Hungering For Justice
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
In my formative years I was intrigued by the words of a song I learned at church: "what is man that you keep him in mind -- mortal man that you care for him?" We are created to be little less than the angels, and in spite of all of our flaws and failings, we remain sheltered in the palm of God's hand. How can we not bless our Lord? The Immediate Word team member, Carlos Wilton, is the main writer and James Killen will respond with the first of four installments on the book of Job in Another View. There are, as always: illustrations, a worship resource, and a children's sermon included.
Hungering For Justice
Psalm 26
By Carlos Wilton
THE WORLD
On September 20, a now 39-year-old Jeffrey Mark Deskovic walked out of New York's Westchester County Courthouse, a free man. He had been imprisoned since 1989, for a brutal rape and murder he didn't commit. DNA evidence exonerated him, pointing beyond doubt to another prison inmate, incarcerated for similar crimes.
Our justice system failed Mr. Deskovic. Stories like his shake our assumption that, in the law-courts, truth inevitably rises to the surface. Justice may prevail, in many (if not most) cases -- but not always. Our justice system, like any other human enterprise, is flawed. Sin enters in, sometimes causing investigators to cut corners, lawyers to favor high-paying clients, and judges to be prejudiced by racial stereotypes.
There's nothing especially new about this. Centuries ago, a psalm-writer (thought to be David) cried out, in a dark night of the soul: "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity" (Psalm 26:1). We have an innate hunger for justice. Where does it come from?
From God. As theologian N.T. Wright explains, in his new book, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, we all hear a dreamlike, inner voice, "calling us, beckoning us, luring us to think that there might be such a thing as justice, as the world being put to rights, even though we find it so elusive. We're like moths trying to fly to the moon. We all know there's something called justice, but we can't quite get to it" (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, p. 4).
Our hunger for justice is a proof for God's existence, as the psalmist knew.
THE WORD
As with most of the psalms, we cannot be certain of the context of this one. Although it contains a superscript telling us it is "of David," there is reason to suspect that this could be one of a great many psalms attributed, pseudonymously, to this greatest of Israel's kings. Whether this one belongs to that group, or whether it is genuinely David's composition, is impossible to say.
It could very well be David's, of course. At the time of his betrayal by King Saul, and during his long and difficult years as a guerilla leader that followed, there were surely many occasions when David did gaze up at the starry heavens and cry out, "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity." It could be the cry of many of us, as well. We, too, know there is a significant gap between the divine ideal of justice and its practical application in our world.
The psalmist is bold to declare, "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind" (v. 2). Here is a man who "washes his hands in innocence" as he makes his temple sacrifice (v. 6), who has absolutely nothing to hide.
There is a keen sense, in this psalm, that God does more than simply sit up in heaven and say "ain't it awful," when observing the moral failings of this world. At some point, God will intervene. When that happens, the psalmist's prayer will be, "Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty" (v. 9). A day of reckoning is coming, and when it does, the psalmist trusts that God will rescue him, even as he rescued the firstborn of Israel from the deadly plague in Egypt.
The word "integrity" is a rich one. Literally, the Hebrew means "wholeness," or "completeness." Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of many self-help books, speaks of integrity as:
... being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul. When your soul is divided, part of you wants to do one thing while part wants to do something else: Do you tell the prospective buyer of your home about the plumbing problem or do you keep quiet unless he asks? ... When you have integrity, all of your aspirations are focused in one direction. Like the karate expert who can break a board with his bare hand by focusing all his strength on one spot, the person of integrity, the person whose soul is not fragmented, can do great things by concentrating all of his energies on a single goal. For the person of integrity, life may not be easy but it is simple. Figure out what is right and do it. All other considerations come in second (From Living a Life That Matters).
CRAFTING THE SERMON
A sermon on this psalm could begin with an account of the shocking story of Jeffrey Mark Deskovic (as reported in the September 21, 2006 New York Times, "DNA Testing Frees Man Imprisoned for Half His Life," by Fernanda Santos). Deskovic served sixteen years in prison for a crime he did not commit: the 1989 rape and murder of Angela Correa, a fifteen-year-old Peekskill (N.Y.) High School classmate. Recently, DNA analysis of leftover evidence from the case led investigators to conclude that another man, already incarcerated for similar crimes, committed the rape and murder. That inmate has since confessed.
How did this miscarriage of justice happen? As the Times reports it, police became suspicious of Mr. Deskovic because, in the months after Ms. Correa's murder, he seemed overly distraught about the death of this girl he knew only slightly -- and because he later became unusually friendly with her grieving family. Confronting the teenager with their suspicions, the police subjected him to a polygraph test, then a grueling, six-hour interrogation -- at the end of which he signed a confession. It now appears his confession was coerced.
Mr, Deskovic is fortunate, indeed, that new DNA-analysis technology is now available, that did not exist in 1989. (He is, according to the Times account, the 184th incarcerated person, nationwide, to have been exonerated based on DNA evidence.) Without that technology, he might never have been vindicated. Furthermore, had the murder taken place in another state -- one that, unlike New York, still has the death penalty -- he could very well be dead, having been executed years ago.
There are many questions about the role of the police in the case, who subjected their impressionable teenage suspect to extreme psychological pressure. Yet there are even larger questions about the justice system as a whole -- and even about God's justice.
One can easily imagine Mr. Deskovic, in his prison cell, raising a plea to God similar to the psalmist's of old: "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity." It now seems that God, with a little help from forensic science, has done just that.
But it took a very long time, and Mr. Deskovic has lost sixteen years of his life that can never be recovered. That offends our sense of fairness.
In Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, N.T. Wright identifies three ways of explaining the origin of our sense of justice: what he calls "this sense of the echo of a voice, this call to justice, this dream of a world (and all of us within it) put to rights" (p. 8).
The first is to agree with the likes of Machiavelli and Nietzsche, and conclude that justice is no more than a figment of our imagination -- that, in this dog-eat-dog world, might makes right. Few of us would want to go along with that answer.
The second possibility is "that the dream is of a different world altogether, a world where we really belong, where everything is indeed put to rights, a world into which we can escape in our dreams in the present and hope to escape one day for good" (p. 9). In this scenario, "unscrupulous bullies" are still in charge of our world, but at least there's the hope that things will be better in the next life.
The third option is to conclude that "there is someone speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear -- someone who cares very much about this present world and our present selves, and who has made us and the world for a purpose which will indeed involve justice, things being put to rights, ourselves being put to rights, the world being rescued at last" (p. 9).
It is this third option, says Wright, that is the position of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Christianity, of course, the focus is on Jesus: on our confession that "he took the tears of the world and made them his own, carrying them all the way to his cruel and unjust death to carry out God's rescue operation; and that he took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth as he rose from the dead and thereby launched God's new creation" (pp. 11-12).
Ordinarily, we Christians would hope that, during the long years he languished in prison, a man like Jeffrey Mark Deskovic would have turned to Jesus Christ for hope. The sad postscript to his story is that he did not. Jaded and disillusioned by the justice system of a largely "Christian" culture, after his first year in prison, Mr. Deskovic converted to Islam.
ANOTHER VIEW
By James Killen
This is the first in a series of four sermons on the book of Job.
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Why is there so much injustice in the world? Why should an innocent man have been allowed to suffer imprisonment for a crime he did not commit? Why do so many innocent people, especially children, suffer the effects of the wars waged by the powerful? Why is there suffering in the world at all? Questions like these surface a deep question that burns in the minds of many. They seem to bring the charge that there is something basically wrong with the way in which reality is put together -- or with the way God is running the world.
Archibald MeLeish has one of the characters in the play, J.B. raise this question eloquently: "I heard, upon that dry dung heap, a voice cry out that could not sleep, 'If God is good, he is not God. If God is God, he is not good. Take the even, take the odd, I would not sleep here if I could -- except for the little green flower in the wood.' " It is a question that needs some answer.
It was a question that needed an answer in biblical days, too. There was a wide spread belief that, if you are a good person and do what is right, God will prosper you and keep anything bad from happening to you. That belief found expression in passages of scripture like Psalm 37 and the book of Proverbs. And who can deny that there is truth in that belief. But sometimes things don't work out that way. In those times, people raise a deep question because the understanding of the shape of reality on the basis of which they have lived their lives is threatened. The book of Job is here in the Bible to answer that question. But the answer is not simple -- or easy to understand -- or easy to live with.
The author begins the poetic drama by describing as meeting of the heavenly council. God is meeting with other heavenly beings. One of them, Satin, stands up to challenge him. In this case, Satin is not the evil one that he appears to be in other parts of the scripture. In this story, Satin is a friend of God who plays the role of accuser or adversary. (See The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. IV, pp. 347-348, or Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers, Philadelphia, Fortes Press, 1986, pp. 11-14.) Satan emerges as a challenger -- and God allows himself to be challenged. We see a new image of the shape of reality emerging here, not one in which God micro manages the universe, but one in which God allows for openness and multiple possibilities. God even allows for some possibilities that are not in accordance with his purpose for the creation.
Why would God allow reality to be put together in that way? Could it not be that God knows that the kind of humanity for which we were created can only emerge in the context of a life that is a real adventure. God has created us to be "in God's image," to be people who live with freedom and responsibility, people whose decisions and actions will influence the meaning of life if not the shape of life and the course of history. Such a life can only emerge in the context of openness and multiple possibilities.
But does that mean that God has deserted us and left us alone against the world? We could not handle that. No, the Hebrew Scriptures make it very clear that God is at work in life and in history to move things toward the fulfillment of God's loving purpose for the creation. But God works in ways that respect and work through our freedom and responsibility. God works in interaction with us. That gives awesome new meaning to our lives. And even when things do not go as God would hope, God is there with us. In his hymn, James Russell Lowell writes, "Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet 'tis truth alone is strong; Though her portion be the scaffold and upon the throne be wrong; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow Keeping watch above his own" (Once to Every Man and Nation).
Preview of coming sermons for your sermon in process file:
Job 23:1-9, 16-17. Those who live decisively will always find themselves living in tension with the reality around them. They may even find themselves arguing with God. But those who live decisively live in obedience to the purpose of God.
Job 38:1-7, 34-41 Those who dare to live life in depth will eventually find themselves in a place where they are not in control-and there they will meet God.
Job 42:1-17 Ultimately, God affirms those who come limping, bruised and broken, from their encounters with life, because they have indeed leaned to live like God-who has chosen to be a vulnerable God. (See William C. Platcher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God [Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 1994])
ILLUSTRATIONS
As Job found out, the Lord meets us in infinite majesty. The Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulen wrote:
Holiness meets us in unconditional majesty. Every attempt to transform Christian faith into a religion of satisfaction and enjoyment is thereby doomed to failure. Faith in God cannot be measured from the point of view of human happiness and needs, even if these concepts be ever so refined and "spiritualized." Every tendency to make God serve human interests is irrevocably doomed. To meet God as the Holy One is to be confronted by a power advancing in sovereign majesty.
-- Gustaf Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church (Fortress, 1960), p. 105
* * *
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in pow'r, in love and purity.
-- Reginald Heber, "Holy, Holy, Holy" (verse three)
* * *
Martin Luther wrote:
This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
-- Quoted in Mayo Clinic Health Quest (October 2006), p. 8
* * *
Curses and blessings
Job was plagued with boils and sores by The Evil One. His wife told him to curse God. Many folks have had boils and sores throughout life. Many have cursed God for it. But then there are those others who have found in their boils and sores a source of great strength.
There was a woman in a church I served years ago whose child was dying of cystic fibrosis. There was a profound degree of suffering for them both. It would have been easy for the woman to curse God. Instead she made sure that she and her child were schooled in matters of the spirit. She told me that when the moment came soon or late, she wanted her child to know that there is a God and that there is a heaven and that there was a special place in God's heart her little girl.
My dad died when I was seven at Christmas. I could have cursed God. In fact when I said "Our Father" in church in those first few years after that loss, I did tell both my dads what I thought of them. And that's when it happened, there were no voices just something beating deeply in my heart as if God embraced me and said; "Don't you know, there's a special place in my heart for your dad?" I ran home to ask my grandmother if there really is a God. I asked her if there is a heaven. I asked her if my dad were there. She knelt down, she held me close, I can still feel her warmth and she said; "Of course there is a God, I know there is a heaven, and you know that your daddy's there in the arms of Jesus." And that is why I became a priest in the Church of God.
* * *
Scripture and Shakespeare
The scripture says today:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, * the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What is man that you should be mindful of him? * the son of man that you should seek him out?
You have made him but little lower than the angels; * you adorn him with glory and honor.
-- Psalm 8:6, 7
Shakespeare's Hamlet says:
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals
-- Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2
* * *
Grandpa and the little boy
Jesus blessed the children and said that it was of such that the kingdom of God was made.
Grandpa and the little boy walked down a country lane together one day with fishing poles on their shoulders. They didn't say a word. But they both knew they were doing something that has been done a thousand times before by many a grandpa and many a little boy. They never forgot that moment. They were both close to heaven: the one soon to return, the other only recently arrived. There was no need to say a word. They both knew that God was close. And that moment has stood forever as a blessing to all who have seen such things.
* * *
On December 23, 1954, Ron Herrick went into the hospital for surgery. But it wasn't an operation to do anything for him, it was for his twin brother, Richard, who was dying from an inflammation of the kidneys, chronic nephritis. Ron was donating one of his kidneys to his brother, in what would become first ever successful transplant surgery.
The doctors, well aware of the risks from the rejection of the transplanted organ which had caused the deaths of other transplant recipients, were more optimistic about the possibility of success due to the fact that the Herricks were twins. To make sure that the brothers were identical, and not fraternal twins, they were even sent to the Boston police department to be fingerprinted. And a small piece of skin was transplanted from Richard onto Ron's arm so the surgical team could study the chances of rejection.
Fifty years later, that patch of skin is still a part of Ron Herrick's arm, a living piece of his brother that he still carries with him, even though Richard died in 1963 (of conditions not related to the surgery).
When Jesus was born, was there a little patch of Amos's skin that had been grafted on to him? Maybe that's why he always seemed to be able to choose the good over the evil, and to call us to do the same. Maybe that's why Jesus could challenge us to love our enemies, and to pray for those who want to harm us. Maybe that's why Jesus was able to say that those who seek peace will be blessed. He was able to do these things, not because he was more religious than us, but because it was a part of who he was, it was in his DNA.
Maybe this year, for Christmas, God will transplant a little grafting of Amos and Jesus on to us. That would be worth having, wouldn't it? Because if our justice is not running so deep and wide as to be able to sweep away the poverty in our communities (as well as in our hearts), than all the carols we will sing on Christmas Eve won't amount to anything. And if righteousness is not a part of our spiritual DNA, if we are not willing to flow into the world to share God's peace and hope with every single one of God's children in every corner of the world, than all the gifts we bring to the manger should be returned.
* * *
When I was growing up in the deep South, I heard a number of conversion stories. This man had given up "chasing women" in order to follow Christ; that woman had stopped drinking; a young person had quit running with a gang that was getting deeper and deeper into trouble with the law. Every single person "lost" something negative in their lives, something which was ultimately damaging to them, in order to have a deep relationship with God, through Christ.
Who wouldn't believe in a God who wants you to give up all the things which might harm you? Who wouldn't love a God who wants you to stop making a fool of yourself? Who couldn't trust a God who desires that a person act with decency and goodness?
But what if God wants you to give up all that is good in your life? What if God thinks it is those things you have worked honestly and diligently to gain which stand between you and God? What if God wants you to trust, even when God pulls the rug out from under you?
Job loses everything which was of value to him -- his lands, his homes, his livestock, his servants, his wealth his social standing. And he lost everything for which there could be no price attached -- his very own children.
And now, Job must decide, must discover, if he can indeed trust in the only One who is left in his life.
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Thom Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: Welcome to this place:
People: where children and seasoned seniors
can sit side by side,
where heaven and earth embrace,
where God has been, is,
and always will be.
Leader: Welcome to this place,
gathered with God's people:
People: where we find God's love,
where we hear the tender voice of Jesus,
where the Spirit teaches us new songs.
Leader: Welcome to this place,
prepared for us by God:
People: where we can bring our hunger
and find food;
where we can bring our despair
and find hope;
where we can bring our selves
and find love.
Prayer Of The Day
We walk in faith toward you,
Creator of the world:
struggling to keep in step with you,
not budging from the path
you have leveled for us
with your tenderness.
We walk in faith after you,
Savior of the world:
as little children
in need of a lap;
as gawky adolescents
in need of a friend;
as the lonely
yearning for a companionable heart.
We walk in faith with you,
Sanctifier of the world:
turning our backs on our past
as we dance to your Table,
where we join hands
with all your children,
here and in every place,
praying together
as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father ...
Call To Reconciliation
We hope to walk in integrity, but usually
find ourselves stumbling down sin's
sidewalks, trying to find our own way
in the world. But God would forgive us
and teach us new songs of hope. Let
us pray to empty ourselves of all we
have done and failed to do, that we
might be filled with mercy.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
We find it hard to admit, Tender God, but we have lost our way. We have misplaced our love in the mess we have made of our relationships. We lose the words that might bring healing to hurting friend, because we are so focused on ourselves. We have lost our oneness in you in our quarrels about right words and right thoughts.
So we need you to come and find us, and lead us back into your Heart, Searching God. We long for you to take us up in your arms and cradle us in your grace. We yearn to turn around and find you waiting to welcome us with joy.
And look! There you are! Reaching out to us with the love, the life, the peace which comes to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
(Silence may be kept.)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: God is not ashamed to call us
sisters and brothers of the One
who came to proclaim that God
seeks to forgive us and make us
whole.
People: Here we stand on holy ground,
singing our songs of thanksgiving,
blessing God for the gift of new life.
Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
"Let the children ..."
Object: a yardstick
Good morning! Have you ever been to an amusement park with rides? (let them answer) Were you able to ride all the rides? (let them answer) Why could you not ride them all? (let them answer) Some of the rides probably had a sign that said, "You must be this tall to ride this ride." (here you can hold up the yardstick and see who is tall enough and who is not) And maybe you were just not tall enough!
Are there other things that adults can do that children are not allowed to do? (let them answer) Drive a car ... vote ... teach a class ... We could name many things that children are not allowed to do.
One day, people were bringing little children to Jesus -- just to have Jesus touch them! Can you tell me if this made Jesus' disciples happy? (let them answer) No! It made them very unhappy. They thought that Jesus was only interested in adult matters and the children should stay away. They thought that Jesus was wasting his time by having the children around him.
Sometimes people think that Jesus is for adults. But we in this congregation believe that Jesus is also for children. Jesus was unhappy with the disciples and he said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." Wow! The kingdom of God belongs to you! You are important people to Jesus! And you are important people to this congregation! That is why we have Sunday church school and children's sermons and children's bulletins. You are important to Jesus and you are important to us as a church!
I'm glad Jesus thinks we are all important. Let's talk to Jesus now in prayer.
Dear Jesus: You love children; you love us. Thank you. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 8, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 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 permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
Hungering For Justice
Psalm 26
By Carlos Wilton
THE WORLD
On September 20, a now 39-year-old Jeffrey Mark Deskovic walked out of New York's Westchester County Courthouse, a free man. He had been imprisoned since 1989, for a brutal rape and murder he didn't commit. DNA evidence exonerated him, pointing beyond doubt to another prison inmate, incarcerated for similar crimes.
Our justice system failed Mr. Deskovic. Stories like his shake our assumption that, in the law-courts, truth inevitably rises to the surface. Justice may prevail, in many (if not most) cases -- but not always. Our justice system, like any other human enterprise, is flawed. Sin enters in, sometimes causing investigators to cut corners, lawyers to favor high-paying clients, and judges to be prejudiced by racial stereotypes.
There's nothing especially new about this. Centuries ago, a psalm-writer (thought to be David) cried out, in a dark night of the soul: "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity" (Psalm 26:1). We have an innate hunger for justice. Where does it come from?
From God. As theologian N.T. Wright explains, in his new book, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, we all hear a dreamlike, inner voice, "calling us, beckoning us, luring us to think that there might be such a thing as justice, as the world being put to rights, even though we find it so elusive. We're like moths trying to fly to the moon. We all know there's something called justice, but we can't quite get to it" (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, p. 4).
Our hunger for justice is a proof for God's existence, as the psalmist knew.
THE WORD
As with most of the psalms, we cannot be certain of the context of this one. Although it contains a superscript telling us it is "of David," there is reason to suspect that this could be one of a great many psalms attributed, pseudonymously, to this greatest of Israel's kings. Whether this one belongs to that group, or whether it is genuinely David's composition, is impossible to say.
It could very well be David's, of course. At the time of his betrayal by King Saul, and during his long and difficult years as a guerilla leader that followed, there were surely many occasions when David did gaze up at the starry heavens and cry out, "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity." It could be the cry of many of us, as well. We, too, know there is a significant gap between the divine ideal of justice and its practical application in our world.
The psalmist is bold to declare, "Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind" (v. 2). Here is a man who "washes his hands in innocence" as he makes his temple sacrifice (v. 6), who has absolutely nothing to hide.
There is a keen sense, in this psalm, that God does more than simply sit up in heaven and say "ain't it awful," when observing the moral failings of this world. At some point, God will intervene. When that happens, the psalmist's prayer will be, "Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty" (v. 9). A day of reckoning is coming, and when it does, the psalmist trusts that God will rescue him, even as he rescued the firstborn of Israel from the deadly plague in Egypt.
The word "integrity" is a rich one. Literally, the Hebrew means "wholeness," or "completeness." Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of many self-help books, speaks of integrity as:
... being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul. When your soul is divided, part of you wants to do one thing while part wants to do something else: Do you tell the prospective buyer of your home about the plumbing problem or do you keep quiet unless he asks? ... When you have integrity, all of your aspirations are focused in one direction. Like the karate expert who can break a board with his bare hand by focusing all his strength on one spot, the person of integrity, the person whose soul is not fragmented, can do great things by concentrating all of his energies on a single goal. For the person of integrity, life may not be easy but it is simple. Figure out what is right and do it. All other considerations come in second (From Living a Life That Matters).
CRAFTING THE SERMON
A sermon on this psalm could begin with an account of the shocking story of Jeffrey Mark Deskovic (as reported in the September 21, 2006 New York Times, "DNA Testing Frees Man Imprisoned for Half His Life," by Fernanda Santos). Deskovic served sixteen years in prison for a crime he did not commit: the 1989 rape and murder of Angela Correa, a fifteen-year-old Peekskill (N.Y.) High School classmate. Recently, DNA analysis of leftover evidence from the case led investigators to conclude that another man, already incarcerated for similar crimes, committed the rape and murder. That inmate has since confessed.
How did this miscarriage of justice happen? As the Times reports it, police became suspicious of Mr. Deskovic because, in the months after Ms. Correa's murder, he seemed overly distraught about the death of this girl he knew only slightly -- and because he later became unusually friendly with her grieving family. Confronting the teenager with their suspicions, the police subjected him to a polygraph test, then a grueling, six-hour interrogation -- at the end of which he signed a confession. It now appears his confession was coerced.
Mr, Deskovic is fortunate, indeed, that new DNA-analysis technology is now available, that did not exist in 1989. (He is, according to the Times account, the 184th incarcerated person, nationwide, to have been exonerated based on DNA evidence.) Without that technology, he might never have been vindicated. Furthermore, had the murder taken place in another state -- one that, unlike New York, still has the death penalty -- he could very well be dead, having been executed years ago.
There are many questions about the role of the police in the case, who subjected their impressionable teenage suspect to extreme psychological pressure. Yet there are even larger questions about the justice system as a whole -- and even about God's justice.
One can easily imagine Mr. Deskovic, in his prison cell, raising a plea to God similar to the psalmist's of old: "Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity." It now seems that God, with a little help from forensic science, has done just that.
But it took a very long time, and Mr. Deskovic has lost sixteen years of his life that can never be recovered. That offends our sense of fairness.
In Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, N.T. Wright identifies three ways of explaining the origin of our sense of justice: what he calls "this sense of the echo of a voice, this call to justice, this dream of a world (and all of us within it) put to rights" (p. 8).
The first is to agree with the likes of Machiavelli and Nietzsche, and conclude that justice is no more than a figment of our imagination -- that, in this dog-eat-dog world, might makes right. Few of us would want to go along with that answer.
The second possibility is "that the dream is of a different world altogether, a world where we really belong, where everything is indeed put to rights, a world into which we can escape in our dreams in the present and hope to escape one day for good" (p. 9). In this scenario, "unscrupulous bullies" are still in charge of our world, but at least there's the hope that things will be better in the next life.
The third option is to conclude that "there is someone speaking to us, whispering in our inner ear -- someone who cares very much about this present world and our present selves, and who has made us and the world for a purpose which will indeed involve justice, things being put to rights, ourselves being put to rights, the world being rescued at last" (p. 9).
It is this third option, says Wright, that is the position of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Christianity, of course, the focus is on Jesus: on our confession that "he took the tears of the world and made them his own, carrying them all the way to his cruel and unjust death to carry out God's rescue operation; and that he took the joy of the world and brought it to new birth as he rose from the dead and thereby launched God's new creation" (pp. 11-12).
Ordinarily, we Christians would hope that, during the long years he languished in prison, a man like Jeffrey Mark Deskovic would have turned to Jesus Christ for hope. The sad postscript to his story is that he did not. Jaded and disillusioned by the justice system of a largely "Christian" culture, after his first year in prison, Mr. Deskovic converted to Islam.
ANOTHER VIEW
By James Killen
This is the first in a series of four sermons on the book of Job.
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
Why is there so much injustice in the world? Why should an innocent man have been allowed to suffer imprisonment for a crime he did not commit? Why do so many innocent people, especially children, suffer the effects of the wars waged by the powerful? Why is there suffering in the world at all? Questions like these surface a deep question that burns in the minds of many. They seem to bring the charge that there is something basically wrong with the way in which reality is put together -- or with the way God is running the world.
Archibald MeLeish has one of the characters in the play, J.B. raise this question eloquently: "I heard, upon that dry dung heap, a voice cry out that could not sleep, 'If God is good, he is not God. If God is God, he is not good. Take the even, take the odd, I would not sleep here if I could -- except for the little green flower in the wood.' " It is a question that needs some answer.
It was a question that needed an answer in biblical days, too. There was a wide spread belief that, if you are a good person and do what is right, God will prosper you and keep anything bad from happening to you. That belief found expression in passages of scripture like Psalm 37 and the book of Proverbs. And who can deny that there is truth in that belief. But sometimes things don't work out that way. In those times, people raise a deep question because the understanding of the shape of reality on the basis of which they have lived their lives is threatened. The book of Job is here in the Bible to answer that question. But the answer is not simple -- or easy to understand -- or easy to live with.
The author begins the poetic drama by describing as meeting of the heavenly council. God is meeting with other heavenly beings. One of them, Satin, stands up to challenge him. In this case, Satin is not the evil one that he appears to be in other parts of the scripture. In this story, Satin is a friend of God who plays the role of accuser or adversary. (See The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. IV, pp. 347-348, or Walter Wink, Unmasking the Powers, Philadelphia, Fortes Press, 1986, pp. 11-14.) Satan emerges as a challenger -- and God allows himself to be challenged. We see a new image of the shape of reality emerging here, not one in which God micro manages the universe, but one in which God allows for openness and multiple possibilities. God even allows for some possibilities that are not in accordance with his purpose for the creation.
Why would God allow reality to be put together in that way? Could it not be that God knows that the kind of humanity for which we were created can only emerge in the context of a life that is a real adventure. God has created us to be "in God's image," to be people who live with freedom and responsibility, people whose decisions and actions will influence the meaning of life if not the shape of life and the course of history. Such a life can only emerge in the context of openness and multiple possibilities.
But does that mean that God has deserted us and left us alone against the world? We could not handle that. No, the Hebrew Scriptures make it very clear that God is at work in life and in history to move things toward the fulfillment of God's loving purpose for the creation. But God works in ways that respect and work through our freedom and responsibility. God works in interaction with us. That gives awesome new meaning to our lives. And even when things do not go as God would hope, God is there with us. In his hymn, James Russell Lowell writes, "Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet 'tis truth alone is strong; Though her portion be the scaffold and upon the throne be wrong; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow Keeping watch above his own" (Once to Every Man and Nation).
Preview of coming sermons for your sermon in process file:
Job 23:1-9, 16-17. Those who live decisively will always find themselves living in tension with the reality around them. They may even find themselves arguing with God. But those who live decisively live in obedience to the purpose of God.
Job 38:1-7, 34-41 Those who dare to live life in depth will eventually find themselves in a place where they are not in control-and there they will meet God.
Job 42:1-17 Ultimately, God affirms those who come limping, bruised and broken, from their encounters with life, because they have indeed leaned to live like God-who has chosen to be a vulnerable God. (See William C. Platcher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God [Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 1994])
ILLUSTRATIONS
As Job found out, the Lord meets us in infinite majesty. The Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulen wrote:
Holiness meets us in unconditional majesty. Every attempt to transform Christian faith into a religion of satisfaction and enjoyment is thereby doomed to failure. Faith in God cannot be measured from the point of view of human happiness and needs, even if these concepts be ever so refined and "spiritualized." Every tendency to make God serve human interests is irrevocably doomed. To meet God as the Holy One is to be confronted by a power advancing in sovereign majesty.
-- Gustaf Aulen, The Faith of the Christian Church (Fortress, 1960), p. 105
* * *
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in pow'r, in love and purity.
-- Reginald Heber, "Holy, Holy, Holy" (verse three)
* * *
Martin Luther wrote:
This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.
-- Quoted in Mayo Clinic Health Quest (October 2006), p. 8
* * *
Curses and blessings
Job was plagued with boils and sores by The Evil One. His wife told him to curse God. Many folks have had boils and sores throughout life. Many have cursed God for it. But then there are those others who have found in their boils and sores a source of great strength.
There was a woman in a church I served years ago whose child was dying of cystic fibrosis. There was a profound degree of suffering for them both. It would have been easy for the woman to curse God. Instead she made sure that she and her child were schooled in matters of the spirit. She told me that when the moment came soon or late, she wanted her child to know that there is a God and that there is a heaven and that there was a special place in God's heart her little girl.
My dad died when I was seven at Christmas. I could have cursed God. In fact when I said "Our Father" in church in those first few years after that loss, I did tell both my dads what I thought of them. And that's when it happened, there were no voices just something beating deeply in my heart as if God embraced me and said; "Don't you know, there's a special place in my heart for your dad?" I ran home to ask my grandmother if there really is a God. I asked her if there is a heaven. I asked her if my dad were there. She knelt down, she held me close, I can still feel her warmth and she said; "Of course there is a God, I know there is a heaven, and you know that your daddy's there in the arms of Jesus." And that is why I became a priest in the Church of God.
* * *
Scripture and Shakespeare
The scripture says today:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, * the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What is man that you should be mindful of him? * the son of man that you should seek him out?
You have made him but little lower than the angels; * you adorn him with glory and honor.
-- Psalm 8:6, 7
Shakespeare's Hamlet says:
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals
-- Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2
* * *
Grandpa and the little boy
Jesus blessed the children and said that it was of such that the kingdom of God was made.
Grandpa and the little boy walked down a country lane together one day with fishing poles on their shoulders. They didn't say a word. But they both knew they were doing something that has been done a thousand times before by many a grandpa and many a little boy. They never forgot that moment. They were both close to heaven: the one soon to return, the other only recently arrived. There was no need to say a word. They both knew that God was close. And that moment has stood forever as a blessing to all who have seen such things.
* * *
On December 23, 1954, Ron Herrick went into the hospital for surgery. But it wasn't an operation to do anything for him, it was for his twin brother, Richard, who was dying from an inflammation of the kidneys, chronic nephritis. Ron was donating one of his kidneys to his brother, in what would become first ever successful transplant surgery.
The doctors, well aware of the risks from the rejection of the transplanted organ which had caused the deaths of other transplant recipients, were more optimistic about the possibility of success due to the fact that the Herricks were twins. To make sure that the brothers were identical, and not fraternal twins, they were even sent to the Boston police department to be fingerprinted. And a small piece of skin was transplanted from Richard onto Ron's arm so the surgical team could study the chances of rejection.
Fifty years later, that patch of skin is still a part of Ron Herrick's arm, a living piece of his brother that he still carries with him, even though Richard died in 1963 (of conditions not related to the surgery).
When Jesus was born, was there a little patch of Amos's skin that had been grafted on to him? Maybe that's why he always seemed to be able to choose the good over the evil, and to call us to do the same. Maybe that's why Jesus could challenge us to love our enemies, and to pray for those who want to harm us. Maybe that's why Jesus was able to say that those who seek peace will be blessed. He was able to do these things, not because he was more religious than us, but because it was a part of who he was, it was in his DNA.
Maybe this year, for Christmas, God will transplant a little grafting of Amos and Jesus on to us. That would be worth having, wouldn't it? Because if our justice is not running so deep and wide as to be able to sweep away the poverty in our communities (as well as in our hearts), than all the carols we will sing on Christmas Eve won't amount to anything. And if righteousness is not a part of our spiritual DNA, if we are not willing to flow into the world to share God's peace and hope with every single one of God's children in every corner of the world, than all the gifts we bring to the manger should be returned.
* * *
When I was growing up in the deep South, I heard a number of conversion stories. This man had given up "chasing women" in order to follow Christ; that woman had stopped drinking; a young person had quit running with a gang that was getting deeper and deeper into trouble with the law. Every single person "lost" something negative in their lives, something which was ultimately damaging to them, in order to have a deep relationship with God, through Christ.
Who wouldn't believe in a God who wants you to give up all the things which might harm you? Who wouldn't love a God who wants you to stop making a fool of yourself? Who couldn't trust a God who desires that a person act with decency and goodness?
But what if God wants you to give up all that is good in your life? What if God thinks it is those things you have worked honestly and diligently to gain which stand between you and God? What if God wants you to trust, even when God pulls the rug out from under you?
Job loses everything which was of value to him -- his lands, his homes, his livestock, his servants, his wealth his social standing. And he lost everything for which there could be no price attached -- his very own children.
And now, Job must decide, must discover, if he can indeed trust in the only One who is left in his life.
WORSHIP RESOURCE
Thom Shuman
Call To Worship
Leader: Welcome to this place:
People: where children and seasoned seniors
can sit side by side,
where heaven and earth embrace,
where God has been, is,
and always will be.
Leader: Welcome to this place,
gathered with God's people:
People: where we find God's love,
where we hear the tender voice of Jesus,
where the Spirit teaches us new songs.
Leader: Welcome to this place,
prepared for us by God:
People: where we can bring our hunger
and find food;
where we can bring our despair
and find hope;
where we can bring our selves
and find love.
Prayer Of The Day
We walk in faith toward you,
Creator of the world:
struggling to keep in step with you,
not budging from the path
you have leveled for us
with your tenderness.
We walk in faith after you,
Savior of the world:
as little children
in need of a lap;
as gawky adolescents
in need of a friend;
as the lonely
yearning for a companionable heart.
We walk in faith with you,
Sanctifier of the world:
turning our backs on our past
as we dance to your Table,
where we join hands
with all your children,
here and in every place,
praying together
as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father ...
Call To Reconciliation
We hope to walk in integrity, but usually
find ourselves stumbling down sin's
sidewalks, trying to find our own way
in the world. But God would forgive us
and teach us new songs of hope. Let
us pray to empty ourselves of all we
have done and failed to do, that we
might be filled with mercy.
Unison Prayer Of Confession
We find it hard to admit, Tender God, but we have lost our way. We have misplaced our love in the mess we have made of our relationships. We lose the words that might bring healing to hurting friend, because we are so focused on ourselves. We have lost our oneness in you in our quarrels about right words and right thoughts.
So we need you to come and find us, and lead us back into your Heart, Searching God. We long for you to take us up in your arms and cradle us in your grace. We yearn to turn around and find you waiting to welcome us with joy.
And look! There you are! Reaching out to us with the love, the life, the peace which comes to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
(Silence may be kept.)
Assurance Of Pardon
Leader: God is not ashamed to call us
sisters and brothers of the One
who came to proclaim that God
seeks to forgive us and make us
whole.
People: Here we stand on holy ground,
singing our songs of thanksgiving,
blessing God for the gift of new life.
Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
"Let the children ..."
Object: a yardstick
Good morning! Have you ever been to an amusement park with rides? (let them answer) Were you able to ride all the rides? (let them answer) Why could you not ride them all? (let them answer) Some of the rides probably had a sign that said, "You must be this tall to ride this ride." (here you can hold up the yardstick and see who is tall enough and who is not) And maybe you were just not tall enough!
Are there other things that adults can do that children are not allowed to do? (let them answer) Drive a car ... vote ... teach a class ... We could name many things that children are not allowed to do.
One day, people were bringing little children to Jesus -- just to have Jesus touch them! Can you tell me if this made Jesus' disciples happy? (let them answer) No! It made them very unhappy. They thought that Jesus was only interested in adult matters and the children should stay away. They thought that Jesus was wasting his time by having the children around him.
Sometimes people think that Jesus is for adults. But we in this congregation believe that Jesus is also for children. Jesus was unhappy with the disciples and he said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." Wow! The kingdom of God belongs to you! You are important people to Jesus! And you are important people to this congregation! That is why we have Sunday church school and children's sermons and children's bulletins. You are important to Jesus and you are important to us as a church!
I'm glad Jesus thinks we are all important. Let's talk to Jesus now in prayer.
Dear Jesus: You love children; you love us. Thank you. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 8, 2006, issue.
Copyright 2006 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 permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 517 South Main Street, Lima, Ohio 45804.
