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When I was a teenager there was a TV show called “That Was The Week That Was.” Way back in the 60’s, long before “Saturday Night Live,” stars and celebrities would review the week’s major news events, with humor and satire. Some weeks, of course, had more news to make fun of than others. Each week when I sit down to write a sermon I consider the week’s news. Having studied and prayed the scriptures, I try to ask, what story from our own lives connects with the Bible’s story this week? How do our faith and our life intersect? Usually I am looking more closely at the gospel reading than the others. It is, of course, the Gospel, the Good News of God in Jesus Christ, which I am called and ordained to preach. But this week, considering all the news, I knew I needed to speak specifically about today’s Psalm, Psalm 4. Composed over a span of about a thousand years, the Psalms are the prayer book and hymnal of the Hebrews. “It should never be forgotten,” says one seminary professor, “nor taken for granted, that to read the Psalms in church is to read from the songbook of the Jewish people” (David Lodahl, Feasting on the Word, p. 412.). And, he suggests, “we (Christians) read (the Psalms) because of Jesus” – one who read and sang these poems as a faithful first-century Jew – “and thus we read them through Jesus” (ibid.). When we read or sing the words of a Psalm, we pray those prayers with Jesus. Answer me when I call, O God. Jesus the faithful Jew would have prayed those words of the first verse of Psalm 4. You set me free when I am hard pressed; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. Even though, in this season of Easter, we celebrate new life, saying “Christ is risen,” let us not forget Jesus’ time of trial. Before the empty tomb and the resurrection, there was the garden of Gethsemane, where, in deep distress, distress so acute that he actually sweated drops of blood, according to one gospel account, Jesus sought out his inner circle of followers, while he cried out-loud to God. To borrow a musical image, sometimes, the prayer of Jesus was like the mournful wail of a bagpipe. Perhaps wailing has also been our prayer this week. Where is the good news? After seven months of trying to help the company he loved emerge from financial disaster, the day after speaking to a human resource officer and arranging to take some time off because he'd been working long hours, the chief financial officer of Freddie Mac took his life in his basement. Also this week, a family of four was found dead in their hotel room. And on Friday there was a funeral for a family of five, unlike any funeral in the history of Middletown. This morning we offer our condolences and heartfelt prayers for the Kellerman, Parente, Bilotti and Wood families. We pray with those families and their communities of faith in the Psalmist’s words we just uttered: “Oh, that we might see better times! Lift up the light of your countenance upon us, O Lord.” If we are honest, if our prayer is authentic and true, we may wonder how we can bear to pray the final verse of today’s Psalm: I lie down in peace; at once I fall asleep; for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety. What does it mean to lie down, believing you dwell in safety, only to be killed while sleeping in your own bed? What sense do we make today of that sweet, childhood prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take”? How can we lie down in peace, when we can find no peace? How can we dwell in safety, when no place feels safe? Some of you may be thinking: this week’s events are not suitable topics for a sermon. But if we cannot speak and pray about these terrible things, here in our church, if we cannot pour out our prayers to God, if we cannot shake our fists at God, if we cannot mourn and wail and make our complaint, here in this sacred space, where, in heaven’s name, can we? If we cannot call upon the Lord here, if we cannot beg for answers here, where, I ask, can we? Years ago a young man came to work with me as a youth minister. A counselor in an after-school center for teenagers, he wanted to connect the dots more completely between his budding faith in God and his own life experiences, especially with those youth. When I asked him about his work, he said that the center’s motto was “to create a safe place to do the normal work of adolescence.” And I thought, Yes. That’s it.That’s what being the church is all about! I still believe that. Creating a safe place where we can grow up in Christ. No matter how old we are. No matter who we are. No matter what kind of mess we have made of our lives or what kind of stuff we are going through. Sometimes, even the church is not safe. Sometimes, the teaching we receive in a church can actually be dangerous, even life-threatening. Westboro Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, near where I used to live, is known for picketing churches for their positions on issues of social justice. Today they also picket Broadway musicals and funerals. Westboro signs include false teaching like “God’s hate is great.” I remember my children being traumatized years ago when they saw the dangerous, unsafe signs and actions of that church. My children asked me then: Does God hate people? Today I want to ask a variation on that question: How can the God of safety be a God of hate? Jesus once taught, “I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27-28). In the gospel reading both last Sunday and today, Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” I am certain that love, blessing and peace are what God is all about. I am certain that love, blessing and peace are what God desires for us. For our God is surely a God of non-violence, a God who offers the only real, true and lasting safety in our lives. And we as people of God, people of faith who call ourselves Christian, we are called by God in Jesus Christ to help create communities and places that are God-safe in our all-too-often dangerous world. How do we do that? How is God calling us to help create God-safe places, where we can grow up into mature Christian children, women and men? Perhaps we should start with the ways in which this church, this community of faith is already doing that - just in the past week. For example, this weekend dozens of members and friends of All Saints’ have been helping rebuild together Mary Tinney’s home in Myersville. What an inspiration it is to see so many of God’s children, of all ages, creating a safer place for our friend Mary! There is still more work to be done, so let us know if you can help. In our Adult Forum one week from today we’ll hear Eric Percy and others describe the great, ongoing need for safer dwelling places on the Gulf Coast, three-and-a-half years after Hurricane Katrina. All Saints’ Gulf Coast team will be making their fourth summer trip this June. In today’s Forum we (will/have) hear(d) from the leaders of Advocates for Homeless Families, friends of ours for more than twenty years. Like all non-profit agencies these days, they are in deep financial need, and we need to pray about helping them. But let us not forget the help we already provide every Thursday afternoon. That’s when Advocates’ clients meet in a safe place – here at All Saints.’ We create a safe place where they can support one another in their recovery from homelessness, joining each other on a journey toward the healing and wholeness God intends for them. Thank God for the work God is already doing through All Saints’ Church. Thank God we already know how to help God help others dwell in safety. The question is: How is God calling us NOW, together, to strengthen that safety, to enlarge those safety zones, to create a more God-safe place? Can a church be safe when there is unchecked domestic violence in a member’s home? Can a church be safe when there is untreated mental illness in a member’s home? Can a church be safe when there is unrelieved financial distress in a member’s home? And can a church be safe when the community we live in is not safe? What is God calling us, the people of God here at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, to do next? What is God calling us to do right now, this week, to help create a safer place for the people of God? How are we called to help children of God grow up and become whole and healthy in mind and body and spirit, so that they can become more mature people of love and blessing and peace? What is God calling you and me to do about all that…together? My sisters and brothers, the world is too dangerous for us to face alone. Together we can indeed help create God-safe places - with God’s help and with each other. We CAN dwell safely in God- together. In all of life, God reminds us that, regardless of how things are, we never have to live our lives alone. But we must learn again and again what God wants to teach us about safety. We must learn over and over what Jesus taught his disciples about love, blessing and peace. And the best way for us to be taught, the best way to learn, is to become more and more, just like Jesus, a no-holding-back people of prayer. This week, today, God reminds us that people of prayer need the Psalms. We need the prayer book and hymnal of our Jewish sisters and brothers. We need these prayers of Jesus, because they are our prayers, too. This week, may we make the Psalms our very own prayers. Answer us when we call, O God… Have mercy on us and hear our prayer… For only you, O God, make us dwell in safety. AMEN. The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg |
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