After Stuff Happens
Children's sermon
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Object:
This week’s lectionary text from Acts recounts Peter’s startling restoration to life of Tabitha, a disciple renowned for her “good works and acts of charity.” When she dies, word is sent to Peter (who is in a nearby town) to come immediately -- and when he arrives, he kneels down, prays, and tells her to get up... at which point Tabitha sits up, and with Peter’s assistance arises. It’s a remarkable scene -- one that unmistakably illustrates the possibilities God offers of restoration and recovery from even the most dire of life’s circumstances... a theme echoed in two of this Sunday’s other readings: Psalm 23 (“he restores my soul”) and Revelation (“these are they who have come out of the great ordeal”).
In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer discusses how this story offers us hope and valuable life lessons for coping in the wake of calamity -- whether communal or personal -- especially when it’s difficult to be optimistic after incidents like terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Some experts tell us events like those in Paris and Brussels may be the “new normal,” so it’s understandable that much attention is focused on how to protect ourselves and our communities in dangerous times. But as Dean points out, we need to do more than merely accept that disasters will happen, and that we need to prepare for them. It’s equally important to find a way to cope and bounce back when disaster strikes -- and this week’s lessons remind us of where we can look for the help we need as we “walk through the darkest valley,” for God is always there to comfort and restore us.
Team member Robin Lostetter shares some additional thoughts on the gospel text and Jesus’ declaration that “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” It’s an interesting way to describe leadership -- and quite a contrast from the way the secular world usually thinks of leadership. That contrast is crystallized by Tavis Smiley in one of the aphorisms from his new book: “Sometimes you lead like a general, sometimes you lead like a shepherd.” There are plenty of public figures who lead like generals -- and they are typically the Caesars of the world. But the list of public figures who immediately spring to mind as ones who lead like shepherds is much shorter: Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Pope Francis. Indeed, Mandela coined a phrase to describe shepherd-like leadership -- “leading from behind,” which he developed from observing how cattle are herded. Robin suggests that Jesus is describing a similar model of leadership, in which he uses his voice to “lead us from behind” -- empowering us to follow the directions that he gives us for our lives. Robin points out that Pope Francis is emulating that approach in leading the Catholic church from behind on family matters, calling in a major document released last week for more grace and less dogma on issues like divorce, remarriage, contraception, and homosexuality. In trying to bridge the divide that has grown over the years between official Vatican policy and practical pastoral necessity, Francis certainly seems to be leading like a shepherd rather than a general.
After Stuff Happens
by Dean Feldmeyer
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17
“No security apparatus is going to stop a 24-year-old guy in his room, radicalizing online, having easy access to guns, going to a soft target in the name of ISIS.” Thus speaks terrorism expert (and former Undersecretary of Homeland Security) Juliette Kayyem in an interview on the NPR program Here and Now.
Calling on her experience in dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Boston Marathon bombing -- and reflecting on the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels -- she advises us to acknowledge that terrorist attacks are the “new normal,” and that while we should do everything in our power to minimize the risk we must also invest some of our resources in finding ways of recovering after these kinds of disasters occur... as occur they most certainly will.
This week’s passages from Acts and Revelation, as well as the 23rd Psalm, remind us that, as People of God, we have some very special resources at our disposal -- resources that provide life and comfort where death and pain seem to hold sway.
When Peter brings Tabitha from death back to life, his next act is to call the saints and widows and show them that she is alive. Likewise, we Christians have been given, in the resurrected Christ, the ability to show the world that we too are very much alive, even in the aftermath of tragedy and disaster.
In the News
April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City -- Timothy McVeigh parks a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, and the ensuing explosion kills 168 people, including 19 children.
April 20, 1999: Littleton, Colorado -- Two students enter Columbine High School armed with guns and bombs, and they kill 12 other students and one teacher before killing themselves.
September 11, 2001: New York City; Washington, DC; and Shanksville, Pennsylvania -- Four domestic commercial airliners are hijacked simultaneously while flying within the northeastern United States. Two fly directly into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City (resulting in their collapse); another flies into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and the fourth (thanks to a revolt by the passengers and crew members) crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The death toll is nearly 3,000: 2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and 19 perpetrators.
November 5, 2009: Killeen, Texas -- Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army Major serving as a psychiatrist, opens fire at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 29.
April 16, 2012: Blacksburg, Virginia -- In one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, 32 students and teachers die after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech by Seung-Hui Cho, a student at the university with a history of mental health problems.
August 5, 2012: Oak Creek, Wisconsin -- Six people are killed and three others injured, including a police officer who was tending to victims, in an attack on a Sikh temple.
December 14, 2012: Newtown, Connecticut -- 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shoots his mother, then drives to Sandy Hook Elementary School and shoots and kills 20 children aged between 6 and 7 years old, as well as six adult staff members.
April 15, 2013: Boston -- Two bombs detonate within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 180 people.
June 17, 2015: Charleston, South Carolina -- Nine are killed and one wounded at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston by 21-year-old Dylann Roof in an attempt to initiate a race war.
July 16, 2015: Chattanooga, Tennessee -- Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opens fire on two military installations. Four Marines are killed immediately, and another Marine, a Navy sailor, and a police officer are wounded; the sailor dies from his injuries two days later.
December 2, 2015: San Bernardino, California -- Fourteen are killed and 22 injured when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik open fire at the Inland Regional Center during a holiday party.
These are just a few of the terrorist and criminal attacks that have happened in the United States in the past 20 years. These are the famous ones -- the ones that resulted in multiple or mass casualties. According to the Heritage Foundation, as of mid-2013 there had been at least 60 terrorist plots against the United States since 9/11. Research by Mother Jones has identified at least 42 mass shootings (random, public shootings by a single person resulting in more than three deaths) in the United States since 2001. While (in general) the rate of violent crime in the United States is decreasing, the number of mass shootings is increasing. Between 1982 and 2011, there was a mass shooting every 200 days. But between 2011 and 2016, the rate increased to every 64 days. And events that resulted in fewer than four deaths from armed robberies, assaults, drive-by shootings, gang and drug activity, and domestic disputes are legion.
Add to these the terrorist assaults on innocent people that we see and hear about all over the world (think Brussels; Paris; and Lahore, Pakistan) and it is tempting to just crawl into our safe places, pull the blankets over our heads, and hide until someone comes and saves us.
Politicians assure us that they can protect us from these kinds of attacks and tragedies. The Heritage Foundation insists that more must be done, and offers a five-point proactive plan for preventing future terrorist attacks on American soil. Mark Follman, writing for Mother Jones, offers a three-point plan of identifying, evaluating, and then intervening to prevent mass shootings.
Other experts in the field like Juliette Kayyem and Cas Mudde are beginning to speak about the West coming to accept that terrorist attacks and mass shootings may have become the “new normal.”
All the prevention and intervention in the world isn’t going to stop every single terrorist attack or random mass shooting. The odds are that, sooner or later, a few of these fish are going to slip through the net -- and telling ourselves and each other that we are safe will only lead to more problems when we have to recover from the damage that these incidents will cause.
As Kayyem says, the secret is “Don’t freak out and don’t tune out.” Stay calm and stay informed. Rather than invest all of our resources in preventing tragedies, some of our resources need to be aimed at what to do when and after these bad things happen. We need to adopt and develop the capacity to pivot, be flexible, and react appropriately when violent tragedy befalls us.
We need to prepare ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually to make sure that our response to these horrors is healthy and appropriate. Kayyem and Mudde both offer common-sense advice on what to do during an active shooter event: “Run away if you can, hide if you must, engage only if you have no other choice.”
But very few experts offer much in the way of advice for what to do after events like these. How can we prepare ourselves so that we can recover from the kinds of tragedies that happened recently in Brussels and Paris? Or for that matter, how are we going to come back from any kind of devastation -- whether it is of human origin or emerges from nature?
Mass shootings, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes -- how do we get the strength, the courage to emerge from our hiding places and return again to the light?
In the Scriptures
We serve a God whose option is always for life -- and while God does not always reach into our lives to calm the storm, God does walk with us through it. No matter what tragedy, what horror, what attack may befall us, our God is with us, walking at our side through our grief and despair.
Acts 9:36-43
Tabitha/Dorcas is one of the leaders of the Christian community in Joppa (modern-day Jaffa), a Philistine city on the Mediterranean Sea. She is well-known for her devotion to good works and acts of charity. Her position in the church is so great that when her health fails and she dies, her friends in the First Church of Joppa send two men to Lydda to get Peter and bring him to Joppa as quickly as possible.
When he arrives, Peter discovers that they have washed her body and laid it out in preparation for burial. Around it they have arrayed the lovely “tunics and other clothing” she made (presumably for the poor) when she was alive.
Peter sends everyone out of the room, kneels to pray at her bedside, and then says to her “Tabitha, get up” -- a command not unlike the one that Jesus spoke to the little girl in Mark 5:41: “Talitha koum” (“Little girl, arise”). Tabitha awakens from death and sits up. Peter takes her hand and helps her out of the bed.
And then he calls all of the people who were there for the funeral and shows them that their friend and sister is alive. Did you get that? The story does not end with Tabitha’s resurrection. Before the story can end, three important things have to happen.
1) Her resurrection has to be used as a witness, a declaration of the power of Jesus Christ in our lives. The resurrection of Tabitha is a story that must be told. It is a declaration that must be made. Once again, life has won a victory over death. And we can declare with Paul: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).
2) The good news of God’s victory over death must be spread throughout Joppa so that many can hear it and respond to it by coming to believe in Jesus Christ.
3) And finally, Peter must demonstrate the freedom and power that we are given through the gospel by spending the days he is in Joppa with a man whose profession is considered unclean by the Jews.
Psalm 23
The appearance of this psalm in the lectionary on the same Sunday as the story of Tabitha reminds us that it should be sung at other times than funerals. It’s time to snatch it from the funeral home and place it where it needs to be -- in the hearts of those who are afraid at any time in their lives.
We are not loosed to wander freely, unprotected, wherever our nose leads us. We are watched over and loved by a good shepherd who knows each of our names -- and while tragedy may from time to time befall us, the shepherd will always be with us to see us through the trouble and onto the other side, wherever that may be.
He offers us rest. He supplies us with safe water to drink. He restores our souls when they are worn and bruised. He does not just show us the right way, he leads us upon it.
The good shepherd does not direct the course of the storm -- but should it overtake us, he is there to walk with us through it.
Revelation 7:9-17
Acts and Psalm 23 have told us how God stands with us in the midst of tragedy. Revelation gives us a glorious picture, a beautiful aria, that tells us how God comforts us after the tragedy.
In his ecstatic vision, John sees a vast multitude of people -- all races and nationalities and languages -- wearing white robes and marching before the throne of God, waving palm branches and singing songs of praise. His guide asks him if he knows who these people are, and he says that he does not.
The elder informs him that “these are they who have come out of the great ordeal [persecution]; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” -- that is, the blood that they shed through being persecuted.
They get to spend eternity in the presence of God, singing God’s praise, and God will shelter them: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
In the Pulpit
It is a good thing to do all we can to prevent disasters from befalling us. We rebuilt and reinforced the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Andrew devastated the state of Florida in 1992, building codes were reviewed and strengthened so that structures would better withstand being battered by high winds. In fact, after noting that all of the homes built by Habitat for Humanity came through the “Andrew Apocalypse” virtually unscathed, the state began creating building codes fashioned after Habitat’s building methods.
In our house, we keep a “Blizzard Box” that contains batteries, candles, flashlights, and other items that might come in handy if we lose power for a couple of days. We have a gas fireplace to keep us warm and plenty of canned goods that we can cook over our Coleman camping stove if we need to. And we have about 10 gallons of bottled water we can drink and cook with. But we aren’t fooling ourselves. We know that if the house gets blown down those items aren’t going to be of much help. We know that if we are trapped in our home for more than 72 hours we’re going to be in trouble. Come the zombie apocalypse, we will probably be among the walking dead.
Common sense and experience tell us that no matter how much we prepare for trouble, trouble has a way of slipping through the cracks and finding us. No amount of preparation can prevent a tornado from going where it will go. No amount of security can prevent a lone gunman who is willing to sacrifice his/her own life from entering a soft target and attacking innocent people.
So our last bit of preparation needs to be how we are going to handle the aftermath of tragedy. How are we going to get past our grief and despair? How do we continue to be resilient in the face of a mass shooting every 64 days and a terrorist attack every 91 days?
One way is to do as Peter does in this week’s lesson. We need to find life in the midst of death, and we need to declare it to those around us. We need to demonstrate for ourselves and for others that God is walking with us through even the most violent storms, and that God will see us through to the end of them wherever that end may be, in this life or the next.
It is good at times such as these to remember that often, and especially in the midst and aftermath of tragedy, the only image of God that people will see is us. As Christians, we are called to be God’s agents in place. Our hands are God’s hands. Our feet are God’s feet. Our words are God’s words.
When God wipes tears from the eyes of the suffering, it is with our hands that the comfort is given. When God leads the sheep beside the still waters, it is our hand that holds the staff and wields the rod.
When the video images were released after the Boston Marathon bombing, I could not help but notice that even as the wounded and injured were making their way, crawling and walking and running from the blast area, there was another group of people, those who were not injured, running into that area to give help and aid to those who were hurt.
There may be not better picture of God in action than that one.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Shepherding -- Leading from Behind: Whispering Sweet Nothings to My Sheep
by Robin Lostetter
John 10:22-30
Jesus’ words in John 10:27 -- “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” -- give a powerful lesson in shepherding leadership, what Nelson Mandela has called “Leading from Behind.” Mandela shared with Richard Stengel (the editor of Time magazine and collaborator on Mandela’s autobiography) that the strategy was derived from cattle herding:
Lead from the front is the more conventional kind of leading that we know -- getting up on the podium and giving a speech or saying follow me. But leading from the back is a different idea. We [Stengel and Mandela] used to take these early morning walks in the countryside near where he grew up. He once asked me if I ever herded cattle before. I said, “no.”
He said, “It’s interesting because there are lessons for leadership -- because the way you herd cattle is you lead them from behind. You find the most able and smartest cattle and have them lead the way. You empower them.” He said that’s a good lesson for all of us. You basically have to kind of share the wealth. You have to find people who can execute your vision and ideas. I think that’s relevant not only in politics, but again even within families.
But in his 1994 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela also described it as a shepherding device:
I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.
Some might remember the term “leading from behind” as an explanation of President Obama’s Libya strategy in 2011. As a reminder, here is an op-ed piece from April 2011:
The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has a lengthy piece... exploring “how the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy.” The article outlines the president’s big foreign policy decisions throughout his young presidency -- from the surge in Afghanistan and keeping a low profile during the Green Movement in Iran to participating in the UN-mandated intervention in Libya -- and ultimately ends with an interesting quote from one of Obama’s advisers:
Nonetheless, Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the president’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.” That’s not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding. It’s a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world. Pursuing our interests and spreading our ideals thus requires stealth and modesty as well as military strength. “It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world,” the adviser said. “But it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”...
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who is also quoted in the Lizza article -- appeared to confirm this sentiment in Obama’s decision making on Libya. “[F]or those who want to see the United States always acting unilaterally, it’s not satisfying,” she said, “for the world we’re trying to build, where we have a lot of responsible actors who are willing to step up and lead, it is exactly what we should be doing.”
Tavis Smiley, in his new book 50 for Your Future: Lessons from Down the Road, gives a more moderated retrospective view (p. 35):
In 2011, as he was preparing to commit the U.S. military in Libya, President Obama was heavily criticized for saying he wanted to “lead from behind.” I may or may not have agreed with him on how to handle that situation, but I took the time to consider what he might have meant. A lot of people were mocking that notion and saying that you couldn’t lead from behind.
The long-term effects of intervention notwithstanding, Obama ultimately kept America out of a ground war in Libya. As a leader, you don’t always want to go charging, full gallop, into every situation. Sometimes the best course of action is to lead gently, like a shepherd -- and shepherds rarely work alone. This means you bring your team in with you. You empower them to lead, to do what needs to be done, and you support them in their efforts.
So now that we’ve defined “leading from behind” in the political and agricultural arenas, let us turn our attention to a stunning new example within the universal (or catholic) Church, specifically the Roman Catholic branch: Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), in which the pope “urged priests around the world to be more accepting of gays and lesbians, divorced Catholics, and other people living in what the church considers ‘irregular’ situations.”
As it may be for many, this topic is close to my heart as I think of my mother’s situation. She was never able to return to the church of her birth and upbringing, following her divorce from a philandering husband and remarriage to my father, without seeking an annulment which would have declared my brother to be a “bastard” back in the day.
Pope Francis has brought into the light of this new day that which has been secret in the Roman Catholic Church... but this time, a very positive secret: the “pastoral solution.” In Amoris Laetitia, the pope’s aim “is to help families -- in fact, everyone -- experience God’s love and know that they are welcome members of the church,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and writer who called the paper a “groundbreaking new document.”
On divorced Catholics, whose religious lives Francis has made it a priority to ease, the pope writes: “The divorced who have entered a new union should be made to feel part of the Church.... It can no longer simply be said that all those living in any ‘irregular situation’ are living in a state of mortal sin.”
Camila Domonoske comments further: “In it, the pope emphasizes that life is more complicated than religious law. In the opening pages, he invokes the values of ‘generosity, commitment, fidelity, and patience,’ but also says he wishes to ‘encourage everyone to be a sign of mercy and closeness wherever family life remains imperfect or lacks peace and joy.’ He explains that in Amoris Laetitia, in addition to considering scripture, he will ‘examine the actual situation of families, in order to keep firmly grounded in reality.’ And he notes that Jesus set forth a demanding ideal for his followers -- but ‘never failed to show compassion and closeness to the frailty of individuals.’ ”
This scriptural foundation for moving beyond the black-and-white of dogma has precedent even before Jesus’ words. We find it in Joseph’s generosity of spirit in taking the already-pregnant Mary as his wife, rather than exposing her to humiliation, ostracism, and possible stoning under the law.
Even earlier, there’s a striking example of what one might call situational ethics, or the grey area of righteousness in the Old Testament. In one of my early sermons, I cast the story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38:1-26) in the vernacular:
Judah was one of the sons of Jacob, one of the brothers of Joseph of the “many-colored coat” fame. Judah’s first son, Er, took a wife named Tamar. But as the story goes, Er was a bad dude and God did him in. So, according to the law that required a man to marry his brother’s widow [to raise up descendants for his brother], Tamar was given to the second son, Onan. Same story! [Onan also meets with an untimely demise.] So again Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, is a widow. Now Judah, ostensibly respecting the law, tells Tamar to go back home to live until his third son, Shelah, is old enough to marry her. But Judah, afraid that Shelah would suffer a similar fate to that of his brothers, withholds his son from Tamar.
Now one day Judah, by now a widower himself, goes out of town on business. Tamar hears of his plans and she goes to sit at the roadside along his route, where she observes Shelah, who is now full-grown but is not engaged to her. Tamar is sitting on the curb with her face covered, and Judah mistakes her for a lady of the evening. He offers a goat as a fee -- certainly irresistible in my book! -- a goat which he promises he’ll send along later. But Tamar is no fool. Already Judah has denied her the lawful husband to which she is entitled, and she doesn’t trust him to send the goat, so she exacts from him his signet, his cord, and his staff -- the present-day equivalent of holding his driver’s license or Visa card!
Now, when Judah tries to deliver the goat and retrieve his belongings, he is unsuccessful -- because he is looking for the wrong woman! Then a few months later, rumor has it that Tamar, his former daughter-in-law, has taken up the world’s oldest profession and is now with child. So Judah sends for her with the intent of punishing her according to the Law of Moses. She will be killed -- burned or stoned. Then, lo and behold, Tamar produces Judah's driver's license! Oops. His own sin is now public. His reputation is tarnished. You might even say she’s gotten his goat!
And what is Judah’s response to this trick of his daughter-in-law’s? He says, “She is more tsadiq -- more righteous -- than I, since I did not give her my son Shelah.
More tsadiq, more righteous. Laws were broken; but mercy won over. The “pastoral solution” is where mercy, reality, experience, “more righteousness,” and pastoral care influence dogma.
In my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.], there is also the “pastoral solution,” though it is not called that officially. We’re taught in seminary, as we approach ordination exams, that we will face situations (both in the exams and in our ministries) where our Book of Order says one thing, but the practicality or the pastoral necessity of the situation dictates another. For example, we hold that an infant is already welcomed and claimed by God, and that we baptize to recognize and accept this invitation/claim and to welcome the child into a specific congregation, a congregation which commits to nurturing that child in the faith.1 The timeliness of infant baptism is therefore “without undue delay, but without undue haste.”2 However, if a newborn is in an emergent crisis, and parents ask for immediate baptism (due to the prevailing Roman Catholic understanding of baptism), this is not the time to educate the family on the Reformed understanding of baptism. It is the time for a pastoral response, and that is to baptize the baby in what both the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic denominations might describe as an “irregular situation.”
James Carroll quotes Francis’ explanation: “ ‘It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations.’... The pastoral solution lives in this realm of ‘particular situations,’ where, as Francis insists, ‘constant love’ must prevail over judgmentalism. Every situation is different, and a subtle moral discernment is required to see how general principles apply to it.”
So Pope Francis has not articulated new dogma, but has led from behind. He has brought the long-practiced “pastoral solution” into the light of day, affirming myriad priests and laypeople who have followed their conscience throughout decades, if not millennia, and (as Carroll notes) -- especially in the context of “the confessional booth or the rectory parlor” -- quietly ignored and even defied official Vatican policy on family issues. This parallels the “permission-giving” change in many by-laws, and the trend to more generous interpretations of rules in general. It does not release us from the vision of the ideal, of going the extra mile, of Jesus’ sayings that begin “you have heard... but I tell you.” It is better to be more tsadiq by virtue of exceeding the law that simply by virtue of exceeding the behavior of our neighbor.
But this pope continues to lead like a shepherd, in the model of the Good Shepherd, seeking to bring peace and joy in every life where sorrow, pain, or hardship have been the rule of the day -- indeed exemplifying Amoris Laetitia... “The Joy of Love.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Acts 9:36-43
Please Come to Us Without Delay
As Dean Feldmeyer wisely observes in his article above, people of faith understand that it is crucial to find life even in the midst of death. When Tabitha fell ill it was words of life that the disciples yearned to hear, and so they urged Peter to come without delay. That is the sort of urgency and yearning author Diana Butler Bass describes experiencing in her spiritual journey in the years after September 11, 2001 in her book Grounded: Finding God in the World -- A Spiritual Revolution.
On the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Bass attended worship with her family. She listened as a former White House staff member delivered a guest sermon that day. As he shared memories of being in the White House that day, Bass became increasingly uncomfortable. It wasn’t until the speaker expressed sorrow for the 4,000 people who had been killed in the ten years following the attack that she became upset.
“Four thousand?” she writes. “What was he talking about? By the end of the decade, tens of thousands, if not more people had died in war as a result of what had happened in 2001. Most of those people were civilians, Afghanis, or Iraqis in countries we had invaded. Then I realized that four thousand represented the number of American soldiers who had been killed. He was counting only his tribe...”
Bass quietly slipped out of the church, reflecting as she walked through the crowded sidewalk of a neighborhood art fair. The blocks and blocks of artisans selling their crafts, neighbors greeting one another, and children laughing reminded her of Peter’s prophecy in the Book of Acts. “For years the church kept me safe inside a building. All the while, the Spirit was out here on the streets.”
For Bass, the crowded streets were a reminder of those who are crying “come to us without delay,” yearning for a word of life that brings hope to a world gripped by violence and death.
*****
Psalm 23
Being Led in Right Paths
Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial this week. As Kerry paid respects to those who died in the atomic bomb blast that hastened the end of World War II, he called the memorial’s museum “stunning” and a “gut-wrenching” reminder of the need to work for peace. Some speculated whether or not Kerry’s visit would lead the way to a visit by President Obama -- something analysts say would be a “complex and controversial journey.”
An editorial in the Baltimore Sun suggests that Kerry’s visit could be a reminder of the need to shepherd the world through pathways of peace. “Whatever one may think of the U.S. decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and another on Nagasaki a few days later -- whether it spared lives that might have been lost in an invasion of Japan or cost civilization dearly -- the inferno unleashed was unprecedented and continues to be felt today.”
Referring to politicians who talk about nuclear weapons like a child pondering a board game, the editorial warns that it is no longer a given that an American president would be opposed to nuclear proliferation: “A month ago, that was unthinkable. Today, it’s a real possibility.” The editorial’s writers continue:
The Doomsday Clock, the metaphorical measure of catastrophic threat to civilization maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is currently set at three minutes before midnight, the closest it's been since the end of the Cold War.... [T]he nation can ill afford to continue to ignore the terrible price paid by the use of the atomic bomb. Turning our back to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not make us stronger, it only raises doubts among our allies and others about how seriously we take disarmament.
*****
John 10:22-30
Listening for the Shepherd’s Voice
Charismatic leaders may inspire flocks to follow, but perhaps the most important aspect of leadership is staying behind. The late Nelson Mandela saw “leadership from behind” as key to shepherd leadership. “(A leader) stays behind the flock,” Mandela wrote in his autobiography, “letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill notes that shepherding as a metaphor is an apt description for innovating leadership. Hill says that leading from behind may be a better way of describing the sort of leadership required in today’s context. Shepherding leaders make sure their organizations stay together and act wisely to keep the flock from going off-course. Good shepherds, she says, must be willing to experiment with innovation while building the organizational capabilities required to sustain that innovation: “Those who are exceptional at leading from behind are likely to be different than those who excelled at leading from the front. And this raises the question: are we identifying and developing the leaders who can tap the power of collective genius?”
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From team member Ron Love:
Acts 9:36-43
Famed country singer Johnny Cash performed on several occasions at California’s notorious San Quentin penitentiary. At these appearances Cash did his usual repertoire of songs about living a hard life and overcoming many of life’s obstacles. In the audience at one of those prison concerts was a young convict whose father died when he was 9 years old. His family was transplanted from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl to California, where they lived in a converted railroad refrigerator car. Two years after his father’s death, the young man began hopping freight trains. He was later arrested for burglary and sent to San Quentin for 2 and a half years. Before prison, he dabbled in playing the guitar and singing. But after hearing Cash behind those iron bars, he was determined take up his guitar once more and become a country singer. He was paroled in 1960 at the age of 23, and he slowly embarked on his singing venture. That man was Merle Haggard, whose accomplishments rivaled those of Johnny Cash and other legendary country singers.
Application: Johnny Cash never knew the impact he would have on the inmates at San Quentin. Cash only knew that having been in jail himself, he wanted to try to lead them to a better life. Peter never knew the impact he would have in Joppa. Peter only knew that his witness might lead others to a better life.
*****
Acts 9:36-43
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviewed his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, to trace her life’s journey -- and they are sharing the results in the new book The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss. During the interviewing process Anderson learned that his mother is a romantic. Gloria said, “I’m always in love. If it’s not a person, it’s a flower or sunset. Love is all.”
Application: When Peter went to Joppa, he went there as a romantic. Peter went there as one who was always in love, in love with others, in love with nature, in love with life, and most importantly in love with sharing the gospel message.
*****
Acts 9:36-43
Drones are often in the news -- but not like this. Keller Rinaudo, the founder of Zipline, uses cargo drones to get medicine and supplies to remote places in Africa. The drones do not have to land; they can parachute the supplies to designated areas. Alfred Lin, an investor in Zipline, says: “There’s a broad ambition here with Zipline, one focused on using machines to better human lives. They’re looking at applications that others in the space aren’t focused on.”
Application: When Peter went to Joppa, he was focused on making human lives better.
*****
Acts 9:36-43
The Masters is the only PGA tournament that is played on the same course each year -- Augusta National. It is a difficult course, and few new players have the opportunity to play on it. This is why when players are invited to the Masters for the first time they often seek the advice of others. It is a Masters tradition that older players willingly advise and mentor those who are fresh to the course. To help accomplish this, new players are paired up with season veterans. Two-time champion Tom Watson said, “I was trying to help the guys I was playing with today. I did what Ken Venturi did for me and Byron (Nelson) did for me.”
Application: Peter stayed in Joppa for some time, to guide and instruct others.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
Facebook is always trying to accommodate its 1 billion-plus users. One way they have done so is to continually expand the type of personal relationship status one can choose to designate oneself as having: single, engaged, married, “it’s complicated,” and in an open relationship. But that does not seem to be sufficient, as Facebook is being petitioned to add yet another designated category -- polyamorous. “Polyamorous” refers to someone in a multiple relationship involving several lovers.
Application: There was a great multitude before the throne of God who came from every nation and tribe. But there was no confusion about their relationship to one another and to God, as together they worshiped the Creator of the Universe.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
The release of the Panama Papers -- 11.5 million documents chronicling how government officials, business executives, sports figures, and criminals hid their money in offshore accounts -- has made headlines. When the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung first received the anonymous disclosure, they realized the project was too big for them to tackle alone. So they contacted the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) for assistance in this massive reporting project. The ICIJ was able to recruit 200 journalists in 65 countries to work together to uncover the story. Each reporter acted as a team member, making all information discovered available to all other team members. Reporters in different countries cooperated with one another. It was through that collaborative effort that the Panama Papers were able to be released.
Application: The great multitude from every nation and every tribe came before the throne of God as a team.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
Kevin Kisner knew since he was a child that he wanted to be a professional golfer -- and it’s only a 22-minute drive from his home in Aiken, South Carolina, to Augusta, Georgia (where the Masters tournament is played each year). So Kisner lived 22 minutes away from his dream. Over the years, he drove his black Ford F-150 pickup truck to play wherever he could. In 2011 and again in 2012 he qualified for a PGA Tour card, but both years he lost it. He once again earned the card in 2014. This year he received an invitation to play in the Masters. He was unaware of the invitation until he returned home one day and saw that his mother had the invitation in a frame with a cross on it. Kisner said of that moment: “She said she prayed enough for it that it deserved a frame with a cross.”
Application: In the book of Revelation we have the message of hope. It is a message of a framed invitation with a cross on it.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
In Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt’s new book The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss, we learn that Anderson’s father died when he was 10. The death affected mother and child differently. Anderson believed, in his words, the “next catastrophe, basically, which I always think is right around the corner.” But for his mother, Anderson said, “My mom believes the next opportunity is always around the corner.”
Application: In Revelation we know that around the corner, in both life’s catastrophes and opportunities, is ultimately eternity with God.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
USA Today had an op-ed essay recently on the importance of the American flag flying at half-staff in memory of people who have died. Since February 13, the flag has been lowered on 18 out of 52 days, in observance of the deaths of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, former first lady Nancy Reagan, and the victims of the terrorist bombings in Brussels. During seven of the past nine months, the flag has been lowered by presidential proclamation. In 1906, when San Francisco was razed by an earthquake that killed 3,000 people, the sailors in San Francisco harbor lowered their flag, even though the U.S. Flag Code would not become law for another 36 years. They did this on their own, out of tribute to the fallen. There was another time when people across the nation lowered their flags before a presidential proclamation could be made, and that was after the 9/11 attacks. The essay ended with the observation that after the 9/11 attacks, “As it was 95 years earlier [referring to the San Francisco earthquake], Americans didn’t need to be told. The flag may have hung low, but our resolve was never higher.”
Application: The white robes are a lowered flag of tribute.
*****
John 10:22-30
The Aegean island of Lesbos is only an hour by ferry boat from Turkey. Because of its location, refugees from Syria come first to this small island on their way to Turkey and Europe. And the residents of Lesbos have found a way to make a profit from the misery of others. Because of the influx of refugees, many tourists are afraid to come to the island. Realizing that refugees need food, clothing, housing, and other necessities, the islanders are compensating for their loss in tourist dollars by charging the migrants. But tourists have the option of going elsewhere; refugees do not. So the small businesses are exploiting the refugees’ plight by charging extravagant prices for the necessities of life.
Application: The people of Lesbos do not understand the meaning of being a shepherd to the lost sheep.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Our Shepherd God comes and supplies our needs.
People: God causes us to lie down in green pastures.
Leader: Our God leads us beside still waters.
People: God restores our weary souls.
Leader: Goodness and mercy shall always be ours.
People: We shall dwell with God forever.
OR
Leader: We come to worship and wonder if we are safe, even here.
People: We want to be safe and not have to fear.
Leader: There are always dangers around us.
People: We cannot control the weather or other disasters.
Leader: But our God is with us, offering us life in the midst of danger.
People: We will trust and hope in God’s gift of eternal life.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Now Thank We All Our God”
found in:
UMH: 102
H82: 396, 397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533, 534
ELA: 839, 840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
“The God of Abraham Praise”
found in:
UMH: 116
H82: 401
NCH: 24
CH: 24
LBW: 544
ELA: 831
W&P: 16
Renew: 51
“God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale”
found in:
UMH: 122
PH: 272
NCH: 32
CH: 70
ELA: 740
W&P: 29
“Stand By Me”
found in:
UMH: 512
NNBH: 318
CH: 629
W&P: 495
AMEC: 420
“I Want Jesus to Walk with Me”
found in:
UMH: 521
PH: 363
AAHH: 563
NNBH: 500
NCH: 490
CH: 627
W&P: 506
AMEC: 375
“How Firm a Foundation”
found in:
UMH: 529
H82: 636, 637
PH: 361
AAHH: 146
NNBH: 48
NCH: 407
CH: 618
LBW: 507
ELA: 796
W&P: 411
AMEC: 433
“God of Grace and God of Glory”
found in:
UMH: 577
H82: 594, 595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
Renew: 301
“Be Still, My Soul”
found in:
UMH: 534
AAHH: 135
NNBH: 263
NCH: 488
CH: 566
W&P: 451
AMEC: 426
“We Are His Hands”
found in:
CCB: 85
“People Need the Lord”
found in:
CCB: 52
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who desires the blessing and wholeness of all creation: Grant to us, your children, the faith and courage to find you as you are at work through us in all aspects of life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for you created us out of love and you created us for blessing. Help us in times of difficulty to remember these things. Help us to look for you in the midst of tragedy and to remember that you are at work through us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, especially when in our fear we forget that God is the basis of our lives.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We allow our fear to overcome our faith. We are so filled with dread about what might happen that we forget that all life is in you. We spend more time discussing what to do about terrorism than we do talking about the faith that holds us securely in your hands. Call us back to you and to the foundation of our life. Help us to share your sure hope with others. Amen.
Leader: God is our life and our hope. Be filled with God’s love, and share God’s eternal life with others.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
All praise and glory are yours, O God, for you are life. It is from you and in you that we live and move and have our being.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We allow our fear to overcome our faith. We are so filled with dread about what might happen that we forget that all life is in you. We spend more time discussing what to do about terrorism than we do talking about the faith that holds us securely in your hands. Call us back to you and to the foundation of our life. Help us to share your sure hope with others.
We give you thanks for the blessings you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for your life that flows through us and to others. We thank you for those who have been your presence in our lives.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all of us in our fears and our needs. Give us clear heads, but most of all give us pure hearts, that we may rest in your love as we share it with others.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Lay out some pieces of construction paper marked “deep water,” “rough rocks,” “sticky mud,” etc. Have the children line up, and then blindfold them or ask them to keep their eyes closed. Tell them that you will guide them by directing them. If they step on one of the papers, they are out. Then tell them that you are going to guide them by leading them. Have them hold onto each other’s waists and lead the first child around the “obstacles.” Jesus is like a shepherd who leads the flock. He doesn’t just give directions -- he goes ahead of us.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Mary Austin
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17
Gather ahead of time: fire extinguisher, cellphone, flashlight, band-aids. If possible, also get small glass or fabric hearts, enough for each child to have one.
***
Talk to the kids about how we hope emergencies don’t happen, but that they can come at any time. It’s good to be prepared.
If you have a fire, what do you do? Which of these things could you use? Hold up the phone and talk about calling 911. And you might use the fire extinguisher.
And if someone falls and gets a cut, what could you do? Which of these things could you use? And if the power goes out at your house, what could you use?
Sometimes terrible things happen and we feel like there’s nothing we can do. A band-aid won’t help, and there’s no fire to put out. You don’t need a flashlight. What can you do when something bad happens, maybe when someone dies or someone is really scared? (The kids will give you ideas: hugs... meals... visit them.) Those are all good ideas.
The other thing we can do is turn to God to help us feel comforted and to have more courage. There’s no piece of equipment for that, but I want each of you to have one of these hearts to put in your pocket, or your backpack, or in your family’s car. You can hold onto it whenever you need an extra dose of God’s presence, or to be reminded of how much God loves you no matter what happens. When it feels like there’s nothing we can do, we can always turn to God.
Prayer: Loving God, we thank you that when emergencies happen, when things don’t go like we expect them to, when we feel sad and scared, that we have our emergency help in you. We thank you that you send people to help. Give us the wisdom to be helpers too, when someone else has an emergency. We give you thanks in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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The Immediate Word, April 17, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer discusses how this story offers us hope and valuable life lessons for coping in the wake of calamity -- whether communal or personal -- especially when it’s difficult to be optimistic after incidents like terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Some experts tell us events like those in Paris and Brussels may be the “new normal,” so it’s understandable that much attention is focused on how to protect ourselves and our communities in dangerous times. But as Dean points out, we need to do more than merely accept that disasters will happen, and that we need to prepare for them. It’s equally important to find a way to cope and bounce back when disaster strikes -- and this week’s lessons remind us of where we can look for the help we need as we “walk through the darkest valley,” for God is always there to comfort and restore us.
Team member Robin Lostetter shares some additional thoughts on the gospel text and Jesus’ declaration that “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” It’s an interesting way to describe leadership -- and quite a contrast from the way the secular world usually thinks of leadership. That contrast is crystallized by Tavis Smiley in one of the aphorisms from his new book: “Sometimes you lead like a general, sometimes you lead like a shepherd.” There are plenty of public figures who lead like generals -- and they are typically the Caesars of the world. But the list of public figures who immediately spring to mind as ones who lead like shepherds is much shorter: Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Pope Francis. Indeed, Mandela coined a phrase to describe shepherd-like leadership -- “leading from behind,” which he developed from observing how cattle are herded. Robin suggests that Jesus is describing a similar model of leadership, in which he uses his voice to “lead us from behind” -- empowering us to follow the directions that he gives us for our lives. Robin points out that Pope Francis is emulating that approach in leading the Catholic church from behind on family matters, calling in a major document released last week for more grace and less dogma on issues like divorce, remarriage, contraception, and homosexuality. In trying to bridge the divide that has grown over the years between official Vatican policy and practical pastoral necessity, Francis certainly seems to be leading like a shepherd rather than a general.
After Stuff Happens
by Dean Feldmeyer
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17
“No security apparatus is going to stop a 24-year-old guy in his room, radicalizing online, having easy access to guns, going to a soft target in the name of ISIS.” Thus speaks terrorism expert (and former Undersecretary of Homeland Security) Juliette Kayyem in an interview on the NPR program Here and Now.
Calling on her experience in dealing with the aftermath of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the Boston Marathon bombing -- and reflecting on the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels -- she advises us to acknowledge that terrorist attacks are the “new normal,” and that while we should do everything in our power to minimize the risk we must also invest some of our resources in finding ways of recovering after these kinds of disasters occur... as occur they most certainly will.
This week’s passages from Acts and Revelation, as well as the 23rd Psalm, remind us that, as People of God, we have some very special resources at our disposal -- resources that provide life and comfort where death and pain seem to hold sway.
When Peter brings Tabitha from death back to life, his next act is to call the saints and widows and show them that she is alive. Likewise, we Christians have been given, in the resurrected Christ, the ability to show the world that we too are very much alive, even in the aftermath of tragedy and disaster.
In the News
April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City -- Timothy McVeigh parks a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, and the ensuing explosion kills 168 people, including 19 children.
April 20, 1999: Littleton, Colorado -- Two students enter Columbine High School armed with guns and bombs, and they kill 12 other students and one teacher before killing themselves.
September 11, 2001: New York City; Washington, DC; and Shanksville, Pennsylvania -- Four domestic commercial airliners are hijacked simultaneously while flying within the northeastern United States. Two fly directly into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City (resulting in their collapse); another flies into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and the fourth (thanks to a revolt by the passengers and crew members) crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The death toll is nearly 3,000: 2,507 civilians, 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, and 19 perpetrators.
November 5, 2009: Killeen, Texas -- Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army Major serving as a psychiatrist, opens fire at Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 29.
April 16, 2012: Blacksburg, Virginia -- In one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history, 32 students and teachers die after being gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech by Seung-Hui Cho, a student at the university with a history of mental health problems.
August 5, 2012: Oak Creek, Wisconsin -- Six people are killed and three others injured, including a police officer who was tending to victims, in an attack on a Sikh temple.
December 14, 2012: Newtown, Connecticut -- 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shoots his mother, then drives to Sandy Hook Elementary School and shoots and kills 20 children aged between 6 and 7 years old, as well as six adult staff members.
April 15, 2013: Boston -- Two bombs detonate within seconds of each other near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 180 people.
June 17, 2015: Charleston, South Carolina -- Nine are killed and one wounded at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston by 21-year-old Dylann Roof in an attempt to initiate a race war.
July 16, 2015: Chattanooga, Tennessee -- Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez opens fire on two military installations. Four Marines are killed immediately, and another Marine, a Navy sailor, and a police officer are wounded; the sailor dies from his injuries two days later.
December 2, 2015: San Bernardino, California -- Fourteen are killed and 22 injured when Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik open fire at the Inland Regional Center during a holiday party.
These are just a few of the terrorist and criminal attacks that have happened in the United States in the past 20 years. These are the famous ones -- the ones that resulted in multiple or mass casualties. According to the Heritage Foundation, as of mid-2013 there had been at least 60 terrorist plots against the United States since 9/11. Research by Mother Jones has identified at least 42 mass shootings (random, public shootings by a single person resulting in more than three deaths) in the United States since 2001. While (in general) the rate of violent crime in the United States is decreasing, the number of mass shootings is increasing. Between 1982 and 2011, there was a mass shooting every 200 days. But between 2011 and 2016, the rate increased to every 64 days. And events that resulted in fewer than four deaths from armed robberies, assaults, drive-by shootings, gang and drug activity, and domestic disputes are legion.
Add to these the terrorist assaults on innocent people that we see and hear about all over the world (think Brussels; Paris; and Lahore, Pakistan) and it is tempting to just crawl into our safe places, pull the blankets over our heads, and hide until someone comes and saves us.
Politicians assure us that they can protect us from these kinds of attacks and tragedies. The Heritage Foundation insists that more must be done, and offers a five-point proactive plan for preventing future terrorist attacks on American soil. Mark Follman, writing for Mother Jones, offers a three-point plan of identifying, evaluating, and then intervening to prevent mass shootings.
Other experts in the field like Juliette Kayyem and Cas Mudde are beginning to speak about the West coming to accept that terrorist attacks and mass shootings may have become the “new normal.”
All the prevention and intervention in the world isn’t going to stop every single terrorist attack or random mass shooting. The odds are that, sooner or later, a few of these fish are going to slip through the net -- and telling ourselves and each other that we are safe will only lead to more problems when we have to recover from the damage that these incidents will cause.
As Kayyem says, the secret is “Don’t freak out and don’t tune out.” Stay calm and stay informed. Rather than invest all of our resources in preventing tragedies, some of our resources need to be aimed at what to do when and after these bad things happen. We need to adopt and develop the capacity to pivot, be flexible, and react appropriately when violent tragedy befalls us.
We need to prepare ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually to make sure that our response to these horrors is healthy and appropriate. Kayyem and Mudde both offer common-sense advice on what to do during an active shooter event: “Run away if you can, hide if you must, engage only if you have no other choice.”
But very few experts offer much in the way of advice for what to do after events like these. How can we prepare ourselves so that we can recover from the kinds of tragedies that happened recently in Brussels and Paris? Or for that matter, how are we going to come back from any kind of devastation -- whether it is of human origin or emerges from nature?
Mass shootings, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes -- how do we get the strength, the courage to emerge from our hiding places and return again to the light?
In the Scriptures
We serve a God whose option is always for life -- and while God does not always reach into our lives to calm the storm, God does walk with us through it. No matter what tragedy, what horror, what attack may befall us, our God is with us, walking at our side through our grief and despair.
Acts 9:36-43
Tabitha/Dorcas is one of the leaders of the Christian community in Joppa (modern-day Jaffa), a Philistine city on the Mediterranean Sea. She is well-known for her devotion to good works and acts of charity. Her position in the church is so great that when her health fails and she dies, her friends in the First Church of Joppa send two men to Lydda to get Peter and bring him to Joppa as quickly as possible.
When he arrives, Peter discovers that they have washed her body and laid it out in preparation for burial. Around it they have arrayed the lovely “tunics and other clothing” she made (presumably for the poor) when she was alive.
Peter sends everyone out of the room, kneels to pray at her bedside, and then says to her “Tabitha, get up” -- a command not unlike the one that Jesus spoke to the little girl in Mark 5:41: “Talitha koum” (“Little girl, arise”). Tabitha awakens from death and sits up. Peter takes her hand and helps her out of the bed.
And then he calls all of the people who were there for the funeral and shows them that their friend and sister is alive. Did you get that? The story does not end with Tabitha’s resurrection. Before the story can end, three important things have to happen.
1) Her resurrection has to be used as a witness, a declaration of the power of Jesus Christ in our lives. The resurrection of Tabitha is a story that must be told. It is a declaration that must be made. Once again, life has won a victory over death. And we can declare with Paul: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55).
2) The good news of God’s victory over death must be spread throughout Joppa so that many can hear it and respond to it by coming to believe in Jesus Christ.
3) And finally, Peter must demonstrate the freedom and power that we are given through the gospel by spending the days he is in Joppa with a man whose profession is considered unclean by the Jews.
Psalm 23
The appearance of this psalm in the lectionary on the same Sunday as the story of Tabitha reminds us that it should be sung at other times than funerals. It’s time to snatch it from the funeral home and place it where it needs to be -- in the hearts of those who are afraid at any time in their lives.
We are not loosed to wander freely, unprotected, wherever our nose leads us. We are watched over and loved by a good shepherd who knows each of our names -- and while tragedy may from time to time befall us, the shepherd will always be with us to see us through the trouble and onto the other side, wherever that may be.
He offers us rest. He supplies us with safe water to drink. He restores our souls when they are worn and bruised. He does not just show us the right way, he leads us upon it.
The good shepherd does not direct the course of the storm -- but should it overtake us, he is there to walk with us through it.
Revelation 7:9-17
Acts and Psalm 23 have told us how God stands with us in the midst of tragedy. Revelation gives us a glorious picture, a beautiful aria, that tells us how God comforts us after the tragedy.
In his ecstatic vision, John sees a vast multitude of people -- all races and nationalities and languages -- wearing white robes and marching before the throne of God, waving palm branches and singing songs of praise. His guide asks him if he knows who these people are, and he says that he does not.
The elder informs him that “these are they who have come out of the great ordeal [persecution]; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” -- that is, the blood that they shed through being persecuted.
They get to spend eternity in the presence of God, singing God’s praise, and God will shelter them: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
In the Pulpit
It is a good thing to do all we can to prevent disasters from befalling us. We rebuilt and reinforced the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Andrew devastated the state of Florida in 1992, building codes were reviewed and strengthened so that structures would better withstand being battered by high winds. In fact, after noting that all of the homes built by Habitat for Humanity came through the “Andrew Apocalypse” virtually unscathed, the state began creating building codes fashioned after Habitat’s building methods.
In our house, we keep a “Blizzard Box” that contains batteries, candles, flashlights, and other items that might come in handy if we lose power for a couple of days. We have a gas fireplace to keep us warm and plenty of canned goods that we can cook over our Coleman camping stove if we need to. And we have about 10 gallons of bottled water we can drink and cook with. But we aren’t fooling ourselves. We know that if the house gets blown down those items aren’t going to be of much help. We know that if we are trapped in our home for more than 72 hours we’re going to be in trouble. Come the zombie apocalypse, we will probably be among the walking dead.
Common sense and experience tell us that no matter how much we prepare for trouble, trouble has a way of slipping through the cracks and finding us. No amount of preparation can prevent a tornado from going where it will go. No amount of security can prevent a lone gunman who is willing to sacrifice his/her own life from entering a soft target and attacking innocent people.
So our last bit of preparation needs to be how we are going to handle the aftermath of tragedy. How are we going to get past our grief and despair? How do we continue to be resilient in the face of a mass shooting every 64 days and a terrorist attack every 91 days?
One way is to do as Peter does in this week’s lesson. We need to find life in the midst of death, and we need to declare it to those around us. We need to demonstrate for ourselves and for others that God is walking with us through even the most violent storms, and that God will see us through to the end of them wherever that end may be, in this life or the next.
It is good at times such as these to remember that often, and especially in the midst and aftermath of tragedy, the only image of God that people will see is us. As Christians, we are called to be God’s agents in place. Our hands are God’s hands. Our feet are God’s feet. Our words are God’s words.
When God wipes tears from the eyes of the suffering, it is with our hands that the comfort is given. When God leads the sheep beside the still waters, it is our hand that holds the staff and wields the rod.
When the video images were released after the Boston Marathon bombing, I could not help but notice that even as the wounded and injured were making their way, crawling and walking and running from the blast area, there was another group of people, those who were not injured, running into that area to give help and aid to those who were hurt.
There may be not better picture of God in action than that one.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Shepherding -- Leading from Behind: Whispering Sweet Nothings to My Sheep
by Robin Lostetter
John 10:22-30
Jesus’ words in John 10:27 -- “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” -- give a powerful lesson in shepherding leadership, what Nelson Mandela has called “Leading from Behind.” Mandela shared with Richard Stengel (the editor of Time magazine and collaborator on Mandela’s autobiography) that the strategy was derived from cattle herding:
Lead from the front is the more conventional kind of leading that we know -- getting up on the podium and giving a speech or saying follow me. But leading from the back is a different idea. We [Stengel and Mandela] used to take these early morning walks in the countryside near where he grew up. He once asked me if I ever herded cattle before. I said, “no.”
He said, “It’s interesting because there are lessons for leadership -- because the way you herd cattle is you lead them from behind. You find the most able and smartest cattle and have them lead the way. You empower them.” He said that’s a good lesson for all of us. You basically have to kind of share the wealth. You have to find people who can execute your vision and ideas. I think that’s relevant not only in politics, but again even within families.
But in his 1994 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela also described it as a shepherding device:
I always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.
Some might remember the term “leading from behind” as an explanation of President Obama’s Libya strategy in 2011. As a reminder, here is an op-ed piece from April 2011:
The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has a lengthy piece... exploring “how the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy.” The article outlines the president’s big foreign policy decisions throughout his young presidency -- from the surge in Afghanistan and keeping a low profile during the Green Movement in Iran to participating in the UN-mandated intervention in Libya -- and ultimately ends with an interesting quote from one of Obama’s advisers:
Nonetheless, Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the president’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.” That’s not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding. It’s a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world. Pursuing our interests and spreading our ideals thus requires stealth and modesty as well as military strength. “It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world,” the adviser said. “But it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”...
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who is also quoted in the Lizza article -- appeared to confirm this sentiment in Obama’s decision making on Libya. “[F]or those who want to see the United States always acting unilaterally, it’s not satisfying,” she said, “for the world we’re trying to build, where we have a lot of responsible actors who are willing to step up and lead, it is exactly what we should be doing.”
Tavis Smiley, in his new book 50 for Your Future: Lessons from Down the Road, gives a more moderated retrospective view (p. 35):
In 2011, as he was preparing to commit the U.S. military in Libya, President Obama was heavily criticized for saying he wanted to “lead from behind.” I may or may not have agreed with him on how to handle that situation, but I took the time to consider what he might have meant. A lot of people were mocking that notion and saying that you couldn’t lead from behind.
The long-term effects of intervention notwithstanding, Obama ultimately kept America out of a ground war in Libya. As a leader, you don’t always want to go charging, full gallop, into every situation. Sometimes the best course of action is to lead gently, like a shepherd -- and shepherds rarely work alone. This means you bring your team in with you. You empower them to lead, to do what needs to be done, and you support them in their efforts.
So now that we’ve defined “leading from behind” in the political and agricultural arenas, let us turn our attention to a stunning new example within the universal (or catholic) Church, specifically the Roman Catholic branch: Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), in which the pope “urged priests around the world to be more accepting of gays and lesbians, divorced Catholics, and other people living in what the church considers ‘irregular’ situations.”
As it may be for many, this topic is close to my heart as I think of my mother’s situation. She was never able to return to the church of her birth and upbringing, following her divorce from a philandering husband and remarriage to my father, without seeking an annulment which would have declared my brother to be a “bastard” back in the day.
Pope Francis has brought into the light of this new day that which has been secret in the Roman Catholic Church... but this time, a very positive secret: the “pastoral solution.” In Amoris Laetitia, the pope’s aim “is to help families -- in fact, everyone -- experience God’s love and know that they are welcome members of the church,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and writer who called the paper a “groundbreaking new document.”
On divorced Catholics, whose religious lives Francis has made it a priority to ease, the pope writes: “The divorced who have entered a new union should be made to feel part of the Church.... It can no longer simply be said that all those living in any ‘irregular situation’ are living in a state of mortal sin.”
Camila Domonoske comments further: “In it, the pope emphasizes that life is more complicated than religious law. In the opening pages, he invokes the values of ‘generosity, commitment, fidelity, and patience,’ but also says he wishes to ‘encourage everyone to be a sign of mercy and closeness wherever family life remains imperfect or lacks peace and joy.’ He explains that in Amoris Laetitia, in addition to considering scripture, he will ‘examine the actual situation of families, in order to keep firmly grounded in reality.’ And he notes that Jesus set forth a demanding ideal for his followers -- but ‘never failed to show compassion and closeness to the frailty of individuals.’ ”
This scriptural foundation for moving beyond the black-and-white of dogma has precedent even before Jesus’ words. We find it in Joseph’s generosity of spirit in taking the already-pregnant Mary as his wife, rather than exposing her to humiliation, ostracism, and possible stoning under the law.
Even earlier, there’s a striking example of what one might call situational ethics, or the grey area of righteousness in the Old Testament. In one of my early sermons, I cast the story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38:1-26) in the vernacular:
Judah was one of the sons of Jacob, one of the brothers of Joseph of the “many-colored coat” fame. Judah’s first son, Er, took a wife named Tamar. But as the story goes, Er was a bad dude and God did him in. So, according to the law that required a man to marry his brother’s widow [to raise up descendants for his brother], Tamar was given to the second son, Onan. Same story! [Onan also meets with an untimely demise.] So again Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, is a widow. Now Judah, ostensibly respecting the law, tells Tamar to go back home to live until his third son, Shelah, is old enough to marry her. But Judah, afraid that Shelah would suffer a similar fate to that of his brothers, withholds his son from Tamar.
Now one day Judah, by now a widower himself, goes out of town on business. Tamar hears of his plans and she goes to sit at the roadside along his route, where she observes Shelah, who is now full-grown but is not engaged to her. Tamar is sitting on the curb with her face covered, and Judah mistakes her for a lady of the evening. He offers a goat as a fee -- certainly irresistible in my book! -- a goat which he promises he’ll send along later. But Tamar is no fool. Already Judah has denied her the lawful husband to which she is entitled, and she doesn’t trust him to send the goat, so she exacts from him his signet, his cord, and his staff -- the present-day equivalent of holding his driver’s license or Visa card!
Now, when Judah tries to deliver the goat and retrieve his belongings, he is unsuccessful -- because he is looking for the wrong woman! Then a few months later, rumor has it that Tamar, his former daughter-in-law, has taken up the world’s oldest profession and is now with child. So Judah sends for her with the intent of punishing her according to the Law of Moses. She will be killed -- burned or stoned. Then, lo and behold, Tamar produces Judah's driver's license! Oops. His own sin is now public. His reputation is tarnished. You might even say she’s gotten his goat!
And what is Judah’s response to this trick of his daughter-in-law’s? He says, “She is more tsadiq -- more righteous -- than I, since I did not give her my son Shelah.
More tsadiq, more righteous. Laws were broken; but mercy won over. The “pastoral solution” is where mercy, reality, experience, “more righteousness,” and pastoral care influence dogma.
In my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.], there is also the “pastoral solution,” though it is not called that officially. We’re taught in seminary, as we approach ordination exams, that we will face situations (both in the exams and in our ministries) where our Book of Order says one thing, but the practicality or the pastoral necessity of the situation dictates another. For example, we hold that an infant is already welcomed and claimed by God, and that we baptize to recognize and accept this invitation/claim and to welcome the child into a specific congregation, a congregation which commits to nurturing that child in the faith.1 The timeliness of infant baptism is therefore “without undue delay, but without undue haste.”2 However, if a newborn is in an emergent crisis, and parents ask for immediate baptism (due to the prevailing Roman Catholic understanding of baptism), this is not the time to educate the family on the Reformed understanding of baptism. It is the time for a pastoral response, and that is to baptize the baby in what both the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic denominations might describe as an “irregular situation.”
James Carroll quotes Francis’ explanation: “ ‘It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations.’... The pastoral solution lives in this realm of ‘particular situations,’ where, as Francis insists, ‘constant love’ must prevail over judgmentalism. Every situation is different, and a subtle moral discernment is required to see how general principles apply to it.”
So Pope Francis has not articulated new dogma, but has led from behind. He has brought the long-practiced “pastoral solution” into the light of day, affirming myriad priests and laypeople who have followed their conscience throughout decades, if not millennia, and (as Carroll notes) -- especially in the context of “the confessional booth or the rectory parlor” -- quietly ignored and even defied official Vatican policy on family issues. This parallels the “permission-giving” change in many by-laws, and the trend to more generous interpretations of rules in general. It does not release us from the vision of the ideal, of going the extra mile, of Jesus’ sayings that begin “you have heard... but I tell you.” It is better to be more tsadiq by virtue of exceeding the law that simply by virtue of exceeding the behavior of our neighbor.
But this pope continues to lead like a shepherd, in the model of the Good Shepherd, seeking to bring peace and joy in every life where sorrow, pain, or hardship have been the rule of the day -- indeed exemplifying Amoris Laetitia... “The Joy of Love.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Acts 9:36-43
Please Come to Us Without Delay
As Dean Feldmeyer wisely observes in his article above, people of faith understand that it is crucial to find life even in the midst of death. When Tabitha fell ill it was words of life that the disciples yearned to hear, and so they urged Peter to come without delay. That is the sort of urgency and yearning author Diana Butler Bass describes experiencing in her spiritual journey in the years after September 11, 2001 in her book Grounded: Finding God in the World -- A Spiritual Revolution.
On the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Bass attended worship with her family. She listened as a former White House staff member delivered a guest sermon that day. As he shared memories of being in the White House that day, Bass became increasingly uncomfortable. It wasn’t until the speaker expressed sorrow for the 4,000 people who had been killed in the ten years following the attack that she became upset.
“Four thousand?” she writes. “What was he talking about? By the end of the decade, tens of thousands, if not more people had died in war as a result of what had happened in 2001. Most of those people were civilians, Afghanis, or Iraqis in countries we had invaded. Then I realized that four thousand represented the number of American soldiers who had been killed. He was counting only his tribe...”
Bass quietly slipped out of the church, reflecting as she walked through the crowded sidewalk of a neighborhood art fair. The blocks and blocks of artisans selling their crafts, neighbors greeting one another, and children laughing reminded her of Peter’s prophecy in the Book of Acts. “For years the church kept me safe inside a building. All the while, the Spirit was out here on the streets.”
For Bass, the crowded streets were a reminder of those who are crying “come to us without delay,” yearning for a word of life that brings hope to a world gripped by violence and death.
*****
Psalm 23
Being Led in Right Paths
Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial this week. As Kerry paid respects to those who died in the atomic bomb blast that hastened the end of World War II, he called the memorial’s museum “stunning” and a “gut-wrenching” reminder of the need to work for peace. Some speculated whether or not Kerry’s visit would lead the way to a visit by President Obama -- something analysts say would be a “complex and controversial journey.”
An editorial in the Baltimore Sun suggests that Kerry’s visit could be a reminder of the need to shepherd the world through pathways of peace. “Whatever one may think of the U.S. decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and another on Nagasaki a few days later -- whether it spared lives that might have been lost in an invasion of Japan or cost civilization dearly -- the inferno unleashed was unprecedented and continues to be felt today.”
Referring to politicians who talk about nuclear weapons like a child pondering a board game, the editorial warns that it is no longer a given that an American president would be opposed to nuclear proliferation: “A month ago, that was unthinkable. Today, it’s a real possibility.” The editorial’s writers continue:
The Doomsday Clock, the metaphorical measure of catastrophic threat to civilization maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is currently set at three minutes before midnight, the closest it's been since the end of the Cold War.... [T]he nation can ill afford to continue to ignore the terrible price paid by the use of the atomic bomb. Turning our back to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not make us stronger, it only raises doubts among our allies and others about how seriously we take disarmament.
*****
John 10:22-30
Listening for the Shepherd’s Voice
Charismatic leaders may inspire flocks to follow, but perhaps the most important aspect of leadership is staying behind. The late Nelson Mandela saw “leadership from behind” as key to shepherd leadership. “(A leader) stays behind the flock,” Mandela wrote in his autobiography, “letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.” Harvard Business School professor Linda A. Hill notes that shepherding as a metaphor is an apt description for innovating leadership. Hill says that leading from behind may be a better way of describing the sort of leadership required in today’s context. Shepherding leaders make sure their organizations stay together and act wisely to keep the flock from going off-course. Good shepherds, she says, must be willing to experiment with innovation while building the organizational capabilities required to sustain that innovation: “Those who are exceptional at leading from behind are likely to be different than those who excelled at leading from the front. And this raises the question: are we identifying and developing the leaders who can tap the power of collective genius?”
***************
From team member Ron Love:
Acts 9:36-43
Famed country singer Johnny Cash performed on several occasions at California’s notorious San Quentin penitentiary. At these appearances Cash did his usual repertoire of songs about living a hard life and overcoming many of life’s obstacles. In the audience at one of those prison concerts was a young convict whose father died when he was 9 years old. His family was transplanted from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl to California, where they lived in a converted railroad refrigerator car. Two years after his father’s death, the young man began hopping freight trains. He was later arrested for burglary and sent to San Quentin for 2 and a half years. Before prison, he dabbled in playing the guitar and singing. But after hearing Cash behind those iron bars, he was determined take up his guitar once more and become a country singer. He was paroled in 1960 at the age of 23, and he slowly embarked on his singing venture. That man was Merle Haggard, whose accomplishments rivaled those of Johnny Cash and other legendary country singers.
Application: Johnny Cash never knew the impact he would have on the inmates at San Quentin. Cash only knew that having been in jail himself, he wanted to try to lead them to a better life. Peter never knew the impact he would have in Joppa. Peter only knew that his witness might lead others to a better life.
*****
Acts 9:36-43
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interviewed his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, to trace her life’s journey -- and they are sharing the results in the new book The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss. During the interviewing process Anderson learned that his mother is a romantic. Gloria said, “I’m always in love. If it’s not a person, it’s a flower or sunset. Love is all.”
Application: When Peter went to Joppa, he went there as a romantic. Peter went there as one who was always in love, in love with others, in love with nature, in love with life, and most importantly in love with sharing the gospel message.
*****
Acts 9:36-43
Drones are often in the news -- but not like this. Keller Rinaudo, the founder of Zipline, uses cargo drones to get medicine and supplies to remote places in Africa. The drones do not have to land; they can parachute the supplies to designated areas. Alfred Lin, an investor in Zipline, says: “There’s a broad ambition here with Zipline, one focused on using machines to better human lives. They’re looking at applications that others in the space aren’t focused on.”
Application: When Peter went to Joppa, he was focused on making human lives better.
*****
Acts 9:36-43
The Masters is the only PGA tournament that is played on the same course each year -- Augusta National. It is a difficult course, and few new players have the opportunity to play on it. This is why when players are invited to the Masters for the first time they often seek the advice of others. It is a Masters tradition that older players willingly advise and mentor those who are fresh to the course. To help accomplish this, new players are paired up with season veterans. Two-time champion Tom Watson said, “I was trying to help the guys I was playing with today. I did what Ken Venturi did for me and Byron (Nelson) did for me.”
Application: Peter stayed in Joppa for some time, to guide and instruct others.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
Facebook is always trying to accommodate its 1 billion-plus users. One way they have done so is to continually expand the type of personal relationship status one can choose to designate oneself as having: single, engaged, married, “it’s complicated,” and in an open relationship. But that does not seem to be sufficient, as Facebook is being petitioned to add yet another designated category -- polyamorous. “Polyamorous” refers to someone in a multiple relationship involving several lovers.
Application: There was a great multitude before the throne of God who came from every nation and tribe. But there was no confusion about their relationship to one another and to God, as together they worshiped the Creator of the Universe.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
The release of the Panama Papers -- 11.5 million documents chronicling how government officials, business executives, sports figures, and criminals hid their money in offshore accounts -- has made headlines. When the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung first received the anonymous disclosure, they realized the project was too big for them to tackle alone. So they contacted the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) for assistance in this massive reporting project. The ICIJ was able to recruit 200 journalists in 65 countries to work together to uncover the story. Each reporter acted as a team member, making all information discovered available to all other team members. Reporters in different countries cooperated with one another. It was through that collaborative effort that the Panama Papers were able to be released.
Application: The great multitude from every nation and every tribe came before the throne of God as a team.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
Kevin Kisner knew since he was a child that he wanted to be a professional golfer -- and it’s only a 22-minute drive from his home in Aiken, South Carolina, to Augusta, Georgia (where the Masters tournament is played each year). So Kisner lived 22 minutes away from his dream. Over the years, he drove his black Ford F-150 pickup truck to play wherever he could. In 2011 and again in 2012 he qualified for a PGA Tour card, but both years he lost it. He once again earned the card in 2014. This year he received an invitation to play in the Masters. He was unaware of the invitation until he returned home one day and saw that his mother had the invitation in a frame with a cross on it. Kisner said of that moment: “She said she prayed enough for it that it deserved a frame with a cross.”
Application: In the book of Revelation we have the message of hope. It is a message of a framed invitation with a cross on it.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
In Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt’s new book The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss, we learn that Anderson’s father died when he was 10. The death affected mother and child differently. Anderson believed, in his words, the “next catastrophe, basically, which I always think is right around the corner.” But for his mother, Anderson said, “My mom believes the next opportunity is always around the corner.”
Application: In Revelation we know that around the corner, in both life’s catastrophes and opportunities, is ultimately eternity with God.
*****
Revelation 7:9-17
USA Today had an op-ed essay recently on the importance of the American flag flying at half-staff in memory of people who have died. Since February 13, the flag has been lowered on 18 out of 52 days, in observance of the deaths of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, former first lady Nancy Reagan, and the victims of the terrorist bombings in Brussels. During seven of the past nine months, the flag has been lowered by presidential proclamation. In 1906, when San Francisco was razed by an earthquake that killed 3,000 people, the sailors in San Francisco harbor lowered their flag, even though the U.S. Flag Code would not become law for another 36 years. They did this on their own, out of tribute to the fallen. There was another time when people across the nation lowered their flags before a presidential proclamation could be made, and that was after the 9/11 attacks. The essay ended with the observation that after the 9/11 attacks, “As it was 95 years earlier [referring to the San Francisco earthquake], Americans didn’t need to be told. The flag may have hung low, but our resolve was never higher.”
Application: The white robes are a lowered flag of tribute.
*****
John 10:22-30
The Aegean island of Lesbos is only an hour by ferry boat from Turkey. Because of its location, refugees from Syria come first to this small island on their way to Turkey and Europe. And the residents of Lesbos have found a way to make a profit from the misery of others. Because of the influx of refugees, many tourists are afraid to come to the island. Realizing that refugees need food, clothing, housing, and other necessities, the islanders are compensating for their loss in tourist dollars by charging the migrants. But tourists have the option of going elsewhere; refugees do not. So the small businesses are exploiting the refugees’ plight by charging extravagant prices for the necessities of life.
Application: The people of Lesbos do not understand the meaning of being a shepherd to the lost sheep.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Our Shepherd God comes and supplies our needs.
People: God causes us to lie down in green pastures.
Leader: Our God leads us beside still waters.
People: God restores our weary souls.
Leader: Goodness and mercy shall always be ours.
People: We shall dwell with God forever.
OR
Leader: We come to worship and wonder if we are safe, even here.
People: We want to be safe and not have to fear.
Leader: There are always dangers around us.
People: We cannot control the weather or other disasters.
Leader: But our God is with us, offering us life in the midst of danger.
People: We will trust and hope in God’s gift of eternal life.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Now Thank We All Our God”
found in:
UMH: 102
H82: 396, 397
PH: 555
NNBH: 330
NCH: 419
CH: 715
LBW: 533, 534
ELA: 839, 840
W&P: 14
AMEC: 573
STLT: 32
“The God of Abraham Praise”
found in:
UMH: 116
H82: 401
NCH: 24
CH: 24
LBW: 544
ELA: 831
W&P: 16
Renew: 51
“God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale”
found in:
UMH: 122
PH: 272
NCH: 32
CH: 70
ELA: 740
W&P: 29
“Stand By Me”
found in:
UMH: 512
NNBH: 318
CH: 629
W&P: 495
AMEC: 420
“I Want Jesus to Walk with Me”
found in:
UMH: 521
PH: 363
AAHH: 563
NNBH: 500
NCH: 490
CH: 627
W&P: 506
AMEC: 375
“How Firm a Foundation”
found in:
UMH: 529
H82: 636, 637
PH: 361
AAHH: 146
NNBH: 48
NCH: 407
CH: 618
LBW: 507
ELA: 796
W&P: 411
AMEC: 433
“God of Grace and God of Glory”
found in:
UMH: 577
H82: 594, 595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
Renew: 301
“Be Still, My Soul”
found in:
UMH: 534
AAHH: 135
NNBH: 263
NCH: 488
CH: 566
W&P: 451
AMEC: 426
“We Are His Hands”
found in:
CCB: 85
“People Need the Lord”
found in:
CCB: 52
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who desires the blessing and wholeness of all creation: Grant to us, your children, the faith and courage to find you as you are at work through us in all aspects of life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, for you created us out of love and you created us for blessing. Help us in times of difficulty to remember these things. Help us to look for you in the midst of tragedy and to remember that you are at work through us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, especially when in our fear we forget that God is the basis of our lives.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We allow our fear to overcome our faith. We are so filled with dread about what might happen that we forget that all life is in you. We spend more time discussing what to do about terrorism than we do talking about the faith that holds us securely in your hands. Call us back to you and to the foundation of our life. Help us to share your sure hope with others. Amen.
Leader: God is our life and our hope. Be filled with God’s love, and share God’s eternal life with others.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
All praise and glory are yours, O God, for you are life. It is from you and in you that we live and move and have our being.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We allow our fear to overcome our faith. We are so filled with dread about what might happen that we forget that all life is in you. We spend more time discussing what to do about terrorism than we do talking about the faith that holds us securely in your hands. Call us back to you and to the foundation of our life. Help us to share your sure hope with others.
We give you thanks for the blessings you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for your life that flows through us and to others. We thank you for those who have been your presence in our lives.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all of us in our fears and our needs. Give us clear heads, but most of all give us pure hearts, that we may rest in your love as we share it with others.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Lay out some pieces of construction paper marked “deep water,” “rough rocks,” “sticky mud,” etc. Have the children line up, and then blindfold them or ask them to keep their eyes closed. Tell them that you will guide them by directing them. If they step on one of the papers, they are out. Then tell them that you are going to guide them by leading them. Have them hold onto each other’s waists and lead the first child around the “obstacles.” Jesus is like a shepherd who leads the flock. He doesn’t just give directions -- he goes ahead of us.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
by Mary Austin
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17
Gather ahead of time: fire extinguisher, cellphone, flashlight, band-aids. If possible, also get small glass or fabric hearts, enough for each child to have one.
***
Talk to the kids about how we hope emergencies don’t happen, but that they can come at any time. It’s good to be prepared.
If you have a fire, what do you do? Which of these things could you use? Hold up the phone and talk about calling 911. And you might use the fire extinguisher.
And if someone falls and gets a cut, what could you do? Which of these things could you use? And if the power goes out at your house, what could you use?
Sometimes terrible things happen and we feel like there’s nothing we can do. A band-aid won’t help, and there’s no fire to put out. You don’t need a flashlight. What can you do when something bad happens, maybe when someone dies or someone is really scared? (The kids will give you ideas: hugs... meals... visit them.) Those are all good ideas.
The other thing we can do is turn to God to help us feel comforted and to have more courage. There’s no piece of equipment for that, but I want each of you to have one of these hearts to put in your pocket, or your backpack, or in your family’s car. You can hold onto it whenever you need an extra dose of God’s presence, or to be reminded of how much God loves you no matter what happens. When it feels like there’s nothing we can do, we can always turn to God.
Prayer: Loving God, we thank you that when emergencies happen, when things don’t go like we expect them to, when we feel sad and scared, that we have our emergency help in you. We thank you that you send people to help. Give us the wisdom to be helpers too, when someone else has an emergency. We give you thanks in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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1 Book of Order, G-1.0301 The Meaning of Membership and Baptism In Jesus Christ: God calls people to faith and to membership in the Church, the body of Christ. Baptism is the visible sign of that call and claim on a human life and of entrance into the membership of the church. The baptism of children witnesses to the truth that God’s love claims people before they are able to respond in faith. The baptism of those who enter the covenant of membership upon their own profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior witnesses to the truth that God’s gift of grace calls forth a response of faithfulness. Thus, the triune God, incarnate in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, gives to the Church not only its mission but also its understanding of membership.
2 Book of Order, W-2.3008 “One Baptism”: Its Meanings
1. Both believers and their children are included in God’s covenant love. Children of believers are to be baptized without undue delay, but without undue haste. Baptism, whether administered to those who profess their faith or to those presented for Baptism as children, is one and the same Sacrament.
2. Children The Baptism of children witnesses to the truth that God’s love claims people before they are able to respond in faith.
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The Immediate Word, April 17, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
