This Little Light of Mine

This Little Light of Mine

This Little Light of Mine
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

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Audio from worship at the 10 AM Worship Service December 29, 2024
at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Carson City

edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.

  John 1:1-18

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Akron, Ohio, my hometown, has a Main Street that follows the river.  It was a river, and then it was a canal, and then it was road. Then came a flood, and then became a river again because you’ll have that.  Goes through – Main Street goes through the lowest part of town because that’s where the river was.  That’s where commerce was.  That’s where the canal was.  And so Main Street goes right like this all the way through town, and it’s the lowest part of town.  Over here we have Goodyear Heights.  And it’s high.  It goes right up.  It’s like in the middle of the valley.  Goodyear Heights is over here.  That’s where the factories are.  That’s where the rubber was made, the smokestacks, the work crews, all are up here.  And it’s high.  It is high up.  And in the space of about a mile or two, 10 blocks, you can see it.  It goes down to Main Street, and then it goes up to the outside.

 

The outside is West Hill.  West Hill’s on the other side of Main Street.  Market connects the two.  You could, up at West Hill, you can see, and see the whole town.  West Hill was where all the rich people lived, the factory owners, the management, because, you know, smoke was all over there, and in the valley it didn’t get up to West Hill.  So that’s where West Hill was.

 

Now, my family, my grandma, grandpa, and my brother, my uncle, good people, they were the factory people.  They lived over here on the East Side, on Goodyear Heights.  And over here is where we moved on up, you know, like that song, “Movin’ On Up” to the West Side.  So we moved over here.  So we were constantly going from the West Hill down the valley on Market.  [Indiscernible] to go visit the family and connect up in church and all that.  And so we did that a lot.  At one time, I don’t know, late ‘60s probably, we were just at the crest of West Hill where we could see the entire traffic of Akron.  We could see Main Street going along the canal.  We could see Market Street.  And Market, busy, busy throughfare.

 

And I remember one day we were at the crest of the hill, looking down, and we stopped.  We pulled over to the side of the road.  And I looked, and all through Market Street, 10, 20 blocks, down to Main Street and back up, traffic was frozen.  Everything was moved up to the side of the road and stopped.  I thought, well, that’s odd.  But then I looked, and I saw the flashing lights of a fire engine coming down Market Street.  And everybody had stopped and got out of the way and made way for those flashing lights.

 

Fast-forward 30 years, and some of you here know what that’s like.  You know, you turn around, suddenly it’s 30 years later?  Thirty years later I’m driving those flashing lights on the fire engine, faking it till I make it because no one else would get in the seat, so I did.  I’m driving.  And I’m learning about flashing lights and about fire department. 

 

They tell me, you know, you’re not allowed to go through red lights in a fire truck in Ohio.  It’s against the law.  You know you don’t have the right of way in Ohio with the flashing lights and sirens.  All that is, is a request for the right of way.  All that light and shining big red truck is just saying, please, please let us go by.  It’s just please, it’s just a request.  And we are responsible as firefighters to be driving with due regard as opposed to the rest of the people that have reasonable care.  They just have to be reasonable.  We’ve got to have due regard.

 

And so they don’t have to get out of the way.  They can just go on with their life.  They can ignore the light.  You know, that light says someone’s in trouble.  Someone needs help now.  Could you move out of the way?  Could you stop just a moment thinking of yourself and of where you’re going and what you need to do?  Can you stop, give way, so somebody else could get the help they need?  It’s just an ask.

 

And I was new guy there, even though I was older than most of those guys.  Oh, that was not – they were very kind to me, you know.  But, yeah, on the training events, you know, where they did training, they assigned me the role of “guy who died.”  And so they would put me out in a field, and they’d come rescue me so I could just, you know, relax, kind of chillin’.

 

So, but, you know, I try to measure my questions.  You’ve been in a new job, you don’t ask every question the first day.  I mean, that’s just annoying.  You know, you just try to get what you need to get through the day.  But there was this one thing, right here in the firehouse garage, right back here, you know, seven feet up, or eight, I don’t know, right here.  There was, you know, one of those old metal box light switches like you’ve got in a garage.  It was rusty.  You remember those things?  The conduit came down, it wasn’t pretty.  And it was a switch, and there was this old, yellow, brown, moldy paper curled up over it, and you could just make out it said this, in big block letters:  “DO NOT USE.”  Don’t you want to?  Don’t you want to?

 

So I asked one of the old guys, I said, “Hey, what is that?  Roger, Roger, what’s with that switch?”  He goes, “Oh, that switch.  That switch turns every traffic light in town red.”  I go, oh.  “But we don’t use that anymore.”  Yeah, yeah, I saw the sign, yeah.  He goes, “Yeah, the right turn on red, nobody stops anymore.”  No one follows the lights.  They just keep moving.  Christ the light of the world came into the world.  And what does light do?  Light shows you there’s other people beside yourself.  Light can show you, reveal that there’s more people than just you here.  And sometimes, yes, sometimes those people need help that you don’t need, but they need.

You know, when I think back at that time in Akron, that really impressed me, to see all the traffic in the city stopped because some stranger somewhere was in trouble, and everyone agreed that that traffic mattered.  Not all traffic mattered.  That traffic mattered because they needed help.  And because they were in trouble, and because they were hurting, we could step by and allow them to get the help they need.

 

I had a hard time with the sermon today because you know I’m going to be political.  You know what the difference between political is for – political is other people.  When it affects me, that’s morality.  That’s important.  When it affects other people, well, that’s politics.  I don’t have to worry about that.  Don’t talk or bother me about it.  I only want to talk about me, me, me.  That’s morality.  That’s right and wrong.  Did you know that fire trucks and fire engines and fire departments used to be politics? Fire insurance the politics in that.

 

Because you see, back in the day, I know it’s hard to imagine, but see if you can wrap your heads around this concept, that lifesaving care of the fire department was dependent on insurance companies.  I know, who would have thought such a thing?  If you did not have insurance, your house burned down.  You could die.  Your possessions were gone.  If you didn’t have any a fire insurance mark.  Such a thing shouldn’t exist.  If you go to some old fire departments, maybe even here in Carson, you can see what they called fire insurance marks, a metal plaque. 

What they were, they were these big metal plates, usually some kind of star shape, was fastened on the front of the house displaying which insurance company the fire department covered for this house.  And if you didn’t pay your money, you didn’t get signed up during open enrollment, had a pre-existing conditions, you can’t pay the fire department at the fire.  They’ll come for the fire, would put out your neighbor’s fire that had insurance, but you just burned down.  You could be out there crying, offering to pay.  No.  No, you didn’t buy the insurance.  You just burned down.  That’s the way it is.  That’s the way it is.  That’s fair.  That’s law.  That’s the rules.  That’s the way it is.  Back then there’s no other way to imagine.

 

Luckily, we thought that was silly.  We thought that was immoral.  We thought people that were in trouble, people that were going to go bankrupt, people that were facing financial ruin from fire’s destruction, we think, no, that will not be dependent on whether or not they paid their insurance premium.  They’re our neighbors everybody here needs to be safe, regardless, so their house doesn’t burning down from a neighbors fire, or if they’re not safe, at least there’s help on the way.  And we’re not going to check the insurance rolls and get preauthorized approval before we put wet stuff on the red stuff.  No matter who you were, no matter what your morals were, no matter where you were in the country.

 

When I was on the fire department, if you were in trouble, we came, and we did all we could to save your life and your property.  We came with those lights that showed that there’s other people in the world that need help, that there’s other traffic that mattered.  Those lights that showed that there are some people hurting. 

 

Can you please just get out of the way and let us help them?

 

I don’t know what’s coming up.  No one knows what’s coming up.  But I’m going to say there’s going to be a lot of fights over light.  Over light.  We’re not the light.  We’re not Jesus Christ.  We’re not the light of the world.  We bear witness to the light.  We say Lord Jesus Christ comes to bring light to the world.  Everyone.  We’re not going to keep things in the dark because that’s not what our Christ says.  Our Christ is the light of the world, not the dark of the world.

 

So when people said, we’re not going to report maternity deaths anymore, we’re not going to report them, we’re going to put them under the dark, we’re going to [indiscernible] light of the world.  We want to know about those people.  We want to know if they need help.  We want to turn on the light and go to them if they need it with sirens blazing, no matter who they are, [indiscernible] been, what the color of their skin is, what their nationality is, how much their income is, what their employment status.  Turn on the lights.  Christ is the light of the world, and we don’t abide by keeping people in the dark.

 

I’ve only been in the ministry for 40 years.  I can remember, I remember when there was a school shooting, everything stopped.  We had special church services, and we had special prayers, and we knew the names, and we said the names, and we prayed for the people.  We even wrote, in one church I had, to the people that were there.  And I also remember that a church I was in, when someone stood up a couple years later to pray for the latest school shooting, and the leader says we can’t pray for that.  That happens all the time.  It’s not special.  The number one killer of children in America, our country, is gun violence.  Number one.  If anyone from a foreign country or any other force came and killed our children like guns are, we would stop it the next day.  But it’s in the dark.

 

Did you know it’s illegal for Congress to spend money to study gun violence as a health issue?  It’s not allowed.  Keep that stuff in the dark.  We’re not people of the dark.  We’re people of the light.  And we say the light comes to everyone of the world, not just some people in the world.  It comes to all.  It’s right there in John.  We read it today.  We believe it.  We’re the ones that are going to come out and say, oh, no.  We follow the light of the world.  You’re not going to cover up all these things in the dark.  We’re here to tell you.  And if someone needs help, we’re at least going to get out of the way.  And we might even be on that truck with lights and sirens.  Get out of our way.  We’re helping people that need help.  And no, we’re not checking their insurance cards.  That’s what it means when the light of the world comes into the world.

 

Now, it’s not without controversy and upsets and changing this back to the way things were, you know, and that’s it.  That’s the only thing that can happen.  Not even from other Christians.  Have you heard about Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps?  They’ve kind of not been around as much.  But it used to be a big thing.  They’d go to funerals and protest and curse people at funerals of veterans, and veterans coming home.  They go to churches and demonstrate.  They go everywhere and demonstrate and make things about how terrible and awful the people were who were trying to go to a funeral or trying to have a service.

 

They went to Chicago to the Trinity UCC Church, who are unashamedly Christian and magnificently black [indiscernible], that’s their motto up there.  Trinity UCC Church, a great history.  And Dr. Morris was there, and Moss was there, and comes to church.  I don’t know if he walked the labyrinth before church, or maybe they gave him a key, I don’t know.  Could happen.  But he was there early, and they were there, Westboro Baptist Church, cursing people going to church, calling them horrible awful names.  Imagine, if you will, coming to church, coming to the official church, and it’s kids, it’s old ladies and good people and maybe some people that are hurting.  Who knows? 

 

People come to church when they’re hurting, sure.  And they get cursed at.  They get damned.  They get yelled at on the way.  And Dr. Moss, like a lot of good pastors do in big churches, went to the choir because that’s where you go because you know the choir, they’re kind of the zealous of the church.  If you had a choir, you would know this.  Don’t be messin’ with the choir.  You know.  These are the shock troops of the church.  And he went to the choir, and they had a hundred people in the choir, robed choir, hundred people.  They rocked and rolled it.

And he told them there’s people out there cursing our people coming into church.  They’re cursing the small children, the little children.  They’re yelling at the old ladies.  They’re making things – they’re going through hell, and they need protection.  They need help.  I want you to go out there.  I want you to robe up.  And I want you to go out there, and I want you to sing so loud that they cannot hear those curses.  I want you to sing so loud that they come in to praises and not to curses.  I want you to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine.

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna let it shine.

This little light of mine,

I’m gonna to let it shine,

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

 

And they sang that song and overwhelmed the chants, and people coming to church were protected.  People that were vulnerable were shielded from the hate and from the awfulness that was there.  And they didn’t just do it and ignore the people that were saying the curses and the things.  They offered to pray for them.  And when they were turned down, you don’t get in the way of the choir.  When they were turned down, the choir went ahead and prayed for them anyway, right there out in front, so it was in the midst of the cursing and the damnations and the awfulness and the racial things was prayer and praise.  That’s light.  That’s light.

 

When someone’s hurting, when someone’s vulnerable, when someone’s being attacked, the people of the light are there.  It could be a choir singing “This Little Light of Mine.”  It could be people on the fire truck with lights and sirens.  It could be people in the courtroom saying we want to know how the health of our mothers are doing and whether what we’re doing is killing them.  We want to know what’s going on in our schools and our children and are they safe, and what’s going on with that?  Why do they die so much, and no other nation has this trouble?  Don’t sweep it under the rug.  Shine the little light on it.  We’re going to be light shiners.  We’re going to be looking for those that are in the dark and bring them into the light and say we are here to help you.

 

You don’t have to.  You don’t have to give out the right of way.  But man, it’s great when we can look out for one another and refuse to accept a city that’s on fire because someone didn’t pay their insurance, because someone didn’t have the right placard up.  We said no, we’re not going to let you lose everything and die because you didn’t pay the insurance premium.  You know, that’s one step away from “A nice little house you got here.  Too bad if anything would happen to it.”  Little protection money over there.

 

Friends, we can be different.  John says the world is different because Jesus Christ came into the world.  The light came into the world, and darkness fled.  Let us be the little light.  Let us be the light that helps those that are in the dark and are hurting.  Amen.

This Little Light of Mine

Get In The Picture

Mary Lu Ramsey  

July 12, 1937 – December 27, 2016

Who here is NOT in a Mary Lu photo? Not so fast. She had 5,000 on flickr and many more waiting to be photoshopped: lighting corrected, wrinkles ironed out, beards evened up, bodies smoothed, red-eyes removed, basically making us look to all as only someone who loves us dearly sees us.

What do you say to all this? Not just to the unstoppable love of God, that Tom read from Romans but to that obituary on the back of the bulletin? She wrote it. What a wonderful life.

• Sister, student, spouse,
• artist, activist, advocate,
• teacher, tutor, tech,
• professor, photographer, presbyter,
• musician, moderator, mom

and grandmom. Grand indeed.

Like, Tom, I have a favorite version of Romans 8. I like the alternate translation found in a footnote of the New International Version for verse 28. And we know that in all things God works together with those who love him to bring about what is good. God is the subject not things in this translation, and there is a partnership with those who love him to make all things good. I commend to you this understanding rather than the fake good news that somehow bad begets good, pain produces progress, or sadness is the seed of joy all by themselves like God was an cosmic insurance adjuster reacting to evil by making us whole again after damage and injury, paying us back so we can go shopping for new and better goods.

Instead, this reading matches up with the rest of the reading of God’s action in the world and our lives. And, it points out that how those that love God back, join God in loving the world into the good, a vast angel wing conspiracy for bring good into the world.

Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was a Presbyterian Minister who was ordained for children’s ministry on television. He was asked about how parents and teachers can help children deal with the horrors natural and human made that beam out for our screens. He shared what his mother did for him. She told him to look for the helpers. For the firefighters, rescue workers, medics, ordinary people who turn from their own sorrow to ease the suffering of others. Don’t focus on the chaos and destruction,  Look for the helpers, look for the helpers.

Speaking of helpers, my brothers Tom and Tim are here. They stepped up when needed. As always; as our parents did and taught us to do. There is one brother not here in body, Ric. Ric had a challenging life. Struggling with learning disabilities that made parenting and teaching him a struggle. How to behave, how to learn, how to read, things that came easy to his parents, things his brothers did well for the most part, were to him mysteries difficult to grasp, and he was difficult.

Did you read that after Ric was born, Mom went on from college to get her Master in Education with reading specialization, started as a part-time tutor for children with learning disabilities, which lead to a career teaching children who struggled with school how to read and learn. At the end she passed on her knowledge to another generation of teachers so they can give the help she struggled to find for her son Ric. Along the way she was a lifelong advocate for children with learning disabilities, strongly supporting Akron Area Association for Children with Learning Disabilities throughout her life, other than family, they were the last group she hosted in her home late this year, the aging activists she called the group. Did you see what she said about her education and training helping children with learning disabilities “her best teachers were her children”. Ric mostly I imagine. Mom was subtle like that, unlike her son who she NAMED JOHN.

I’m not telling you that all sadness and difficulty can be overcome, swept away, made all better. You know better. In fact, on the day she said everything went wrong, Ric, overwhelmed with life stopped struggling in this life and left it. Yet even in that horror we see Mom’s hope and work for the good and the better. We see Mom at Compassionate Friends helping others get through the hell of losing a child, giving the help she needed to others. Joining in with them in that vast angel wing conspiracy working for good with God. Look for the helpers when everything goes wrong, for the last 79 years you would most likely see Mary Lu…helping.

In 1907 a pastor, William Watkinson, wrote “it is Better to light a candle than curse the darkness”. A candle? In this and many other dark areas of life, Mary Lu was fireworks.

About those thousands of photos. When she was limited in what she could do, when breath was a struggle, she still wanted to photoshop, when she could not get to her desktop computer these last days her concern was not so much being bed ridden but that her notebook didn’t have photoshop on it.

Sorry Mom. I didn’t understand about those photoshopped photos. At the last when she couldn’t do all the good in the world she wanted, she turned to bringing the good out of even the most evil of photographs. Teasing beauty out of blandness, illuminating darkness, smoothing the rough edges in faces and bodies left by life’s struggles. Doing in photos what she did in life. Working for good in all things. Making the world a better place for those around her. Being the helper good people looked for.

When we look with fondness at all Mary Lu gave for children, church, and community, we remember the great gift given by God in Jesus Christ, who left heaven and came to us to show us how to live and die for others, as a servant for others. Because of his great gift, Mary Lu and we have life eternal.

Even though we know God’s power and love make Mary Lu as real and present to God as she ever was to us in this life. We still hurt, we groan inside too deep for words at her absence from our human senses. I have no prayers to answer the questions or fill in the blanks left by Mary Lu’s passing, we have to rely on God’s spirit to bridge that gap between the twin realities our aching loss and God’s amazing grace. For I cannot take away the pain that you feel at Mary Lu’s passing. For love and grief are different sides of the same coin, they are joined in this life, the only way to not receive grief is to reject the gift of love. Even Jesus wept at the passing of his friend, Lazarus. When we lose someone we love we grieve. So to deliver you from the grief you feel I would have to eliminate the love that you have for Mary Lu. You wouldn’t want me to do that even if I could. But what I can tell you that Mary Lu is at rest, free from the weakness of disease, and she is at home with the Lord, breathing easy.

Don’t let the grief of her passing end the spirit of kindness and helpfulness that Mary Lu embodied. Instead hold on that kindness, and honor her and Christ by joining with God bringing good, being a part of that vast angel wing conspiracy when folks look for the helpers, may they see you in that picture.

Granddaughter Rachel Ramsey had her own message.

Easy on the Eyes

This recorded sermon is from 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 given at Goodyear Heights Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio, on June 17, 2012. See as God sees, not as mortals see.

The following is a transcript of the live no-notes presentation flawlessly prepared by eDigitalTranscription.com. All errors are mine own. The recording is downloadable here.

“She’s a looker.” “He’s easy on the eyes.” You ever heard these expressions? These expressions are right here in our scriptures today. One of the expressions, when David comes, one of the ways to translate that is that David was easy on the eyes. Do you judge by outward appearances? By look? You can’t help but do it. You can’t help but look. It’s almost genetic that we look at someone, and we size them up by how they look, their appearance, whether they’re comely or good-looking or tall or thin or all that. Sometimes we don’t even realize it.

When I came back to Akron, I needed a doctor. Turns out that my doctor was no longer there after 30-some years away. And so I thought, I know what I’ll do. I’ll ask a nurse. Nurses know. They know who are good doctors. So I went and asked nurses. And I said, “Hey, who is the best doctor?” And they looked at one another, and they said, “Well, Dr. [Shanafelt] or Dr. [Fantelli]. Yes, yes, definitely Dr. Shanafelt or Dr. Fantelli. It’s hard to tell. One of those two.” And the other one’s, “Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, those two. Those two, definitely those two.” So I said, “Oh, that’s great. That’s great. Where are they?” “Well, they’re both out in Tallmadge.” Okay, great.

So I went out, signed up. Shanafelt was out. I had Fantelli. I said, well, they said either one was good. Fine, got along great, start going to the doctor. And months later, your intrepid pastor says to the nurses, “Hey, thanks for that recommendation for Dr. Fantelli. I’ve gone out there and really like him.” And the nurse says, “Yeah. He’s dreamy.” They didn’t know I was asking about a doctor to go to for doctoring. They thought I was asking who was the “best” doctor. He is quite a handsome man. And at the time he was single. He’s getting married soon. The difference between looking and seeing. I was looking for a doctor. They were looking at the outward appearance.

The Lord doesn’t see as mortals see. Did you see the changes? That’s actually a change in verbs in the Hebrew about between looking and seeing, looking on the outward appearance and then seeing what’s really there. You ever wonder that, boy, that was a long reading. Why didn’t God just tell Samuel, “Hey, Samuel, got a job for you. Go on down to Bethlehem, check out Jesse, he’s got a son David, probably out with the sheep. Anoint him king. We’re good to go.” You know, like 10 verses gone. Why didn’t he just do that?

Instead, there’s good old Sam, you know, sitting by the fire. Who knew he had eight sons? Geez, seven’s perfect. And so one after another they come by. One after another, Sam is looking and saying, “What am I doing here? Lord, nope, no. What is this guessing game? Just tell me which one it is.” The Lord never tells him to go get David. He has to see it for himself. Finally, in this little drama, in this pageant, if you will, of men walking by, I can imagine – what do you think? Was there a swimsuit competition, you think? I don’t know back then. What would they do? He now he goes, “And what would you do, your fondest wish for the world?” And then he goes, “Oh, no, not that one.”

But after all the pageant was done, and after the judges had put in their – imagine, if you will, the pageant is done. Everyone’s gone. And then the judges come back and say, none of these. No one. You got anybody in the back? Samuel finally sees beyond what he looks at. He’s looking at seven sons, a perfect number, well suited to be kings. And God says, you know, looking’s not enough. You’ve got to see more than what you can look at. And it occurs to him, maybe there’s something here I’m not seeing. More than what I can look at. And he turns to Jesse and says, “Am I seeing everything? Is there another son? I don’t know.” “Oh, yeah, I’ve got another son. He’s out there getting the sheep.” “Bring him here.” And God says, “You got it. You got it.”

Remember that grief, that sadness you were with Saul? You know, imagine Samuel’s got to be so sad. I mean, he was rejected as a judge. You know, they didn’t want him anymore. He was old. They actually came out and said, “You’re old. You’re old. We don’t want you no more.” How many here like to hear that? Okay, I’m saying no, none. And then they said, here on Father’s Day, last week they said, “Your sons are no good.” And it really hurt because they weren’t any good. “Yo, your sons are no good. We want a king.” Sammy did everything he could. Even argued, drug his feet against God to not get him a king. They made him get a king. He got a king.

And just as he said, king screwed up. Big screw up. Horrible screw up. Didn’t do what God says. He’s constantly after Saul, yelling at him all the time. And Saul, Saul doesn’t even care. Saul less than cares. So imagine, if you will, he comes in, he goes da da da da da, and Saul basically says, “What’s the big deal? What’s the big deal?” When you’re a prophet, you like to be a big deal. And Saul’s saying, “God, get away from me. You bother me. I’m doing okay.” Saul. You think Saul was such a bad king, even God was sorry he made him king. That’s pretty bad.

Imagine how sad Samuel was at the way his life had turned out. He’s too old. He’s thrown out. Didn’t even get a decent retirement party, no severance, nothing like that. His sons are a disappointment or a scandal, and everybody knows it. The king, the one maybe thing that he had going for him, that he got the king going, he didn’t want to do. He thought it was a bad idea, and it turned out to be a bad idea. Did anybody come back and say, “Hey, Samuel, you were right, that was a really bad idea to do a King Saul. You were right. I should have listened to you?” No, nothing. They were too busy out partying.

He must have thought he was a failure. And not only that, he must have thought God’s plan was running toward ruin. And for that God comes to him and says, “Quit your bellyaching, quit your sadness, get out of the dumps, get out of bed, take a trip, go to Bethlehem. I’ve got things for you to do.” “What are we going to do? Just tell me.” “No, you’ve got to go do it. Go. You have to go find out. I’m doing more than you’re looking at. You have to see that there’s more than what is just the appearance.”

You have to see that, just because you look out and you see nothing that God has chosen, that somewhere out in the hills, tending sheep, is a shepherd boy that will be king, that will be the father of the savior, Jesus Christ. It’s here that the lineage shifts, where the kingdoms come in, where you pick up the line of David that eventually will get us to Jesus Christ of the House of David from Bethlehem. God was doing a great thing. Samuel couldn’t see it because he wasn’t looking in the right place.

Our scripture from Mark today talks about the kingdom of God like that. And when we think about kingdom, unfortunately we think about border guards and about places on the map and about drawing the boundaries. And we talk and we think more about political and economic subdivisions, and we talk more about the reign of God. Maybe a better translation of the kingdom of God is the reign of God. Remember the Lord’s Prayer. It says “Thy kingdom come,” and then right after, “Thy will be done.” Remember, Hebrew likes to be paralleled, say the same thing twice, different ways. Where’s God’s kingdom? Where is it? Can we go there? Can we take a vacation? Can we get a trip ticket to that? The kingdom of God is where God’s will is done.

So if you’re looking around, and you’re like Samuel, and you want to stay in bed? And you give up because no one’s listening to you, everything’s gone to pot, things have gone from bad to worse because they didn’t listen to you? If you’re in that and say, now, can nothing good be going on in the world, everything is horrible, shut it all down, start it over, you’re not seeing as God sees. You’re not looking in the right place. And if you think about David, too, he got anointed king. Would you want to be anointed king? Who wants to be anointed king? I can always ask questions with negative answers because no one raises their hand in congregation, so that’s good. No one wants to be king. You do not want to be king because Saul’s going to kill you.

And sure enough, there were a lot of problems before David gets to be king. He gets to be working too hard as an armor-bearer and as a musician. He’s employed below king. He doesn’t start out as king. He’s got to go fight Goliath. That’s not a good time. He is running away from Saul, who strikes out after him when he gets angry and jealous. He has to leave his friend Jonathan. He has to fight with those that he had formerly served with. He’s in exile. He’s running. He’s a refugee. He lives as an outcast. This is king?

So in the great scheme of things, what does our scripture tell us today? It tells us on one hand, yeah, David’s king. And you can say, you can assert it all down and say, hey, that King David, he was legit. He was the one chosen by God, as opposed to Saul that was chosen by the people and ratified by God. But God chose a King David. You can say that. But I think the more at least as important thing is how God brought Samuel along to that, and how God brings us along to tell us that what you’re looking at is not what I see. What is making you depressed and keeping you in bed and grieving over things that used to be, and how things have gone wrong, while true, while correct, while reality, is not the whole story. It’s not even the most important part. It’s not even the part that’s going to last. The part of the story is that what you can see as I see.

Remember that prayer from “Bruce Almighty,” that wonderful prayer after the Miss America prayer, where the actor, Jim Carrey, tells Morgan Freeman as God of his love of his life that he’s been trying through the whole movie to get. He goes, “Do you want her back?” And he says, “No, I want her to be happy. I want her to be loved as she’s deserved to be loved by me. I want someone to always see her as I see her now through your eyes.”

William Willimon tells a story on himself. Often his stories are about how he screwed up as pastor and what he learned from it. One time he went to visit a dying member, a saint in the church, and talked to him about the afterlife, about what is to come, and about his faith. And the man said, “I have no fear. I know I am going on to God’s love.” And Willimon said something that’s right out of the pastor book: “Yes, we all have a sure and certain hope in the kingdom of God and the future afterlife,” or something like that.

And the man said gently, “It’s not because of my hope that I have no fear.” “What do you mean? The promise of eternal life is not your hope?” “No, no. Oh, it’s nice. But my faith is based on my life that I’ve lived throughout. You see, no matter what has happened, no matter what screw-ups have gone on, no matter how far away I’ve run from God, no matter what has gone wrong in my life and in the culture and the church and in my house and all that, God has come and got me. God has found a way to me. God has redeemed me. God has reached out. I see, as I look back, I can see God’s working his purpose out. And I know that such a God, that works so hard to get through so much to get to me in my life here, will not let a thing like death stop him from loving me eternally.”

Strive to see how God sees. When things look hopeless, when there doesn’t seem to be anything, figure out the question and ask, “Are all your sons here? Are there any others?” Find out what hidden purpose God is working at, and know that God is working his purpose out, and look and see the works of God’s kingdom.

William Gibson says, “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” Same with God’s kingdom. There’s little pieces of it here and there and over here and over there. And if you just take a glance, you’ll miss it. You’ve got to see how God can see. Be that prayer. See people always. See the world always as God sees.

Amen.

Easy on the Eyes mp3

God and King

How To Escape Slavery

In this recorded sermon, from 1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15 I talk about how putting anyone or anything but God on the throne as your king leads to slavery.

God and King mp3