New Philadelphia Sermons
Making Good on a Promise
Dr. Worth Green
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My text this morning, if you need a text, is the 18th verse of Psalm 116: "I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people." Two months ago, before I left you, I wrote you a note saying, “This Sabbatical is all of grace. I don't know if I have earned it in what I have done. I hope to earn it in what I will do with the time you have given me.” As I return to work, I am aware that the time I have enjoyed has been a great gift. I have tried to be responsible before God for that gift. Now it is time I "paid my vows" in the presence of his people. I think you are entitled to know what I have been doing for the last two months. I went out with the goal of reading, writing, worship, and re-creation. Not rest, not relaxation, but re-creation. I wanted to re-create or remake my habits that I might live a healthier, more productive life. How did I do? I Let me start with reading. My wife guesses that I have read about 100 books. The truth is that I have bought about a hundred books, but I have not read nearly so many. I have carefully read c. two dozen books, skimmed another couple of dozen, and listened to another half-dozen books-on-tape. I listen to books on tape in my Sony Walkman. You may have an IPod, but I have a Walkman! The first book I read was about a pastor leaving her church to serve in a college. I recall that Br. Henry Lewis did the same thing when he left New Philadelphia after 12 years service to become the chaplain of Moravian College. Both these folks had a difficult time leaving well loved parishes. My separation from you lasted two months. I am happy to say that separation is over. I did not take that sabbatical in preparation for leaving. I took it to be better prepared for staying. I hope that you gave it with the same expectation. If you did not, you had better tell me soon. I was relieved to find that you did not change the locks on the door in my absence. The last book I read was Jurgen Moltmann’s The Coming of God. It is about death and resurrection, and about God’s recreation of the whole cosmos already begun in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I mention that book because I read it in preparation for writing a book about death and resurrection, and eternal life, etc., and what it means. I got a lot done. I have the start of a book. It is not ready for publication, but it is ready for discussion, and I hope to announce a series of classes very soon. In between the first book and the last, I have read biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, J.E.B. Stuart, R.E. Lee, and Abraham Lincoln. I was surprised to lean that when still a young man Lincoln, depressed, considered suicide. The reason Lincoln did not take his own life is that he did not think he had positively affected even a single human being who might remember him. Abraham Lincoln really turned that around before he was done in by John Wilkes Booth. In early March I attended the Weber Lectures at Moravian Theological Seminary. While I was in Bethlehem I visited the bookstore and bought most of the books on the seminary reading lists for New Testament studies and Systematic Theology. In case you are wondering, I spent many hours in the scriptures. I continue to marvel at grace and strength that is available to us in the ancient texts that are in many ways as up-to-date as tomorrow morning’s newspaper. A reporter once asked Karl Barth, one of the greatest 20th Century theologians, what he considered the most sublime thing he knew. Barth responded, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.” Count Zinzendorf said, “The Bible is a ragged old book shot through and through with holes, but in it God speaks to humankind as nowhere else.” In my recent reading, I have noticed that some scholars are saying that the Bible is too difficult for lay readers. Many now suggest reading books about the Bible rather than the Bible itself. I disagree completely. I have hundreds of commentaries and books about the Bible, and I value them all. I am in favor of being well informed, and I am indebted to Biblical scholarship of all kinds. However I believe that everyone should begin their study of scripture by learning to read the Bible for him or herself. Here are a few tips about Bible study. Much of the Bible is pretty straightforward. It is impossible to miss the meaning of texts like Romans 13:9: “ 9 The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Someone recently asked me for a simple version of Christian ethics. It doesn’t get much simpler than what Paul wrote in Romans 13. Of course, the Bible contains some hard parts, too. When you don’t understand something, don’t make a snap judgment. Take it slow. I have been struggling with some texts of scripture for thirty years. The Holiness Code of Leviticus is a good example. It is obtuse and foreign sounding to 21st Century people. I always thought it a tragedy that Moses forbade the children of Israel the right to eat pork. Obviously Moses had never eaten at Lexington Barbecue. However, I recently got a whole new insight in to Holiness Code. It made Israel a strong if particular nation. Those commandments that seem to us ridiculous have bound that nation together for three millennia. Thanks to the Holiness Code, Israel survived as a nation, even though exiled from her homeland, and persecuted by most of the rest of the world. In reading the hard passages, don’t form your opinions too soon. Give the texts time to perk, consult the wisdom of others, but don’t stop your personal studies. Remember C-I-E, “Context Is Everything.” A text without a context is a pretext. Much of the bad press that Christians receive today is because some of our number insists in taking text out of context. Don’t. Interpret Matthew by Matthew, Mark by Mark, Luke by Luke, John by John, and Paul by Paul, etc. There is much unity in scripture, but there is diversity, too. God gave us four gospels, not one. Try to determine what the original writer was saying to the original reader. Only after we have discovered what the original writer was saying to the original reader may we legitimately ask, “What is God now say to me in this same text?” Expect to expend some effort. At Princeton I took a class on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans under Dr. Christiaan Beker. At the end of the first session, I asked Dr. Beker a question. He responded, “That is a good question, Mr. Green.” Then he asked the entire class to read the epistle ten times before our next meeting. I was not the most popular guy in that class. However, by the time I had read Romans ten times I could answer my original question, and many more that had occurred to me besides. Hard work pays, especially when studying the scriptures. The ancient Rabbis of Israel used to say that an hour spend in the study of the scriptures is like an hour spent in prayer in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. I agree completely. While I was on sabbatical I did not read just the things that please me. I read some of the things that challenge me, too. While in Bethlehem I visited with Bishop Art Freeman. In his book on Zinzendorf, Art points out that the Count used spend as much time reading philosophers and critics of the Christian faith as he did reading theology. In 1 Peter 3:15 the apostles writes that Christians must always be ready to give an account, with gentleness and reverence, of the hope that we hold within us. I want to be able to do this, even with the skeptics, even if I meet them only in the forum of my own mind. For that reason, I read a number of books by skeptics and militant atheists. The best of these books was The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, a well-known biologist. Dawkins believes that God is an imaginary friend, and that religion has done more harm than good. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once wrote that one good critic is worth 1,000 doting admirers. If hard is good, then Dawkins is a good critic. He holds Christians to a careful accounting. He will not let us forget the Crusades, the way the church made Galileo recant his theory that the earth rotates around the sun and otherwise suppressed the work of science, or the fact that Christians seem just as fulfilled by arguing with one another about fine points of doctrine than about being present in the world for Christ’s sake. As I read Dawkins, I was reminded how Bertrand Russell, a leading atheist of another day, once said, “My quarrel is not with Christ, but with Christians.” Russell did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but he accepted Jesus as a great moral teacher. His quarrel was with Christians because he saw quite clearly how Christians repeatedly fail to live up to the high standard set by the Master .I was reminded, too, of a conversation that E. Stanley Jones, the 20th century Missionary and Evangelists, had with a Hindu Lawyer. Jones asked, “What can we Christians do to make our presence in India more tolerable?” The Hindu, a lawyer, knew that Jones was going to try to convert him. He did not ask him not to do that, instead he responded, “Be more Christ-like. When you Christians are more Christ-like it is better for everyone.” If we Christians were more Christ-like then most of the accusations that Dawkins and all the other best selling atheist authors make against the Christian faith would bee considerably discredited. The best presentation of the Christian position is not logic but compassion. That is enough about reading and writing II What about worship? I am happy to report that Elayne and I were in church each and every Sunday of my sabbatical. We attended Sunday worship at five Moravian Churches. Here in Winston-Salem we attended Calvary, Christ, Fries Memorial, and Home Moravian. In Wilmington, we attended Covenant Moravian. We attended Our Lady of Mercy, where Jo Bolling was a greeter. We received a royal welcome. We attended two Methodist Churches. We attended Centenary here in Winston-Salem, and we attended a little Methodist church in Easley South Carolina where my friend Bruce Cleasby is the interim pastor. We did not just go to church on Sunday. We attended Ash Wednesday Communion at Calvary Moravian with Ray and Betty Troutman. On another Wednesday night we heard David Guthrie make an excellent presentation on evangelism at Fries Moravian. We attended Maundy Thursday communion at Blowing Rock Baptist Church. By the way, Jan Karon, author of the Mitford Series may write about Father Tim and the Episcopalians, but she is a member at Blowing Rock Baptist Church. For the first time in twenty years, I went to the Sunrise Service in Salem where I heard Scott Venerable say, “THE LORD IS RISEN,” and heard a crowd of more than 5,000 respond, “THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED.” Later that same day I heard my dad preach at Memorial Reformed Church over in Washington Park where he has been an interim for about 7 years. As dad preached his Easter Message I remembered an exchange we had while I was still in seminary. I had just completed a course on the first Easter. Excited by all the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus contained in the New Testament, I wrote dad and challenged him to “present the proofs of the resurrection.” He wrote back and urged me to “preach the Risen Christ with power to save.” Well, after all these years, Dad is still preaching the Risen Christ with power to save, and those who know that story best, still love it best. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting around. I heard some preaching that was powerful and articulate. I heard some preaching that was inspirational comfort food. Elayne and I admitted to one another that we could probably enjoy membership in most of the churches we attended. However, I can honestly say that not one of the churches I visited was as attractive to me as this congregation where I have spent twenty years. Both Elayne and I missed New Philadelphia. “There ain’t no place like home!” III Now what about this project of re-creation? I did try to reshape my habits. I did not diet. I did try to watch what I eat, especially between meals. I did not spend anymore time in bed. I kept the same hours for retiring and for rising. I did sleep more of the time that I was in the bed. Many of you have told me I look rested. I feel rested. Exercise? I did not increase the mileage that I run. I did add a two mile walk to my daily routine. Now I walk, and then I run I thought I was doing well, so well in fact that I scheduled a full physical for February 28th. I went to my doctor, and he noted my weight loss. He did blood work. He said my cholesterol was good, and my triglycerides weren't bad. He said that the only thing that worried him was my family heart history. Greens are notorious for having a heart attack at 59 or 60. My father survived his heart attack. My Granddaddy Green and my Uncle Paul did not. My doctor insisted that I have an EKG. A nurse hooked me up to the machine. She ran three different EKGs. As she was leaving the room, she said, something like, “Did you know that many men your age have had a heart attack without knowing it?” In a few minutes my doctor came back into the room. He said, “The EKG says that you have had a heart attack. Do you know when?” I told him about an episode that took place four years ago as I drove to Wilmington for my son's wedding. I was driving. I had pain. I had Elayne take over the driving and take me to a hospital. When I got to the hospital, I felt better, so I insisted that we go on to Wilmington. I told my doctor that I was weak for about a week after that episode, but did not think it was a heart attack. I told him I thought it was probably indigestion. He was not pleased that I had not mentioned the episode to him. He acted like I was in some serious trouble. He put me on an Crestor, and gave me an aspirin. He gave me a bottle of nitro tablets, and told me how to use then. He told me that if I had any chest pain at all, I was to walk, but not run, to the emergency room. Most importantly, he scheduled me to see a cardiologist the very next day. Let me give you the short version of how it all came out. I don’t want to keep you in suspense or be melodramatic.. I went to the cardiologists. She did and EKG. She found nothing. She sent me to some sort of digital imaging, and they made sound and computer generated images of my heart. I got dressed and went back to the waiting room. After about thirty minutes the cardiologists called me into her office. She told me that not only could she find no sign of heart disease, but that I had the hart of a much younger man. Now let me give you the long version. In the beginning I was not afraid. When my doctor said he was sending me to a cardiologist, I told him I was confident that 37 years of running had made my heart strong. I put on a good face for him, I went to lunch with a friend. I felt pretty confident in the beginning, but as the day wore on, and shadows lengthened, and night fell, my confidence was shaken. That night was not a good one. I tried to watch a movie on TV, but the only thing I really wanted to do was hold my wife. The next morning I sat down and wrote long letters to my wife and children. Thankfully, I have not had to mail them. Then I read my bible. In the book of James I read that if we are sick, we are to summon the elders of the church. I was on sabbatical. I did not have access to the elders of the church. By way of substitute, I went over to see my mom and dad. I spent more than a little time reviewing my life and confessing my sins. When I reviewed my life, I decided I had lived a small life. I had certainly hoped to accomplish more with it. Then I confessed my sins. It was not easy. Fred Craddock is right, when we reach deep within ourselves we invariably dredge up that which is not worthy to be spoken of. Yet, I did speak it. I confessed it. Then I asked for prayer. Both my parents prayed for me. After we prayed, my mother asked me if I had seen the Daily Text.. The date was February 29th. The texts were from Isaiah 53:7 and 1Peter 2:24: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. Isaiah 53:7 Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might life for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24 When I read those texts, I experienced wave after wave of grace, tears poured down my face, I laughed like a child, and all fear left me. It was a moving experience. Now this is what I have to say about that experience. Though I normally speak without notes, I read the following statements for the sake of precision. 1. EKG’s can be wrong. I suspect the EKG’s at my doctor’s office were wrong. I sometimes wonder if he read them as he did just so I would have to get checked out by an expert. I know he has been concerned. I love my doctor. 2. There is a logical explanation for everything. 3. Faith is more than logic. 4. Faith is also more than feeling. As Karl Barth once said, “feeling is just the patchwork by-product of faith.” On the whole I rather have strong faith than strong feelings, even feelings of grace. 5. I am no different from you. I have known dry seasons of the soul. I have had lengthy periods of time during which my prayers seemed to rise no higher than the ceiling. Many of my prayers that have not gotten beyond the ceiling were prayed by me on behalf of members of this congregation. I would have liked it better had more of those prayers been answered as I prayed for them to be answered. 6. Nothing is worse than believing in God and yearning for God, and believing just as strongly that God is absent, and distant, and totally disinterested in one’s situation. 7. If you believe God is absent from your life, I have just one piece of advice for you. Remember the times when you thought that God was not only real but near. If you cannot remember any times when you thought God was near, you can at least remember that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son”. Jesus lived for us, and died for us. Just as importantly, he lived with us and died with us. God knows all our trials. In the death of Jesus Christ God takes death into himself. Jesus died, but God raised Jesus the Messiah from death to give us a future and a hope. The Risen Christ promises to be with us always through the power of the Holy Spirit. The church is the bride of Christ. That means that he is with us for better, for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we ever shall live. If we live in that faith, then soon that faith will live in us. We must act the part of a faith until we have faith. When we have faith, then we will be able to say with the apostle, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able, to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” That is all I have to say about that. Finis EverydayCounselor© |