What a world we now live in.
At age 90 my parents have and are using their iPad. It helps that my sister has some remote
access. With their granddaughter, our
niece headed to a far away county this offers a way to stay in touch. Information shared around the world is
phenomenal. You can learn just about
anything on the internet. Never in the
history of the world, have we known so much.
Yet, wisdom, in many cases, may be at its lowest point.
Jim Koelliker sent me a photo and caption this week. It shows a two year old with his hair all
messed up and his eyes closed and talking on the phone. The little child is saying….”No, grandma,
double click on the Chrome icon.” Jim titled
the photo as Tech Support. Brandy Webb
and my son give me weekly guidance on how to use my computer. Thank God!
One of the things that the church offers the world is a
godly wisdom and goodness. That is our
hope. If we can do that—and I think we
do—it is because God is here and blesses us.
Wisdom based in faith, is a knowing guided by biblical values. It draws on the best from the past to guide
us into God’s future. It is driven by
the belief that we can know what God wants from us, from our church, from the
world. For example, God wants kindness
and justice.
In this world of information, we need wisdom and the world
really needs wisdom. The Church offers
wisdom and love to a world need them greatly.
God has shaped this church into an inter-generational family where God dwells
in goodness. God blesses us over and
over and over with goodness and wisdom.
We then we offer this to the world.
I invite us today to celebrate this gift.
I can remember a few
years ago when Clint Easterday was one who loved skateboarding. And I remember how skateboard parks were
created to give a place for riders to be instead of on the sidewalks. Now there is a conflict arising between
skateboarders and younger boys riding kick scooters. As in California, police are being called in
to remove the scooter people because the law says it is for skaters. Do unto others…has been thrown out. What about sharing and taking turns. See how the world needs wisdom.
Here are four things that God has created here and today’s
scripture reflects all of these.
EVERYONE
NEEDS GUIDANCE
EVERYONE
NEEDS THOUGHTFUL SELF-CRITICISM
PRAYER IS A
GREAT RESOURCE
GOD OFFERS
TRUTH BEYOND WHAT WE COULD ARRIVE AT ALONE
We
all have a danger of trying to fit God into our understanding.
God
is asking us to fit our thinking into God’s will.
A GREAT PSALM TO PRAISE GOD AND A MEMORY HELP BUILT IN
When the youth planned its year programs it laid out the
alphabet….what program begins with the letter “A,” then “B.” And that is how they did the whole year. This psalm does the same thing….it uses the
letters of the Hebrew alphabet and has been created for public worship, not so
much private prayer. It tells about the
nature of God and what God has done. If
you turn one more Psalm you will find that Psalm 112 is the pattern but is
about a faithful person who responds to the glories of God like in Psalm 111.
I also wrote the opening prayer with the help of the Tuesday
a.m. Bible Study, they did the same with A,B,C…all the way through the English
alphabet.
INVITE PEOPLE TO USE IT AS A PUZZLE…CIRCLING THE LETTERS.
There are so many reasons for praise, many ways of praise,
countless places of praise.
IN GOD’S CREATION
I hope you had a chance this summer to see some new place in
God’s creation. I will never forget my first
look into the Grand Canyon…there were no words possible to express my thoughts
and feelings and experience. One person
wrote about the Grand Canyon: ”I felt God had set it there to prompt our awe
and wonder. Just to see what God has
created makes my heart rejoice.”
At the rim of the canyon there is now a giant glass bottom
walkway that thrills visitors. Penny is
certain that she could not praise God out on that Skywalk, 4,000 feet above the
river.
Penny and continually drawn to the ocean…just to be there
walking along the shore brings us a closeness.
And the Oregon Coast is one of the most beautiful places we have
visited.
And if you cannot travel visit the Sunset Zoo and the Flint
Hills Discovery Center.
TRAVELING TO NEW PLACES AND MEETING NEW PEOPLE
On the second Thursday of October, you are invited to come
hear Mary Ann and Forrest Buhler tell about the recent trip they made with the
Manhattan Masterworks Chorale. They
visited Italy and The Czech Republic.
The group got to sing in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
PRAISING GOD IN THE MIDST OF WORSHIP
Praising God alone is good but it is even better when it is
shared in worship. Our Open Door Sunday
School class is studying the Psalms. It
is so good to offer praise to God with others.
Praising God in the middle of a congregation of people who share the
same beliefs is a long-tested way of getting closer to God. And some days I need help praising God.
I PRAISE GOD MOST FOR WHAT I SEE HAPPENING IN PEOPLE’S LIVES
Even more than all the most beautiful places on the planet,
it is even more the work of God in the lives of people that makes me
rejoice. We praise God because divine
goodness lasts forever. “Righteous” in
this psalm is a feminine form meaning the power of love to re-create lives. This happens here at College Avenue.
THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM
Over and over the word fear takes away from the meaning the
Biblical writers intended. One man I
know, explained it this way. “I feared
my dad because of the things he did to us kids.
It has been my greatest hopes that my son never has that feeling around
me.”
The fear referred to in this Psalm is not that definition of
fear. Fear here means respect, awe,
reverence. I think the only fear we
might have is the fear we would disappoint God.
I hope you have given up the idea of being a “sinner in the
hands of an angry, vengeful God…imagining a vengeful God eager to send people
to hell.
This Psalm presents a loving God providing food, creating
community, giving guidance and laws to hold our lives on track. All of this comes from God’s goodness.
God’s goodness means a whole new way of life for
people. God keeps promises to be just
and forgiving. They reveal God’s plan
for a whole new way of life for his people.
We can see lives changed from self-centeredness to lives of
self-sacrifice and compassion. This Psalm is about what God is doing to show
us the heart of God.
THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS WISDOM
Wisdom is more than intelligence. Wisdom is the careful and prayerful use of
knowledge to live the purposes of God.
It is to accept the guidance given us by God with grace and gratitude,
and then to practice it, not just talk about it. Biblical wisdom is a practical thing.
It means understanding how to live, that is, find out what
God wants from us and doing just that.
It means making this work here and now the real world in which God’s
love and compassion are at work. It
means learning how to be a artisan of faithful living as guided by the Holy
Spirit.
One of the most precious resource we have is water. The terrible drought we are in reminds us how
dependent everything is on water. In the
scriptures water is a symbol used for the Holy Spirit…living water.
God provides the Holy Spirit, the source of spiritual
blessing. The church is at best a
container for the Holy Spirit. The water
represents the spirit. It is possible
for a person to receive the Holy Spirit without a glass, or without the
church. But in my experience it has been
the Church that helps me keep in touch with the Spirit. Without a glass it is much harder to drink
the water.
Worst of all the institution can believe that it is alone
has access to the water. That is when
things go sour. Those institutions either
have lost the water they think they have or the water in them has turned
bad.
Every religion has great teachings. Every religion has strayed from those great
teachings. 9/11 shattered our feeling of
safety and revealed big gaps in our interfaith awareness. USA realized that it knew little of Islam and
the media demonized Muslims and made them into terrorists.
The teachings of Jesus that emphasize unconditional love
point to a Oneness that is the exact opposite of exclusivity. As a Jewish Rabbi, Jesus’s sense of oneness
was central to his teachings. Without
conditions, love has no boundaries, no reason to fence itself off, no need to
feel superior, and not need to draw community barriers.
I think it is a false sense of superiority that both individuals
and groups have is created by the conditions of love. When we say, “We are better than they
are,” we are saying that we love
ourselves more than we love others, because we believe we are more worthy of
love. From our spiritual point of view,
we are all God’s children. We share an
equal sense of worth, a worth with enormous positive value. Unconditional love erases those boundaries by
affirming that there is no need to define our values as superior. Thank God for this place of wisdom.
Prayer
Thank you, God for the privilege of praising you here. May your Holy Spirit renew us with worship
and learning. Keep us in awe and
reverence toward you. That will carry us
a long ways toward wisdom. May we praise
you with singing and prayers and play together.
Amen.
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