O Lord, open thou our lips (J. Barry Vaughn, Sept. 9, 2012)

(Note: I borrowed several of my ideas from Peter Marty's sermon, "It's time we open up.")

All of us have a phobia. You know what a phobia is. It’s the Greek word for “fear.” Psychologists have borrowed that Greek word to mean an irrational fear, such as a fear of spiders. Most spiders are completely harmless, but some of us look at those little multi-legged, dark, hairy critters and just turn to jelly inside. Unfortunately, living alone as I do, I have to kill spiders myself. There’s just no one else to do it.

 

I am told that more people fear public speaking than anything else. There are people who would rather take on a whole army of spiders than stand up in front of a bunch of people and talk.

 

I suppose I was afraid of doing this at one time. In fact, I know I was. I remember my first attempts at public speaking. I don’t think I was very good at it, but I kept at it. We had a very good debate coach in high school, and after I participated in a few debate tournaments, I became more comfortable, and … well, here I am talking to you!

 

A few years ago, the Academy award-winning film, The King’s Speech, explored the dilemma of Britain’s King George VI who was crippled by a stammer but who needed to speak publicly to give his people hope and encouragement in the second world war.

 

In the climactic scene of The King’s Speech, the king and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue, are preparing for the king’s coronation in Westminster Abbey. The king is terrified at the prospect of having to take the oath of coronation. Logue sits on the enormous throne placed squarely in the middle of the abbey’s chancel. The king explodes in anger, telling Logue to get off the throne, that only monarchs may sit there. Logue goads him further and says, “Why can’t I sit here? You don’t want the job.” “You can’t sit there because I am the king. I have a voice!” the king shouts. And quietly Logue replies, “Yes, you do.”

 

It’s not all that different from what Jesus does with the man afflicted with a speech impediment in today’s gospel reading. Like Lionel Logue, Jesus’ techniques are unorthodox. He takes the man aside; he sticks his fingers in his ears; he spits and touches the man’s tongue. Finally, Jesus looks up to heaven and utters a single Aramaic word like a magic incantation, “Ephatha!” (Be opened.) And the man speaks.

 

It’s a fascinating story and makes me wonder if the man’s speech impediment was a physical problem or a spiritual problem.

 

Jesus found spiritual illnesses more difficult to heal than physical illnesses. Do you remember the story of the paralytic whose friends brought him to Jesus? When Jesus sees the man, he realizes that his greatest need is to have the burden of sin lifted from his spirit, so he first says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But the bystanders are shocked. “Who does this man think he is? Only God can forgive sins.” So Jesus says, “Which is easier – to forgive sins or to say ‘take up your bed and walk’?” So to convince them that he has the power to forgive sins, he also heals the man of his physical illness.

 

So perhaps the elaborate ritual of putting his fingers in the man’s ears, spitting, touching the man’s tongue, looking up to heaven, and saying a mysterious word, are because Jesus knew he was dealing with a problem that was more spiritual than physical.

 

All of are blocked spiritually. All of us need to hear Jesus say, “Ephatha… be opened.” All of us need God’s power to unbind us from the various spiritual knots in our lives.

 

What is holding us back from telling others about the power of God in our lives? Are our tongues tied when it comes to telling people about God? Do we have a speech impediment when it comes to inviting people to church? Do we have a phobia of telling others that we know a God who heals and frees people from the things that bind them? How many of us would stutter and stammer if people asked us if we believe in a God with the power to save?

 

We need Jesus to free us and open us up. We need to feel a little of the surprise and maybe even alarm that the man did when Jesus stuck his fingers in his ears and spit and touched his tongue.

 

Now, I know that part of the problems is that we are Episcopalians. All this talk of sharing our faith with others and inviting people to church, much less spitting in public, makes us extremely nervous. But we need to learn how to share our faith with others.

 

One alarming study of church members showed that 90% of teenagers whose families attended church could not tell if their parents believed in anything.*

 

We have a speech impediment when it comes to faith. It’s strange because we are so quick to tell people what we believe about other things. We quite freely tell strangers about the political candidate we support. And God knows, we tell people which football team we cheer for. It’s plastered all over our cars and our t shirts.

 

So why don’t we tell people about the difference that Jesus has made in our lives? Ephatha, be opened, be set free.

 

When the German Reformer Martin Luther put together a baptismal liturgy in the early 16^th century, he required the pastor to take some of his own saliva and touch the ears and lips of the child being baptized. And at the same moment, he was to say to the child being baptized, “Ephatha. Be opened.”*

 

Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to do that in baptisms here. Bishop Sloan is an easy going guy, but I’m pretty sure I’d get a call from him if I started doing that.

 

But it’s not a bad idea. From the very beginning of our Christian life, we need to be told to open up, to let go, to stop being tongue-tied about what we believe and whom we believe in.

 

I was a little surprised that the movie The King’s Speech did not include the Christmas broadcast that George VI made in 1939. Only a few months after Nazi Germany had invaded Poland and World War II had begun, at one of the darkest moments in Western history, George VI conquered his fear and his stammer and said to his people and to the people of the world, “I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.’

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.”

 

And so it will. There is an almighty hand that unbinds us, that touches our tongues and frees us to speak of God’s love, that gives us the power to to love more freely, to support the weak, to strengthen the faint-hearted. And to keep looking for ways to open our lives to the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

As the psalm says, “O Lord, open thou my lips, and my tongue shall declare your praise.”

 

 

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* Borrowed from Peter Marty’s sermon, “It’s time we open up.”

Comfort me with apples (J. Barry Vaughn, Sept. 2, 2012)

I come to the garden alone,

While the dew is still on the roses,

And the voice I hear falling on my ear

The Son of God discloses.

 

And he walks with me

And he talks with me

And he tells me I am his own

And the joy we share as we tarry there

None other can ever know.

 

Now, that is probably the first and the last time that the gospel song “In the garden” will be quoted in St. Alban’s!

 

One of the reasons that I and perhaps you, too, was attracted to the Episcopal Church was the music. Not only was the music of a very high caliber, but the words of the hymns had real theological meat on their bones.

 

If the hymn “In the garden” helps some in their spiritual life, if it gives them inspiration and hope, then that’s great, but I find it too subjective, too sweet, too personal.

 

Nevertheless, I want to say a good word for “In the garden.” Compare “In the garden” with today’s reading from the Song of Solomon or Song of Songs:

 

My beloved speaks and says to me:

 “Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away;

for now the winter is past,

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of singing has come,

and the voice of the turtledove

is heard in our land.

The fig tree puts forth its figs,

and the vines are in blossom;

they give forth fragrance.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

and come away.”

 

It makes “In the garden” look main stream!

 

The Song of Songs is one of the most unusual books in the Bible. It is one of two books in the Old Testament that makes no mention of God. The other is Esther. The Song of Songs is a collection of love poetry that was probably written only about 300 years before Christ.

 

No one knows why the rabbis included this passionate love poem in the canon or official list of books of the Old Testament.

 

However, as soon as it was given the imprimatur, the theological seal of approval, and regarded as an acceptable religious book, people began to reinterpret it. The rabbis said that the Song of Songs was an allegory of God’s love for Israel. And the Christian church did the same, but instead of God’s love for Israel, Christians saw it as a story of Christ’s love for the church or God’s love for the human soul.

 

The medieval monastic reformer and mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux, preached 86 sermons, although he covered only 2 chapters and 3 verses. I suspect that 86 sermons can take the joy out of anything!

 

But the Song of Songs makes us uneasy. What is this love poem doing in the Bible? What are we to do with these images of passionate love?

 

“Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am sick with love. O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!”

 

I believe it’s some of the most wonderful love poetry in all of literature, but I wouldn’t be comfortable quoting most of it in the pulpit!

 

I want to make 2 points about the Song of Songs.

‘

The first is this: The Song of Songs tell us that passionate love is God’s good gift.

 

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis reminds us that the Greek language has four words for love:

 

Agape is perfect, disinterested, self-giving love. It is God’s love for us, and it is the love we aspire to return to God and to others.

 

Philos is brotherly or sisterly love, as in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It is also the love we have for our friends.

 

Storge is love for inanimate objects, as in “I love strawberries.”

 

And eros is the kind of love spoken about in the Song of Songs. It is passionate love. The Greeks believed that eros or erotic love was caused by emptiness or need. We love passionately to fill up an emptiness in ourselves. In other words, eros is a kind of hunger.

 

The Christian faith has traditionally been uncomfortable with passionate love. Jesus and Paul were both unmarried. Jesus urged his disciples to give up all earthly attachments and follow him. In First Corinthians, Paul says that one should not marry because the end of the world is near.

 

Furthermore, at a fairly early point many Christians began to hold up celibacy or the unmarried state as something to aspire to. It is central to the monastic tradition. And around the 11^th c celibacy became mandatory for priests in the western church.

 

But the mystics borrow the language of passionate love to describe God’s love for the human soul.

 

Commenting on the Song of Songs, the medieval mystic Teresa of Avila said that, “It seems to the soul it is left suspended in those divine arms, leaning on that sacred side… It does not know how to do anything more than rejoice, sustained by the divine milk with which its Spouse is nourishing it and making it better…. When it awakens from that sleep and that heavenly inebriation, it remains as though stupefied and dazed and with a holy madness.” (Meditations

4:4)

 

Surely if God loves us with a passionate love, then the passionate love we have for our husbands and wives is God’s gift, a gift given to sustain us and fill life with joy.

 

Martin Copenhaver, the pastor of Wellesley Congregational Church, writes of discovering love letters that his grandparents wrote to each other. He says that he was surprised to discover that they, too, had been young once and in love. “They were real people, after all, animated by the kind of impulses and yearnings I knew quite well. These dignified and upright people—who before my discovery I could only imagine going to bed fully clothed—also had a love for one another that was as hungry and tumultuous as the sea. And as their lives demonstrated, passionate love for another person need not eclipse God, but can enlarge a life in ways that make room for God to be manifest.” (from “Reveling in Romance”)

 

Exactly. Our passionate love for the person with whom we’ve chosen to spend our lives does not eclipse God. Rather, it enlarges life and creates a place where we can experience God in our love for one another.

 

The second thing I want to say about the Song of Songs is that it is also a model for our experience of God.

 

We are Protestants and Protestants are more comfortable with experiencing God as an abstraction rather than as a person.

 

Now, I know that many of you would rather think of the Episcopal Church as a small “c” catholic church. That’s true; we are catholic - liturgically catholic and even theologically catholic to a degree. Culturally, however, we are Protestants.

 

We are more like the Lutherans at Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone Lutheran Church than like the Catholics down the road at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. We like God to stay safely at a distance and we keep our passions carefully in check. And Western Christians, in general, and Protestants, in particular, treat God more as an abstraction than as a person.

 

The medieval theologian Alcuin prayed to God this way:

 

Light eternal, shine in my heart.
Power eternal, deliver me from evil.
Wisdom eternal, scatter the darkness of my ignorance.
Might eternal, pity me.

 

Power eternal… wisdom eternal… might eternal…and light eternal (sounds like a theological utility company!).

 

20^th c theologian Paul Tillich said that God was “ultimate concern.”

 

And frankly, it’s difficult to get very passionate about any of that.

 

The Old Testament, on the other hand, is passionate about God.

 

The Israelites argued with God. When God told Abraham that he was going to destroy the city of Sodom, Abraham argued with God, and finally God agreed to spare Sodom if only ten righteous people could be found there.

 

The Israelites shouted at God.  Psalm 18 says, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”

 

 

They got angry with God.  “My God, my God! Why have your forsaken me, and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?”

 

We are even told that Jacob wrestled with God.

 

They fell in love with God. “As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”

 

And finally they gave us the Song of Songs.

 

Do you remember what it was like on Valentine’s day when you were little. In grade school, you had to bring a card for everyone. You couldn't just bring a card for Sarah Beth or Billy Joe; you had to bring one for everyone, even for the kids you didn’t really like.

 

It’s like that with God. When God sends Valentines, God sends one to everyone. Every single one of us  is treated as if he or she is the special one, as if every single one of us is the object of God's own heart's desire.

 

When we love one special person that way, we catch a glimpse of how God feels about each one of us. And that, I think, is the biggest reason why this passionate ode to romantic love, made it into the Bible. (The last three paragraphs are paraphrase from Martin Copenhaver’s “Reveling in Romance.”)

A wise and understanding heart (J. Barry Vaughn, Aug. 19, 2012)

Both the Old Testament reading and the New Testament reading hold up wisdom for us as an ideal.

 

Solomon modestly prays for wisdom rather than power and wealth, but the Lord is so impressed that he gives Solomon not only the wisdom that he requested but wealth and power, too.

In Ephesians Paul exhorts the Christians in Ephesus to  “live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything.”

 

Paul singles out two characteristics of wisdom. First, he tells us that it is wise to “make the most of time because the days are evil.” This is one of the most characteristic features of Paul’s letters. Paul believed that we are in the last days, that the return of Jesus was just around the corner.

 

But it seems that Paul was wrong. Two thousand years have gone by and yet Jesus has not returned. So what are we to make of this idea? I believe that Paul may not have been as wrong as we think. Consider two things:

First, we are finite. No matter how long medical science extends our lives, we will not live forever. We have a “sell by” date; our shelf life is limited. Jesus may not return tomorrow, but at any minute the trumpet may sound for us and, ready or not,  we may go off to meet Jesus. So in that sense, Paul was right and his advice is sound: Get ready; be prepared; exercise wisdom and make the most of the time that God gives you.

But Paul goes on to say that we are to be “filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.”

On the face of it this seems to be contrary to wisdom. To be filled with the Spirit is to be ecstatic. It is to be irrational. It is to behave like a Pentecostal! It is to speak in tongues, to sing at the top of our lungs, to dance before the Lord like David danced before the ark.

Life in the Spirit and wisdom are not opposed. Indeed, I believe that they are two characteristics of human nature. We are not whole human beings unless we have both, unless we know when to restrain ourselves and when to let go.

 

The great theologian Oscar Wilde once said that a fundamentalist is a person who is afraid that somebody, somewhere is having a good time. But that is not Christianity. The Christian faith tells us that a whole human being knows both joy and wisdom, freedom and restraint.

Another characteristic of wisdom according to Paul is that we are to “understand the will of the Lord.” And here I think Paul’s definition of wisdom connects with the story of Solomon. Solomon is presented to us as someone who understood the will of God.

One of the most interesting similarities between David and Solomon is that in both cases there is a significant disconnect between the way they are portrayed and the way they actually behave.

We are told that David was “a man after God’s own heart,” and yet David commits a dreadful crime: he has an affair with Bathsheba and arranges for the death of her husband.

We are told that Solomon is wise, that he asked God for wisdom and that God is so impressed that Solomon did not ask for wealth or power that he not only gives Solomon wisdom but throws in wealth and power, too.

And yet if we read the rest of Solomon’s story, we discover that Solomon behaves like anything but a wise ruler.

Here, though, we come up against a problem. Solomon, we are told, was a paragon of wisdom. And yet one of the first things we are told about Solomon is that he “made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh”, the ruler of Egypt, and brought Pharaoh’s daughter to his palace as his wife. As was common in the ancient (and even not so ancient world) marriage was an instrument of diplomacy and foreign policy. To cement ties with another ruler, a king would marry one of his daughters. Eventually we are told that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Even allowing for some exaggeration, this makes us question Solomon’s wisdom!!

But Solomon’s biggest mistake as a king was the fact that he levied huge taxes on his people and used forced labor both to build his own palace and the temple in Jerusalem.  These policies eventually caused the civil war that took place under Solomon’s son Rehoboam and the division of Israel into northern and southern kingdoms.

In this presidential election year it might be a good idea to ponder what a wise ruler would look like.

We are told that Solmon’s wisdom was astounding, and yet his internal policy of heavy taxation and forced labor and his external policy of making alliances with foreign rulers through marriage were unwise. Where are we to look for a wise ruler?

Consider Psalm 72. Psalm 72 is said to be a Psalm of Solomon.

Give the king thy justice, O God, and thy righteousness to the royal son!  May he judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with justice!  Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness!  May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor!  In his days may righteousness flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!  May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!  For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper.  He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy.  From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.  May there be abundance of grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave; may its fruit be like Lebanon; and may men blossom forth from the cities like the grass of the field!

Psalm 72 tells us that a wise ruler will defend the cause of the poor and deliver the needy, that righteousness will flourish and peace will abound, that he will have pity on the weak and save the life of the needy. But it also says that his kingdom will be economically successful, that there will be abundant grain in the land.

When I was teaching OT at Samford, I once read this psalm to my students, and said, “What does this psalm make you think of?” And one of my students said, “Well, it sounds a lot like the Democrats!”

 

America is not a monarchy. We had our chance back in 1776 and chose another path and I suppose there is no going back so we will just have to carry on.

 

In 1870, Alabama's second bishop, Richard Hooker Wilmer, visited England. His hostess, knowing that Wilmer was very proud of the fact that he was a Virginian, asked him what he thought of his fellow Virginian, George Washington. "Well, I suppose that Washington did as well as could be expected under the circumstances." His hostess was shocked and asked him why he had such a low opinion of Washington. "Madame, were it not for Washington, today we would be the subjects of a gracious Christian queen instead of a drunken Tennessee tailor!"

America is a democracy, not a monarchy. This year we are charged with choosing a wise ruler, and I pray that we will not only choose a wise president but that we will be a wise people. IN a democracy, it is not only the responsibility of the ruler to rule wisely; it is also a responsibility of the people to choose wisely and to be wise citizens.

 

So not only in election years but in every year, may we heed the words of Psalm 72:

May WE defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor!  In OUR days may righteousness flourish, and peace abound. Amen.

Standeth God within the shadows (J. Barry Vaughn, Aug. 12, 2012)

According to industrialist Henry Ford, “History is bunk.” And at times it is difficult to dispute Mr. Ford.

More eloquently, the English historian Edward Gibbon said that, “History is the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

The story of David and his family appears to give us more than enough evidence to prove that Gibbon and Ford were correct. It is a story more sordid and corrupt than anything that you could watch on HBO or in a summer blockbuster.

First, David overthrows King Saul. David, then, unites the quarreling tribes of Israel in a single kingdom; establishes peace; centralizes both Israel’s government and its religion in the capital of Jerusalem. David has arrived; he has it made. But at the summit of his power and success, in a move that makes Bill Clinton look like a choirboy, David takes Bathsheba as his concubine and arranges for the murder of her husband, Uriah, who is also one of his most loyal soldiers.

And when David is old and weak, his son Absalom leads a rebellion against his father. But while fleeing from his father, the handsome Absalom is undone by his long, flowing locks of hair, and while hanging from a tree, he is slain by David’s men.

“Avshalom, beni; Avshalom beni…” “Absalom, my son; Absalom, my son. Would that I had died instead of you…”

David’s lament is one of the most piercing and poignant in all of scripture. And it makes us question: Is there any point to history? Do all the “crimes, follies, and misfortunes” of the human race have any meaning, or was Henry Ford right when he declared it to be “bunk”?

I’m sure you can guess how I answer that question, but before I do, I want to share something that the columnist George Will said in Ken Burns’ wonderful documentary about Thomas Jefferson.

One of the most remarkable features of the life of Jefferson was his relationship with John Adams. The word “frenemies” could have been invented to describe their relationship. Adams and Jefferson became friends during the meetings of the Continental Congress. It was Adams who persuaded Jefferson that he was the right man to compose the Declaration of Independence, but their friendship soured and they became bitter enemies when Jefferson ran against Adams for presidence of the United States in 1800 and unseated him. Then some years after Jefferson left office, they became friends once again. The dozens of letters that they exchanged are one of the treasures of American history.

However, perhaps the most interesting fact about their friendship is that they died on the same day – July 4, 1826 –50 years to the day after the Continental Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence. John Adams last words were, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

In Ken Burns’ documentary, George Will says, “There are many magic moments in American history that convince you that there is something miraculous about the American experience. And one of them is the simultaneous death 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.”

When we read the story of David and Absalom and when we look at the darker moments of America’s own history, it is tempting to believe that history is bunk, that it is nothing but a “register of follies, crimes, and misfortunes.” But I believe it is more than that.

David’s own history illustrates the point. One of the central convictions of the Bible is that David had a special relationship with God, that God chose David to accomplish an important task, or in the vocabulary of the Bible, that God established a covenant with David.

God chose David and established a covenant with David not because David was good and worthy. The story of David as recorded in the Bible makes it abundantly clear that David was as flawed and sinful as any person can be.

God chose David not because David was good but because God is good. God chose David like he chose Mary. The angel said to Mary, “Hail, O favored one…” What counts is God’s favor towards us, not our favor toward God.

The violent story we heard today of Absalom’s revolt, and the sordid stories we have heard the last two weeks of David and Bathsheba’s adultery and the murder of her husband Uriah, make us question God’s choice of David, to say the least. But history plays out on a large scale.

We can select many individual moments in history that make us wonder whether or not there is any direction or meaning in it – Absalom’s revolt; the Roman persecution of Christians; the torture of heretics by the Inquisition; the judicial murder of English Catholics by Elizabeth I; the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews; or Stalin’s policy of starving to death millions of his own countrymen. When I look at these events, I feel despair. Life and history  seem pointless.

But then I back up and look at the larger picture. The death of Absalom led to Solomon’s kingship; Solomon’s kingship led to the building of the first temple in Jerusalem. And eventually the line of David produces Jesus.

History is a vast mosaic. If we look at any individual tile in the mosaic, it is meaningless. Even if we look at 2 or 3 or a dozen of the tiles, they may appear to be a random collection of colors and shapes. But as the artist adds tiles, they began to take shape. Now a foot appears; then a hand. A face emerges from the chaos. Two figures emerge from the swirl, and then more. The story starts to take shape.

And so it is with history. To be sure, there are “follies, crimes, and misfortunes” but there is also courage and faith and leadership. A man trained as a surveyor becomes a soldier and rises through the ranks to become leader of the army assembled by the Continental Congress, and against all odds Washington defeats the world’s most powerful military. A country lawyer is elected president of the United States, and Lincoln brings together the divided states of the Union and brings and end to the buying and selling of human beings in this country. A journalist who has failed in politics becomes prime minister of Great Britain and Churchill and his country withstand the relentless assult of the Third Reich.

This is not the time or place to consider the meaning of American history, but I think there is something to George Will’s comment that there are enough “magic moments in American history to convince you that there is something miraculous about the American experience.” To be sure, America often gets it wrong, and slavery is only the most obvious example of that. And we must never believe that that our country needs no correction or criticism. But a remarkable pattern does seem to emerge from America’s short history.

Britain and Germany and Israel are countries founded upon nationality, upon a common language and culture and history and even religion. But America, as Lincoln said, is a country founded upon a proposition – “All men are created equal.” All too often we do not live up to that proposition, but it remains central to our history. And it may not be too much of a stretch to believe that America may, in some sense, have a divine commission to promote that proposition in human history.

But you may be wondering what meaning this has for you. It is all very well to say that history has meaning, but what about my life. Does my life have meaning or purpose? Does God have a plan for my life? Am I just a tile in the mosaic, a cog in the machinery of history? Or do I have some important role to play?

Just as history has meaning, just as God has a plan for David or Solomon or Mary, so I believe that God has a plan for each and everyone of us. Each of us has a role to play. Each of us is can be a hero or heroine in the drama of our lives.

Our role may not seem heroic, but I believe it is just as heroic and important to be a faithful husband or wife, mother or father. Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is to be an honest businessman or woman.

In the midst of the Civil War, America’s darkest moment, poet James Lowell penned these words that used to be in our hymnal.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light..

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

Your life has meaning. You are important. God has a plan for your life. And when you doubt that, remember Lowell’s words: “Behind the dim unknown / Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”

Great power - Great responsibility (J. Barry Vaughn. July 29, 2012)

King David is one of the most vivid and lifelike figures in the entire Bible. If you envision the Bible as a vast painting, the figures most likely to catch your eye would be Moses, David, perhaps the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, Mary – the mother of Jesus – Jesus, and Paul.

David is one of the most believable figures in the Bible because he is presented as fully human.

First, he has fully human desires and needs. The Book of Psalms was attributed to David. Even though I do not personally believe that David wrote the entire psalter, there is no doubt that he was a skilled musician. The author of First Samuel tells us that “And whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.”

Secondly, David is also presented as a person capable of extraordinary courage. As a very young man, he kills the Philistine warrior Goliath with a stone from his sling.  First Samuel also tells us that David was such a skilled warrior that Saul put him in charge of all his soldiers.

Thirdly, David is presented as someone capable of enormous love. The Bible says that “the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” When Jonathan is killed in battle, David laments his death, saying, “ I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan… your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women…”

Finally, David is also presented as a deeply flawed human being. First Samuel also describes David as a “man after [God’s] own heart.” How can a “man after God’s own heart” do the things we see him doing in today’s Old Testament reading?

One of the things that emerges most clearly not only from the Bible but also from any reading of human history is that great leaders are capable not only of great good but also great evil.

In today’s Old Testament reading we are told that “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.” In other words, David was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We know what happened when David did not lead his troops into battle at the time “when kings go out to battle.” But why do you suppose he did not go with him? Did David feel that he had arrived, that he had done all that he was supposed to do? Or did he stay behind hoping to catch a glimpse of his lovely neighbor Bathsheba?

Often it is in the very moment of success that we undermine ourselves. Think of Richard Nixon. I’m no great fan of Nixon, but there is little doubt that he was one of America’s most intelligent presidents. And in spite of his multiple failings, Nixon achieved some great things: he established strong standards for clean air and water, and he reestablished diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. And after he left the presidency he wrote several important books about American foreign policy and even advised his successors in the White House. But in spite of the fact that he knew that his re-election was a virtual certainty, he authorized illegal surveillance of the Democratic National Committee, and we all know about the tragedy of Watergate that followed.

The story of David is even more sordid than Watergate. David not only commits adultery with Bathsheba; he arranges for the murder of her husband Uriah.

The contrast between Uriah and David could not be more stark. Uriah is presented as loyal to a fault. When Uriah returns from battle, he does not go home to his wife as David hopes he will, he remains as close to his king as possible. Finally, in desperation David orders that Uriah be put on the frontline where death in battle is almost a certainty.

What are we to make of this  hero who is guilty of both adultery and murder?

I think the first lesson for us to take away is this: All of us have both Goliath moments and Uriah moments.

A Goliath moment is when in spite of our weakness, we reach down deep within ourselves and find a power that we did not know was there. In a moment of weakness we find the strength to do things we thought were beyond our power. When confronted with a great challenge we find the strength to meet and overcome that challenge.

But we also have Uriah moments. Like David we have moments when we believe that we have arrived or that we have accomplished all that we have set out to do, when we are coasting along, confident in ourselves, believing that we are the lords of all we survey, masters of the universe. And it is precisely in those moments that we are most vulnerable. To quote “Spiderman,” with great power comes great responsibility.

We may be able to see this more in the history of institutions and nations than in the lives of individuals. At the end of the 19^th century, Great Britain ruled the world. For the most part, they ruled wisely and well. In many ways they left India and Africa better than they were before. They built schools and railways. They established the rule of law and built up a strong civil service in the countries they ruled. But they also committed great crimes.

And what was true of the British empire is equally true of the American empire. We have only to think of Vietnam to see the truth of that.

The child abuse scandals involving Penn State University and the Roman Catholic Church are perfect examples of Uriah moments. Persons with great power misused their power in the most dreadful way. They abused the most vulnerable persons among us.

But we have to do today not with institutions but with persons – with King David and with ourselves.

Another lesson I take away from this sordid tale of David, Uriah, and Bathsheba is this: While great crimes undoubtedly tarnish the image of great men and women, it is also wrong to forget the good they accomplished.

Humorist Ambrose Bierce said that a saint is only a dead sinner who has been revised and edited. There is a lot of truth in that.

Several years ago I read a controversial biography of the great Christian writer C.S. Lewis. It was controversial because it presented Lewis not as a saint in a stained glass window but as a real human being capable of anger, a man who did not suffer fools. But after reading the biography, I admired Lewis more, not less. I saw him as someone I could aspire to be, who did good things in spite of great flaws.

I think also of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man I admire for his courage and his consistent practice of nonviolent resistance in the face of prejudice and violent racism even though his weaknesses and flaws were manifold.

Even though David did not write the entire book of Psalms, there are two psalms that I feel certain go back to David himself.

The first is the 23^rd psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

The second is Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

The Bible holds up a mirror to our lives. It shows us men and women like ourselves in our strength and weakness, glory and shame. It challenges us to look within ourselves, to take a long, hard, and honest inventory or our lives.

We need to look honestly at our strength. The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God, that there is a goodness in the human heart, a light in the soul that cannot be extinguished.

But the Bible also tells us that we are fallen, weak, limited, and finite. It tells us that we may very well use our power to harm and even kill.

But the Bible tells us that there is a remedy when we use our power to harm. It tells us that God is ever ready to forgive, heal, restore and redeem.

“Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of thy deliverance. 15 O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. 16 For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage (J. Barry Vaughn, July 8, 2012)

When April with his showers, sweet with fruit,

The drought of March has pierced unto the root

And bathed each vein with liquor that has power

To generate therein and sire the flower…

Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,

And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,

To distant shrines well-known in sundry lands

And specially from every shire’s end.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is about a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury to visit one of the most visited of medieval shrines – the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket of Canterbury, an archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered by knights of King Henry II in the 12^th c in a dispute over the relative powers of church and state. Sounds positively modern!!

Chaucer was a shrewd observer of human nature and understood that not all of his pilgrims were there for spiritual reasons. Some were going to make money; some just to have a good time; some of them were just on vacation!

But Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales speak to something that I think is fundamental to human nature – the belief that some places are holy, that we are closer to God in some places rather than others.

Some of us experience the presence of God in places of extraordinary natural beauty, such as the Grand Canyon or the Smoky Mountains or near the ocean. Some of us feel God to be near when we are in great and ancient cathedrals.

For some it is as simple as a place where we went fishing as a child or where we met the love of our life.

Many are overcome by awe when they visit places such as the Civil War battle field of Manasses or Gettysburg or even the beaches of Normandy. We are overwhelmed when we think that so many were willing to give their lives in defense of their country and to secure the freedom of people in countries which they had never even seen and whose languages they could not speak.

Sometimes these holy places make us feel as Paul did that we were “caught up to the third heaven-- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know….” That we were “caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat…”

Some say that there are “thin places”, places where the barrier between heaven and earth, the divine and human, is very, very thin, places like the one where Jacob saw the ladder joining heaven and earth on which angels walked up and down.

They say that India is the world’s most religious country, and I suspect that is true. It is certainly full of holy places. The Indian tradition is to remove one’s shoes when one enters a holy place, and we were constantly taking our shoes off and putting them back on.

If any place in the world is holy, then surely it is the city of Jerusalem. Medieval maps place Jerusalem in the center of the world, a geographical fallacy but a spiritual truth because any place we encounter God becomes the center of the world for us.

Today’s OT reading gives us some insight into the history of Jerusalem but is a little confusing. It tells us that David occupies a place called “the city of David” but also seizes the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and that he rules over the united kingdom of Israel for 33 years.

It may be that the “city of David” and Jerusalem were geographically very close but not quite the same place. Today the Palestinian village of Silwan is identified as the “City of David.” It is located just below the Temple platform on the lower slope of Mt Zion.

Perhaps David and his people occupied the city of David before launching their attack to seize Jerusalem proper on the slope above their encampment.

Regardless, the reading from 2 Samuel tells us that Jerusalem is an ancient place.

It was a Jebusite city before it was an Israelite city. Undoubtedly, it was selected because it is easy to defend. The ancient city of Jerusalem is located on Mt Zion. There are deep  valleys on its east and west that converge at the south end of the city. In other words, Jerusalem is located on a relatively high hill shaped like the point of a spear. The only place from which it can easily be attacked is on the north, and that is the place where Jerusalem has been attacked many times throughout the centuries.

However, there may be more to Jerusalem than just its military significance. David made it not only his political capital; he also made it Israel’s religious capital. In next week’s OT reading we will hear how David moved the ark of the covenant, the ornate box containing the tables of the law that Mose received from God, to Jerusalem.

It could be that Jerusalem was already a holy place, that it was also a center of the Jebusite religion.

Regardless, these stories tell us that for 3000 years people have worshiped God in Jerusalem. It is not difficult to understand that when you visit Jerusalem.

First, it is a physically beautiful setting. The high hills and deep valleys around Jerusalem lift the spirit.

Second, Jerusalem is built from something called Jerusalem stone, a kind of limestone that reflects light in a soft and beautiful way, especially in the evening. At communion we will sing “Jerusalem the Golden” by the medieval mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux. Israelis also sing a folk song called “Jerusalem the Golden”. We sing these songs because Jerusalem often has a kind of golden glow.

All of these things have pulled spiritual people to Jerusalem over the centuries. But this has also made Jerusalem a place of conflict.

It is a city holy to three faiths – Jews, Christians, and Muslims. And no one knows how to fight like religious people.

David seized it from the Jebusites in the 11^th c BC. The Seleucid Greeks occupied it in the 4^th c BC. The Romans destroyed it in the 2^nd c AD. They left not one of its ancient buildings standing and rebuilt it as a Roman city that they called Aelia Capitolina. They even put a temple to Venus where the Temple of Herod had stood. Then the Muslims seized it in the 7^th c.

Perhaps the most violent group that conquered Jerusalem were the Christians. In the 12^th c Christians calling themselves Crusaders which means knights or soldiers of the Cross conquered Jerusalem after a siege of 100 days. Many residents of Jerusalem died of hunger and thirst during the siege. But the Crusaders put the remaining people of Jerusalem to death by the sword, not distinguishing between Jews, Muslims, and Eastern Orthodox Christians. One chronicler says that the blood in the streets flowed as high as a horse’s chest. Apparently it was a Crusader who coined the phrase, “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”

I could go on about the history of Jerusalem but the point is that it has always been a city of conflict and continues to be one.

But the point I want to make is this: Are there holy places? Are some places thin? Are we closer to God in some places than others?

In the 4^th chapter of John Jesus encounters a woman of Samaria at Jacob’s well. She tries to distract him by engaging him in a conversation about where the appropriate place to worship God is. She says that her people, the Samaritans, worship God in Samaria but the Jews say that one should worship God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus says, “…the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 

In other words, God is everywhere. There is no place where God is not, no place where we may not be surprised to find God present with us.

I visited Jerusalem for the first time in 1985. I expected to be powerful moved by the holy places but I did not have any epiphanies or visions and I felt a little disappointed. Nevertheless, I fell in love with Jerusalem. What attracted me to it was its antiquity and history, with the many cultures, languages and peoples that swirled through its streets. But I did not feel the presence of God more strongly there than in other places.

After I got over my initial disappointment, I found the realization strangely comforting because I realized that God is present everywhere and that God is no more present in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre than God is present here in St. Alban’s.

The English theologian Esther deWaal wrote a book about the Rule of St. Benedict, the fundamental set of rules that guides western monasticism. One of the rules is the rule of stability. Monks are supposed to commit themselves to one community for the rest of their lives.

DeWaal illustrated the rule by talking about people who go around seeking the perfect church and are never satisfied. She says that the rule of stability means that if I don’t find God here in this place and among these people, then I am unlikely to find God anywhere.

We all have holy places and that’s a good thing. We need to visit them from time to time and to remember the way that we experienced God there. But we should also remember that Birmingham may be just as holy as Jerusalem, that God is here and everywhere and that if the light is just right and we tilt our heads at just the right angle, we may see angels ascending and descending on that ladder that reaches from earth to heaven and back again.