Anyone Good

Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1–10, John 1:43–51

Some people find Psalm 139 to be reassuring. Some do not. We have just sung the beginning verses together. How do they strike you?

You have searched me and known me, it says. You know all that I do. You know all the paths I travel. You know all my ways. You know more about me than I do myself. There is nowhere I can go where you are not, no time when you are not with me.

For some, this is comforting. God will find us in the depths of despair and the worst of wickedness. When we are most alone, most frightened, in peril, in captivity—then God will be there with us. Like Jesus with the lost sheep, like a parent with a lost child, God will never leave us alone. God will always search for us and find us. Your hand will lead me, says the psalm.

But for others, this is scary. God pursues us to the ends of the earth. Like a divine stalker, God is always on our case. God is invasive, demanding, and relentless. There is nowhere we can hide. God will never leave us alone. God follows us and hounds us. Your hand will grab me, says the psalm.

The call of God is never altogether welcome. At best, those whom God calls are ambivalent about it. God calls us to adventures and duties that are often perilous, tedious, or just hard. God’s call can disrupt our lives and confuse and antagonize those whom we love. At the same time, God often calls us to a new and better life, one that is more like us (God knowing us better than we know ourselves; says the psalm: even before a word is on our tongues, O Lord, you know it completely)—a life that is more suitable for us than our current lives.

God does call us. We are called through the things of the world. Through wind and ocean, and scripture and friends, and our heart’s response to suffering and injustice. We are called through the hand of the Holy Spirit, nudging and guiding us as if we were walking blind along some rocky trail. And we are called, as Samuel was, by the spoken word of God. Or as Nathanael was, by a direct invitation from Jesus.

God calls us often, I’m convinced. That longing we sometimes feel and the urgings of our consciences are signs of God’s offer. But we hesitate to accept.

We might, as Samuel did, mistake God’s call for something else. The word of God was rare, it says, and visions were not widespread. Why would a voice in the night be God’s voice? Samuel thinks his mentor, his teacher, his master, Eli is calling him. Eli is old and sick; perhaps he needs some help. But Eli sends him away. It was not Eli calling. Does Samuel think, as we might, that perhaps it was a dream, or maybe that Samuel’s concern for Eli made him imagine a voice.

There are a lot of voices competing for our ears, demanding attention and action. And many are compelling and even good. Why should we think that any of them is the voice of God?

God calls Samuel three more times. Three times Samuel is confused. But Eli, older and wiser, knows what is going on. His advice to Samuel is to act as if it was God who was calling, and to listen, and to see what happens next. And thus Samuel hears God, and becomes God’s prophet.

We might think the voice calling us is God’s but deny that it is us whom God is calling. Why would God call a boy like Samuel? When God calls the prophets, they usually think God made a mistake. I’m too tongue-tied, says Moses. I’m too young, says Jeremiah. I’m too wicked, says Isaiah.

We are just ordinary people. Not all that good, not all that compassionate. Too selfish, perhaps; too young, too old, too committed to other paths; too unsettled, too unreliable. Yet people like us are those whom God calls.

Nathanael’s amazement with Jesus is not that Jesus miraculously saw him under a tree (anybody could have seen him there), but that Jesus knew him and perhaps in spite of that invited him to be one of his disciples.

Or we might suspect that it is God who is calling and that it is us whom God calls, but not be eager to respond. Prophets are reluctant for good reason. The rewards of a life obedient to God, while deep and profound, are balanced with the hardships. Samuel has to prophesy against Eli, the disciples meet a bad end. It can be rough. Yet, having heard God calling us, how can we refuse? How will we live knowing that we refused God’s invitation?

Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we especially honor this Monday, had a good life. He thought he’d teach and be a pastor and have a family. He only reluctantly agreed to speak at a rally for Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat sparked the civil rights movement. Nonetheless, he knew that God was calling and calling him in particular. He later said:

“If a man happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right and that which is just, and he refuses to stand up because he wants to live a little longer. . . or he is afraid he will lose his job. . . he may go on and live until he is 80, and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”

God calls us, prophets and disciples, one by one. The call, as it was to Samuel, or to Nathanael—or to Martin Luther King—the call is not some general advice on how to live a good and faithful life. It is particular to you. God has searched us and knows us. We are called by name. Samuel, Samuel—that double naming is Biblical code for God’s calling voice.

A call is an invitation to change something. Something in our heads, or hearts, or lives. In small steps or big ones. In what we do, the way we see things, the effect we might have on the world. To make different decisions than we have been making, and to hope for different things.

We think: there is a voice calling. We think: It is God calling. We think: It is God calling me. We hear our name. We hear an invitation: Come and see. We answer: Here I am, Lord. Speak. I am listening.

The Beginning When

Text: Genesis 1.1
Other texts: Mark 1.1

Let’s begin at the beginning.

Stories which begin at the beginning are not about the past. They are about the present. They are ways of explaining where we are at the moment by trying to figure out how we got here. Stories that start at the beginning are always auspicious. Beginnings are not determined by events of history but by our portrayal of history. The moment which we call a beginning is a choice we make, chosen because it reveals to us the essence of our existence.

“At the beginning of God’s creating …” so begins today’s first reading. Genesis One, chapter One. Or “In the beginning, when …” as a more common translation has it. The story of Genesis is not the story of the absolute beginning of things but of the beginning of ordered creation. The formless void is not nothing. It is merely formless. Chaos, darkness, wind, sweeping over the waters, exist. But unformed. God forms the world from these things, from chaos. Creates boundaries, distinctions between formlessness and form. The form of things that now exist, formed by the hand of God.

It takes time. Time, the passing of the day and night, is created first, out of the light that was extracted from the darkness. Periodicity, habit, predicability are created. Time passes while the world is created. Six days. Each day some things are formed from other things. The things that are formed cooperate with God to create new things. The earth brings forth living creatures, the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures. Let all these things multiply according to their kind. And they do.

This story tells us about our world and about God. It tells us that God has an interest in the forms of things, of their particularity, of the Spirit that breathes life into all of creation. All things live, are creatures. It tells us that by the ticking of time we come into being and, by implication, by it we die. It tells us that the creation is a cooperative process between God and what God has created. Creatures have a hand in the form of the future. Creation is an ongoing process of which we are in some way agents.

And the story tells us that all this is good. Good in the sense of pleasing. And also in the sense of fitting, or harmonious. Creation is a system of appropriate things that are good. And it pleases God that it is so.

None of these things is self-evident. That God cares about the universe and its tiny elements, that God enlists creation to continue creation, and that all this is good. This is not a story that all our culture shares. It is a story that our faith shares, because it fits what we hold to be true. Another way to say it: God is intimately involved with us, we are partners in creation, existence is a blessing. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ. So begins the Gospel of Mark, the earliest written Gospel and which should by rights have been the first book of the New Testament, as Genesis is of the Old. This first verse has no verb, and therefore is the title of Mark’s book—The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ—and could serve as the title of all the books that follow.

Unlike in Matthew or Luke, the story of the life of Jesus in Mark starts when Jesus is a adult. Mark has nothing to say about the birth of Jesus or his ancestry, and unlike John, Mark does not place Jesus in the cosmic scheme of things. Yet Jesus does not come from nothing. He has parents, is raised a Jew, and follows the prophetic tradition established by John the Baptist.

This story at the beginning Mark does not start with the story of Jesus’ life. Rather, it tells the story about how Jesus comes to be—It is not just some news, or the latest news, but good news. Jesus is named here. His identity is establish by the proclamation of John the Baptist, and it is confirmed by the voice, presumably the voice of God, coming from heaven. You are my son, says the voice. I love you. And, the voice adds, I find this pleasing. The creation of the good news of Jesus in Mark echoes the creation of all things in Genesis. God names Jesus and pronounces him—and his work on earth—to be good.

The ministry of Jesus continues the pattern that we have come to expect from God. God is intimately involved with us. God uses us humans in partnership to create or transform the world. And it is all good. This is no more self-evident than is the story of creation in Genesis. We tell the story because, as with creation, we hold its premises to be true. Jesus is neither a hands-off God nor one that acts alone, independently of humans nor one that approaches the world without passion.

The stories in Genesis and Mark are beginnings because they establish for us a foundation of existence. But they are beginnings, not the whole story. Creation and redemption, life and healing, and goodness, are a prolonged, ongoing, and still-continuing event. Our lives are not some winding down of an ancient big push by God and then another little extra nudge by Jesus 2000 years ago. Nor are our lives ethically neutral short-lived animations in an uninterested universe. What we do matters to ourselves, our fellow creatures, to the universe, and to God.

“In the beginning, when …” and “the beginning of …” are just words. They open stories that are remembrances of our origins. But they are more than just nostalgic tales. These stories define us who tell them. We write them down in an important and revered holy book, and we tell them to ourselves over and over, because we need to remind ourselves of who we are.

What we say about ourselves makes a difference in the way we act. It changes our hopes and puts our fears in a particular perspective. It changes how we judge ourselves and judge our plight—how we interpret what happens to us.

The universe is neither indifferent nor pitiless. It is good. We are loved. God is with us.

Praise the Lord, Be at Peace

Text: Psalm 148

Here is a summary of Psalm 148:

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! This means you. Praise the Lord!

Psalm 148 is a psalm of praise. Psalm 148 is one of the five psalms of praise at the end of the book of psalms. The word for praise—alleluia—appears a dozen times in this psalm. Praise is what this psalm is all about.

Everything is called to praise God. Things up above are called to praise God: the heavens and angels. Sun, moon, and stars, the chaos out of which the universe was formed. Things on the earth are called to praise God. Monsters of the deep. Wind, fire, and hail. Mountains, trees, animals. Things that creep and things that fly. All of them. And people are called to praise God. Kings, princes and rulers. Men and women, children, old and young. All people. Joy to the world!

This order of things is not arbitrary. The psalm echoes the story of creation in Genesis. The sky and the waters, separated from chaos; the creation of geography; then living things; then humans. God created all these things. All these things praise God. Praise and creation are related. Praise the Lord!

What is praise? The word is alleluia. The root of the word is the word for “bell.” It means ring out loud and clear. Ring out loud! Ring out clear! Don’t equivocate. Don’t hem and haw. Don’t muddy up what you are saying. When you praise your child for doing something great in school, you are loud and clear. When you praise her or him to your neighbor, same thing. When you praise God, same thing.

The psalm joins together all creation without making distinction between one kind of thing and another. The moon and the fruit trees and the mountains and the cattle all praise God. Kings and commoners, rocks and angels, bugs and birds—all have the same standing before God. Because they are all created, they all give God thanks and praise. It is right to give God thanks and praise.

Praise is not so much an action—though it is partly so, as I’ll talk about in a minute—as it is an orientation, an orientation of existence. It is a way of looking at things, a lens through which one sees the world. Is the world praise-worthy? Do we see it as a bunch of inert rock and bone? Or do we see the world as something that invites us to praise it? Abraham Joshua Heschel, an awesome theologian, wrote “It is so embarrassing to live! How strange we are in the world, and how presumptuous our doings! Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned rights to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.” This world calls us forward to praise it.

How do the mountains and the fire praise God? They are mute, so we think. What do they share with kings and children with which this psalm groups them? They fill us with wonder, but having neither motion nor mouths, they cannot wave their hands and sing. What they have in common with us is that they exist. They are creations of God—back to Genesis. Created before us, even. They praise God by being mountains, by existing. By doing what God created them to do.

In the same way, do we praise God. When we conform to the way God hoped—hopes—us to be—that is one way to praise God. Praising God is a way to be, and a way of being, in sync with God. It is not a coincidence that the psalm echoes Genesis. Praise and existence are tied together. We are created, it seems, in order to praise God. Or perhaps we can say that we are created as creatures that praise.

Praise is a way to align ourselves with God. When we are praising God, we are in alignment with God. When we are in alignment with God, we are praising God. Praise is therefore a way—the way, if you believe the psalm—the way to contentment. A way of being at peace. Removing things that encumber us, not battling everything, letting things go that impede us, the things that drive us crazy. Besides being good for us and making us feel great, it is and loud and clear message to others. The message says: this is a way—or the best way, if you want—to the good life.

Unlike mountains, though, we do have motion and mouths. So we can do and say things that are praising. Mouthing words and going through the motions are not the same as praising God, but practically speaking they are good first steps. As with many things about us and God, doing stuff often is the path to knowing, believing, feeling, and loving. And praising.

When we praise, we stand in both gratitude and obedience. This helps us figure out what we can do and say. What someone called the vocation of praise.

For starters, invoke God. That is, call on God. When you pray, address God, just like you would start a conversation with a friend. This acknowledges God’s existence and also—more importantly—God’s interest in you.

Then, first, be grateful. Thank God. Make a list of things you are thankful for. Thank God for them. Put them in a book, or keep a journal online, or say a prayer of thanks each day. Theologically, this acknowledges that we are creatures and owe our existence to God. Psychologically, this helps us focus on what’s good in our lives and not so much on what is not so good at the moment.

And second, be obedient. Try to do what God guides us to do. I admit it is not always clear, but it usually is. Hear God in scripture, worship, hymns, and in your own prayers. Theologically, this acknowledges that we trust God for guidance. Practically, this is a good way to decide what to do. What would Jesus have us do? Imagine turning to Jesus and saying, “So, Jesus, what do you think about this thing I’m planning to do?” Pay attention to what your heart (or spirit, or Jesus) says when you ask this. Or remember what Moses advised the Israelites about choosing life. Ask yourself: “Is this thing I’m planning to do choosing life or is it choosing death?”

Finally, and perhaps most important, do this all in a community of faith. Practically, this is makes what can be a difficult task simpler, more pleasant, or even possible. It is not always easy to be grateful, obedient, or in conversation with God. Sometimes it seems that God is far away. Sometimes things are going so badly that they overwhelm our ability to even say thanks without feel hypocritical. Sometimes we can’t figure out what choice is life-giving. Other people can help. Both generally, as in worship and fellowship. And specifically, in conversation with people who probably are going through the same thing as you. And theologically, this psalm has everyone praising God together. When you cannot praise God, someone—or some thing else, like a mountain or fire—will be praising God anyway. All—another word that is used a lot in the psalm—all will be praising God. Even if you cannot at the moment.

Here is a summary of the Gospel reading for today: Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! When Simeon saw Jesus, he took the baby in his arms and praised God. And when Anna laid her eyes on Jesus, she began to praise God and to tell everyone about him. She spoke loudly and clearly, we can imagine. For them, and for many, the birth of Jesus gave them hope and reminded them of their call to and their ability to praise God.

As the life and teachings of Jesus continue to remind us. The church is the steward or caretaker of a community that praises God. It is a job of the church to nurture gratitude and obedience to God. It is the job of the community of Christians to support followers of Jesus in a life of praise.

Praise the Lord!