God's Mighty Power

God’s Mighty Power

Ephesians 1:15-23[1]

I’ve said many times recently that it’s a difficult time to be the church. It seems like the pandemic and everything we went through changed so many things. One of the great challenges we face is the diminished influence we seem to have in our communities. People of all ages view Sunday as “fun day,” not the “Lord’s Day.” And as such a great many people who once regularly attended worship are spending their Sundays doing everything but coming to church. It can leave those of us who are here feeling inadequate, weak, and wondering where we’ve failed. It makes us question whether we’re doing anything right. It may even cause us to doubt whether it’s “worth it” to continue to devote our time and energy to the church at all.

Believe it or not, church attendance is not at its lowest point in history. It’s not even at the lowest point in the history of this country. Church attendance in this country was at its lowest point by percentage of the population in the early 1800’s. I’m not entirely sure why that was the case. It was a time when the world was turning from “superstition” to reason. I’m sure that played a role. But the simple truth was that the people in that time didn’t think the church was an important part of their lives. The fact of the matter is that it was even worse during the Middle Ages. Most people literally only went to church on Easter Sunday. That was the case for centuries. It wasn’t until the changes leading up to and following the Reformation 500 years ago that people began attending worship more regularly. It makes me wonder how those who continued to worship at that time kept going in the face of such overwhelming odds!

The church to which Paul was writing his letters, like our lesson from Ephesians for today, was facing overwhelming odds. Although they looked to the same scriptures and worshipped the same one true God as the Jewish people, they were opposed and harassed by many of the Jewish religious leaders. And they faced the same opposition from their own former friends, neighbors, and family from all the different people groups that made up the church. Because they no longer worshipped the “gods” their communities worshipped, they were harassed, attacked, and even expelled from their lives. And although the Romans were in charge, they could care less about what they considered an offshoot sect of the Jewish religion.

It was in that setting that the Apostle Paul wrote Ephesians. He begins this letter with long expression of his thanks to God for all that God had done in their lives to bring them to faith in Jesus, and to change them into a people who would love and serve God. God’s grace had already been at work in their lives through the message of the Gospel and through the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In our lesson for today, he shifts to a prayer for the church. There is a sense in which Paul could say that he knew they already had everything they needed in Christ to live fully into their commitment to following him. At the same time, I think Paul knew the struggles they faced, and so he prayed for this church, just like he prayed for all the churches he had encountered.

The gist of his prayer was that they would be able to continue to live out their faith confidently in the face of all they had to overcome. The focus of his prayer was that they would know “the confident hope” God had given them through Jesus Christ (Eph 1:18). As we saw last week, the hope that the Psalmist held out for the people of Israel in hard times was that their help came from the one who made all the heavens and the earth. If he had the power to create all things, then he had the power to help them. This week, we hear the Apostle Paul encouraging the believers of his day that, despite the hardships they faced, their hope was in the one who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand, “far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come” (Eph 1:21, NLT).

We may take that for granted because we’ve heard it many times—perhaps all our lives. But Paul doesn’t want us to take it for granted at all. In fact, he “piles up” words to describe God’s mighty power in raising Jesus from the dead. The reason for that is because Paul calls us to take a step beyond trusting the God who created all the heavens and the earth. He calls us to trust in the God who has the power to overcome everything that opposes his purposes in this world, as well as everything that threatens to harm us in any way. And he demonstrated that power once and for all by raising Jesus from the dead and giving him the “name that is above every name.”

Although we may not always see it visibly, the promise is that God’s mighty power is working right now to change all things and all people. And he is doing that precisely by what he is doing in and through the church. Paul could compare what God is doing in and through us to what God did when he raised Jesus from the dead. With the same power God exerted when he raised Jesus from the dead, he is working in and through each and every one of us right now! When we doubt whether what we’re doing is making any difference, we can look to the empty cross and remember this promise! The empty cross is a visible reminder to us that Christ is not ruling over all things from afar, but in and through the church! In fact, Paul celebrates the victory of Christ’s reign over all things as if it is something that has already been accomplished.[2] You may have noticed that today is “Christ the King” Sunday. It is the day in the church calendar when we celebrate the wonderful promise that Christ is reigning in and through us to make all things new. In a very real sense, every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, which points us to the final victory through God’s mighty power in and through Jesus Christ.

That may not make much sense when you look at things. Life seems to go on just as it always has. Those who are willing to stop at nothing to gain wealth and power are still getting away with it. Those who use violence to control and oppress others are still wreaking havoc in people’s lives. And it can seem like our gathering here to sing the songs of the faith, and hear the Scriptures read, and pray the prayers that have been prayed for centuries isn’t making much difference. But the mystery of Christ’s reign in and through his body, the church, is that God’s mighty power is at work in all of it, right here and right now. Everything that we do in this church, even that which may seem “ordinary” and “insignificant,” is a part of that hope. The risen Christ who reigns at God’s right hand over all things is working even now, though it may seem frustratingly hidden and subtle. Though all has not yet come to the place where “every knee” bows and “every tongue” confesses Jesus Christ as Lord, everything we do here today, and as a church, is a part of what he is doing in and through us to reach that final goal.[3] May we continue to serve Christ faithfully in that confident hope!

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[1] ©2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 11/26/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Ralph P. Martin, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, 23: Paul offers the “assurance that there is no part of the created order which is capable of effectively and finally thwarting the divine purpose, since Christ the head of the universe has already been installed in place.” Cf. Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians,” New Interpreters Bible, XI:384-85

[3] Cf. A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary 42, 79-81.

Humble Thanks

 Humble Thanks

Psalm 123-124[1]

It’s easy to be thankful when all is right with the world. At least, it seems easy. We can see God’s mercies that are “new every morning” (Lam 3:23) all around us. Our families and friends, our homes, our jobs, all the countless gifts that God has poured so generously into our lives constantly lead us to sincere gratitude. In those times, it seems like the light of sunshine blesses everything and everyone in our lives. Hopefully, seeing all the good things God has brought into our lives helps us humbly recognize that they all come from his hand. And that humble acknowledgement leads us to give thanks to God. Not just at this time of year, but every day.

It's harder to be thankful when all is not right with your world. Whether it’s a health crisis, a family crisis, or a financial crisis, hard times seem to overshadow everything else. The fear of “the worst” can crowd out even the hint of gratitude from our lives. It’s hard to be thankful when it seems like there’s nothing to be thankful for. Hard times have a way of distorting our perspective like that. We can focus all our attention on what’s wrong with our lives. We can doubt ourselves, wondering what we’ve done wrong to “deserve” what’s happening. And when get caught in that kind of thinking, it’s hard to be thankful. But that’s precisely the time when we need to practice giving thanks!

Our lesson from the Psalms for today helps us learn how to give thanks in hard times as well as good times. The reading comes from a whole series of Psalms, Psalm 120-134. They’re called “Psalms of Ascent,” because they were written to be used by pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem for the great festivals at the temple. It seems pretty clear, however, that these Psalms come from a time in Israel’s history when all was not right with their world. The original temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians. The people of Israel were scattered all over the Middle East. As they made their way to Jerusalem to worship, some of them lamented the fact that they were not able to live among their own people, but rather had to live “in far-off Meshech” and “in distant Kedar” (Ps 120:5, NLT). We don’t know exactly where those places were, but from what the Psalmist said, they were lands where they did not know “peace” (Ps 120:6-7).

To be sure, some of them had been allowed to return to their own land, but even there, their lives there were far from prosperous. Even those who returned still cried out to God to “restore our fortunes, … as streams renew the desert” (Ps 126:4, NLT). They longed for the time when “those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy” (Ps. 126:5, NLT). Even the temple was merely a shadow of the one that had been there before. The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was as much a reminder of how much they had lost as it was an occasion for joyful worship.

And so their observance of their festivals became a time to cry out to the Lord to have mercy on them. As we heard in our lesson from Psalm 123, they said, “Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy, for we have had our fill of contempt” (Ps. 123:3, NLT). We know that even the people who had returned to their own land were constantly harassed by powerful warlords who controlled part of the territory. That seems to be the point of the cry, “We have had more than our fill of the scoffing of the proud and the contempt of the arrogant” (Ps 123:4, NLT). They were living in hard times, but they were trying to be faithful to give thanks to God for all the ways he had blessed them.

We see that effort to remain thankful in the fact that, despite all they were going through, there is a refrain that echoes throughout these pilgrimage Psalms. It begins with the question that opens Psalm 121: “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there?” And the answer comes back, “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (Ps 121:1-2, NLT). We hear it again in our reading for today from Psalm 124. The people praised God for being on their side and protecting them from being “swallowed alive” by those who were attacking them, because they knew that “Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps. 124:8, NLT). And the final verse of these pilgrimage Psalms concludes with the prayer, “May the Lord, who made heaven and earth, bless you from Jerusalem” (Ps. 134:3, NLT). It was a prayer that, despite the hard times they were going through, God would continue to bless them. And remember, the God they were praying to was the one who made heaven and earth, so they expressed their confidence that he had the power to overcome everything they were dealing with.

Based on the conviction that “Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth,” the Psalmist calls the pilgrims, despite their disappointments and fears, despite the attacks they had to endure, despite all that would call in question their faith, to “hope in the Lord” (Ps. 130:7, NLT). “Hope” may not seem to be a very powerful word these days, and perhaps there were some in that day who wondered what good it did to keep hoping for better days. But “hope” is a word of faith in the Bible. And the reason for calling the people to “hope in the Lord” was because “with the Lord there is unfailing love” and “His redemption overflows” (Ps. 130:7, NLT). The Psalmist repeats the call in Psalm 131: “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—now and always” (Ps. 131:3, NLT). And that call rings out to us today, to put our hope in the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Hoping in the Lord, putting our trust in God, looking to the one who made all the heavens and the earth to care for us—these seem just natural when times are good. But when we’re facing a serious crisis, it can feel like a stretch that is out of our reach. Those are the times when we need to fall back on the basics. We can do what the psalmists did repeatedly: remember all the ways that God has been faithful in the past. We may need to make a list that we can keep as a handy reminder. When it’s hard to give thanks, we can stand in the truth that we are all, each and every one of us, God’s beloved child. We always have been and we always will be. And nothing will ever change that. We can also make a list of what we’re thankful for in our lives right now. We all have many gifts to be thankful for, and in hard times it helps to have a list we can look at. More than that, taking time each day writing out several specific things for which we are grateful today becomes a way to shift our attention from hardship and fear to gratitude.

When we remember all the ways that God has been faithful to us in the past, when we stand in the truth that we are all, each and every one of us, God’s beloved child, and when we list the things in our lives for which we are truly thankful, it can be a humbling experience. It helps us remember that God has been good to us in so many ways, far beyond anything we could ever deserve, far beyond anything we have to earn. And that reinforces the conviction that, despite whatever we may have to endure in this life, we always have reasons to give thanks to God. These basic disciplines of faith help us keep on trusting God through the hardest of times. They help us to keep on hoping in the God who made all the heavens and the earth. They help us continue to give God our humble thanks.

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[1] ©2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 11/19/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Planting Seeds

Planting Seeds

Psalm 78:1-8[1]

Most of us have been in the place where we’ve poured our hearts out in prayer to God and for all we can tell the only response we got was silence. It’s one of the reasons people tell you why they don’t think religion is worthwhile for them. I believe you know me well enough by now to understand that I’ve been in that place myself. I’ve told you about my two divorces. What I may not have told you is that I prayed for years—for years—for my marriages to be healed and whole and stable. I prayed for my family to stay together, both times. I would say that the greatest disappointments of my life have been going through two divorces despite doing everything humanly possible, and despite pouring out my heart in prayer to God for years to keep them intact.

I understand why people who go through deeply discouraging experiences like that back away from church. When I went through my first divorce, I was so heartbroken that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be in ministry any longer. I kept going to church, because I needed the support I found there. But I wasn’t entirely sure whether God had failed to live up to his end of the bargain. My faith was shaken for several years. To some extent, I had to rely on the faith of my friends in order to get through that time in my life. It was their faith that helped me to reclaim my faith. And it was their faith that helped me find my way back to ministry. After several years of trying other things, it was my incredibly unimpressive performance as a Realtor that convinced me that, despite my shortcomings, I belonged in ministry!

Last week we talked about some of the reasons why we participate in this church. I want to continue that theme this week. Our Psalm reading for today calls attention to one of the reasons we highlighted last week: we come to church because we’ve made a decision to raise our children in a community of faith. But precisely how to do that isn’t as “straightforward” as it used to be. As I alluded to last week, we’re trying to plant seeds of faith in children and young people who are inundated with all kinds of messages. We’re definitely trying to carry out the work of teaching the next generation in what the business world would call a “competition-rich” environment. As you may know, there are a lot of opinions out there as to how to “reach” this generation.

The Psalmist answers the question in a very traditional way: if you want the next generation to thrive, make sure to keep telling the story of what God has done. And the Psalmist said to do it in a way that’s compelling so that “each generation should set its hope anew on God” (Ps 78:7, NLT). Unfortunately, if we were to read the rest of the Psalm, we would hear from Israel’s history that telling the story of what God has done doesn’t necessarily guarantee that every generation will actually “set its hope anew on God.” That’s one of the challenges of trying to reach younger generations: we can tell the story, and we can do it well, and it doesn’t guarantee that they’ll respond. It’s the risk that goes along with faith: the outcomes aren’t guaranteed.

In fact, as the Psalmist recounts, time after time, those who actually witnessed firsthand God’s “great wonders” turned away from faith. The Psalmist says that they “forgot” what God had done (Ps. 78:11). In the face of a long history of unbelief, writing generations later the Psalmist continues the tradition of telling the story of God’s saving wonders so that future generations would trust in God. In fact, he envisions the effect of telling the story not only on the children of his day. He believed that each generation has the responsibility to recount God’s wonders “so the next generation might know them—even the children not yet born—and they in turn will teach their own children” (Ps 78:6, NLT). Faithfully telling the story of what God has done will impact a generation not yet born. And beyond that, continuing to tell the story will lead future generations to pass it on to their children.

But I think we also have to “read between the lines” a bit with this Psalm. Because it’s not only important to keep telling the story of what God has done to ensure that future generations will have a faith to pass on to their children. Part of the problem recounted in the Psalm was that in every generation there were adults who were raised with the stories of Gods’ “great wonders” who then “forgot” what God had done! It’s not only children who need to be told the story of what God has done to plant seeds of faith in them. All of us, whatever age we may be, need to hear the story again and again to nurture the seeds of faith within us! Wherever we are in the development of our faith, whether a seed, or a sprout, or a sapling, or a mature tree, our faith continually needs nourishment from the story of what God has done for us!

Some of you know that I’ve participated in Al-Anon for years. People get confused about that. I’m not an alcoholic. In fact, I rarely drink alcoholic beverages. Those of us who participate in Al-Anon are there because our lives have been affected by someone with a problem with alcohol. I recently had a discussion with a newcomer to our meeting, who thought that as a pastor I should have the “right” prayer to help her “save” her alcoholic son. In the process of trying to help her understand that’s not the way it works, she asked me why I as a pastor still find it important to participate in a group like Al-Anon. I tried to tell her that we all share our experience, strength, and hope, and in doing so we encourage one another to make healthy choices with our lives. And that’s just as important for someone who has been there for decades as it is for someone who is brand-new.

I think that’s the gist of what I want to say on this Stewardship Commitment Sunday. There’s a notion out there that “we’ll go to church long enough to get our children through confirmation.” But my question is where that leaves their children, and their children’s children. We support the work of this church with our service, our faithfulness, our telling of the story, as well as our contributions to ensure that we’re doing everything we possibly can to plant seeds of faith in our children. But we also continue do so in the hope that future generations will “set their hope on God.” More than that, the truth is that none of us ever “outgrows” the need to nourish our faith. That’s especially true when we face hard times. The disappointments and discouragements we may encounter along the way can bring us to the point where we need the faith of our friends in this church family to help us make it through and recover our own faith on the other side. We support the work of this church because it takes all of us working together to keep planting seeds of faith, and nurturing those seeds that may have become distressed by the heat of loss or the drought of discouragement, in everyone whose lives we touch

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[1] © Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, PhD on 11/12/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Why Are We Here?

 Why Are We Here?

Psalm 107; 1 Thessalonians 2:12-13; Matthew 23:11-12[1]

Any parent has heard the question: “Why do we have to go to church?” The answer depends on the age of your children. If they’re very young, you might say, “That’s what we do.” If they’re a little older, you might say, “We go to thank God for all he’s done for us.” If they’re teenagers, you might say, “Because we follow Jesus, and we want to learn how to do that better.” Those answers may or may not satisfy the question, especially for teenagers. In this age of instant communications, portable digital entertainment, and virtual reality, spending an hour sitting in a church sanctuary on Sunday morning can seem like a pretty dull and boring way to spend your time.

Even for adults, the question, “Why are we here?” has gotten more complicated. In our world, we’re “consumers” of just about everything. We “budget” our time by prioritizing activities, because there are often just too many commitments to fit into one day. It should come as no surprise that we do that when it comes to our commitments to church. And it’s really not a new thing. Thirty years ago, Garry Trudeau addressed this issue in his comic strip “Doonesbury.” In 1993 he featured an interview between Rev. Scot Sloan, the chaplain of Walden College, and a couple who are “church shopping.” Because he mentions that he believes that “we are all recovering sinners,” the couple are turned off by the implied “negativity” and decide to “shop around some more.” They’re looking for a place where they can “feel good about themselves.”[2] The fact that the church at Walden offers racquetball, which was the equivalent of pickleball in the 90’s, doesn’t help! It turns out, if you take stock in what “Doonesbury” has to say, we’ve been “church shopping” for a long time.

Truth be told, the decision to make a commitment to participate in a church, as well as the choice of which church join, can have a number of reasons behind it. For some of us, it’s a family tradition. It’s something we learned as children growing up as our parents brought us to church every week. For some of us, it’s a choice we’ve made for our families. We want to raise our children in a community of faith. For some of us, it’s a matter of our personal experience of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. Because God’s love has changed our lives, we’ve committed ourselves to following Jesus and serving others. For many of us, the decision to participate in this church is based on a combination of these factors. At the end of the day, it’s about choosing that what we believe is truly important, and working together with a group of people who share that belief is also important.

I believe our Scripture lessons for today address this question. In the reading from Psalm 107, the Scripture reminds us how God has consistently demonstrated that he is “good” and “his faithful love endures forever (Ps. 107:1). The whole Psalm is a celebration of the fact that God loves us with a love that will never let us go. More than that, it reminds us that God’s love for us is such that he seeks us out when we’ve gone astray. If you were to look over the whole Psalm, you would find that there are several “stanzas” about how God seeks out those who are in distress. Whether they are lost in desert wastes, confined in prisons of darkness and gloom, or at their wits’ end due to the dangers they encountered, in each and every circumstance, the Psalmist says “‘LORD, help!’ they cried in their trouble, and he rescued them from their distress” (Ps. 107:6, 13, 19, 28). Our Psalm for today demonstrates that there is no situation in which we may find ourselves that God’s love cannot reach us and restore us! That’s one of the main reasons why we’re here. We come because God’s love has claimed us and changed us, and we not only want to thank him for that love, but also to share that love with others.

Our reading from 1 Thessalonians addresses another motivation for being here. In the reading, St. Paul recounts his visit to the church at Thessalonica. He had come to them from Philippi, where he was beaten and imprisoned. He reminds them that his ministry among them was one of declaring the Good News about Jesus Christ to them. It was not about trying to trick them into giving him money, which was something that traveling teachers did in that day. Rather, he says that his whole purpose was to encourage them to live in a way that was consistent with the kingdom of God to which Jesus points us all. Paul expressed his joy that they welcomed his message as “the very word of God,” and that the “word” continued to change their lives (1 Thess 2:12-13). I think that’s another reason why we’re here. We’re here because we’ve found in the Bible the “words of life” that support our faith, hope, and love. In a time when there are so many other messages competing for our attention, we come here because we want to continue to base our lives on what we learn from the Bible.

I think our Gospel lesson also addresses the question why we’re here. It’s not the easiest Scripture reading to hear. Jesus says some pretty hard things about the Jewish religious leaders. Essentially, in Matthew’s Gospel, the purpose for that was to remind the Christians of his day that they were not called to live their lives for the sake of getting attention, or feeling powerful, or any “reward” they might get. Rather, their lives were to be grounded firmly on the conviction that we all stand before one God, who created us all, and who is a loving Father to us all. And their lives were to be grounded on the conviction that we all follow one teacher, Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. Because those convictions are the foundation for our lives, we are all called to relate to one another as “servants.” In a time when it seems like so much depends on how much money you have, or how much power you can wield, or how “important” a person you are, I think there’s a lot to be said about staying connected to a group of people who seek to serve others.

There are a lot of reasons why people decide to participate in a church. I hope you noticed what I haven’t said: I haven’t said (and never will say) that you “have” to come to church if you want to go to heaven when you die. Our eternal destiny was settled two thousand years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem, when Jesus died to break the cycle of guilt and fear that still colors some people’s notions about God. We’re here because God’s love has claimed us and changed us. We’re here because we’ve found the message of the Bible to be inspiring and life changing as well. We’re here because we’ve decided to follow Jesus in a path of service. But “being here” is not just about what we do on Sunday morning. It’s about committing all we know ourselves to be to all we know Jesus Christ to be. And as we grow in our understanding of who we are and who Jesus is, we’re called to commit all of life to this way of life. And we gladly respond, because it is here that we find the love that makes sense of our lives. We give of our time, our energy, and our resources because we believe in the importance of forgiveness, of sharing with others in love, and of sustaining hope in God’s light that always shines in the darkness.[3] These are some of the most important reasons why I’m here. And I hope that all of us share these convictions about why we’re here.

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[1] ©2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 11/5/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Garry Trudeau, “Doonesbury,” June 27, 1993. Accessed on 11/2/2023 at https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1993/06/27 .

[3] See Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 117: “People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness. They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God. They discover that there are people who heal each other’s wounds, forgive each other’s offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God’s glory.”