Coming Home With Shouts of Joy

Preached at Prescott Memorial Baptist Church
December 11, 2011

Psalm 126
I Thessalonians 5:16-24


Learning to trust the God who created us is the biggest challenge of our lives. All of us will grow older. Some of us will grow fatter. Some of us will grow thinner. Any of us can grow smarter with study and effort. But what truly matters in life is the ability to grow deeper into trust: trusting ourselves, trusting others and trusting God.

I was raised in a very religious family. We were as close to God as you can get without being Jesus himself. We were Nazarene people, called unto holiness. We were pious people. We lived our lives in such a way that God couldn’t possibly find anything not to like about us. Somebody somewhere had studied what God likes best and we were doing it. That’s what I thought. I truly felt sorry for people who were not Nazarene because I believed they were not as close to God’s heart as we were.

There were members of my church family who were saved from their sins AND sanctified entirely. My understanding was that they were no longer bothered by sin.

Of course I wanted this same experience, this blessed assurance that I was right with God and bound to stay that way forever. So I went down to the altar every Sunday night and during fall and summer revivals. I implored God to make me perfect too. But I knew it didn’t take because the very next day I would get out of bed and get mad at my brother, Stanley. I would call him a name. He would call me a name. Somebody would push and then there was a shove. And it was clear that I was not free from sin. I was not sanctified.

So I came up with a plan. In order to gain God’s favor and be perfect I needed to be busy with God’s work. I was seven years old. It was the fall revival. Rev. Tom Jernigan was our evangelist and his wife, Juanita, was our special singer. On Friday night I went down to the altar and asked God to save and sanctify me.

The next morning I got out of bed and I went outside before Stanley could have a chance to annoy me. I simply didn’t look at him. I carried my Bible outside. I had a refrigerator box waiting for me. I had gotten it from Chases Home Appliance Store on Friday afternoon. I put the box on the corner right in front of the church at First Avenue and Second Street. Cut a door in it. Then I went back inside the church and got the heavy brass cross off the communion table. I got a ladder and put that cross on top of the box so it was clear that this was not just a cardboard box but a church. A cardboard church. I held my open bible in my hands as I sang “Just as I Am without One Plea.”

People were driving up and parking, getting their children out of the car for Saturday morning shopping downtown and they were being wooed into the arms of God by a very young and fervent evangelist whose hair had not yet been combed.

“Won’t you come?” I pleaded with the people who passed by. “Won’t you give your life to Jesus before it’s too late?” Mothers and fathers got between their children and me, walking in the street to keep a safe distance. Some nodded politely. An old black man stood and watched me from across the street. He scratched his chin and I thought I had a convert for a minute. But he walked away shaking his head and saying, “Lawd. Lawd.”

I was feeling hungry and cranky when my brother Stanley came by. I knew him well enough to know he was far beyond saving so I didn’t even try. “Go away!” I warned him.

He didn’t go away. He started grinning at me in a way that let me know he thought I was a fool. I stiffened as he came near my cardboard church. “I said go away!” He snorted at me and peered inside the box. That made me mad so I socked him and when he fell against the box that made the heavy brass cross topple off the top of the cardboard church. And clunk! It smacked my brother in the head. Cut a wide gash that started pouring blood down his neck and across his back. I had to call my mother and she had to apply pressure.

Mrs. Juanita Jernigan rode with us to the Emergency Room. And that’s where I was—sitting in a hospital with antiseptic smells all around me –the first time I gave up on the struggle to be perfect.

It’s hard to be human. Have you ever noticed that? The problem is: Sometimes we look in the mirror and we’re pretty sure we wouldn’t love much about ourselves --if we were God. And when we make God as small-minded as we are then it’s pretty hard to trust anything in this life.

Religion, at its best, ought to help us appreciate being who we are-- just as we are. Religion ought to help us appreciate the opportunity to live our lives. It ought to affirm our authenticity rather than squeeze us into tiny boxes. I am concerned about religious teaching that molds people into manufactured images of what it means to be a friend of Jesus. Religion is about real relationships: our relationship with ourselves, with others and with God. Seems to me that religion ought to teach us how to trust God more while we worry less about our own shortcomings. It is God who has made us and not we ourselves. This is God's world and we are here because God loves us.

You may have heard the NPR story, an interview by Guy Raz on “All Things Considered,” with Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of Reverend Billy Graham. Anne Graham has become an influential preacher. She’s 63 years old. Apparently huge crowds in this country and abroad, come to hear her preach. She’s been called an evangelical feminist and she likes that description. She says an evangelical feminist is a woman who knows what she believes, has strong convictions and the courage to stand up for them regardless of limitations other people or institutions want to impose on her.

She tells about her parents’ disapproval when she began teaching a Bible class 35 years ago. There was conflict in the beginning of Anne’s public ministry. Billy and Ruth Graham believed that their daughter’s ministry was meant to be in the home as a devoted wife and mother. But Anne felt like God’s intention for her was more important and Anne believes that God knows her better than her parents know her. So when God called her to teach and preach-- she did. Anne says, “I’m living my life for an audience of one. I’ve learned to trust God.”

And as the years have passed, Billy and Ruth Graham have been impressed by their daughter’s faith and the effectiveness of her ministry. Billy Graham has repeatedly said that Anne is the best preacher in the family.

Learning to trust God is the biggest challenge of our lives.

The therapist and writer, Scott Peck, names four stages of spiritual development that we go through in life: 1.) Chaotic/antisocial, 2.) Formal/ institutional, 3.) Skeptic/individual, 4.) Mystic/ Communal. We are not all in the same place spiritually. We grow into trust at different times even as the love of God is revealed to us in different ways.

Our spiritual development doesn’t progress in a straight line going steadily from birth to death. It’s circular. We reach back into the past and pull memories into this moment, allowing memories to inform us and shape our identities. We reach into the future and use the hope we find there to sustain us for getting through the present hour. We open ourselves and allow other people to circle into our lives and experiences. We circle into the lives of others who are willing to include us in their journeys. Spiritual development is more of a spiral than a straight line.

In the letter to the Thessalonians we read instructions: to praise God, to pray, give thanks, hold fast to what is good, and abstain from evil. These practices are effective tools for spiritual development and growth. I have come to a place in my life where each day begins with scripture reading, prayer, journaling and listening for God’s responses and direction for the day. Our spiritual disciplines draw us closer to God and allow us to see more of God’s reflection in ourselves. That reflection builds trust and feeds our hope.

But it is not our spiritual disciplines that sanctify us and make us blameless. It is God who will sanctify us and make us blameless. And according to Thessalonians: God will do this. It is God’s work and we have simply to trust in God and not ourselves. Being sanctified is not about being pious and perfect. We are sanctified when we celebrate the gift of our own lives and the presence of God's love in it.

We are moving toward the manger. The star shines brightly over our heads as we travel toward Bethlehem. It’s hard to believe that God would come to live among us, that God would care enough about us to join us here on earth, to live among us.

But there are so many things about God we don’t understand. So we do the best we can to trust.

The Psalmist says: The Lord has done great things for us and we rejoiced.

May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
May those who go out weeping
come home with shouts of joy.

In our joy and in our sorrow—it is God who earns our trust. It is God who sustains our hope now and always.

Amen