill wore not pajamas but sweat pants the afternoon I visited. As usual he was holding court from that Stratofortress of a Barcalounger in his living room, which in due time that day became a place of communion.

In the breaking of the bread, this is my body for you. In the pouring of the cup, this is my blood for you. Come, Bill, and you too, Kathy: Taste and see that the Lord is good!  

Spiritual food for the journey, physical nourishment for the work that lie ahead.  

For indeed I sensed the Lord offering Bill yet one more opportunity for service – one final mission, of sorts. His move, I suggested, would bring laughter and light into a place of infirmity and darkness – for many, like Bill, a place of waiting for earthly death to take its unrelenting toll.  

And infused like sweet incense into that stench of despair and despondence would be Bill’s good humor and big heart, his primary weapons for protecting and serving in those hopeless places where the world’s fearful brokenness is on full display – at least, anyway, for those with eyes to see.  

Hash tag #thankyouforyourservice  

Which is what we say, right? Thank you for your service!  

Bill and I once talked about that – about how the well-intentioned phrase sometimes falls rudely upon hearts and minds still brutalized by the nightmares of war and its toxic chemistries of death.   “Thank you for your service” – like a double-edged sword, sometimes therapeutic balm for scars that never seem to fade, other times salt rubbed deep into still-open and festering wounds.

From personal experience, Bill suggested a turn of phrase that sat well with my own conflicted soul: “I’m sorry that you had to serve.”  

Of course, the choice of service ain’t yours to make when your number comes up and you’re gone with the draft. But serve Bill did. With honor. With distinction. With love. Which surely was welcome news to that wounded soldier whom Bill carried off the battlefield. As they waited for a helicopter to evacuate the bleeding man, I wonder if Bill eased the soldier’s fear with a joke about clergymen and strip clubs.  

I’m sorry that you had to serve, Bill. But thank you for your service.  

Jesus loves you, and so do I.

+++

For us Christians, loving and serving walk hand in hand.  

Scripture clearly and repeatedly calls us to unconditionally love and generously serve friend, neighbor, and stranger – no matter the risk and cost to ourselves.  

And the Lord demonstrates through each of us – and our loving service – his particularly special concern for the widow and the orphan, the hungry and the homeless, the prisoner and the outcast, the sick and the dying.  

The Lord himself labels these lost souls “the least of these.” And the extent to which you and I love and serve “the least of these” apparently gives shape to our eternal being after our earthly bodies return to dust.  

I’m reading to you from the Gospel of Matthew. With the help of the Holy Spirit, listen now for the Word of the Lord.

Jesus said, “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

“Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’

“And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46 NLT)

As it intends, Scripture lays weighty questions upon soul and spirit:  

Why do we miss so much?

Why don’t you and I pay more attention to life and the people in it? When we’re living it?!  

Apparently all of us – sheep and goats alike – never understand that the poor of the world mirror Jesus. All of us miss that connection! The righteous don’t get pats on the back for recognizing Jesus in the poor of mind and body. Because they didn’t! They just served all such folks with unconditional love. Instinctively! With even less thought than you give to breathing or digesting! Hmm.

+++

Someone once suggested a good spiritual discipline for us all.  

Go to a place like Chicago O’Hare airport or Atlanta Hartsfield, sit down somewhere, and just watch the parade of humanity pass by. You probably already know who and what you’d expect to see.  

You’ll spy the rather obese, somewhat sweaty man who lumbers red-faced and short-of-breath down the concourse with an overstuffed carry-on bag in tow.  

Just beyond him in a waiting area sits an impeccably dressed couple and their high-maintenance, teenage daughter – all engrossed in the screens of their iPhone 14 Pro Maxes, first-class boarding passes safely tucked away in tailor-made suit pockets and designer handbags.  

Then along storms an agitated mother traveling alone with three little kids under the age of 6. Their plane leaves in 10 minutes, and their departure gate still lies half an airport away. Two of the kids are whining about stopping at McDonald’s, and Mom’s neck veins are visibly bulging with anger and near-profanity.  

Eventually, you’ll see a little bit of everything. And in your heart, it would be a good discipline to say of each person, “Jesus loves you.”  

Jesus loves you! Jesus loves him and her, that skinny one and that chunky one; that stressed-out mom and her road-weary kids, those elite country-club parents and their disinterested teenager.

Because each one of them – somewhere under all those exterior trappings of broken reality and privileged entitlement, each one of them is made in the very likeness of the Lord God Almighty.  

And it is the Lord God Almighty’s love for that whole, sordid, kit-and-kaboodle of humanity that spurs our loving service toward them. The least of these, yes. But Jesus loves them. And so must we.  

Such heavenly vision seems largely what the Holy Spirit allowed Bill to see in friend, neighbor, and stranger. And in such loving there was so doing. We know that we are saved by grace – not by what we do. The Jesus who speaks in our Scripture lesson knows that, naturally.  

But Jesus seems also to know that the faith and the salvation borne of divine grace create new perspectives, different ways of seeing the world and its “least of these.” Grace opens eyes to see things, to see people, in ways that we otherwise probably would miss. Driven and empowered by such gracious awareness and empathy, grace further allows us to be the hands and feet of Christ, in humble service to those in need, to the least of these.  

That same grace begins, already now, to give us a preview of the final justice that’ll mark the end of all things, as well as a foretaste of heaven’s glory that awaits beyond, for those whom, like Bill, the Lord puts to holy use and claims as God’s own.

+++

“Have you met the guy?” Yes, yes I have.  

Bill like a lot of us was one of the “good goats” – not perfect, tempted and sometimes prone to wander, but nonetheless a blessing to family and community whose care and compassion, whose faithful witness to the Gospel, now motivates our living, moving and breathing; stimulates our loving, serving, and caring; and arouses our determination to patch up of life’s wounded with kindness, respect, and dignity.  

May it be so! For the least of these and for ourselves! Amen, and amen!

When the Way Is Blocked

A battle of wills provides the drama in this morning’s Scripture lesson from the New Testament book of Acts.

The apostle Paul has just returned from a busy mission trip on which he founded dozens of churches across the biblical world, and Paul is eager to hit the road again to check in with his new sisters and brothers in Christ to see how they’re doing.

But who should go and in what direction is a matter of heated debate, and so the Holy Spirit steps into the fray to settle the argument by opening doors for some and closing doors for others. In the Lord’s Prayer, we plead “thy will be done,” and in response to an urgent call for help, this is a story of God’s will being done through the work of the Holy Spirit. Listen, now, for the Word of the Lord.

As they went from town to town, Paul and his colleagues delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers daily.

They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. (Acts 16:4-10)

Who knew? The Holy Spirit “forbids” Paul, Silas, and Timothy from speaking the Word of God in Asia.

Go figure! The Spirit of Jesus does not allow them to go to Bithynia and instead turns them in the direction of a desperate call for help.

Thanks be to God! The Holy Spirit never hesitates to step in and take control – guiding, assisting, and inspiring followers of Jesus.

Precisely what the Spirit actually does to keep Christ’s missionaries on task remains shrouded in mystery, but clearly, God is the One who’s in charge of the Church and its members and their activities. The Holy Spirit actively and persistently ensures that the divine plan for changing the world and saving its inhabitants keeps moving forward to fruition in the ways that God wants it to unfold.

The Spirit’s firm direction of Christ’s followers underlines the real concern that the Lord has for his people. Maybe something like the voice that comes out the navigation system on your vehicle’s dashboard, the Spirit of Christ leads God’s agents of care, concern, and salvation to the places where grace is sorely needed.

The cries go out: “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” “Come across the street, or down the block, or across town and help us.” The Holy Spirit hears those cries for help, and up on the screen flickers the road-mapped route that takes disciples to the places where God wants us to respond when the alarm bells sound. Chances are, those directions won’t follow the paths that we intend to go or even want to go, but the Spirit nevertheless drives us that direction.

Maybe think of the Holy Spirit as the 9-1-1 dispatcher who answers someone’s desperate call for help, sets off the pagers, and tells first responders where the help is needed. As followers of Jesus, you and I shouldn’t hesitate to respond either whenever the alarm bell sounds

Problem is, like Paul, Silas, and Timothy, you and I do – sometimes – hesitate to respond.

We prefer charting our own course, and our travel itineraries don’t always sync up with the Lord’s.

Whether out of fear, or indifference, or prejudice – or some other distracted feeling or wrongheaded belief, we can be a little slow off the mark or even stubbornly stuck in place.

Or, we’re simply bound and determined to run the other way from the Lord and the work he calls to do. That’s when the Holy Spirit steps in, “forbidding” us from going that way by putting up holy roadblocks in hopes of turning us around and getting us back on God’s track.

This godly, Spirit-laid track that leads us to serve people in times of need is about more than just being “nice” or “neighborly.” It really points to God’s desire for us to be in relationship with one another. Like Paul’s passion and commitment to safeguard the faith of new congregations he’s organized, our passion and commitment to check in with one another and offer help and support when it’s needed helps us enter into and enjoy caring relationships with one another.

Like Red Green tells the men of Possum Lodge, “We’re all in this together.” Our togetherness is strengthened and bridges are built whenever we’re moved to action by the cry to “Come over and help us,” and the Holy Spirit is the One who opens certain doors and closes others to make it all happen.

Here in this place, the doors of several directions that we wanted to go appear closed.

For months now, the elders have been working on a number of projects that have stalled out through no fault of their own.

For starters, the front porch at the manse needs some masonry repairs, but we’ve been waiting since spring 2022 for the contractor to begin work. Plans to air condition the Sanctuary and install solar panels to power the system and reduce our utility expenses are stalled, because we can’t get any potential contractors to give us cost estimates. The experts were here months ago to get the lay of the land but have been less than forthcoming in providing bids.

Also stymied are efforts to recruit a new office manager. The position has been open since springtime, and a few weeks ago, we extended an offer to a well-qualified candidate who ended up declining our offer. And the employment pipeline doesn’t hold a good runner-up.

So, we’re left scratching our heads: What’s the deal? Where is the Lord in all those no’s? Might the Holy Spirit be “forbidding” us from going in the directions that leadership wants to go?

My prayerful sense of it all is “yes,” the Holy Spirit is not now allowing us to go in those directions.

She is closing certain doors and inviting us to open others. So, after some healthy and faithful conversation, here’s how the elders and I who serve together on Session believe God the Spirit is at work amid our impatient frustration.

First, we’re putting all our capital improvement projects on hold – the manse project, the air conditioning project, and the solar panel project. Special offerings that you’ve made to support these projects will be invested in short-term CDs earning nearly 5 percent. The money and the interest it’ll earn remain earmarked for those projects, which remain on our radar but now by the Spirit as smaller blips at the outer edge of the screen. These, along with replacing the manse roof, are projects for that’ll come to fruition in due time sometime down the road.

Also on hold is our search for a new office manager. Re-advertising the position now most likely will not identify good candidates. We will continue to rely on volunteers to get the essentials done. For the moment, we sense God has given us the human resources we need. The elders will re-evaluate this decision in early fall while in the meantime keeping our recruitment eyes open for good candidates whom God might place before us.

Those are the doors that seem to have closed – hopefully for the time being, and these are the doors that the Spirit seems to be opening:

First, encouraging and supporting our volunteer bookkeeper, Jim Johnson, in his efforts to get some “bugs” out of our bookkeeping software and sweep up some administrative tasks that have fallen through the cracks.

Second, compiling a manual of church operations that brings together in one place all church policies, guidelines and procedures. This isn’t the sexiest of projects, but it surely helps when the right hand knows what the left hand is doing – and how it’s supposed to be done. At my request, another member-volunteer, Jess Welsh, is preparing a proposal to things moving. She and I hope to have something to present for the Session’s consideration in the coming weeks.

Third, building and strengthening relationships with members and friends through new means of hospitality and connection. Deacon Maura Jones has put together some excellent thoughts and suggestions. I’m hoping to clarify and expand a few ideas in Maura’s proposal, and I’m hoping she and I can present the plan for Session’s review yet this summer.

And finally, participating in an ecumenical effort to provide children age 18 and under with weekday lunches and weekend breakfasts. The Waukon schools provide those meals in June and August, but no meals are served in July. So, our neighbors at Zion UCC assembled a planning team of leaders from several congregations to organize “Feed the Kids.” Lunches will be served weekdays starting Wednesday, July 5, over at Zion. For our part, we will be preparing take-home breakfast bags that will be distributed to children and teens on Fridays. This morning’s bulletin contains information on how you can support this community effort.

Thanks be to God that the Holy Spirit breathes deeply into what you and I make of our earthly life – turning our roadblocks, disappointments, setbacks and frustrations into incubators of blessing for those crying the loudest for help, even as we wait patiently and faithfully for other doors to open.

Let there be no drama, no battle of wills, but only confidence that God’s will is being done.

Let us trust that we are proclaiming Good News to precise souls whom the Lord desires.

May we abide comfortably and completely in the Spirit’s promise to provide anxious hearts and minds with peace that surpasses all understanding.

Amen, and amen. 

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, June 25, 2023.

At Our Best

Some of the Bible’s most intriguing and inspiring stories describe events or phenomena that are exceptional and unprecedented.

In those-remarkable-but-rare instances, God’s Holy Spirit in Christ is uniquely present, and like a match set to a pack of firecrackers, the Spirit sparks a chain reaction of explosions that inspire awe and wonder.

This morning’s Scripture lesson from the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles paints a vivid picture of one such moment.

On the heels of the Spirit rushing in on a handful of Christ’s followers at Pentecost, the apostle Peter delivers a rousing sermon about Jesus’s death and resurrection that cuts to the hearts of his listeners. Peter’s spellbinding speech opens the eyes of the attentive crowd to the reality that God’s promises in Christ Jesus truly are intended for each and every one of them. And the threads of joy spun within that life-giving truth knit together a kind of caring community the likes of which no one has ever seen or experienced!

When 3,000 people join the hundred-or-so followers of Christ, their shared joy immediately inspires them to devote themselves to the Church – not to a building, but to those collective activities that constitute the spiritual essence of a resurrected people and give shape and purpose to the community of faith.

I’m reading to you from Acts 2 starting with verse 41. Yes, we heard the same passage last Sunday, but its exceptionalism makes it worthy of another sharing. And like so many other scenes and stories of the Bible, the layers of meaning and inspiration here at the end of Acts 2 are rich and plentiful. May the Holy Spirit open your eyes and change your heart, as you listen for the Word of the Lord.

So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:41-47)

Perhaps you’re like me – always skeptical and growing more cynical – and find yourself rolling your eyes at this depiction of the early Church.

Not only does this rosy description not sound like the exact description of any congregation I’ve ever experienced, but it also doesn’t even sound much like the Church described later in the book of Acts.

All who believed were together and had all things in common? Selling possessions and distributing proceeds to all?

A scene three chapters after this one introduces a married couple – Ananias and Sapphira – who withhold some of the proceeds from a real estate deal. When Peter confronts them with their stinginess, right there in the middle of taking up the offering, both Ananias and Sapphira keel over dead!

Breaking bread together with glad and generous hearts?

Acts several times describes the process of deciding exactly who is allowed to break bread together as a major controversy in the early Church. The apostle Paul later will devote an entire letter to the Galatians on the subject of who’s welcome at the table.

Having the goodwill of all people?

From beginning to end, Acts is littered with stories of the apostles and other believers getting arrested, beaten, and even killed. And the book of Acts ends with Paul languishing under house arrest in Rome!

So, what’s up with this perfectly painted picture of the Church?

Perhaps, in spite of the many ways the Church and its members fall short, this image captures the Church as God intends it to be, and that’s the snapshot that the Lord intends to be burned into our minds as the one to remember.

Maybe think about it like this: Imagine taking an extended-family picture of all the kids and grandkids. You get everyone dressed up, struggle to get them lined up, and break a sweat trying to get everyone to look up.

Then, right about the time when everyone is finally set, little Sally starts picking her nose, and the twin toddlers wander out of the frame. As one parent grabs a tissue for snotty Sally, the other rounds up the runaway toddlers, puts them back in their place, and resumes jumping up and down behind the camera in seemingly vain effort to get all the youngins to smile and say “cheese.”

Meanwhile, the photographer just keeps clicking away in hopes of salvaging something useable from the chaos.

Later, when you scroll through the camera roll – maybe a hundred or more pictures, you manage to find one that’s just right – the one that perfectly captures the moment and everyone in it. It’s the one that speaks to your heart: “This is how it was – at least for a moment, anyway, and this is how I want to remember them.”

That’ll be the photo that you frame and hang on the wall; the one you send to the grandparents; the one you post to your social media. But even more, this is the one, when you look back – months, maybe years later, that perfectly defines that particular season of your life.

That, I believe, is what this Acts snapshot of the early Church is all about. It’s the one that shows God’s people at their best. And it’s clear that they’re at their best not when they’re apart but when they’re together.

Such unity is what we usually think of as “fellowship” or “community.” But the original text uses the Greek word koinonia, which means “generous sharing” and “close, intimate relationship.” The apostle Paul later will claim that, if you lack koinonia, you don’t really have a church in the spirit of God’s intent and Christ’s example.

A commitment to living in community – to sharing life together richly and deeply and to caring for one another without counting the cost – is the defining element of the early Church. Its members shared a story: The apostles’ teaching about who Jesus was and is, and about who God’s people were and are, and about who God is calling them to be – holders in common, givers of stuff, sharers of meals, and lifters of prayer in joy, celebration, concern, hope, fear and doubt.

The Church is at its best when God’s people share their lives and their living together in Christ.

It still is, and we still are. You, me and us together are at our best as the Church when we’re truly living in community – when we’re sharing our lives in all their fullness and complexity and demonstrating in small, imperfect ways precisely how life is meant to be lived in the Kingdom of God. The journey in Christ is meant to be walked together, and the Church is at its best when we devote the entirety of ourselves to doing just that. 

Of course, walking together also is when the Church is at its most frustrating, and at times most infuriating, and sometimes most incredibly disappointing. Living in community is hard. Really hard. It’s hard to make decisions together, and sift out hard truths together, and clear a way forward together. It’s hard to think of the needs of others as being greater than your own.

And we have times when we fall short of this covenant to share in the life of Christ together and to see Christ in each other like we should. Loving your neighbor with all your heart and soul ain’t easy when you find him or her annoyingly different or on the other side of the political aisle.

But here’s the thing: I spend more time here in this church than just about anyone else. So, believe me when I tell you that the First Presbys are at their best more often than not.

We’re at our best when we gather in this place each Sunday morning and direct our attention and devotion to the One who’s far greater than ourselves.

We’re at our best when we lift up prayers – even if we don’t always know what to pray, and when we sing songs – even if some of the notes are occasionally flat and the tempo a half-beat behind.

We’re at our best when we confess our sins together, when we pray together that God’s Kingdom might be on earth as it is in heaven, and that God’s Kingdom might be in us.

We’re at our best when we come forward in generosity and childlike enthusiasm to make our offerings.

We’re at our best when attentions turn to the font, as we will next Sunday, and we welcome a newborn into our midst, and delight in a baby’s joyful noise, and make the audacious claim that they belong to God, and commit to love and nurture them no matter who or what God reveals them to be.

We are at our best when we break bread together with glad and generous hearts at the Lord’s Table during worship, as we also will next Sunday, or in the Fellowship Hall before or after worship as we do every Sunday.

We’re at our best when we visit someone in the hospital or nursing home; when we deliver a bubbling-hot casserole to the friend who’s recovering from surgery or the neighbor who’s grieving a loss; when we open the doors of our hearts to welcome the stranger and the outcast; when we open the doors of our building for community use.

It might not be the first word you’d use describe it all, but what God calls us to do – and what we aim to do here in this place – is nothing short of scandalous.

It’s a scandal to live life the way God intends – and more often than not, that is what we do. Which is to live not completely for ourselves but to live wholly and fully for others, and to walk this Christian journey together, knowing that this is the only way it can be walked.

This has always been a scandal, and we’ve always had our share of scoffers. Because there’s something alarming about people refusing to live solely for themselves – at least in the eyes of the world anyway. Steve Hartman of CBS News recently shared such a scandalous story.

Unconditional love. Forgiveness to a fault.

In our fearful and fragmented world, where we’re so quick to point out and separate over our differences, where we so naturally choose sides, and tribes, and parties along the prescribed lines of division – when this is so very much the norm, the very idea of coming together and committing one’s self to another, despite their differences, making room for each other without judgment, giving grace and space to each other, is, well, nothing short of scandalous.

But it’s also nothing short of the Kingdom of God.

Sure, there are plenty of other snapshots we could frame – outtakes where the lighting is bad, or someone is missing, or when we’re not all looking in the same direction. But then, there’s that one – the one that gets it right and perfectly captures the divine moment. And we say, “Bingo!” That’s the one we’ll remember! That’s when we are being the Church!

Moments of being the Church are what the Holy Spirit ignites, and those moments of being the Church are what fill us with joy. The Church is not an afterthought or an option. It is the natural and necessary result of the outpouring of the Spirit, the preaching of Christ’s death and resurrection, and the change of heart and mind that leads people to seize hold of the eternal claim that the Lord has laid upon them.

May it be so, as the Lord adds to our number those who have been forgiven and are living lives of joy and gratitude for amazing grace that’s beyond measure.

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, June 18, 2023. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Doug Bratt, Scott Dickison, Tom Long, and Stan Mast inform the message.

Sober Inebriation

Amazement and astonishment – awe and wonder – have been hallmarks of our Scripture lessons these past few Sundays.

Consider, for a moment, where the ancient words of the story of God with us have taken us:

Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus leaves earth in physical form. His body returns to heaven, where God the Son sits down at the right hand of God the Father – at the right hand, by custom and tradition the place of greatest honor.

We stood flat-footed with the apostles watching Jesus ascend into the clouds, and we heard his simple parting words: Stay put and wait for the coming of my Holy Spirit, whatever in blue blazes that means!

In one of our lessons for last Sunday’s celebration of Pentecost, the Lord’s ascension is 10 days past – the Resurrection now 50 days past. And the apostles remain together – still waiting and now celebrating what they believed would be just another annual feast marking the beginning of the wheat harvest.

Then suddenly the promised arrival of the Spirit fills the room with the whooshing sound of rushing wind and the verbal passion of flickering flame. Turns out those Old Testament prophets Joel and Ezekiel were spot-on correct in foretelling the Spirit’s white-hot arrival with the fresh breath of new life. Thanks be to God!

This morning we return to Acts chapter 2 and the wonder of that Spirit-laden Pentecost, as the apostle Peter solves the mystery of what’s going on before the crowd’s bewildered eyes. More to the point, Peter unravels the mystery of the Lord God’s goings-on from the very beginning of Creation.

Let the same Spirit who came upon the people at Pentecost come upon you this day and allow you to hear the voice of God and the Word of the Lord with all your senses.

“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say:

“Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know – this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.

“But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

“Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’

“This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’’ Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”

Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”

And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” (Acts 2:22-40)

Most societies and cultures prefer it when their members fit in – when people conform themselves to the ways of the world and the community that surrounds them.

If you rock the boat, make waves, or somehow or other stand out in the crowd, the community is usually quick to point out the “error” of your ways and the “wrongheadedness” of your ideas. The powers-that-be are quick to pull the plug on whatever it is that’s got you so fired up and thus force you to blend in with everyone else.

That, I think, is what gives folks the heebie-jeebies when it comes to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes hold of your body, your mind, and your soul, and without any conscious decision or effort on your part, you start speaking, acting and thinking differently than everyone else, and that oftentimes puts you at odds with the broken and fearful world.

I’ll get to the specifics of those Spirit-driven differences in a little bit, but for now, be warned: Letting the Holy Spirit take hold of you won’t always be welcomed by everyone. Eyebrows will be raised; heads will be shaken; fingers will be wagged. And yes, even names will be called.

“What are you smoking?”

“You must he drunk!”

“That’s crazy stupid and bananas insulting!”

And into all that skepticism and name-calling steps the apostle Peter with a spirited explanation and passionate defense of what happens when the Holy Spirit is loosed upon the heart and mind of a man, woman or child whom God in Christ has claimed in baptism as their own.

Filled with the kind of courage and ability that only comes by the Holy Spirit,Peter does something both difficult and intimidating. Peter preaches. Peter witnesses. Peter speaks in the strange and confusing language of faith by sharing what his belief is all about, through the story of who and what God is all about!

The Lord has long promised to give us his Holy Spirit, so that our faith in the goodness and grace of God in Jesus Christ might be awakened. The Holy Spirit is the One who tunes all our senses and focuses all our attention to God’s never-ending love for you and me.

The Holy Spirit is the One who kindles the fires of salvation – both our need to be saved AND the Lord’s merciful desire to save us from ourselves and the corruption of the world. And that process of salvation begins when the Holy Spirit gives us the amazing capacity to repent – the willingness and desire to turn our lives in entirely different directions that align our living and being with the will of God and example of Christ.

“Repent of your sin and brokenness,” the Holy Spirit urges –sometimes tapping you on the shoulder, other times smacking you up-long-side your head – so that you may receive the fullness of forgiveness from God through Christ and thus be rescued from the pit of death and the inferno of hell.

And that’s the point where a lot of Christians put a period and end the sentence of faith and belief.

“I’m saved, I’m going to heaven, end of story.”

The truth and reality that those folks don’t quite seem to fully understand or buy-into is the ongoing presence and power of Holy Spirit, whose work of refreshment and renewal on the human heart and mind is only just beginning. Once she gets hold of you, the Holy Spirit doesn’t let go! The Spirit continues transforming you more and more into the image of God in Christ in whom you are made.

And as she more and more reveals the image of God in Christ in you to the world around you, the Spirit is going to start leading you into a different way of living, a different way of doing things that makes you stand out in the crowd.

The final verses of Acts 2 paint the picture of what separates you and other Spirit-led followers of Christ from the rest of the pack.

So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:41-47)

Everyone likes the thought of the Holy Spirit leading us to salvation through Christ.

Where things get dicey, though, is that salvation through the work of God’s Spirit in Christ comes with some heavy-duty, heavenly expectations. God’s Spirit in Christ places weighty demands and awesome responsibilities upon a believer and the earthly life that he or she leads.

The Spirit demands and empowers the kind of living that makes a believer different than the non-believer – a kind of living that makes Sabbath worship and the study of Scripture the top priorities in one’s life, a kind of living that devotes time to daily prayer and fellowship, a kind of living that puts the needs of others ahead of one’s own, a kind of living that’s willing to sacrifice what one values most for the considerate, welcoming, and loving sake of friend, neighbor and stranger.

Living into and carrying out those Spirit-enabled differences and Christ-like responsibilities will make you stand out from the worldly crowd, but rather than giving you a pat on the back, the worldly crowd more often than not will accuse you of being the odd-ball who doesn’t fit in. And they’ll burn the midnight oil trying to get you to toe the party line.

At best, people will look at you and scratch their heads in slack-jawed confusion and gobsmacked amazement. At worse, you’ll be dismissed, you’ll be ridiculed, and you might even be shunned. Peer pressure has that effect on people.

But so be it.

For in our living and being in a different way, the Lord’s Holy Spirit is revealing the glory of God, and that trumps everything else that the world has to offer!

It’s what you and I are called to do – to reveal the grace, love and mercy of God in our words and in our actions, in the ways we live and breathe, in the ways we move and are. And since the ways of God are always out of step with a broken, fearful, and sin-filled world, you and I won’t fit in with everyone else or do things like they’re usually done. We won’t fit in, simply because we’ve been fitted for holy living by the Holy Spirit!

In the early days of the Church, Christians living in Rome under the secular rule of the emperor did something amazing that set them apart from your average Roman citizen.

At the time, society placed absolutely no value or worth in baby girls. Society only placed value and worth in baby boys. If an otherwise good and loyal Roman citizen gave birth to a baby girl, the child was abandoned in the street and left for dead – if not killed outright.

Those early Christians saw that practice for what it was – brutal, barbaric and unbefitting to the essential value and worth that God, the creator of all life, had instilled in those baby girls. So, those first Christians took to the streets and started looking for those abandoned baby girls.

They rescued them!

They saved them!

They sent a clear message that made Christians stand out from the crowd: “We will take your infant daughters! If you don’t want them, we sure as heck do. We’ll adopt them, and make them our own, and love them to the moon and back.”

An awe-struck Roman society looked askance at those early Christians for their devotion and commitment to the sanctity of God-created life. Christians were judged harshly, ridiculed strongly, and persecuted mercilessly for bucking the status quo on baby girls.

But those disciples of Jesus wouldn’t have it any other way. They didn’t know any better! In a sense, they were “drunk,” but they in no way were smashed on new wine or worldly spirits. Theirs was a sober inebriation of the Holy Spirit. And it is God in Christ who calls you and me to that same place and attitude of clear-headed intoxication.

Stay thirty, my friends!

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, June 11, 2023. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by and Scott Hoezee and Luke Timothy Johnson inform the message.

‘Those Days’ Are Now ‘These Days’

Oddly enough, the Old Testament book of Joel hatches from an infestation of insects – more specifically, a swarm of locusts so efficiently devastating the countryside of Israel that famine and starvation are very real possibilities.

By Joel’s reckoning, the buzzing disaster swarms large in divine judgment upon the Lord’s sinful people, who eventually get their acts together and turn from their wicked ways. In response, God exterminates the locusts and gives the prophet Joel a message of hope that endures today to provide our Scripture lesson for Pentecost.

A little more background will help you understand why Joel’s cryptic words pack such a punch.

Back in the day, only a select few enjoy the privilege of speaking and understanding the Word of God. But in Joel’s predicted new age of the coming Messiah, God vows to reveal the divine self to all people. Joel specifically mentions abilities to speak in God’s sted, to dream big dreams, and to glimpse grand visions – all intended to ensure that everyone enjoys a deep sense of God’s loving presence and God’s eternal will for all Creation. In the coming Kingdom, Joel declares, all God’s people will be prophets – and priests and kings, because all will be anointed by the Spirit whom God pours out.

The vast, sweeping story of God with us includes any number of instances when God pours out the Holy Spirit, but in Old Testament times, long were the odds of actually seeing that happen. If someone was an honest-to-goodness “messiah” figure – “anointed” with an extra measure of God’s Spirit, most everyone knew about it, because these blessed few were public figures. There was the king; there were the priests. There now and then were prophets, like Joel, recognized for quite likely having received a special anointing as bearers and deliverers of heaven’s messages.

But that was about it. Anointings to royal, priestly, or prophetic offices tended to be rare. Remember, Israel was no divine democracy but a theocracy in which God did the choosing of those deemed sufficiently important to receive a spiritual anointing and who would not – most often, not.

Then along comes Joel and his stunning message that points to a leveling of the playing field where God’s Holy Spirit is moving. She one day will come and fill just about everybody without distinction. The day is surely coming when there’d be no need to identify those few folks who had received a messiah-like anointing of God’s Spirit, because daily reality will find everybody among God’s people so spiritually blessed!

Young and old, boys and girls, men and women, rich and poor, master and servant, the likely and the unlikely: Everybody will have the Spirit descend upon them to empower visions, and enable dreams, and inspire ways of seeing and understanding God and God’s Kingdom that simply had never been available to the community’s rank and file. Everyone will see the great wonders that God plans to work on the earth and in the heavens, and they will understand who’s who and what’s what in the cosmic scheme of things.

Listen for such grand understanding, with the help of that same Spirit, who in baptism anoints you, me, and all whom the Lord chooses as his own.

You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. (Joel 2:27-32)

Plain and simple, Joel points to Pentecost – once a routine, annual Jewish festival of the harvest that the Holy Spirit suddenly transforms into a pivotal moment in the story of God with us.

Joel points to an amazing day when the Holy Spirit of God in Christ Jesus infuses every member of the Church such that everyone and everything changes.

Across a couple millennia of Church history and within the hearts of untold countless believers, that same Spirit – so dramatically and powerfully poured forth on that most-memorable Pentecost – has been present and active, even when there’s no such obvious drama unfolding in our midst.

Indeed, it’s as simple as that. “I will pour out my Spirit in those days,” Joel declares. Some centuries later, the apostle Peter on Pentecost says that “those days” are now “these days.” And God’s people have been living in “these days” ever since. We live, and we are so very, very blessed to live, “in these days,” in these very days that so many for so long had pined and yearned to see and experience.

To wrap your head around such incredibly good news, try thinking of the Holy Spirit as somewhat like the very air you breathe. The Spirit is the bright, breezy atmosphere in which we live, move, and have our being. She is the very stuff of life, and without God the Spirit, we suffocate and die – as individuals and as a body.

Since God breathes the Spirit into you and me very much like the very air we breathe, then it’s no stretch to claim that, like the ongoing, mostly unconscious act of respiration, you just might not be very aware of the Spirit’s presence in your life. Most days you have to stop what you’re doing if you want to pay attention to your own breathing, and about the only times you actually do so are situations in which you fear not getting enough air – like getting stuck in an elevator, or headfirst in a small cave, or waking up at 4 in the morning with sinuses so stuffed that you’re gasping for air.

So also with paying attention to the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Though we now live immersed in God’s outpoured Spirit, our days are not typically filled with the dreams, visions, and portents of which Joel speaks. So, it’s easy to forget just how much we benefit from the indwelling Spirit of God. We mostly are unaware of the gifts, the insights, and the abilities that the Spirit alone provides to perform our assigned jobs in the Kingdom of God.

But that lack of awareness is no reason not to make ourselves aware now and again, and to do so with profound gratitude for the truth of Joel’s predictions, as they permeate the community of faith today and forevermore!

First, understand that the Holy Spirit is given to people who believe in Jesus to bind them together with God and one another.

The Holy Spirit marks our adoption as God’s children, by faith confident in the forgiveness of our sins and assured of our salvation. Our experience of eternal life does not begin at the moment of death but when you and I trust in Jesus, and when God the Father, and God the Son, place God the Spirit within us. And along the way, believe it or not, the Spirit is ever transforming us more and more into the image of God in Christ!

The Holy Spirit is God’s empowering presence that dwells within followers of Jesus, calls to mind the sin and brokenness that weigh heavy on mortal lives and spirits, and produces lasting changes in character, personality, and disposition. The Spirit teaches the truth about Jesus and makes known his presence, producing God’s love in human hearts and minds.

Further, the Spirit helps you in your weakness, interceding on your behalf and inspiring your prayers – even praying on your behalf with groans too deep for words when you don’t know what or how to pray. (Romans 8:26-27)

The Spirit gives us specific insight and wisdom, teaches us how to interpret the words of the Bible, communicates with God on our behalf, and empowers us to live according to God’s designs.

The Holy Spirit equips us for work and service.

She gives you and me the skills and abilities we need to share God’s love – spiritual gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, holiness, and reverence (Isaiah 11:2), such that our individual lives and collective living continue to produce “spiritual fruit” for the common good: Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

If your life blossoms with such sweet fruit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, then rest assured the Spirit indwells your body and soul, and all her benefits are yours, producing peace and calm that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). And the Spirit promises even greater things for those whose trust fully rests in the Lord God in Jesus Christ.

We cannot know – and thankfully neither do we have to experience – what life would be like without God’s Spirit. And for that blessing, let all glory and praise be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, June 4, 2023. It is last of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Elizabeth Achtemeier and Scott Hoezee inform the message.

Jesus Wept: Grieving to Move On

On the eve of Memorial Day, our Scripture lesson drops us into a scene of grief and loss – a place of transition that all of us experience.

Two women, Mary and Martha, are grieving the death of their brother Lazarus. Martha learns that Jesus plans to meet them in their grief, and she runs from her home to greet him. When their paths finally cross, Martha declares her belief in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the One coming into the world not to condemn but to save.

That’s where we enter the story. Listen for the Word of the Lord. 

When she had said this, Martha went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.

Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.  When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep.

So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (John 11:28-37)

Transitions pepper our lives, and they’re nothing to sneeze at.

Some transitions we anticipate; others catch us off guard. And each transition brings a hard choice: Either look back at what was – and risk getting stuck in an unhealthy place of perpetual mourning. Or, look ahead to what might be and keep moving forward in hope and trust – sometimes with only a speck of confidence in heaven’s promises of better days ahead.

Such are the transitional decisions with which we wrestle on this national holiday weekend of remembering our dead – in particular, those lost to warfare on the battlefield, but maybe so also those lost to brokenness and conflict in the trenches of daily living on the home front.

Of course, not every transition is hard. Many are easier to move through than others, perhaps because they’re changes for which we’ve prayed, dreamed, or labored. But when the transition is not the object of our prayer, hope, or desire, a season of mourning begins, because someone has died. Or because something has died.

Indeed, mourning isn’t just reserved for the death of a loved one. The emotion erupts when anything dies: A hope, a plan, a goal; an aspiration, ambition, or expectation; a sense of identity, purpose, or meaning. Mourning comes whenever anything changes seemingly for the worse. Its pain is particularly sharp and stabbing when change stirs a deep sense of loss and attachment, and you’re nowhere near ready or willing to let go.

And thus, like Jesus, you weep, sob, cry bitter tears of anguish in loving remembrance, joining the likes of none other than Mary herself in assigning blame: “Lord, if only you had been here … .” Your quivering voice joins the chorus of others similarly grieved in wondering: Could not the One who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this loss from happening?

And from heaven comes the answer: Just because someone or something has died, God’s promises, plans, and purposes for your life have not. Hard times befall, and circumstances upend, and you have to accept what you don’t want to accept. But if you can separate the circumstances you’re facing from God’s overall purpose for your life – that of producing spiritual fruit, then you possess the nourishment that fuels your forward movement.

The degree to which you can prepare your heart to go, move on, and keep holding fast to God and God’s promises is the degree to which new opportunity, renewal, and resurrection have room to grow. But if paralyzing grief holds you in place, then there’s less chance that something good will come from a bad situation, or that hope can come from a hopeless situation, or resurrection can come from what looks like nothing but stone-cold death.

When you lose someone you love deeply, or something in which you’ve invested greatly, or something that once gave your life meaning and purpose, you’re easily tempted to get stuck in that place of loss, and unless you vow to do otherwise, there in the limbo of mourning you will remain.

So, how long are you going to mourn?

It’s a good question, and one we might need to ask ourselves, lest we become mesmerized by the reflection in the rear-view mirror. I’m not suggesting that you pretend bad things never happen, or that you ignore the pain in your heart. What I am encouraging is that you move – even if no faster than a snail’s pace. Keep moving through your place of mourning, beyond your broken past and miserable present, to the restored future that God has in store for you and all of Creation.

Plenty of harsh tragedy and deep heartache make such advancement feel impossible. You can’t possibly accept it’s the end of an era, and surely you’ll never be able to stop looking back and start looking ahead. Yet, it surely is possible, because God doesn’t expect you to do it alone. God wants us to trust in what we do know and see, and to trust God with all that we don’t know and can’t see. Enter God’s Holy Spirit in Christ.

It is the healing gift of God’s Holy Spirit in Christ that establishes such trust – trust in the gifts that the Spirit provides: Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, holiness, and reverence, such that your living continues to produce spiritual fruit: Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Life’s pivotal moments are chock-full of teary-eyed experiences that deeply disturb, as Jesus feels in solidarity with Mary, Martha, and company. “See how he loved Lazarus,” the onlookers observe. Jesus’s own death is an act of such immense, pure love. It is the result of God in Christ Jesus choosing to join with humanity to the utmost degree, entering into and taking on all the kinds of our suffering, including death.

Jesus talks about his death and the Cross, about how he would be lifted up for the sake of his beloved. But Jesus never calls himself “death.” Suffering is included in some of his titles and assuredly is a major component of the prophecies about him. But when he speaks, Jesus reveals himself as the Resurrection and the Life. His resurrection is as much an act of love as his dying for us is. And if we believe that, we will see the glory of God, which is always sufficient to see us through, keep us calm, and allow us to carry on.

Amen, and amen!

Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden preached this sermon on Sunday, May 28, 2023. It is part of his Easter-season series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Christine Caine and Chelsey Harmon inform the message.