Good Powers Wonderfully Hidden
Sermon
SPECTATORS OR SENTINELS?
Sermons For Pentecost (Last Third)
Our gospel lesson is part of the Sermon on the Mount. It is important to keep that larger setting in mind for these words are directed to disciples and to those who have allowed Jesus to call them to God. Jesus is mobilizing his community for a high risk enterprise. They are to march into history by a different drum beat. "You have heard it said to those of ancient times ... but I say to you." And what staggering things he said. What anxiety inducing commands. What radical ethical and moral imperatives fell from his lips. Imperatives whose servants a belligerent and alienated human community would resist, resent and fail to understand. No wonder that, as if sensing the way he was raising the anxiety level of his disciples, he speaks to those inner restraints their fears would impose upon them. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry ..." Those wonderful words of promise that were read to us this morning roll out to all of us would be intentional disciples who share the vulnerability and fragility of the little birds of the air. To all of us who in our search for security clutch to our bosoms those prized securities the world tells us are so necessary; those visible things to which we find it much easier to offer our trust than to a hidden and invisible God.
It is also important for us to remember that these words have been especially arranged by Matthew as Dominical instruction for the itinerant preachers and teachers of his congregation, an affluent community probably centered in the prosperous city of Antioch. Like us, they were removed by time and geography from the earthly Jesus. Like us, they lived in a seductive society, many of whose values were framed by the market place.
So did the original hearers of the Sermon on the Mount. Our images of first century Jerusalem tend to be all stained-glass images woven of piety and prayer. More than prayer was in the air. The Court of Herod set a much envied standard of opulence that invited social imitation. The lifestyles of the rich and famous have always exerted a popular appeal. Merchants thrived selling luxury goods to the nobility and wealthy. Conspicuous consumption and ostentation was rife. There was a great market for ointments and jewelry. Some inventive artisan came up with an expensive hair piece for wealthy ladies, The Golden Jerusalem. It was deemed suitable for Sabbath wear. Speaking of ointments, think of the expensive array of lotions for men and women arrayed in any department store or upscale boutique today. While ordinary priests lived on the edge of poverty, the priestly nobility had much wealth, landed property and controlled the temple treasury.
Several years ago the Rockefeller Foundation undertook a study of education in the United States. The study concluded that the images of the market place were powerful shapers of the values of young people. The dominant human image presented to them was and is that of the consumer. This image, concluded the study, gives an inadequate account of the well springs of human life. Yet the influence is pervasive. Just think, for example, of the medical concern for teenage girls who diet dangerously in obedience to the cultural dictum that slim is beautiful. Or think of young men who will shoot one another in tussles over name brand running shoes.
The late Herbert Gezork, a most inspiring man, who served as president of Andover Newton Theological School once interrupted a lecture he was giving to a class in social ethics to make a profound observation that has proved to be prophetic. This was in the immediate post World War II years when our nation was mobilizing resources to reconstruct war-damaged Europe and beginning to face the new challenge of Soviet expansionism. He told us to be thankful for this national challenge that would demand some sacrifice. Without it we would face a wave of materialism. He did not anticipate the materialism that even with that challenge would accelerate through the decades of the '50s to '80s. Now the challenge of Soviet expansionism has receded. Within the former Iron Curtain nations there is a pent-up demand for consumer goods. That is understandable. But the warning of Dr. Gezork still stands. Veterans who remember a war-scarred Europe in 1944 and 1945 where scarcity was the rule cannot help but be struck by the way the Western Europe of 1992 is becoming an attractive and prospering bazaar.
This is Thanksgiving Day, above all a time to recognize the Creator and Giver of all things. It is also a time to put things in perspective. It is a time to hear Jesus remind us that the grass withers and the flower fades and we share the condition of the vulnerable and transient birds. It is a time to hear him tell us to seek first the kingdom of God, to renew our understanding of who we are and whose we are. Certainly we give thanks for benefits we enjoy, but is there anything in them that will ultimately sustain and save us?
You can visit a reconstructed Plymouth Village today in Massachusetts. The furniture and dress and homes of the Pilgrim fathers and mothers have been faithfully reproduced. Guides will tell you what they wore, how they farmed, how they made butter. But there is a strange silence about why on earth they set out from Leyden in the first place. The popular answer is that the Pilgrims came here that they might worship God as they pleased. That fits an anything goes individualism, but it is the wrong answer. Get this! The Pilgrims came here that they might worship God in a way they believed was well pleasing to him. These were a people on a high risk journey. These were a people under the imperatives. Scarcity, vulnerability and uncertainty were still the rule on that first Thanksgiving Day. The sod on the graves of many of their loved ones was still fresh. In the midst of extremity they could yet praise and affirm their trust in God the ultimate source of their security.
The title of this sermon was taken from a statement of Dietrich Bonhoeffer written from his Nazi prison cell. "By good powers wonderfully hidden, we await cheerfully, come what may." The words of our gospel lesson throb and echo in that statement. The words are worth committing to memory. A word of promise has been given to us that no circumstance can cancel out. We give thanks for what is seen, but things seen are perishable and can let us down. Above all, we give thanks for what is not seen.
The book of the prophet Habakkuk closes with a most unusual paean of praise and thanksgiving.
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on its vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights.
In the 19th century, William Cowper used these words in his beautiful hymn, "Sometimes A Light Surprises."
Though vine nor fig tree neither
Their wonted fruit shall bear,
Though all the field shall wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice,
For while in him confiding
I cannot but rejoice.
Christian friends, hold on to such words and they will hold onto you.
It is also important for us to remember that these words have been especially arranged by Matthew as Dominical instruction for the itinerant preachers and teachers of his congregation, an affluent community probably centered in the prosperous city of Antioch. Like us, they were removed by time and geography from the earthly Jesus. Like us, they lived in a seductive society, many of whose values were framed by the market place.
So did the original hearers of the Sermon on the Mount. Our images of first century Jerusalem tend to be all stained-glass images woven of piety and prayer. More than prayer was in the air. The Court of Herod set a much envied standard of opulence that invited social imitation. The lifestyles of the rich and famous have always exerted a popular appeal. Merchants thrived selling luxury goods to the nobility and wealthy. Conspicuous consumption and ostentation was rife. There was a great market for ointments and jewelry. Some inventive artisan came up with an expensive hair piece for wealthy ladies, The Golden Jerusalem. It was deemed suitable for Sabbath wear. Speaking of ointments, think of the expensive array of lotions for men and women arrayed in any department store or upscale boutique today. While ordinary priests lived on the edge of poverty, the priestly nobility had much wealth, landed property and controlled the temple treasury.
Several years ago the Rockefeller Foundation undertook a study of education in the United States. The study concluded that the images of the market place were powerful shapers of the values of young people. The dominant human image presented to them was and is that of the consumer. This image, concluded the study, gives an inadequate account of the well springs of human life. Yet the influence is pervasive. Just think, for example, of the medical concern for teenage girls who diet dangerously in obedience to the cultural dictum that slim is beautiful. Or think of young men who will shoot one another in tussles over name brand running shoes.
The late Herbert Gezork, a most inspiring man, who served as president of Andover Newton Theological School once interrupted a lecture he was giving to a class in social ethics to make a profound observation that has proved to be prophetic. This was in the immediate post World War II years when our nation was mobilizing resources to reconstruct war-damaged Europe and beginning to face the new challenge of Soviet expansionism. He told us to be thankful for this national challenge that would demand some sacrifice. Without it we would face a wave of materialism. He did not anticipate the materialism that even with that challenge would accelerate through the decades of the '50s to '80s. Now the challenge of Soviet expansionism has receded. Within the former Iron Curtain nations there is a pent-up demand for consumer goods. That is understandable. But the warning of Dr. Gezork still stands. Veterans who remember a war-scarred Europe in 1944 and 1945 where scarcity was the rule cannot help but be struck by the way the Western Europe of 1992 is becoming an attractive and prospering bazaar.
This is Thanksgiving Day, above all a time to recognize the Creator and Giver of all things. It is also a time to put things in perspective. It is a time to hear Jesus remind us that the grass withers and the flower fades and we share the condition of the vulnerable and transient birds. It is a time to hear him tell us to seek first the kingdom of God, to renew our understanding of who we are and whose we are. Certainly we give thanks for benefits we enjoy, but is there anything in them that will ultimately sustain and save us?
You can visit a reconstructed Plymouth Village today in Massachusetts. The furniture and dress and homes of the Pilgrim fathers and mothers have been faithfully reproduced. Guides will tell you what they wore, how they farmed, how they made butter. But there is a strange silence about why on earth they set out from Leyden in the first place. The popular answer is that the Pilgrims came here that they might worship God as they pleased. That fits an anything goes individualism, but it is the wrong answer. Get this! The Pilgrims came here that they might worship God in a way they believed was well pleasing to him. These were a people on a high risk journey. These were a people under the imperatives. Scarcity, vulnerability and uncertainty were still the rule on that first Thanksgiving Day. The sod on the graves of many of their loved ones was still fresh. In the midst of extremity they could yet praise and affirm their trust in God the ultimate source of their security.
The title of this sermon was taken from a statement of Dietrich Bonhoeffer written from his Nazi prison cell. "By good powers wonderfully hidden, we await cheerfully, come what may." The words of our gospel lesson throb and echo in that statement. The words are worth committing to memory. A word of promise has been given to us that no circumstance can cancel out. We give thanks for what is seen, but things seen are perishable and can let us down. Above all, we give thanks for what is not seen.
The book of the prophet Habakkuk closes with a most unusual paean of praise and thanksgiving.
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on its vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights.
In the 19th century, William Cowper used these words in his beautiful hymn, "Sometimes A Light Surprises."
Though vine nor fig tree neither
Their wonted fruit shall bear,
Though all the field shall wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there;
Yet God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice,
For while in him confiding
I cannot but rejoice.
Christian friends, hold on to such words and they will hold onto you.
