"Get a Life!" Baccalaureate Sermon 26 May 2002 Part One

“Get a Life!” – Baccalaureate Sermon Part I

26 May 2002

This week, I summarize the major points of last week’s Baccalaureate Sunday sermon, “Get A Life!”  The text came from Deuteronomy 30:15-20.  On the verge of the Promised Land, Moses offers the people of Israel a fundamental choice: blessings and curses, prosperity and destruction and life and death.  He challenges them to choose the Lord and thereby choose life.  High school and collegiate graduates face a similar choice.  Will they find the wherewithal to determine the unique lives that God has graciously given them?  Moreover, will they cultivate the confidence to define and pursue their dreams and goals?  In accordance with Proverbs 3:5-8, as they choose to follow the Lord’s guidance, they will find life.

I.  The Creator’s Gift of a Unique Life

Science affirms our absolute uniqueness as individuals.  No one else shares our DNA, fingerprints, hair or teeth.  Those distinctions represent the inimitable talents, gifts and passions that God gives each of us.  More significantly, God privileges us with the possibility of becoming His chosen vessels.  He uses us to disclose the secrets of science; depict the majesty of His imagination through music and art, establish justice through the law, mentor a future generation through teaching and education and meet the needs of suffering humankind through the ministry of helps.  Choosing life requires finding the divine spark within us.  God has something specific for each of us to accomplish to His honor and glory and in service to humankind.  That personal mission is the His gift of a unique life to us.

II.  Abundant and Eternal Life in Christ

Howard Thurman taught that leading a purposeful life eradicates the fear of death.  In Christ, God gives us abundant and eternal life, which begins the very instant, that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  Liberty from fear and the agony of human limitations and existence are found in a relationship with God in Christ.  Indeed, our hearts remain restless until we find Christ.  Life in Him is relational, experiential and practical.  It yields the enduring things: faithfulness, gentleness, goodness, joy, kindness, love, patience, peace and self-control.  With those characteristics, one can truly experience the joy of life!

III.  Love

Arguably, one is not alive until one knows what it means to love and to be loved.  Love is a triangle that includes God, self and others.  As one loves God and self, then one can love others.  In the fullness of time, I hope the graduates find a lifelong companion who will assist them in becoming the best child of God of which they are capable.  Charles Dickens, in his classic novel, David Copperfield, says, “There is not a disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.”  Hopefully, the graduates will find a friend for the journey of life with whom they share the same mind and purpose.  Pulling together, they can achieve collectively what would elude them individually.

"Get a Life!" - Baccalaureate Sermon 26 May 2002 Part Two

“Get a Life!” – Baccalaureate Sermon Part II

26 May 2002

IV.  Dreams and Goals

Sarah Vaughn sang a jazz song, “You’ve got to have a dream.  You’ve got to have a dream.  How you gonna have a dream come true, if you don’t have a dream?”  Our lifelines are possibly tied to the dreams of our youth.  I hope that this year’s graduates will stay true to the dreams of their youth.  Periodically, life forces you to check the dream file.  When you reach certain milestones in life (graduation, marriage, children, job, promotion, etc.), consulting the “dream file” is in order.  These milestones also include occurrences that we characterize negatively: termination, downsizing, death of a loved one, a health crisis, a broken engagement or a divorce.  If channeled to a meaningful purpose and handled with spiritual versatility, those events hold tremendous blessings for us.  They are the doorway to a new vista in life.  Lastly, they can be the very catalyst that leads to fulfillment of our dreams.

Goals are the practical steps that we take in the direction of accomplishing our dreams.  We must write down our goals (Habakkuk 2:4).  In fact, you do not have a goal until you have put it in writing.  Norman Vincent Peale recommends that we carry an index card containing our goals on our person.  Nonetheless, we should utilize imagination to fire up our goals.  George Lucas, the creator, producer and director of the Stars Wars trilogy, says, “You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.”  Carl G. Jung suggests that we engage in the spiritual exercise of active imagination in which we see ourselves succeeding.  Peale encourages us to affirm daily our dreams and goals.  Succinctly, Henry David Thoreau encourages us, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life that you have imagined.” 

V.  Knowledge

At ninety years of age, the great U.S. Supreme Court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., read Plato’s Republic “to improve his mind.”  We must be ever growing and learning.  College is one of two things.  It is either the gateway to the ocean of ideas and knowledge or it is a mental and conceptual prison.  In the former instance, one begins the lifelong process of personal development and spiritual growth, which necessitate the discipline of learning.  If one refuses to grow, then one will leave the collegiate years imprisoned to the uncritical acceptance of one’s teachers learning.

VI.  Work

There is no magic in life!  The ultimate fulfillment of one’s dreams and goals depends heavily upon one’s willingness to work.  No one can nullify your ambitions.  Also, no one can tell you that you cannot achieve your dreams and goals.  However, if you do not work toward them, you will not realize them.  Hard work is the pathway to success and excellence.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it best, “The heights of men sought and kept; Were not obtained by sudden flight; But they while their companions slept; Toiled upward in the night.”

VII.  Manners

My late paternal grandfather, Sammie Singletary, Sr., taught me the importance of manners.  He said that manner would take me places that intelligence, talent, looks and success never could.  For the graduates, always remember to have good manners.

Lastly, the graduates need for things for the journey of life: (1) good ears to hear the beat of the divine drummer, (2) a mirror to reflect one’s progress in life, (3) strong mental elbows so they can think for themselves and (4) the Word of God, a lamp unto their pathway and a light unto their feet.

The Lord Delivers the Righteous Psalm 37:23-40

The Lord Delivers the Righteous – Psalm 37:23-40

The Bible contains many amazing promises that Almighty God makes to encourage His people to relate obediently and faithfully to Him.  The twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy details a litany of wonderful blessings that God intends to bestow upon those persons who make Him their “Ultimate Reality.”  Periodically, one wonders whether these promises still apply to committed believers.  One begins to feel that one is doing all of the right things in the right ways and at the right time yet everything seems to result in failure.  Additionally, one bathes one’s pursuits in persistent, fervent and passionate prayer.  Hopefully, one is not cloaking one’s self-centered ambitions and self-seeking fears.  Rather, one desires earnestly to further the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and build His kingdom.  As one industriously preoccupies one’s self with such noble aims and activities, one undoubtedly observes others who appear to prosper greatly although they do not share one’s goals, priorities and principles for use of time, talent and financial resources.  Inevitably, a very perplexing question arises in the recesses of one’s mind and closets of one’s heart.  How do a loving God who pledges to bless bountifully those persons who faithfully follow Him withhold His tangible favor from them and liberally expend His grace upon those persons who seem to ignore Him?  Simply stated, does it pay to serve the Lord?  Will the righteous actually inherit the promises that a scripture says that they will?

Many of us know very godly people who shoulder an unfair burden of challenges and adversity.  They or people whom they love dearly face health concerns.  In some instances, people’s lives are in jeopardy.  Financially, they live on very tight budgets.  As it relates to the fulfillment of their dreams and goals, they encounter one defeat after another.  Despite, however, these sequential disappointments, they find the resilience and resolve to persevere.  Immediately, they try the next approach.  Nevertheless, they fight on hoping for that fortunate break which makes all of the difference in determining their success or failure.  On the job, this type of person works faithfully and diligently even though they have not received a much needed raise or well-deserved promotion.  At home, these types of persons are the “go to” people in their families.  They multitask their as much as they do so on the job.  Because of their myriad responsibilities in both places, the lines blur between the office and home.  Nonetheless, these righteous people continue to praise and thank God genuinely for fullness of their lives.  How can this be?

The fundamental promise of this immortal Psalm which we often hear recited is the faithful deliverance of the righteous by Almighty God.  There is not a fear or foe that the righteous encounter out which the Lord will not deliver them.  After exhorting his listener’s to refuse the temptation to fret because the wicked appear to be more greatly blessed than the righteous, David testifies and declares, “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.”  On the authority of his personal experience of God’s unfailing love, unquestionable faithfulness and unending grace, David reassures the righteous that Almighty God will protect them in each and every trial of life.  I imagine that David mentally recalls the countless times that God proved Himself faithful in David’s life.  Perhaps, God’s persistent mercy during the times of David’s moral and personal failures solidifies the truth of this promise in David’s thinking.  Notwithstanding his adultery with Bathsheba, conspiracy to murder bureaucratically Uriah, loss of the son conceived in this regrettable mistake, rebellion of Absalom in response to David’s silence about the rape of Tamar, and the many attacks of Saul and other enemies, David flourishes.  Moreover, his wealth grows commensurately; his children are the direct beneficiaries of these innumerable blessings.  Reliably, David confirms the steadfast love, daily mercy, and great faithfulness of Almighty God toward the righteous.

What does it mean to be righteous?  People banter this term about in church circles.  Mostly, one believes that the righteous are persons who adhere strictly to a code or morality and ethics.  In addition, they cultivate a personal piety of church attendance, giving, service, ministry and Bible study.  In the most favorable sense, they possess a sanctimonious demeanor that others would like to emulate.  However, righteousness has very little to do with human behavior.  Plainly stated in theological terms, righteousness means to live in right relationship with God.  It stands to reason that establishing a relationship with the Holy and Heavenly Father means that we do not possess inherently any righteousness of our own.  Because we relate to Him with due humility and obedience, we share in His perfect nature.  His holy love and character spills over into our lives.  The gift of the Holy Spirit organically replaces our ingrained selfishness with a genuine desire to love God with our whole being and love others as we loves ourselves.  Developing righteousness emerges naturally out of the practice of spiritual disciplines: self-evaluation, prayer, affirmation of the Word of God, meditation, Bible study, imaging the fulfillment of the will of God, and daily devotion and worship of God.  These practices greatly enhance our desire and ability to understand and grow in the righteous example of our Lord.  Daily deepening a vibrant relationship with Him results in an authentic designation of righteous instead of the redundancy of ritual and religion.

The Lord Delivers the Righteous Psalm 37:23-40 Part Two

The Lord Delivers the Righteous 

Psalm 37:23-40 – Part Two

Interestingly, the pervasive promise of Psalm 37 should free us from jealousy.  If we truly accept the guarantee that God will always provide for the righteous and their children will never be found begging bread, then we have no need to compare our circumstances with anyone else.  It does not matter if our neighbor constantly buys new cars.  It should not arouse suspicion if our coworkers show up each day in new outfits.  It should be immaterial if our relatives regale us with the fascinating details of recent exotic trips each time we speak with them.  All of these experiences compel us to say “Praise the Lord.”  We can genuinely and freely be thankful for someone else’s blessings.  We know that God will not leave us or forsake us.  We know that He will not forget us.  God is not a respecter of persons.  Therefore, observing the good fortune of others should not dishearten us.  Instead, we rejoice with them for we know that our turn will come relative to our characters, choices, circumstances and consequences.

A good friend and colleague shares the necessity of staking in your lane in order to win a race.  Many runners make the fatal mistake of looking to the left and to the right in the midst of a competitive race.  That small amount of time and effort to analyze what their competitors are doing actually costs them the race.  Rather, they ought to stay in their lanes and focus unwaveringly upon the race that they are running.  Another common and dreadful error that runners make is looking behind them to see if another runner is gaining on them.  Again, the energy and attention required to assess another runner’s progress usually equates with the difference of determining the winners and losers.  This image from the practical world of track and field resembles the race of life as we pursue our God given goals and dreams.  Should we fall prey to the fallacy of constantly comparing ourselves to others, we will never be able to devote our energies and abilities to our singular and unique purposes.  Mostly, these comparisons result in jealousy which wastes incredible amounts of time and resources.  Yet, when we channel our abilities towards making the very best effort of which we are capable, then we realize the readily available divine favor and assistance that we have to succeed.  The Lord delivers the righteous.

This passage of this immortal contains numerous divine promises of deliverance.  “If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm.”  Incidentally, the Lord would only find pleasure and grant His approval to a person’s choices if his or her character honors the holy love and character of Almighty God.  The Bible declares that God is light and in Him there is no darkness.  His holy essence cannot be contaminated by evil.  As a consequence, a person would have to respect God’s perfect purity, love and majesty in order to receive His sanction.  Nonetheless, as a righteous person, a man or woman has the assurance that God will lead him or her toward making the most beneficial and bountiful choices.  As a matter of fact, the psalmist states definitively that the Lord makes such a person’s steps firm.  Accordingly, “though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.”  What an amazing promise that this twenty-third verse offers!  God promises to redeem the mistakes and failures of the righteous.  Even if our self-centered fears, self-seeking motives and limitless egos combine to eventuate into drastic errors, the Lord will redirect us toward His purposes.  Practically speaking, He helps us to find the lessons in our errors.  When we humble ourselves to reach the instruction of His discipline, He prevents us from falling.  He prevents our misfortunes from becoming fatal.  Out of His lovingkindness, He catches us before we crash and harm ourselves.

The twenty-fifth verse is the one that we remember mostly.  Often, one overhears people paraphrasing some part of it.  Whereas the psalmist assures us that God will not forsake the righteous and their children will not be found begging for bread, a stark analysis of the world leads one to question significantly and appropriately the confidence of the Psalter.  The protracted violence, military conflicts and terrorism of the Middle East makes one wonder about this biblical assurance.  Can Palestinian Christians recite this verse with the flippant manner in which American Christians do as they profess that they are blessed and highly favored of the Lord?  Consider further the genocide of Darfur and the Sudan?  What about the intractable tribal conflicts of Somalia?  The entire continent of Africa suffers from the epidemic of HIV/AIDS.  More specifically, we must grapple with the hard reality that millions of the children of God go to bed each night hungry.  Should you travel to another country in the developing world, you see children begging for their daily bread.  Needless to say, I could cite countless other examples in today’s world that contradict the divine promise that the Psalter posits.  Nevertheless, I allude to these difficult ironies to shock us into thinking about the difficulty of resolving the world in which we live and biblical promises that we often verbalize robotically.

How do we reconcile these inconsistencies?  This question is another version of the age old theological dilemma of theodicy.  How do we resolve the existence of an all powerful, all kind, ever-present and all knowing Supreme Being with the evil in the world?  On a more practical level, how do we assert the statements of scripture with integrity and intellectual respectability given the geopolitical dynamics, social-political and social-economic realities that seem to eradicate the notion?

The Lord Delivers the Righteous Psalm 37:23-40 Part Three

The Lord Delivers the Righteous

Psalm 37:23-40 – Part Three

Last week, I posed several perplexing questions for North American Christians as we read the grand promises of this psalm.  We greet each with the automatic saying, “I’m blessed and highly favored of God.”  Also, we exchange the positive affirmation, “God is good.  All the time, God is good.”  These simplistic and perhaps even simpleton sayings insidiously cloak the fundamental reality that millions of Christians throughout the world cannot repeat these words with any honesty.  Again, consider the face the millions of God fearing and faithful believers go to bed hungry each night.  We Americans comprise one sixth of the world’s population but we consume a disproportionate amount of the earth’s resources.  Our luxuries occur at the direct expense of believers in the Third World and within the Pacific Rim.  The desire to wear T-shirts in the winter and ride around in gas guzzling sport utility vehicles comes at the behest of Christians who work for unconsciousable wages.  The average family of four in such situations lives on an annual income of fifteen hundred dollars ($1500).  Is not the Psalter wrong as he affirms, “I was young and now I am old and I have never seen the righteous forsaken and their children begging bread?”  Apparently, these brothers and sisters of the developing world seem to have been forgotten by the Lord and excluded from this grand and immortal promise of obedience.

I am very tempted to leave this question unanswered.  I think that we hasten, too often, to offer Pollyannaish replies to difficult contradictions between the Bible and daily life.  How do we reconcile the two?  Do we ask the enduring theological question about theodicy?  Why would an all-powerful, all-kind, ever-present, and all-knowing God allow such intractable inequity with regard to the distribution of the world’s resources?  Does God really possess the proactive and inherent power to alleviate pain and suffering?  Why does it continue in the light of God’s main and non-negotiable attributes?  You may proceed to offer your own version of this question of juxtaposing God’s eternal existence and infinite abilities with the perpetuation of evil in the world?  More specifically, how can God pledge His unfailing love, provision and protection of the righteous when so many of them seem forsaken by Him?

Assuredly, we cannot direct these questions to Almighty God.  Job, in the latter chapters of his book, discovers this fallacy.  Instead, the problem of the presence and persistence of evil is quintessentially a human one.  More directly, this question rightly haunts the people who profess to know the love of God.  Simply stated, the Church, generally, and individual disciples, specifically, must grapple with what it means to receive the love of Christ and the grace of Almighty God as He blesses us materially, economically and otherwise and our biblically mandated obligation to demonstrate this love tangibly with others.  How do we, in North America, reconcile our incalculable concrete blessings with the hard facts that we cause the hunger and suffering of so many people in the world?  Do these difficult contradictions of our Christian rhetoric and the reality of our acquiescence of the subjugation and dehumanization of so many of our fellow Christians disturb us?  Does it coerce us to re-examine our lifestyles and contributions to missions?  Straightforwardly, has our insatiable appetite for creature comforts evolved into a depth of greed that is simply evil?

A Pastor's heart - 1 Kings 3:16-28

A Pastor’s Heart – 1 Kings 3:16-28

I delivered this sermon in the fall of 2007 at a tense and critical juncture within the life of the congregation I was serving at the time.  Interestingly, this message foreshadows some of the most regrettable and unfortunate circumstances that emerged and resulted in my subsequent resignation within seven months.

Quite frankly, as a congregation and church family, we are headed for a collision course which will eventuate in an implosion of relationships.  Such an unfortunate occurrence will mar our ability and potential for successful ministry for many years into the future.  Only a genuine love for the Lord and for this Church will prevent this catastrophe.  The rising and persistent acrimony and rancor relating to the complexities and challenges of the Church Renovation Project threaten the very spiritual, emotional, relational and ministerial (in the collective sense of the word) of this congregation.  Lest we divide the baby, in this sense the heart of God, we, individually and collectively, must search our hearts to rediscover a sincere and selfless love and genuine willingness to serve and offer them to our Lord for His exclusive use and divine purposes at First Baptist Church Capitol Hill. 

Today, I would like to share transparently without any ulterior motive, self-seeking objective or self-centered fear what the Lord put upon my heart pertaining to our current challenges as a church family.  Fundamentally, our struggles are not against flesh and blood.  Were we able to assess and assign blame for our financial crisis, construction stoppage, renovation debacle, failure to do due diligence and internal governance strife with acute precision, we would not gain any progress in resolving any of these dilemmas.  Admittedly, many of us are very angry, hurt, afraid, disappointed, disillusioned, and depressed; in fact, some of us are probably downright disgusted with the whole process.  Regrettably, some of us have digressed to the normal pattern of such a predicament  by focusing upon the “right” persons to blame and then seeking to hold them accountable for causing this mess.  The length and depth of our dilemmas undoubtedly causes quite a bit of confusion.  Compounded with rumors, inaccuracies and fear, this bewilderment coerces us to turn against each other.  Charges and counter charges cross each other like the sparks of sharp blades between two dueling swords.  “Winning the fight” assumes the place of first priority in most people’s thinking.  As a consequence, we lose sight of the overall picture.  Instead of fighting against the principalities and powers that seek to defeat us, we erroneously determine that our fellow brothers and sisters personify the problems and we resolve to defeat them.

I appeal, pastorally and personally, to each any every one of us to search deeply within our hearts.  Do we really love the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength?  Do we love our neighbor as we love ourselves?  Do we genuinely and selflessly love First Baptist Church Capitol Hill?  Now, I must ask a few more questions which will be straightforward and difficult to articulate but nevertheless very necessary.  Has the love of our Lord and Savior truly and incontrovertibly pierced your heart?  In gratitude for Christ sacrificial and saving love, have you dedicated yourself to a life of service to others by sharing your resources of time, talent, tithe and temperament?  Can you think of an immediate example in which you daily endeavor to share the love of God in Christ with family, friends and others?  Is your love of First Baptist Church Capitol Hill contingent upon your will and personal preferences? 

Today’s text demonstrates a stark dilemma which only genuine and selfless love resolves.  I posit that the very same is necessary to triumph over the current circumstances that we face as a church family.  If each of us continues to insist that the rest of us must appease our personal desires, then we will succeed only in cutting the baby in half.  Let’s look more closely at this dramatic and provocative yet rather familiar passage of scripture.  Two women give birth within three days of each other.  They are alone in the same maternity ward.  No one else witnesses the tragedy of one of the new born babies dying in the middle of the night possibly because the mother inadvertently rolls over on the baby and smothers the baby to death.  The mother who accidentally smothers her baby to death deceitfully awakens and switches the babies as the other mother sleeps soundly.  In the morning, the sleeping mother awakens to find that her baby is dead!  Upon a closer examination of the baby, she realizes that this baby is not the one to whom she gave birth.  Actually, the living baby is her child and she proceeds to argue with the other mother in order to get her child back.

A Pastor's Heart - 1 Kings 3:16-28 Part II

A Pastor’s Heart – 1 Kings 3:16-28 Part II

The mothers take their case to King Solomon in order that he might properly adjudicate this conflict between them.  Again, you will recall that the mothers were alone on the maternity ward.  Before King Solomon, reputed to be the wisest man in the ancient world, these two mothers argue back and forth about the living baby.  Both of them insist that this living baby belongs to her.  Symbolically, these two babies represent two competing visions for this Church and its ministry as the twenty-first century unfolds.  What is the living vision for First Baptist Church Capitol Hill as we conclude the seventh year of the first decade of this century?  Are we relegated merely to reminisce about one great moment in time?  Is the living vision to nurse that legacy as far into the future as we can?  In contrast, is the living baby a new vision in which we define twenty-first century problems (the potential re-segregation of the public school system, adoption of the hundreds and thousands of children in state custody, the rise of abortion rates in the African-American community, capital punishment and its disproportionate use in relationship to African-American males, the prison industrial complex, the rise of HIV/AIDS among African-American women, to name a very few number of issues amongst the many that exists) that we are called to resolve with contemporary means and methods?  Which baby is the real living baby?  How do we determine which baby is alive?  How do we determine to which baby we are to give birth?  The answer is no easier for us than it was for these two competing mothers.  Just as they sought King Solomon’s wisdom, we similarly must seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

On the second Sunday of next month, instead of gathering for another business meeting and a time inn which we hear a litany of complaints and accusations let us gather for the purpose of praying and seeking the counsel of the Word of God.  Would our church family come out of the wood work, like we did last Sunday, for the noble and most honorable purposes of asking for the wisdom of Almighty God in resolving our current strife?  Are we willing to humble ourselves before the very Creator of the universe and the Maker of all that is seen and unseen?  Shall we persist in the unproductive and divisive vain of self-reliance which will result in the splitting of the baby?  Will we commit two and a half hours to prayer, meditation and Bible study to find a resolution to the Church Renovation Project?

As the mothers argue profusely and vociferously between each other about the living baby, King Solomon determines a foolproof method of ascertaining the baby’s real mother.  He orders a sword to be brought to him.  He says that the living baby will be cut in half with each mother receiving fifty percent of the baby’s remains.  Were that dastardly deed to have occurred, it would have meant that both mothers would have lost one hundred percent in that both of them would have become childless!  Shockingly, one of the mothers actually agreed to this order.  “Neither I nor you shall have him.  Cut him in two!”  Let’s imagine what this woman’s heart looks like inside.  Consider the anger, bitterness, strife, hurt, disappointment, low self-esteem, fear and pain that must reside their in large quantities.  How could she possibly believe that cutting the baby in half would be an appropriate solution to this dilemma?  I submit that this woman’s harden heart symbolizes those of us at First Baptist Church Capitol Hill who insist upon having our way regardless of the consequences.  I find it incredibly difficult to understand the position of withholding my giving until my personal preferences are appeased without realizing that my actions create an artificial financial crisis that may harm other people and irreversibly wound the very Church that I claim to love?  If I take that stance today, what would prevent me from taking that same approach each and every time that someone does something with which I disagree?  Can I justly and honestly portend to care about my church family members and my Church if I am willing at any point to damage them through my failure to give time, service, money and commitment because they do not satisfy my emotional needs?