As we begin today, let’s start with a bit of Bible study, as some of you may have been surprised by the scripture choice of Sirach 42:15-22.

This book is part of what is called the Apocrypha, which, if included, comes between the Old & New Testaments and is viewed as an extension of the Hebrew Bible. Sirach, also known as The Wisdom of Ben Sira (meaning Son of Sirach), is known as wisdom literature like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and is written as a teacher’s guide to students.

It is known for encouraging “Fear of the Lord,” meaning observance of these teachings and the laws of Moses, because to the writer, keeping the laws guarantees God’s blessings. This is a poem of praise to God as the creator. What is striking to me is the level at which we are known to God according to this scripture.

“God explores both the Abyss and the human heart, and is intimate with them to their depths; God knows all things, and watches over the signs of the times. God declares the past and future and discloses the traces of things held in secret. Not a single thought is unnoticed by God, and not a word is hidden from God.“

Take a moment to consider that. Not a single thought is unnoticed by God.

As a teenager, I remember being told to never be in a position that would be embarrassing if Jesus showed up. Obviously, that was meant to put the “fear of God” in me!

But do you believe these statements? Do you believe that God knows everything? Omniscience? Since I believe that God is with all and in all, I do believe that God knows everything.

Do you believe that God declares the past and future?

As God knows everything, God knows the past. As for the future, I believe God knows infinite possibilities for the future. If you believe that God knows the future, then you believe in predestination, which follows the premise that God has already planned out everything that is to happen.

I don’t believe that God would plan for good people to suffer or plan for us to hurt each other in the horrible ways we do.

Do you believe God discloses what is held in secret? This question leads me to another: If so, to whom does God disclose the secret? The adage of “We are only as sick as our secrets” comes out of self-help programs and is repeated because of its truth.

I do believe that God has our best interests in mind, so encouraging us to be honest about our secrets with God and those who can be trusted not to hurt us with this information is helpful to us.

And it is at this point that I saw the connection to the work I have been doing with the Gestalt Pastoral Counseling.

Our bodies hold our shame and guilt as well as our minds and hearts. And our shame and guilt skew our perception as well as increasing our overall suffering.

But God is also able to heal us when we engage with God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit or whatever name you wish to use for the Divine. Unlike the government wanting to listen in on our private conversations, God listens and knows in order to bring healing, wholeness, and love.

So another question is: Do we trust God enough to be open to God’s healing?

Or do we gain something from our secrets or suffering? Yes, welcome down the “rabbit holes” of my thinking. In addition to reminding us of all that God did in creation, I think this scripture is another reminder that we are not God.

I believe the Jewish theory that there is a space within us where a sliver of God resides and our call as God’s creation is helping to mend the brokenness of the world. Our gospel reading invites us to consider what we do with the most precious thing we have–which, by the way, is meant to be the love of God that we know best through the life and teachings of Christ Jesus.

This begs the question: Do you consider the love of God to be your most precious thing?

If not, what then is more important to you? If so, what are you doing with it? How are you showing and sharing it?

The point of this scripture is that we are not to hide our faith or the love that we are so grateful to know. It is to be on the “lampstand” – obvious in the way we live our life – written on our faces by the way we encounter others. This has been taken by some to mean that one makes a show of it – asking others if they are “saved” or “if they know Jesus.”

I think God is looking for how we treat our neighbor, the stranger, the one in need. Are we willing to use our resources to make sure others have what they need?

This is at the heart of the Good Samaritan story. What does the love of God ask of us? Are we diligent in growing our faith through study, prayer and action?

May it be so. Amen.
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This season we looked at six stories of creation in the Bible and considered what we are to learn from each.

What I saw in these stories were these reminders:

1. We are not God – The sun does not rise or set on our command.
2. All of creation is sacred – every piece is worthy of our respect.
3. We are to care for the people and natural world as God would.

And if you’re thinking that we knew this, might I remind us that we haven’t always acted this way. And a scripture passage we may need to be reminded of is: “Pride comes before disaster, and arrogance before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18.

Our Psalm for today is believed to be an Entrance Liturgy both for what it says and a larger pattern with the Psalms beginning with Psalm 15, which is also an entrance liturgy.

When we look at the structure of this psalm, we see three-parts:

V 1-2 – Declaring God as the Creator
V 3-6 – Liturgy for humanity to enter God’s holy space
V 7-10 Liturgy for God to meet us there

Of particular interest is that this psalm, although it calls for being “clean” and “pure,” is looking for moral cleanliness and purity to come before God rather than physical – which was the norm in the ancient world. It was issues with blood or disease that made one “unclean” and therefore, unable to enter the Temple.

The “pure heart” is not referring to emotions but to one’s state of will. Is one coming with the best intentions? Pause for a moment and consider why you came today. Because in my experience of church over my lifetime, people have come for many reasons that had nothing to do with God, including me in my younger years.

Our scripture from Genesis is near the end of the story, where we hear God remind us of all that God has done, and God’s proclamation that it was all very good! I hear this as God inviting us to be grateful for all God has given us.

And yet, as we discussed last week, in Genesis Ch. 3 we weren’t grateful –  we wanted more – we wanted what we felt we were denied.

Could this be pointing to our tendency to play the victim? Is this why some of us needed a Savior, different from God? Well, I must confess that I tend to feel like a victim. I learned it well growing up, and I have lived through some situations where it felt justified. However, I can’t get stuck there because then I am surviving rather than thriving. Rather than focus on what we don’t have or get, God wants us to consider all that we do – AND be grateful to God for it all!

We also tend to think that we have earned it, and give ourselves credit rather than God! This leaves us with inflated egos. There are always contemporary examples of this behavior!

So we are going to take a few minutes in silence to reflect on what we are truly grateful for. Try to think more deeply than we did during the Children’s Time. For what are you grateful in the deepest parts of your being?

I will begin by reading Psalm 46:10: “Be still – and know – that I am – God. Be still – and know – that I am. Be still – and know. Be still.”

So what are the things for which we are grateful? Anything different than before?

But what is even more challenging is to be grateful in challenging or even terrible circumstances.

For this, I leave you with the wisdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “I’ve had a remarkable life. I seem to be in such good places at the right time. You know, if you were to ask me to sum my life up in one word, gratitude.”

May it be so. Amen.
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I just finished reading a book called “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich

Which is a historical fiction piece about the congressional 1953 “Termination Resolution” that made American Indians subject to the same laws and entitled them to the same privileges and responsibilities as other citizens. This all sounds very good; however, they already had citizenship, and what it did was take away their protections and their land. So these people who were already living in poverty, were now expected to move into the towns and cities and become assimilated. It took away their land and tried to take away their culture.

And why did we do this? Because they were not considered worth the cost of our support. We viewed them as “others” or “things” rather than people just as we have done with African-Americans and all of the non-white immigrant populations that have come to our country.

On this, the 250^th anniversary of our country, we need to admit that we have both a beautiful story to tell and many times failed to be our best selves. We brag about being a “melting pot,” but what we want is for everyone to conform to White Anglo-Saxon European Christian ways. And just to be clear, making someone out to be our enemy who we have the right to ‘rule’ is not new! It has been going on since the beginning of time. It is even described in our Holy Scriptures.                      

Today, as we consider these scriptures from Genesis and Proverbs, we are called to consider how we can become even slightly better rather than relenting that it is a helpless cause that others will just have to endure. Where, my friends, is the humility in that?

Now if you received the Come Sunday and read it, you are aware that there is a challenge in our scripture too. In Genesis 1, the pronouns used for God are plural – “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” (v. 26, NRSV) This has been a point of contention for scholars over the centuries with no clear answer.

Please do not misinterpret what I am about to say; this does not provide a clear answer; however, it is interesting when read beside Proverbs 8. The plural pronouns could refer to God & Wisdom – another theory is that they refer to the Trinity – Father, Son & Holy Spirit.

Historically speaking, Genesis is believed to have been written and compiled between the tenth and sixth centuries before the Common Era, whereas Proverbs is believed to have been written in the sixth or later centuries BCE. Some scholars believe that the female characters described in Proverbs are remnants of ancient goddess worship within Israelite society. But what may be even more profound is that over the millennia God has not tired of us and our foolish, destructive ways.

Or as the writer of Hebrews says, “What are humans that you are mindful of them or mortals that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels.” – Hebrews 2:6-7

If we include at this point what we know of the Genesis Ch. 2-3 stories, we will remember that God made a couple, but the couple was not able to follow the rules. They already showed their defiance by eating from the tree that was off-limits. They had everything, and yet, it was not enough!

This same truth applies today! Most of us have what we need and more, and yet we are SO afraid of losing it or not having enough that we demonize others and deport them out of our fear.

Our fear of losing something – Our fear of losing our power as the majority – Our fear of losing the ability to set the rules. And yet, we were created as part of God’s abundant creation with the ability to reproduce and prosper.

And in that scripture, what did we focus on? In the Revised Standard Version that some of you may have grown up with and the New Revised Standard Version, the word is “dominion.” The Inclusive Version used the word “responsible.” The Hebrew word means “to subdue,” so we realized God gave us authority over everything else – we were “King of the Mountain” and everything else had to submit to us.

But with this, we have forgotten that we did not create ourselves. We are all subject to God, the Divine, the Holy – or whatever name you wish to use – who created life. We were created to support and care for the rest of life with a respect for it.

It seems like the wisdom here is to have the humility to recognize our place in the grand order of things. But I wonder if wisdom has been replaced by our longing for power and control.

So I leave you with this question to reflect on: “Does what I do, or give, or offer, make any difference? Does it mean anything?” And a quote from distinguished environmentalist and academic, best known for his work in ecological design and sustainability education, Davis Orr: “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind.”

May it be so. Amen.
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Join Church of the Apostles UCC this summer for three afternoons of music in beautiful Rader Park! Bring a lawn chair or blanket, invite your friends and neighbors, and enjoy live performances in a welcoming outdoor setting. All concerts are free and open to the community.

🎶 June 28 – Patriotic Hymn Sing
🎤 July 13 – Harmony 3: Celebrating Women’s Voices
🥁 August 9 – Community Drum Circle (drums provided for all who wish to participate)

All events begin at 3 PM in the Rader Park Pavilion. We hope you’ll join us as we celebrate music, community, and the joy of gathering together this summer!