This is the text of a message given at the First Congregational Church of Rochester on July 15, 2024, only 11 days after the death of our beloved pastor, Paul Ray.
We are the
Prophets
This was written
several weeks ago and a lot has happened since then. There is no way to forget
our communal loss and like Ruth last week, I had to decide whether to change up
everything to acknowledge and honor Pastor Paul. As it turns out, I didn’t have
to. This message didn’t change much because what Ruth said last week – her
challenge regarding keeping alive our heritage of freedom rooted in Christ and
passed on to the generations that follow us fit right in with both Independence
Day and what Paul left us as his legacy.
I’m going to
start, however, not by talking directly about either of those things, but by talking instead about gardening.
In theory,
gardening is pretty simple. You poke a seed into the ground and wait. Occasionally
that’s enough, but sometimes it isn’t. Often the seed needs more than benign
neglect. It needs water, sunshine, and nutrients, not just once, but all along
the way until the flower comes, or the tomato, or whatever it is you’re
growing.We have to hang out in the garden a lot. If it doesn’t rain, we water
the plants. If it gets too cold, we cover them. If bugs show up, we get rid of
them. We weed. We get dirty.
Well, Jesus said
the kingdom of God was like a garden, too.
Mark 4: 2-8
. 2 He
taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell
along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some
fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly,
because the soil was shallow. 6 But
when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they
had no root. 7 Other seed
fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not
bear grain. 8 Still other
seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying
thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
Obviously, because
this was a parable, Jesus wasn’t really talking about growing crops. He is
illustrating a good example of what He does want us to do, however. He wants us
to grow the kingdom of God and we want to do it not only because that’s what
God has asked of us, but because we can visualize what a world with more of God
in it might look like – a world with more justice and peace and generosity and
forbearance. A world of cooperation and caring. A world that loves and where
everybody grows in God’s good soil. This is the world Paul Ray saw and tried to
show us for many years. So, I want to talk about how we might start working
toward that today.
Many of you know
that, in 2022, I went back to school. I started college the first time in 1969,
but never finished, went on to live a life but got tired of kicking myself for
not finishing college, and decided it was about time I did.
But I had another
reason, too. You see, I’d spent a lifetime growing a faith that would sustain
my life, a faith broad enough to provide a bridge over tough times and bright
enough to enlighten the good ones. But by the time I approached 70, it felt
like that faith had been imprisoned in a box and was pushing against the sides
with nowhere else to grow. I kept asking questions and wasn’t getting answers.
Going to school
was a way to escape the box, to step outside faith’s traditional boundaries and
look at it not from the inside, but from the outside. To see what we, as
Christians, look like to people who don’t think like we do. So, I’ve ended up
with a Philosophy degree, but what I really learned is a lot bigger than that.
I learned what a world that needs God wants from us, and I learned it not from my
curriculum or most of my professors, but from intelligent and thoughtful young
people who, it turns out, wanted the same thing I did.
This is what I
learned.
I learned that
today’s young adults are looking for exactly what we are – a life based on what
is worthwhile, beautiful, and true – but they don’t know where to look. It’s
easy to point a finger at them and say that they can’t find it because they
spend too much time on their phones, but we’re not telling them anything they
don’t already know. They know they’re losing connection with other people but
don’t know how to get it back. They retreat into their phones because they
don’t feel safe because their world is moving far faster than they can keep up
with. When we’re being honest, we feel it too.
But the world is
not going to slow down. Nothing is going to disappear the internet or any of
the other technology that tugs at us. Today’s adults need technology to
function in this world. They can’t drop their phones in the garbage and walk
away any more than we will abandon television or cars or live without air
conditioning just because our grandmother did.
Young people know
they are living in a chaotic, runaway world and like fledgling plants, they
have been uprooted. I first realized this when I was taking a class about the
Protestant Reformation and there was quite a bit of discussion about the Bible.
When we were discussing Martin Luther’s attitude about the Old Testament, one
of the young people raised her hand and asked what the Old Testament was. She
had never heard of it. And she wasn’t the only one. She had not even the basic
understanding of the Bible. It’s not that her faith had withered or been stolen
– she had absolutely no basis from which to form one. And some of these young
people had been raised in the church and they still lacked basic understanding
of the Bible and often of God.
Now, at this
point, it’s tempting to say that all we need to do is to bring God back into school
and into politics – to make God part of daily life. But that ship, as a result
of legislation and societal changes, has sailed. Invite them to church, we
think, and that will make all the difference. But it won’t. That’s just like
poking a seed into the dirt and walking away. To many of today’s adults, church
is a superficial form, a dress people put on every Sunday. It’s rules and dogma
– lifeless and rigid. They already have plenty of that. Describing salvation to
them simply details another way they have failed. Today’s adults want something
that lives and breathes, something they can use and someONE who will take their
hand and lead them through the maze, then show them how to get home.
Paul has often
said that we are the only Bible that some people will ever read, and it’s true
as far as it goes, but in view of this world’s spiritual poverty, we are often
the first image not only of the Bible, but of God, that many people will ever
see. We not only have to practice our faith in the world, we have to be God to
the world. That means we have to be prophets. In Greek, prophesying doesn’t mean telling the future. It
means speaking inspired truth. We are to prophesy, to speak from inspiration,
in this case, to speak what is inspired by love.
.I remember who I
was in 1969, how we used to say that we never trusted anyone over 30. This
generation, the one that came to maturity in the pandemic, doesn’t operate that
way. They became adults with an understanding that we need each other. I know
this because they told me. I know this because they included me in their world when
I took the time to listen. I know this because they demonstrate empathy for
their fellow humans above any other value. I know this because not one of them
said they aspired to personal wealth. They aspire instead to peace, dignity,
and common improvement. Their dreams are different from ours. They know they
will probably not be able to afford to buy a house or stay in a single job for
30 years. They know they will probably not be able to rely on a government
funded retirement. These young people are being liberated from what we came to
understand as the American Dream and they are not afraid. They are going to dream a new dream and they
want help.
Now we know that
the help they need ultimately comes from God, but there’s a danger that goes
with that knowledge. The danger is being so comfortable in our own faith that
we assume what is so familiar to us is accessible to everyone just as easily,
and it isn’t. Remember John the Baptist? He faced the same problem. Remember
the warning he gave to complacent Jews before Jesus came? He said this:
“ do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham
as our father. ' For I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise
up children to Abraham".
John is trying to say that our heritage in the church is not
what will spread the gospel. This building will not help spread the gospel for
someone who has no starting point from which to understand God. Our world is
every bit as clueless about God as was Jesus’ and John’s. We need to do what
the disciples did. We have to show them.
So what do we do when just inviting someone to church doesn’t
work anymore? We give them what they know they do value. Time. Attention. We
listen. We care. We help. We find a way to meet them where they are rather than
wait for them to come to us. We encourage. We listen. We help. Of the many
things Paul has taught us, he's taught, and more importantly, showed us how to
love one another, how to lead with understanding and with an awareness of our
common creation. Everybody has their own story we know nothing about and many
are lonely. They are confused. They are afraid. But they are listening when we
use the language of love. I know this because they listened to me, a 70+ year
old lady among fresh faced 20 year olds. They shared and listened and loved me
back.
It’s a new world and new wine needs new wineskins, but it’s
still God’s world and He’s still here to shine the way. It may not look the same as ours, but we
don’t have to do anything extraordinary. Just be who we are. If we’re truly
following Christ, the words we speak will be inspired by Him. That’s all he
wants from us. To follow and imitate Him. This is the goodness we all loved so
much about Paul. When we heard him, he sounded like Jesus. In the end, everyone
who echoes Christ is a prophet.
It’s not easy and we might feel like we’re living in a kind
of a desert sometimes, but God showed Ezekiel what He can do with a desert:
The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought
me out by the Spirit of the Lord and
set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He
led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of
the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked
me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
4 Then he
said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word
of the Lord! 5 This
is what the Sovereign Lord says
to these bones: I will make breath[a] enter
you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach
tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put
breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am
the Lord.’”
7 So I
prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a
rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. 8 I
looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there
was no breath in them.
9 Then he
said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it,
‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they
may live.’” 10 So I prophesied as he
commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on
their feet—a vast army.
11 Then he
said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our
bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore
prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to
open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land
of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I
am the Lord, when I open
your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will
put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your
own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have
spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
God wants us to be prophets. Like modern versions of John the
Baptist or the first apostles, but leading with love. If we do this, we won’t
ever have to invite anyone into God’s family. They will come because we show
them who God is and they will want Him for themselves. If they need a church they
will find one because of the longing in their hearts. God, who raises children
from stones and makes bones live, will show them.
I want to leave you with this:
David, when he wrote psalm 27, bemoaned the evil and
confusion all around him. He felt it acutely, just like we do, and didn’t know
how it would ever get better, but ended saying, “I am confident of this – I
will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” This is the
goodness Paul Ray saw in the world and its people. This world, just the way it
is, is God’s land of the living and we are to both experience and impart its
goodness.
“Look”, God says, “I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up;
do you not perceive it?” The new thing God brings wears the face of this new
generation and there are parts for us all to play. May we, as those who
prophesy about His goodness, spend our time hanging out in God’s garden with
the ones who will come after us and in the process, not only perceive what He
is doing, but engage in bringing about the new world He is raising up through
them.
Amen.