Sermon: Encounter With God

Encounter with God from Chad Herring on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church of Prairie Village, Kansas. July 7, 2013.

Exodus 3:1-14
and Psalm 27

 

“What we have lost…”[i] Barbara Brown Taylor has written,

“…is a full sense of the power of God to recruit people

who have made terrible choices;

to invade the most hopeless lives and fill them with light;

to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch,

and smack them up side the head with glory.”

Several years ago on a Sunday morning in a large downtown church,

as Tom Long tells the story,[ii]

the minister had read the scripture lesson and was taking a deep breath

before launching into the sermon when suddenly a man, a stranger,

stood up in the balcony.

“I have a word from the Lord!” he shouted across the startled congregation.

Heads swiveled upward to see the source of this interruption.

What “word from the Lord” did this man bring?

No one will ever know…

…for ushers bounded like gazelles up to the balcony and,

before the man could say another word,

they had escorted him down the stairs and out of the building.

Strange, isn’t it?

Each Sunday, countless preachers in innumerable pulpits clear their throats,

and start to preach–at least implying—

–that we have a word from the Lord.

 

But nobody tenses as she begins to speak.

No heads swivel in alarm as he launches into the sermon.

No ushers suddenly leapt into action as I began here this morning…

…Instead, you we crease our bulletins,

silently check our watches,

and settle in for the sermon.

What are we expecting?

A sermon? Yes.

A word from the Lord? Well…

///

Now, I’ve been in your seat,

and I’ve sat through some LONG and strange sermons.

[Please be kind to your pastor as you greet him after the service]

And I’ve been in worship services that have felt as lifeless, at least to me

as a Golden Girls rerun. [Your perspective may vary]

And I’ve been in some theatrical services that seem more apropos

for broadway than church

And I’ve observed many a choir or praise band or soloist

working way too hard to feel like they are being genuine.

All of this is to say,

I’ve felt many worship services that don’t feel worshipful at all.

And then there’ve been the other times…

when the music has been EXACTLY what I needed

after a horrible week at work,

or that argument I had the day before,

or the news that my friend received at the doctor.

then there are the times when the prayers have enveloped me

centering my spirit and honing my heart

and tuning my soul to penitence and concern for others.

times when the sermon has been so right-on

that I almost bounce out of the sanctuary ready to

bear God’s love and light into the world.

What are we expecting, when we enter a worshipful space

a sanctuary, or a chapel, or a room set apart with candles and chairs?

But what are we expecting, when we come to worship the Lord our God?

What are we hoping happens here, in this space, during this hour?

Why do we do the things we do, in the first place?

///

Jeff and I are beginning this week a sermon series called

Living in the House of the Lord.

It takes its bearings from this beautiful poem we call Psalm 27

with its yearning for God’s company and God’s presence

its striving to understand all God is doing in the world

and to rest with God in God’s comfort and God’s protection.

Here’s how Robert Alter[iii] has translated parts of this Psalm:

One thing do I ask of the Lord

it is this that I seek—

That I dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to behold the LORD’s sweetness

and to gaze on His palace.

For He hides me in His shelter

on the day of evil.

He conceals me in the recesses of His tent,

on a rock He raises me up.

And now my head rises

over my enemies around me:

Let me offer in His tent

sacrifices with joyous shouts.

Let me sing and hymn to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, my voice when I call

and grant me grace and answer me.

In our tradition, the Reformed Tradition,

we approach Worship in a certain way, elements that we find important

a rhyme and reason for the flow of a worship service

that seeks to help us, all of us, dwell in the LORDs house well.

We just finished a four week exploration of Prayer.

Prayer is at the Heart of Worship, and in Prayer, through the Holy Spirit

the people of God seek after and are found by God.

But beyond Prayer, there are other key things we try to do to focus our hearts

and our minds to be able to be present with God.

And our sermon series is an attempt to go deeper into some of these elements.

We will explore ways that we attend to God’s presence in our midst:

Music, prayer sung and enacted, engaging our whole selves

Scripture, the word of God, read and proclaimed

Font and Table: Gods Grace Signified and Sealed

Our response to God’s Gifts

Blessing and Departure, our path refocused.

Living in the House of the Lord: The Worshipful community.

///

This first sermon is our opportunity to meditate a bit

on what we expect out of Worship in the first place.

If Prayer is the Heart of Worship,

And Worship is the Heart of the gathered Church

what is it we think is going to happen here?

What kind of Encounter with God do we expect to find?

And if the Encounter we EXPECT

isn’t the ENCOUNTER we get…was it worth it?

will we keep coming back?

I confess that’s a fascinating question to me.

On the one hand, there has to be enough here that is relevant to our lives

that is compatible with our sensibilities

that jives with our worldview

that we can actually experience God

that the story can speak to OUR lives in OUR place in OUR time.

This worship service, conducted in say…Dutch,

would be difficult for most of us,

I think.

Now, God could still move among us.

Certain elements might still grab us: strange hymns maybe most of all

the beauty or the energy of the sermon or the prayers

the taste of the bread and wine on our lips…

But it would be jarring,

and our tendency might be to turn off our vision

and not listen for God’s presence in such a space.

On the other hand, I believe that not everything that happens in church

should make us comfortable

should fit with our expectations

should be the way that we want it to be.

The Presbyterian Outlook published a piece last month,

where the author described what he called the 75 percent rule:[iv]

In our congregation we have something we call the 75% rule.

It goes like this:

When we gather together to worship on Sundays,

everyone should be [completely comfortable]

with no more than 75% of what is happening

during the worship service.

Why such a strange rule?

Because we realize that in our culturally diverse congregation,

if you … comfortable with more than 75%

of what is going on,

it most likely means that your personal … preferences

are being dominantly expressed.

So we’ve decided that no one cultural form

will be dominant and

everyone will be equally [uncomfortable] with the worship!

Now, I’ve sat with this idea for a while, and I’m not fully on board.

I don’t think a quota system helps anyone, really

and I don’t think we ought to be in the business of intentionally being

uncomfortable just for its own sake.

But, I do think that thinking carefully about what makes worship meaningful

what it is we’re seeking, we’re expecting

and being open to not having that fully set yet

well…that opens our hearts and spirits

to GOD’s movement around us

in ways that might surprise us.

///

One problem, I think, is that we think encountering God must be so strange

so bizarre

do disorienting

that we don’t really expect to encounter God at all anyway.

Do we think that an encounter with God has to be

something like what Moses experienced?

In the first reading, you heard the story of God’s encounter with Moses

and it was amazing:

a bush, ablaze and not consumed

and the voice of God striking fear in Moses

and an awareness that he was in the presence of Holy God.

There are all sorts of these vivid images of encountering God in scripture:

visions of hot coals touching tongues

powerful storms and clouds surrounding the people on a mountain

a pillar of fire.

I think this is why some theatrics is exciting in certain forms of worship,

even if other elements that might tune us into God’s story are missing.

But if that’s our standard,

I’m afraid none of us will really expect

to encounter God in our worship services.

If you’ve noticed, there’s been no fire up here this morning

except maybe for these candles.

I don’t have plans to set my robe ablaze

for you to get a feel for what Moses might have been thinking

that fateful day out with his flock.

The truth is: God encounters people all sorts of ways in holy scripture:

these dramatic, firey demonstrations of God’s unique holiness

and the still small voice that can only be heard

in the sound of sheer silence.

God can be encountered anywhere, by anyone, at anytime.

 

So ask yourself: where do you encounter God?

how do you experience God?

I asked my friends on Twitter where they’ve encountered God

and they replied back with some interesting replies:

at a Maclemore concert

on a beach, in moments of tranquility and rest

at a protest march

handing out cards of love and support at a PRIDE march.

with my friend, at her nursing home.

And a few people replied back that they deeply encountered God in worship.

In the friendship of the assembled community.

In the rhythm of the church season.

In the challenge of the gospel.

How is it that you encounter God?

///

A friend shared this story this week:

 

Gracie became a Christian just a year and a half ago.

She grew up without a faith tradition,

found her way in to practicing Buddhism

and ended up at a pastor friend’s church

because she wanted community for her kids and she was curious.

After her first experience in worship, she said,

“We got to the part in the service when the minister says,

‘In Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven,’

and I thought to myself, ‘Can this really be true?

Can it really be true?’

I looked around and people didn’t seem to be have heard.

But this is the BEST news I have ever heard.”

///

As a child, I used to sit in the pews and wonder what all this was all about.

Why some moments were so … dull

and others were so moving.

I knew these stories of scripture that reminded me of the movies

but we never did any of that fun stuff at the churches I grew up in either.

It took me a while to see God at work elsewhere.

I’ve told the story before,

but for me the first awareness was during communion,

when I approached down the center aisle of our church

to the table with the generous gifts of bread and cup

and when I closed my eyes as the community sang a song

and I thought about Jesus, and sacrifice

and selfless love,

and overflowing compassion

and my heart…soared.

Where do YOU experience God?

///

One thing do I ask of the Lord

it is this that I seek—

That I dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life,

to be hold the LORD’s sweetness

and to gaze on His palace.

 

Does everything here, in worship, have to sit with us comfortably?

I hope not.

The Gospel itself is a challenging thing.

It causes us to look into a mirror

and puts forth a vision of what human beings can be like

that is often hard to take:

praying for our enemies

confronting our own sins

speaking truth to power

subordinating my desires

so that someone weaker can be make stronger.

It asks us to get off our behinds and to act in deeds of love and justice.

It asks us to love, to LOVE, our neighbor. And to LOVE ourself.

And sometimes, both can be so so hard.

And if we sit here, only comforted by that…

no wonder we might not expect a Word from the Lord.

But….

If our hearts and our minds are open to it:

here is a chance to hear and be healed by that challenging word

here is an opportunity to experience God’s love and God’s mercy

and God’s quiet comfort.

here is a community that isn’t perfect

but that leans on God’s perfection as it strives to be loving

and compassionate

here … in the house of the Lord

is a place where God can be encountered

in ways that startle us out of complacency

and into new life.

Here, in this very room

God is here. With love, with challenge, with Grace.

So may we be ready for it. May we open our hearts for it.

May we hope for it. May we live for it.

Amen.