Most Likely to Succeed

Most Likely to Succeed

Text: I Samuel 16:1-13

(Gary W. Charles at Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, on 3-26-2017)           

          In our recent move, I ran across my parents’ high school senior yearbook. In it, there are several pages devoted to special students – “Best Athlete,” “Best Dressed.” “Best Student.” The one that caught my eye, though, was “The Most Likely to Succeed.” Beneath the title was a handsome, shaved, buff, All-American looking young man – someone whose appearance leaves no doubt that he is heading down the highway of fame and fortune.  

          The text for today is written for those of us who are easily seduced by appearance – be it the clean-cut chap voted “The Most Likely to Succeed” or the obstreperous teen with rings and tattoos adorning every conceivable body part. At its heart, this biblical story suggests that our eagle eyes and initial impressions are not nearly as foolproof as we often assume.

          In this classic tale of surprise, the wise and venerable prophet Samuel visually inspects the children of Jesse, one by one. Each son is pleasing to the eye and as each son parades past Samuel, the prophet is sure that “this must be the one that God has chosen to be king!” The parade of sons ends though and not one of Jesse’s sons is the one chosen by God to be king. Samuel judges on appearance only and as a result, he misjudges God’s intention. It is not until the young, ruddy, runt David is summoned that Samuel finds the son chosen by God – a choice that Samuel himself would never have made in a thousand years.

          Each of Jesse’s older sons had the customary appearance of a king, but looks in this particular story, as is so often the case in life, were absolutely deceiving. Confounded by how God could not choose one of these fine looking boys to be the next king of Israel, God informs Samuel:  “the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." Samuel’s judgment was flawed on repeated attempts, because he failed to understand that you never know a person until you have looked beyond initial appearance and have seen their heart. 

          What would you say if you were asked: “Who is Gary Charles?” Some might answer, “He’s a Presbyterian pastor, the new pastor at Cove.” “He’s Jennell’s husband and Erin and Josh’s dad.” “He’s the guy who has way too many opinions and never hesitates to share them in the pulpit.” All of those statements are true, but they are not worth the breath used to speak them, until you have seen my heart.

          The Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature . . . for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that God does not judge us by outer appearance, but by the quality of our heart? 

          Before answering that loaded question, think twice. Do we really want God to see the inner recesses of our heart, see greed masquerading as concern for an aging parent? See racism dressed up as civic virtue as we protest that we are just trying to keep our neighborhood “safe.” Is it good when God sees our hearts turned stone cold, keeping an excel spreadsheet on every slight done to us or when God sees us playing fast and quick with the truth while lamely excusing it as a “white lie”?

           It can be a terrible thing when God looks only on the heart. Had God looked only on David’s heartfelt lust for Bathsheba, he would never have remained king.  Had God looked only on David’s heart as he conspired to get rid of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, David could well have lost more than his kingship. 

          God does look on the heart, but not in order to entrap us and to condemn us, but to restore us to the image in which you and I were created in the first place. God looks on young David’s heart through eyes of grace and is able to see a king, is able to see beyond the ways David will break God’s own heart. As John says it so well in his Gospel, “God did not send God’s Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” When God looks at our hearts, God no doubt sees our scars and wounds, sees the horrors that we do to ourselves and to others, but God also sees something in us far beyond a broken and damaged heart.  

          What do you suppose other people see when they look at Cove Presbyterian Church? That is what I was trying to find out last year before I accepted the call to be your pastor. I had driven by the church many times on my trips from Atlanta to Waynesboro. Driving along at 60 or 70 mph on Route 29, Cove struck me as one of the countless charming 18^th century brick sanctuaries that can be found throughout Virginia. I even wondered aloud on occasion if this church was still open. You see, the tiny signs for Cove on 29N and 29S do not tell you much; first impressions rarely do.

The far more important question is: “What does God see when God looks on the heart of Cove Presbyterian Church?” It was not until a very cold early winter night a year ago that I first began to uncover the answer to that question. On that night, I met with the Pastor Nominating Committee for the first time, with Renee and Fran, Will and Susan and Beth Neville. I soon learned that my first impressions of Cove were woefully inadequate. I began to see the heart of Cove as I listened to members of the PNC share their stories. Then, we walked into this holy sanctuary and I felt the faith of not only the members of the PNC, but of the countless members and pastors and musicians who have come before us. 

           When I asked members in presbytery for impressions about Cove, they cautioned me that Cove has not called a full time pastor in years and some wondered aloud if it were wise to do so now. Some even suggested that Cove should find another small, struggling congregation and together share a pastor. Clearly, these presbytery members knew something about Cove, had some definite first impressions, but they knew Cove mainly from outward appearance and as a result, they had a poor read on Cove’s heart. In fairness to them, though, that is what we mortals are apt to, to render judgment on first impressions, but God looks directly on the heart. And, God knows that the heart of this church is so much larger than any person could ever see from the street or know from afar.

          I am convinced that when God looks on the heart of Cove, God sees the strength of longtime members who have persevered and provided perspective through troubled transitions and challenging times. God sees the courage of Cove to choose welcome in a time when many are choosing to withdraw or close doors. God sees Cove’s passion for mission, from housing a fine preschool for children on the grounds to building homes with partners in Habitat, from supporting mission workers in Haiti to laboring in new construction in Reynosa, Mexico, from keeping the Food Bank supplied with food to exploring how we might host refugee families. God beams with pride looking on the hearts of members caring for the well-being of each other, with wood delivered and food prepared, hospital visits made and prayers offered.

             My strong hunch is that when God looks at Cove Presbyterian Church, God sees a living, lively, loving, sometimes quirky, always opinionated, definitely inquisitive, abundantly generous, body of Christ, a company of flawed and fabulous hearts that surely have made and will continue to make glad the heart of God.

                    AMEN

The Adjacent Possible

The Adjacent Possible

Text: Genesis 12:1-4a

(Gary W. Charles, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, 3-12-2017)

A few years back, I read a book by Steven Johnson called, “Where Good Ideas Come From?” In his book, Johnson introduced me to the concept of the adjacent possible. He borrowed the phrase from research in prebiotic chemistry being done by Stuart Kaufmann. For Johnson and Kaufmann, the adjacent possible is a kind of shadow future, hovering on the edge of the present state of things, a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.

          Johnson helps explain the concept with this fascinating metaphor:

“Think of it as a house that magically expands with each door you open. You begin in a room with four doors, each leading to a new room that you haven’t visited yet. Those four rooms are the adjacent possible. But once you open one of those doors and stroll into that room, three new doors appear, each leading to a brand new room that you couldn’t have reached from your original starting point. . . . The strange and beautiful truth about the adjacent possible is that its boundaries grow as you explore those boundaries. Each new combination opens up the possibility of other new combinations.” (pp. 31-33).

As Chapter Twelve of Genesis opens, we meet Sarai and Abram for the first time. So far, in Genesis, all the stories have been a series of disappointments. Adam and Eve are promised the good life, but opt for wanting more. Cain kills his brother out of jealousy. Noah is rescued from the great flood only to stumble off the boat in a drunken stupor. The world is united by one common language, but when they reach beyond their means, babel results.

As readers, we do not expect too much from Abram and Sarai when God instructs them to: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” So far in Genesis, human behavior has been all too predictable; no one has been willing to step into God’s adjacent possible.

After an invitation to enter into God’s adjacent possible, I can imagine Abram and Sarai having one of those difficult “couple’s conversations” during which temperatures rise and voices soar:

“Abram, if you think I’m leaving home and family to head off to God knows where, well, you’ve got another think coming!”

“You say that it was ‘God’ inviting us to pull up stakes, leave our friends behind, and head to destinations unknown. And, I say, ‘You and God have a nice trip’.”

And, if not a “couple’s conversation,” I can imagine one of those “crossroads conversations,” especially since the city Haran from which Abram and Sarai are called to leave, literally means “highway” or “crossroads”:

“Sarai, maybe we should go, but if I am honest, I am not even sure what I believe about God, much less believing promises from God about life on the other side of Haran.”

“God seems to have more confidence in us than we have in ourselves. Maybe God is making a mistake choosing us?”

The remarkable thing about the story is not that Abram and Sarai are invited to walk into God’s adjacent possible, several characters in Genesis have already declined the invitation. The remarkable thing about this couple is that they choose to walk forward through the mysterious door of possibility that God holds opens for them, having absolutely no clue what awaits them on the other side of that door. On the journey ahead, they will walk into rooms that look as expansive as a starlit sky on a crystal clear night, but also into rooms that will make them wonder why they ever left Haran. Into each room, they will walk into a future about which they have only God’s promise.

   It is no surprise, then, that years later, when the Apostle Paul talks about faith, he points to Abram and Sarai, who pack their bags, leave their expansive homestead, and walk into God’s promised future. On their journey, they learn what the scientist discovered in his research in prebiotic chemistry; you cannot leapfrog the adjacent possible. You cannot leapfrog from God’s promise of land and progeny into the reality of land and progeny. Doors have to be opened, rooms explored, and trust maintained.

By the time we meet Abram and Sarai, they are long past their childbearing years. What God holds out to this aging couple is well beyond their estimate of what is possible. God invites them on a journey into new rooms of promise that will lead them far beyond being “barren” into God’s fecund future. In a decision that comes as a surprise to everyone, Abram and Sarai accept the invitation and set out into God’s adjacent possible.   

The season of Lent has long been pictured as a journey into God’s adjacent possible, but this season, I find myself stuck in the Lenten starting blocks, stuck in Ash Wednesday, unable to find the door into the adjacent possible, much less to walk through it. I find myself stuck in sorrow over the violence being done to mosques and synagogues across the nation and the violence we never hear about being done in the depths of our inner cities. I am stuck in bewilderment at how quickly and easily we use social media as a launching pad for vicious assaults on others with complete impunity. I am stuck in grief over national attitudes that punish the victim for being female or gay, bi-sexual or transgender, a person of color or a person who lives on the streets.  

To speak of God’s adjacent possible on this second Sunday in Lent feels a little hollow, maybe like telling a barren couple that they were going to have the world’s largest family. And, yet, this is the very couple to whom we tie our hopes when we follow Jesus on the Lenten journey into God’s adjacent possible. This is the very couple that inspired Jesus to resist the temptation to leapfrog rooms of deprivation and suffering, as if he could ever know his full humanity without walking into the same rooms of suffering and grief that Sarai and Abram and you and I walk and walk with others all too often.

In many ways, it is easy for a comfortable, white, male to opine about walking into God’s adjacent possible. The obstacles before me are so few. It is so much harder for many of my friends to dare to do so. On our recent drive to the Outer Banks, Jennell and I passed two enormous Confederate flags, prominently placed next to the highway. As I looked at those flags that were not waving for National Confederate History Month, but as a visual sign of intimidation to people of color, I was reminded of a poem by Langston Hughes, a black poet from Joplin, Missouri, who dreamed about walking across the landmines of racism to enter into God’s adjacent possible.

In his poem, “I, Too,” Langston dreams:

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll sit at the table.

When company comes

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen.”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed –

I, too, am America.

I wish I had the faith fortitude of Abram and Sarai and Langston. I do not. I need you to help me get unstuck, so together we can walk into God’s adjacent possible. I need you to remind me that God is calling us into new rooms, into new possibilities of mercy and love, forgiveness and forbearance, new rooms that expand with our faith and imagination.  

What would it mean to pray FULLY: “O God, may I have the courage, resilience, and imagination to walk into God’s beautiful, and sometimes terrifying, but always trustworthy, adjacent possible? I intend to find out, for that is my Lenten prayer.

AMEN

A Transfiguring Touch

A Transfiguring Touch

Text:  Matthew 17:1-8

(Gary W. Charles at Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, 2-26-2017)

The season of Lent arrives around this time, every year on the heels of the Transfiguration story. In that strange story, no sooner do Jesus, Peter, James, and John make it up the mountain then Jesus’ face starts to shine. Then, more than his face, Jesus’ entire body is transfigured, in the Greek, is metamorphisized, by God.

It is one thing to sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” when Jesus is someone much like us, a person we can relate to, someone who laughs and cries, who occasionally loses his temper and raises his voice. It is quite another thing to make sense of an eerie, glowing Jesus, who looks not like he has seen a ghost, but who looks like a ghost himself.    

Read on and the story only gets stranger. Just as Peter and the Zebedee boys set sights on the transfigured Jesus do the time travelers Moses and Elijah arrive. Peter tries to bring some reason to the surreal setting by offering accommodations for everyone. It is the first concrete, common sense  thing that has happened since the boys went up the mountain.

Before anyone can book a room or pitch a tent, though, a cloud, a deep fog, sets in and the scene shifts from sight to sound. A voice from above declares, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

The three disciples, who earlier felt privileged to be the only ones among the twelve to go with Jesus into Jairus’s house and are the only three invited up the mountain, now feel terrified. There is something about the voice of God throughout Scripture that brings people to their knees.

And if not strange enough already, what happens next strikes perhaps the oddest note in the entire story. The whiter-than-white-face-shining-like-an-angel-fully-transcendent-no-one-like-we have-ever-known Jesus reaches down to this terrified trio, touches them, and tells them to: “Get up and do not be afraid.”  

Neither Mark nor Luke say a word about Jesus touching anyone on the mountain; for them, Jesus is transfigured, transcendent, untouchable. For Matthew, though, whether standing transfigured on this mountain with Peter, James, and John or later risen from the tomb and standing on the mountain with all his disciples, Jesus never stops being “Emmanuel,” God with us, a God who is never too distant to enter our fear or too aloof to soothe our worried brows.    

 I said earlier that Lent arrives on the heels of this story. Actually, for most people today, Lent does not arrive at all. Unlike Christmas – a key economic engine of the American economy – Lent has little commercial value.  We can quite easily ignore this season and most people do. Even in the church, many skip Lent and avoid all the tough texts ahead, ones that speak of Jesus coming down the mountain and walking right into the heart of darkness in Gethsemane and finally in Golgotha.   

I would suggest that this is not a good year for anyone to skip Lent. There is way too much fear in the air. It is tangible and it is devastating and it is everywhere you turn. For our first several months at Cove, Jennell and I lived atop Afton mountain where fog is a regular guest. We would often wake to find ourselves surrounded by a vast, natural, cotton ball of fog. If someone were to ask us, “Just where is the fog exactly?” my response would be: “It is everywhere you turn.” That is the way it is with fear today – it is everywhere we turn.

Some fear an assault from radical Islamist terrorists. Some fear a federal assault on the earth and air and water. Some fear a press that is out of control. Some fear an administration that is out of control. Some fear that the chemo will not work. Some fear that sobriety is about to end. Some fear that the sands of time are slipping through the glass too quickly. Some fear that they will never be old enough to be taken seriously. Some fear that we are approaching a nuclear winter. Some fear that they will never be forgiven. Some fear that they will never be able to forgive. Fear is everywhere we turn.

Fear shuts us off and shuts us down. It isolates us and insulates us from others who may be in pain. Fear gives us permission to be ugly and to shout obscenities and to send eviscerating emails. Fear is a malignant tumor that eventually will kill you, kill the church, kill the nation.

It is no accident that the two most popular words in Scripture are “fear not.” These two words are not spoken by enlightened humans who have assessed the situation and then decided, with FDR, that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.” These are words spoken by God, again and again in Scripture, and precisely in those times when there is every reason to be afraid. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus not only speaks these two words of comfort, he puts his arms around his friends; he touches them in their time of overwhelming fear.

 In just three days, on Ash Wednesday, we will gather here again at noon to worship God and to be marked with ashes. We will come into this sanctuary, fears and all. We will once again be reminded that “from dust we come and from dust we shall return.” A big black ashy smudge on our foreheads will be a telling sign to the world that death is not optional. As we feel the ashes touch our foreheads, we will also be reminded of the God who brings life out of death, even death on the cross.

For the past couple of years, two of my young colleagues at Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta and I would put on our pulpit robes, get our ashes ready, and head to the nearby campus of Georgia State University and to the nearby MARTA station. We were an odd sight by our robes alone, but even more so by the sign we carried that read:  “Get Your Ashes Here.”

Some people would pass us by much like I often pass by a homeless person who is holding a sign on the street corner. Some would engage our eyes, smile, and walk right by us. A surprisingly number of students and even some busy transit riders would stop and ask for ashes. Many would preface it by saying, “Now, I’m not religious, but this couldn’t hurt.”  

When we walked back to the church, we were met by a large crowd of men lining up to get into the Central Night Shelter. They were ready for us. I nearly ran out of ashes, with Shelter guest after Shelter guest asking if they could be marked with the cross. They not only asked for ashes, but they asked us to pray for them and more than a few tears fell along weathered cheeks. A few of the guests told me that this was the first time someone had touched them in months. Then I joined them in the weeping. God was present in this holy touch in a way that I cannot begin to explain.

Maybe that is the invitation of the strange Transfiguration story, to come down off the mountain, to come out of our safe sanctuaries, and to go where people are cowering in fear and to touch them with a holy touch. Not to shout them down. Not to shut them up. Not to pass them by, but to listen to them, to embrace them, and by our presence to assure them that they need not live in fear.  

Ready or not, Lent is almost here with all its stories of betrayal and entrapment, denial and death. But on Wednesday, whenever you splash water on your face to wash away the ashy smudge that was imposed on your forehead, remember that there is no cleansing agent strong enough to wash away the transfiguring touch of the One who loves us and who leads us out of the dark shadow of fear by word and by touch.    

May God grant you and yours a holy Lent!

                                        AMEN

         

Holy

Holy

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18, 33-37

(Gary W. Charles, Cove Presbyterian Church, Covesville, VA, 2-19-2017)

As a boy, our church sang “Take time to be holy” with great gusto. Congregations that listen to Leviticus never sing that hymn, not because it is wrong, but because it is incomplete. Holiness, for Leviticus, is not something that occasionally we “take time to be”; holiness is what those created in the image of God do, every hour, every day. Why? Well, Leviticus answers that question sixteen times this one chapter alone. Why? Because “the Lord your God is holy.”

So, just what is holiness? It is not a measure of how often we say grace over a meal, but how often we act graciously toward others; not a measure of how many times we sit in church on Sunday, but how we stand for those who need us to raise our voice on their behalf every day. Holiness does mean “to be set apart,” “to be set apart” from petty pursuits that distract us from living into God’s grand vision. It must also mean “to be set apart for,” “to be set apart for” life lived on behalf of others, because our God is holy, so we are to be holy, every day, every hour.

While “Holy” is a frequent visitor to Leviticus, unfortunately, Leviticus is an infrequent visitor to Christian pulpits. Even when Leviticus does visit, it is often dismissed as being a part of the archaic and arcane Old Testament. Too many Christians believe with the heretic Marcius of the 2^nd century that Jesus arrived to delete the first half of what we know as the Bible, especially to delete such ridiculous books as Leviticus. The only problem with that approach to reading the Bible is that one of Jesus’ favorite chapters in the Bible is Leviticus 19!

 So, for better or for worse, Leviticus and his friend “Holy” are back today. I must confess that I have mixed emotions about her arrival, because I too am a bit uncomfortable with the whole notion of “Holy” and holiness. When I think of “Holy,” I picture people like Mother Teresa and Archbishop Desmund Tutu, people of extraordinary spiritual grace. Or, far less inspiring, I picture those folks who drive me crazy, the “holier than thou” crowd, always pretending to be more spiritually enlightened than the rest of us. Either way, “Holy” is a word I use sparingly and reluctantly and her arrival today gives me pause.  

Fortunate for us, “Holy” is not waiting for an invitation, not hoping for a favorable public approval poll before she unpacks her bags and settles in to stay. “Holy” is not shy. She is no recluse. She lives not only in the homes of those with extraordinary moral character, but with anyone who is willing to let her in. Pay attention even a little and you will see how “Holy” really gets around.  

My first memory of meeting “Holy” was as a young boy. I grew up in Newport News but my cousins grew up in rural Eastern North Carolina. In the late spring, my brother and I would often head to Mt. Olive to harvest everything from melons to cucumbers to tobacco. Early on, I was struck by how inefficient my uncle and cousins were in harvesting crops. Never shy to share my opinion, I remember asking one cousin why they did not go back through the field to collect all the melons missed the first time through. He looked at me with that “you city fool” look and said, “Ain’t you ever read your Bible, Gary? Those other melons are for folks who need to eat them more than we need to sell them.” He was, of course, citing Leviticus 19:9-10 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.” Who would ever think that my first encounter with “Holy” would come from a conversation with my filthy, from head to toe, cousin?

If you have been taught in church that the Bible is a spiritual book uninterested in such mundane earthly affairs, like economics, like picking melons and tobacco, like foreclosures and fair labor practices, like avoiding slander and libel, then your Bible teachers skipped much of the Bible, and certainly skipped the third book of Bible, Leviticus. Just read Leviticus 19:35-36:  “You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity. You shall have honest balances. . . . I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

Leviticus knows that we will never get our economics and public policy right until we get our theology right. We will never “be holy” if we treat neighbors – human or creation – as if they are something other than “Holy.” I love how Walter Kaiser defines “Holy” in Leviticus: “To be holy is to roll up one’s sleeves and to join in with whatever God is doing in the world. . . . In Leviticus, if you want to be holy, don’t pass out a tract; love your neighbor” (New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 2, 1136).

Leviticus invites any who would welcome “Holy” as the “Lord your God is holy” to hold a broad and generous notion of “neighbor.” Read Leviticus 19 alone and “Holy” resides in us when “neighbor” is more than the person living next door or the friend at school, “neighbor” includes the poor, immigrants, refugees, laborers, the deaf, the blind, and the good earth itself.

“Holy” is not here to help us care for those of similar advantage as ourselves; “Holy” is here to make sure that we care for those who are most disadvantaged. “Holy” lives wherever we make sure that the powerful cannot prey on the powerless and the vulnerable cannot be consumed by predators. I fear that much of the current political rhetoric around immigration, the environment, and public education has “Holy” ready to pack her bags.   

Holiness is not about wearing haloes, but it is often about wearing the scars that result from listening to God and following Jesus and acting on behalf of our neighbors. As long as “Holy” is confined to church sanctuaries, she is really no bother and frankly, of little interest. When we walk out of the sanctuary with “Holy” into God’s beloved world, we often are met not with adulation but resistance and disdain.

The late, Appalachian preacher, Fred Craddock tells a story about holiness-resistance that he experienced in his first church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. When Oak Ridge itself was built, the little town was suddenly overrun by construction workers who lived in hurriedly assembled trailer parks.

Craddock writes, “After church one Sunday morning I asked the leaders to stay. I said to them, ‘Now we need to launch a calling campaign and an invitational campaign in all those trailer parks to invite those people to church’. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think they’d fit in here’, one of them said. ‘They’re just here temporarily, just construction people. They’ll be leaving pretty soon’. ‘Well, we ought to invite them, make them feel at home’, I said. We argued about it, time ran out, and we said we’d vote next Sunday.

Next Sunday, we all sat down after the service. ‘I move’, said one of them, ‘I move that in order to be a member of this church, you must own property in the county’. Someone else said, ‘I second that’. It passed. I voted against it, but they reminded me that I was just a kid preacher and I didn’t have a vote (Craddock Stories, p. 28). 

Maybe Leviticus is such an infrequent visitor to the pulpit because “Holy” comes along too, more often than not, she is a trouble maker. The symbol of the Iona Community in Scotland, a community committed to revitalizing Christian worship and Christian life, is the wild goose, which is itself an image for the Holy Spirit. “Holy” does not calm the waters, but stirs them up when they are far too calm.

As a child of the 60s, God knows how many times I have listened to and sung Simon and Garfunkel’s, “The Sound of Silence.” The lyrics that will never shake free from my memory are “No one dare disturb the sound of silence.” “Holy” dares. “Holy” sings when others wish she would not. Maybe that is why she is here today and in pulpits across the land, across the globe. Maybe she is here to confront the deafening sound of silence?

“Holy” will not rub our backs and whisper soothing things to us while we refuse to speak on behalf of our neighbor, whether it is our neighbor being sent to substandard schools or living in substandard housing or having no housing at all, our pre-teen neighbors being sold into sexual slavery on the street corners of Atlanta and D.C., Chicago and L.A., our sea and sky neighbors being polluted by our waste and wasteful ways, our without proper paper neighbors being targeted and rounded-up, families and children alike. “Holy” will not condone our silence when hateful speech becomes the standard speech on the right and on the left.

William Sloane Coffin once said, “Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.” To that saying, I would add “and not our voices.” Earlier this week, Polly sent me a church sign that she and Walter saw in their recent trip to Charleston, S.C. I am convinced it is a sign that was written by “Holy.” It reads:

BE THE CHURCH. Protect the environment. Care for the poor. Forgive often. Reject racism. Fight for the powerless. Share earthly and spiritual resources. Embrace diversity. Love God. Enjoy this life.

At risk of editing “Holy,” I would change the last line to read:

          Embrace diversity. Choose Welcome. Love God.

To live into that “Holy” sign means that we will do more than sit here on Sunday. We will also use our feet to march and our voices to shout and our emails to protest and to advocate on behalf of our gay neighbors, our Muslim neighbors, our river neighbors, our mountain neighbors, our people of color neighbors, our impoverished neighbors. We will dare to disturb the deafening sound of silence.

          So, Cove friends, do not “take time to be holy.” Instead, make room for “Holy.” She has unpacked her bags and she is here to stay!

                    AMEN