"Here I Am, Lord" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

August 31, 2022

Scripture:  1 Samuel 3:1-10

 

Have you ever heard God calling your name in the middle of the night the way that Samuel did?

 

I know that it is possible – I know that there are people who, like Samuel, have a direct call from God, and who are able to answer back, “Here I am, Lord.”  But while I have experienced the overwhelming love of the Divine embracing me, I have never heard with my ears God speaking my name.

 

But just because I have never heard God speaking my name doesn’t mean that God hasn’t called me – God is able to call us in so many more ways than just words.  God is able to call us through planting a thought or a feeling in us that we can’t shake – a thought that we can test by running it past other people to make sure that it truly does come from God.  God is able to call us through the words of other people – maybe someone has tapped you on the shoulder (literally or figuratively) and said to you, I think that you would be a good person to serve in this ministry of the church.  God is able to call us through words that we read, or a song that we hear, or a picture that we see, or through the glory of God’s creation.

 

I think that there are maybe as many different ways for God to call us, as there are people who are called.

 

Today we heard Samuel’s call story.  Samuel was the much longed for, first-born child of Hannah.  Hannah had prayed night and day for a child, and had promised God that when her child was born, she would dedicate this child to God.  And so it was that Samuel was born, and when he was still a young child, Samuel was sent off to live with Eli, the priest, in order to learn how to serve God.

 

Jewish tradition has it that Samuel was 12 years old when God called him in the middle of the night.  Three times, God called out, “Samuel, Samuel!” and three times Samuel thought that it was Eli, the priest calling him.  Three times Samuel went running to Eli, crying out, “Here I am!”  Finally Eli clued in to what was happening, and told Samuel – it isn’t me who is calling to you, it is God.

 

And so the fourth time he heard his name being called, Samuel stayed in his room and said to God, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

 

This story of Samuel’s call is only the beginning of his story.  Samuel would go on to be a leader of the people, as well as a king-maker, anointing Saul as the first king of Israel and Judah, while warning the people that they didn’t want a king with absolute power, and there should be some checks and balances in place to make sure that God was above even the king.

 

All of us are called in different ways, and all of us are called to different tasks.  Not all of us are called to be prophets and king-makers the way Samuel was called… thank goodness!  But God needs all of us, each with our own individual calling, each with our own little piece of God’s overall work, so that the whole work of loving the world can be done.

 

This week’s hymn, “Here I Am, Lord,” was written in 1979 when Dan Schutte was asked to compose, on very short notice, a song for the ordination service of a deacon.  It can be a divisive song – some people really don’t like it, while others find it deeply meaningful – but this spring when I did the favourite hymn survey here at Two Rivers, it came out on top as the clear number one favourite around our churches!

 

It is a hymn with an interesting structure.  In each of the three verses, we are singing from God’s perspective – that is one of the things that makes some people very uncomfortable singing this hymn, for who are we, as mere human beings, to sing for God?  But then each time the chorus comes in, we are singing our human response to God.  It is almost a call-and-response structure – God is calling us in the verses, and we respond in the chorus.

 

The words in the verses, the promises of God – they are beautiful to read.  God promises to hear us; God promises to shine a light into all of the shadows of our lives; God promises to be with us in our pain, helping us to carry our pain and sorrows; God promises to feed all people; God promises healing.

 

And God is able to do this because each one of us answers “Here I Am” when God calls us.  God calls each of us to do a small part of God’s overall work; and with each one of us doing our small part, all of the promises that God makes to us can be fulfilled.

 

We are all called.  We are all called to be part of the body of Christ – the literal hands and feet of Christ – and then we share in the work of Christ – the work of reflecting light into the shadows; the work of accompanying others through their pain and sorrows; the work of feeding the world; the work of healing.

 

When we hear God calling our name, in whatever way God calls you, and when we say, “Here I Am, Lord,” then we join Samuel, and all of the other people God has called across time and across distance, to be the hands and feet of God in our world.

 

And so the question I leave you to ponder this week is – what part of the work is God calling you to?  Where have you heard God’s voice calling in the night or in the daytime?  And where in God’s world are you being sent to serve?

 

And may the Holy Spirit open the ears of your heart to hear your call, accompany you, and equip you for this work always!  Amen.

 

 

“The Call to Samuel” – Frank Wesley

Image Used with Permission

"How Great Thou Art" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday July 24, 2022

Scripture:  Psalm 104:1-33

 

 

Have you ever had a moment when you have been overwhelmed by the greatness, the goodness, the vastness of God’s creation?  In my own life, I call these “Oh, wow” moments.

 

I think of a time on a canoe trip when I was sitting at the edge of the water in the late afternoon, watching the sunshine dance on the waves, listening to the wind singing in the pine needles, looking for minnows, crayfish, or larger fish swimming in the shallows.  I felt like I was part of this great big web of creation.  My friend, who was further away from the shore called down and asked if I was reading, and I replied, no, I’m simply being.

 

Another time I was skiing out in BC, and I paused as I was about to drop into a bowl.  I had a panoramic view of the mountains all around me – snow and rock – and I felt so miniscule, like a tiny insect about to make my way across a snowy expanse.

 

21 years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Egypt and Palestine; and in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, some of us climbed up Mount Sinai, the rocky mountain in the desert where Moses went to chat with God.  We climbed up to watch the sunset, which was spectacular, but when you watch the sun set from the top of the mountain, that means that you are climbing down the mountain in the dark.  There in the middle of the desert with no light pollution, I have never seen so many stars as I did that night.  It was hard to keep myself from walking off the edge of the path, as I kept tilting my head to look upwards.  If the sunset was spectacular, the walk down the mountain was awe-inspiring, and that is the part of the day that left the deepest impression on me.

 

Earlier this week, in my mid-week e-mail message, I shared one of my favourite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.  In the first panel, Calvin is looking up at the night sky, with the vastness of stars that are there.  In the second panel, he screams, “I’m significant!”  In the third panel, he is again gazing up at the stars.  And in the fourth panel, he whispers, “screamed the dust speck.”

 

Our hymn this week is “How Great Thou Art” and it is another hymn with a story!  I didn’t know that this hymn started its life as a Swedish poem that was then set to a Swedish folk song.  Carl Boberg was walking home one evening when he had one of those experiences that I call “Oh, wow” moments.  He was walking home from church one evening, listening to the church bells, when a sudden and violent storm overtook him – thunder and lighting and wind.  The storm left as quickly as it had arrived, a rainbow appeared, the water in the bay was like a mirror, a thrush began to sing, and the church bells were still tolling off in the distance.

 

In awe of what God could do and what God had created, he wrote a 9-verse poem praising and glorifying God.

 

When the song was later translated into English, our first two verses capture the language and the spirit of that original poem – awe and praise.  The third and fourth verses were added on by the translator, Stuart Hine, as teaching verses when he was working as a missionary.  But for today, I want to focus on the first two verses of the hymn.

 

I chose to pair this hymn with Psalm 104 this week, because they are both songs of praise – praising God as the creator and source of all, praising God for how God moves and works in creation, praising God for God’s care of creation.

 

If you are of a certain generation, you may know this song best as the Billy Graham hymn, since the evangelist Billy Graham usually included it in his gatherings.  The reason why he liked this hymn is because it glorifies God – it turns our eyes away from ourselves and towards God.  He called it a God-honouring song.

 

I might expand on this to say that not only does the song turn our eyes towards God, but the glory of God’s creation can also turn our eyes towards God – the subject of the song, even without the song to remind us, turns us towards God.  That sense of awe and wonder that are evoked by the water or by the wind or by the mountains or by the stars – this awe points us towards God, for what kind of a majestic God could create all of this?!

 

It is almost like all of creation is a great artistic masterpiece; and if we know to look for it, we can see the artist’s signature all over it.  Or to put it less poetically, the Holy Spirit, the part of God who is living and moving and working in creation, is present in every molecule, every atom, every sub-atomic particle of creation; and the Holy Spirit working in us allows us to recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence within the rest of creation.

 

We don’t worship creation itself – creation points us back to the Creator.  But then the Creator and Source of all that is calls us to care for and tend creation, to be good stewards of creation.  And so when we care for God’s creation, our care for creation becomes one way that we can worship or honour God, the Creator.

 

We aren’t the centre of creation, the centre of the universe.  Instead, we are a part of an intricate web of creation, a community of creation – all of us created by God.  Other parts of creation help us to see God more clearly; and when we live with respect in other parts of creation, when we care for the things that God has created, then we are living as God wants us to live.  Every choice that we make that keeps the air and the rivers and the ground clean is an act of worship.  Every action that we take that allows the trees and the rocks and the fish to exist and thrive as God created them to is an act of worship.  Every decision that we make that allows creation to be and exist in harmony is an act of worship.

 

I started with a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, so let me end with a different one.  This time, Calvin the child and Hobbes the tiger are outside together at night, looking up at the stars.  Calvin says, “If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently.”  Hobbes asks, “How so.”  Calvin replies, “Well, when you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.”

 

The punch line in the final panel has Hobbes observing wryly, “We spent our day looking under rocks in the creek,” and Calvin retorting, “I mean other people.”  I know that this was intended to be funny, contrasting the big questions of the universe with the trivialness, the banality of looking under rocks in the creek; but really, when it comes right down to it, what could be more important than gazing on the awesome wonder of God, whether you find the awesome wonder of God in the stars and the galaxies, or whether you find the awesome wonder of God underneath the rocks in the creek.

 

And when we notice the divine presence, our souls will sing out, “How great thou art, God of all Creation!”

 

 

Photo Credit:  LauraMarie Piotrowicz

She captioned this picture “Kate just being”

"In the Bulb There is a Flower" (sermon)

July 10 and 17, 2022

Flower Service

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Scripture:  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

“Favourite Hymn”:  In the Bulb There is a Flower

 

 

All summer long this year, we are going to be exploring our favourite hymns – what do they tell us about God and what do they tell us about our relationship with God?  Back in the spring, I surveyed all three of our congregations to try and get a sense of what the favourite hymns are, and it was no surprise to me that “In the Bulb” was one of the top couple of hymns.

 

We sing it together every year at this Flower Service.  It has been sung at many funerals that I have attended.  I know that it is part of my own funeral plans too, if and when the time comes.  (Or maybe that should just be when the time comes.)

 

This hymn is a fairly recent one compared with others in our hymn books, and there is a bit of a story behind it.  The words and music were written in 1985 by Natalie Sleeth, the wife of a Methodist minister in the US.  She had been pondering death and life and Good Friday and Easter.

 

To the composer, the key line in the song is the beginning of the third verse, which goes:  “In our end is our beginning.”  The funny thing is, this line doesn’t come from the bible but was actually inspired by a poem by T. S. Eliot who wrote:  “What we call the beginning is often the end / and to make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from.”

 

The hymn was popular right from when it was first written – it was sung at Natalie Sleeth’s husband’s funeral not too long after it was written, then it was sung at her own funeral only 7 years later.

 

The hardest thing for me this week was figuring out what bible reading to pair it with.  It is a hymn that is filled with good theology, but it isn’t the sort of hymn where you can read the words and say this hymn was definitely based on this passage or this story from the bible.

 

It is a hymn about new life and resurrection – think about the images of the winter snow melting into spring, or butterflies emerging from the darkness of the cocoon, or the dawn that emerges out of every night.  With these images, I might have paired it with one of the Easter stories, and the promise of Easter that no matter how bad things get, we can cling to the hope, cling to the promise that things are going to get better.

 

I was also thinking about the reading from the prophet Isaiah where he writes about a new shoot coming out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch growing out from the roots.  This is another reading about hope – one that we usually hear in the season of Advent when we are waiting for Christmas; a season of waiting when we trust that what is coming is going to be good, even if we don’t know what shape this coming goodness is going to take.  Looking at the hymn, the images of a bulb that will become a flower, or a seed that will become a tree fit here.  A stump looks dead, like it could never be the source of new life, in the same way that a tulip or daffodil bulb doesn’t look anything like the tulips or daffodils that it will turn in to, or an apple seed doesn’t look anything like an apple tree.

 

In the same way, what the future holds for us – whether we are looking at our own personal lives, or a society that is transformed, or the life that follows death – it may not resemble what came before, but is so much better than we could ever imagine.

 

But in the end, I ended up pairing this hymn with the reading from Ecclesiastes that _______ read for us today.  It is a reading that may be more familiar to you from the Pete Seeger song made popular by the Byrds.

 

The author of Ecclesiastes was writing about life, and how our lives often move through different seasons, one following the next, each season different than the one that came before it.  The overall message of the book of Ecclesiastes is that since no season lasts forever, we should enjoy each season of life as it comes.

 

Think of all of the loved ones in your life who you are remembering today.  Think of all of the seasons in their lives – their lives weren’t static, but were continually changing as one season rolls into the next.  The end of one season isn’t the ultimate end, but, as the hymn tells us, in our end is our beginning.  This new beginning, this new season isn’t revealed to us until we get there, but God can see it, and God knows that the new beginning will be good.

 

And with this song, and with so many parts of the bible, the end isn’t the end, but rather it is a new beginning.  Good Friday may feel like the end, but it isn’t really, for Easter is coming.  And as Ecclesiastes advises us, don’t try to hold on to one season trying to make it last forever, but trust that the unfolding season will be good, for God will be there.  And that includes the season that awaits us after we pass through the curtain that separates this life from the life that awaits us on the other side of death.  We can’t see that season yet – it is still a mystery – but we can trust that this season that awaits us will be good, in the same way as the flower that unfolds from the bulb, or the tree that emerges from the seed, or the dawn that cracks open the night.

 

It is a mystery, and that isn’t a bad thing – it is only a mystery because we can’t see it yet and we can’t understand it yet.  But just as God is with us in all of the seasons of this life, we know that God will be with us in the season that awaits us.  Thanks be to God!

 

 

The Bouquet of Memories – Long Reach United Church

July 10, 2022