The Only Way To Make A Saint: Start With A Sinner
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In this week's Old Testament passage (Jeremiah 18:1-11), the prophet Jeremiah offers a rich visual image -- the potter working clay at his wheel. It's an apt analogy for the difficulties of the spiritual life. Like the clay, we must be centered on the wheel. We must be kept moist by the ongoing disciplines of prayer and worship. And we must subject ourselves to the pressure of the potter's hands, inexorably molding us into the form intended for us.
In recent history, one would be hard-pressed to find a better example of someone who let God work on the clay of her life than Mother Teresa -- indeed, there is a strong movement promoting her for sainthood. But a soon-to-be-published book (based on more than a half-century of her private correspondence) reveals that Mother Teresa had a turbulent spiritual life characterized by an agonizing sense of doubt and anxiety. Some see this raw account of her struggle as further evidence for her strength of character and the power of her faith, for she was able to persevere in the midst of a terrifying and extended dark night of the soul, and continue with her remarkable ministry.
Team member Paul Bresnahan notes in this installment of The Immediate Word that as we become aware of the peccadilloes of many public figures, it becomes more difficult than ever to give them our trust. When combined with the stunning news of Mother Teresa's crisis of faith, it's only natural to wonder where we can find our bearings in a world so full of sin and doubt. The answer lies in letting the Potter do his work -- we are all sinners, and it is only by trusting in his guidance for our lives that we are made into saints. Team member Barbara Jurgensen provides additional commentary, in which she finds parallels between the process of making pottery and of making steel. It's an instructive comparison, especially because the stress involved in forging steel out of iron provides a useful context for understanding the spiritual stress Mother Teresa endured for so many years.
The Only Way to Make a Saint:
Start with a Sinner
by Paul Bresnahan
How many of our great leaders have fallen from grace? I remember how crestfallen I was when I learned as a young man that apparently John Fitzgerald Kennedy had some indiscretions with Marilyn Monroe, only to learn some years later that this was but the tip of the iceberg. Then come to find out that no less a personage than Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself was thought to have had some liaisons with a "lady" or two at the White House. The revelations just seemed to multiply as we entered a period of "debunking" our heroes. Even Abraham Lincoln did not go unscathed, as he was reputed to have had a dalliance or two with a close male associate. That accusation is vehemently denied by many, doggedly insisted to by others.
On and on and on it goes, it seems, in a rather tiresome sequence of unending disappointment. Bill Clinton's presidency will forever have the cloud of the Lewinsky episode as his legacy. At the same time many so-called pro-family evangelicals have found themselves sullied by personal indiscretions. At the same time as he vigorously led the charge against Clinton, Newt Gingrich was busy with his own mistress -- all while his wife was dying of cancer. More recently, Congressman Foley and Senator Craig -- strong supporters of a constitutional amendment to deny same-sex marriage for others -- were themselves compromised by moral disgrace, in the former case with congressional pages and in the latter at a men's room at a Minneapolis airport.
Now we find out that no less a light than Mother Teresa had nagging doubts about God until the very day of her death. How in the world do we find redemption in a world where sin is so ubiquitous and where doubt is so real? We can take some comfort in the notion of the potter in this week's Old Testament lesson, which tells us that God is not finished with us yet, as well as Kierkegaard's famous quote: "God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners."
That being the case, there is no better place for God to begin than with you and me! Let's consider how being a sinner can lead to sainthood... and if we're not careful, vice versa.
THE WORD
The Jeremiah passage about the Potter's clay is a wonderful resource for a preacher. I also like his turn of phrase "the word of the Lord came to me." The way he uses the language, we come away with a sense that God speaks to the human heart, not to the ear. God gives the sense of what the message is rather than giving a word-for-word directive. The warning that God is articulating in this week's lesson certainly needs to be given to Israel. But it can be given to any nation. It can be given to any individual or family. The scripture becomes profoundly symbolic when we read it in this way. I hear God speaking then in my heart as God speaks for the poor and the outcast, or as God speaks to me and soberly invites me to honesty. It is a wonderful passage.
So too the psalm: here the psalmist postulates that God's knowledge of us is so intimate and so close that God ends up knowing us better than we do ourselves. That's often true. There's much of ourselves that we often don't want to face. But God will not let us get away with that. God's will be done, because God presses in before and behind, and ultimately this knowledge is so wonderful that it becomes my salvation.
The passage from Philemon is a charming piece of redemptive literature too. We don't know what there was about Onesimus, but we do know that he once was utterly useless. Somehow God found a use for him. Somehow this sinner became one of the saints, and no less a light than Paul spoke up for him. He had to press the point. His "indiscretion" or "sin" must have been noteworthy, but ultimately he became another one of the redeemed of God.
The Gospel is difficult today. Taking up the cross to follow Jesus must ultimately rest on an honest appraisal of where we stand on our own with Jesus. No one in the family can stand in for us. We're on our own. There's no way to finesse our way to God. There is only the way of the cross. We cannot buy our way there. We cannot earn our way there. The only way to the heart of God and to the kingdom is through the reality of our own hearts and the truth of who we are.
THE WORLD
It is very sad, isn't it? Senator Craig denied it. Foley denied it. Vitter denied it. Gingrich, Clinton, Nixon all denied it. My grandmother used to say, "Denial is not a river in Egypt." Denial is covering up something that needs a dose of truth. If there was one thing that my grandmother couldn't tolerate, it was a liar. It is as if the lie is itself becomes a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, because the lie prohibits grace from doing its wonders. That's what we find out in the 12-step program. Once we admit that we are powerless over our addictive behaviors, that is the moment of Grace. That is when God can get to work on us and make saints out of the sinners that we are. The sin never goes away, but God can make something beautiful with the sinner who has the courage to be truthful.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, visited the United States often, and once I heard him speak at Trinity Institute. Held annually at Trinity Church, Wall Street, this institute is one of the finest clergy conferences of the Episcopal Church and is the place to be if an Episcopal priest wants to be at the center of things. The focus of the particular conference I attended was the ordained ministry. Ramsey loved one-liners, and he had quite a few in his repertoire. Near the top of the list was one about the quality of the clergy these days. Even then, in the '70s, there was quite a fuss about the "run of the mill" that ended up ordained. Ramsey flashed his twinkling eyes at the assembled gathering and quipped, "When people complain to me about the quality of the clergy, I respond rather sharply that if you want better clergy, give us a better crop to pick from!"
It seems to me that the bishop was right on. When it comes to picking out clergy to lead us, we have no one to pick from but ourselves. The same can be said of politicians, diplomats, corporate leadership, teachers, or any other profession that is held to careful scrutiny these days. If we don't offer ourselves for leadership, someone else will lead. All that apathy guarantees is that someone other than ourselves will lead -- and they will often not be up to our standards. But we ourselves often don't want to get our hands dirty in the grit and grime of leadership.
And so yes, we see a spate of revelations about clergy, politicians, corporate heads, and teachers... and the list goes on. They all come from the general population. And we're all tainted with the reality of human foibles. The only doctrine we can prove in the Christian experience is sin. There is ample evidence of it every day in the newspaper and on CNN. All other doctrine we must take on faith.
And so one by one our heroes fall, as their Achilles heels give way under the pressure that each of us brings to our several endeavors. It seems that when we cannot be honest about who we are, that is when sin gains special power over us. It is that so-called "secret" sin that gains traction in its ability to corrupt us or to let us hide behind our own hypocrisy. We pick specks out of other human eyes, while we cannot see the log that renders us blind in our own eyesight (loose paraphrase of Matthew 7:3). Never did Jesus speak more aptly to the human condition than in that famous "one-liner"!
It is thus that many public figures have lined up to fight for family values and personal probity, while they themselves were engaged in some decidedly compromising and bad habits. Gingrich had his affair while he chased down Clinton for his indiscretion, Foley and Craig fought for a ban on gay marriage while they themselves were reputed to be involved with pages in the former case, and lewd behavior in an airport in the latter. These are but a few of the kinds of cases we see where the "speck and the log" axiom seems to be at work.
But God does not create junk -- and the Potter is busy at the wheel making beautiful things.
There is a case that leads to a better place, it seems to me. Mother Teresa, come to find out, had her doubts about God. Her "dark night of the soul" has come to light now in a new book and on the cover of Time magazine. "In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss," Mother Teresa wrote in 1959, "of God not wanting me -- of God not being God -- of God not existing." This exquisite woman of faith opens her heart to us now even in her death. Her heart is like the hearts of so many, bleak not only with doubt, but sometimes even with a form of certitude that there simply is no God.
Part of me is disappointed. She looked so peaceful and serene... although as I think about it, she may have looked more holy than peaceful or serene. She had so much to come to terms with. How could she work so closely with the utterly destitute and have faith? That really was the question. When the poor are so utterly cast away, how can we believe?
In a perceptive August 29th New York Times op-ed piece, (Jesuit priest James Martin points to the vital role of Spiritual Director for the child of God who dares to be honest to self and to God. "In time," Fr. Martin writes, "with the aid of the priest who acted as her spiritual director, Mother Teresa concluded that these painful experiences could help her identify not only with the abandonment that Jesus Christ felt during the crucifixion, but also with the abandonment that the poor faced daily. In this way she hoped to enter, in her words, the 'dark holes' of the lives of the people with whom she worked. Paradoxically, then, Mother Teresa's doubt may have contributed to the efficacy of one of the more notable faith-based initiatives of the last century."
What is missing for so many of us is the honesty and truth that facing sin can give us. Whether it is addictive behavior around drugs, sex, alcohol, or perhaps greed, or an obsession with power and violence, we cannot even begin to find our way to forgiveness without at first being honest with ourselves and with God. The role of Confessor and Spiritual Director, a valued companion or "heart other" as it is called in spirituality, is a well-documented resource within the tradition of faith. "Come let us reason together" has been the dictum of faith it seems forever.
The prophet Isaiah gave us a first glimpse at the idea: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18).
And thus we come to the thesis of this sermon idea: to make a saint, God must begin with a sinner. Kierkegaard said it. I'll repeat it. It is what Jeremiah had in mind when he wrote of God as being like the potter at his wheel fashioning clay vessels. He works by the hour to make something beautiful. But something goes wrong -- he breaks the pot and starts again. So it is with us. We are clay in the hands of God. And so long as we can be honest to God and with ourselves, the hand of God can indeed touch us and make of us something that is pleasing to see, and something pleasing to be. Thus God makes saints out of sinners. There's no better place to begin than with you. There's no better place to begin than with me. The pathway toward holiness is not to pretend we have no sin. The pathway to holiness is to be honest to God and to ourselves about who we are. That is what we learn from the saints. They too were sinners, each of them -- just like us. But they found a way to be honest about who they are.
It is interesting to me that when God revealed the divine personality, the verb "to be" is used. Hebrew is tough to translate on a good day, but the mood of the verb used in Exodus to Moses is roughly translated "I AM who I AM," or "I AM whatever I WILL BE," or just "I AM." You see, God was honest about the divine nature. No adjectives or adverbs were used, just a very tentative mood of the present tense that can be rendered perhaps a future conditional of some undetermined influence. That is precisely who God is. God will be whoever God will be! If we're honest about it, the same must be said of ourselves. And at the very least, the Bible is honest. The pathway to God's redemptive power then is through this very kind of honesty.
Another bishop I know was fond of saying, "It is not the mission of the church to make good people better; it is the mission of the church to make bad people holy." That's why the first step in the recovery process is overcoming denial. It is to admit that I have no power over the sin that has me in its grip. Once we say that we're on our way -- the truth shall make us free (John 8:32).
God, make of us what You will. But please do make of us, and not as we will but as You will. Take Your hands and we will be clay for You. Mold us to Your purpose, so that we can be something beautiful for You -- just as Mother Teresa was something beautiful for You in her time.
ANOTHER VIEW
The Potter/Steelworker
by Barbara Jurgensen
Our Jeremiah lesson this week takes us on a field trip. Let's go down to the potter's house, where we'll see our loving God, the Master Potter, wearing a big gray potter's apron, preparing a large lump of gray clay, kneading it and smoothing it with his strong hands.
When it's silky smooth, he carefully centers the clay on the revolving table of his potter's wheel, then gets the wheel turning and begins shaping the clay. Minute by minute, using both his hands, he pushes it in a little here and out a little there, working with it skillfully, dipping his hands into a bowl of water as needed, until at last the clay attains the shape that he's planned for it.
He wants it, after all, to be the most beautiful pot, and the most useful pot, that it can possibly be.
Notice that the clay makes no sound, makes no objection, as he works with it. And as he pushes and presses it, it may not shape up the way he wants, and he may need to squash it back into a formless lump and start over. And if he has to refashion it, the clay silently goes along with this.
It's interesting to compare how a potter works with clay to create pots with how a steelworker works with iron to create steel. I have a friend who used to work in the steel industry in Youngtown, Ohio. He says that in the process of turning iron into steel, the iron must first be heated blazing hot, then plunged into icy cold water, and that as the hot metal hits the cold water it lets out a scream that cracks a hole in the air through the whole building, a scream that sounds human, like someone undergoing terrible pain. And this process of heating and cooling needs to be repeated, again and again.
When God is working with me, I would like to be like the clay, pliant in the Master Potter's hands, ready to be shaped and reshaped, without complaining, into whatever he envisions. But I'm afraid I'm more like the iron. "Lord!" I cry out. "How could you make my life so difficult? My life is too hard -- way too hard! I don't want to go through all this! This is too painful! Way too painful! Get me out of all this -- right now!"
I know that the Master Steelworker, who is also the Master Potter, can take me, an old, rusty chunk of iron, and with much effort on his part, and with much pain on my part, turn me into a piece of surgical steel. He can turn me into a piece of fine surgical steel that can be fashioned into a scalpel that, in the hands of a skilled eye surgeon, can do the most delicate eye surgery. The question is: am I willing to go through all the pain to become that fine a piece of steel?
Mother Teresa must have felt something like this. All the world knows Mother Teresa as the woman who won the Nobel Prize in 1979 for giving loving care to the world's poorest of the poor -- to the bone-thin men and women and children who lay crumpled up, dying, on the streets and sidewalks of one of India's most destitute cities, Calcutta.
We know this humble nun as probably the most saintly person of the whole 20th century, as the person who most showed Christ's love.
But now we learn from a soon-to-be-released book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, that she was not always the clay, quietly letting the Potter shape her. She was often more like the iron being formed into steel, crying out in pain. Many times -- in fact, perhaps much of the time -- she felt that God had abandoned her, that God had totally rejected her. She wrote:
"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love -- and now become as the most hated one -- the one You have thrown away as unwanted -- unloved. I call, I cling, I want -- and there is no One to answer -- no One on Whom I can cling -- no, No One."
And again she wrote:
"There is nothing but emptiness and darkness -- My God -- how painful is this unknown pain -- I have no Faith -- I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart -- and make me suffer untold agony."
Mother Teresa was certain that God loved others, but it was hard for her to believe that God loved her. In a letter to her spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van dear Peet, she wrote:
"Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear."
Strangely, this absence of God in her life seems to have started at the very time she began tending the poor and the dying in Calcutta, and, except for one five-week interval during which she experienced peace, never let up throughout the rest of her life.
Sad as this is, her struggles give me hope, as do the lives of all the on-the-way-to-being-made-steel people of the Bible. All of them struggled, but most of them managed to persevere, even during the many occurrences of "the dark night of the soul" that they experienced.
I can remember a song that we used to sing in Sunday School. "Trust and obey," it says, "for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey." Mother Teresa certainly got the "obey" part right. It's hard to think of anyone who did better in the "obey" department than she did, working tirelessly down in the slums of what is often called "the black hole of Calcutta." And she certainly trusted, or she wouldn't have kept on following the Lord's orders all those years.
As we think of her pain -- her deep, deep pain -- we remember Christ's words from the cross: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" Yet Jesus has promised us that he will be with us always, that he will never leave us or forsake us.
One thing is for sure: we need to trust that our Lord is calling us to grow as his people in love and service, and that he is working with us to help us grow. He is the Potter, we are the clay. And he is the steelworker and we are the rusty iron.
We also need to trust that our Lord will keep his promises. We need to trust that he is with us, and that he will always be with us.
ILLUSTRATIONS
But is John of the Cross right? Can it really be true that when depression passes, all is restored, but when the dark night passes, all is transformed? ...I suppose John of the Cross would respond that the transformation of the soul is what we seek in the Christian life... there is no saying that either mental illness or therapy cannot make one love God more, rather simply that the dark night transforms the soul through hardships, which, like John's, can bring great blessings from God.
-- Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Darkness is My Only Companion (Brazos Press, 2006)
***
I do know that compassion is one of those lessons I must learn from my illness. Doesn't everything boil down to that? God still has much work to do to overcome my being incurvata in me, curved in on myself, the root of sin. I still have far to go there. My struggle with my thorn, my own weakness, is not finished, and will never be finished in this life. Who knows what Paul's "thorn" really was.... In any case, there Satan gave the thorn. And there, ever there, God did not allow it to be removed but planned to use for good.
-- Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Darkness is My Only Companion
***
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
***
The September 4, 2007 issue of Christian Century had a very disturbing article about pastors and pornography. In the article they quoted a Promise Keepers survey that found that 53% of its members consume pornography. A Christianity Today survey found that 37% of pastors said pornography is a "current struggle" of theirs. A Barna Research Group study released in February 2007 said that 35 percent of men and 17 percent of women reported having used pornography in the pat month.
The reality is that human life is a continuing struggle with some dark sides of our lives, and that is true of our leaders as well as their followers.
***
When we seek our leaders, whether in politics, religion, or elsewhere, we are often seduced by appearance or other easily identifiable characteristics. In 1 Samuel 16:6-13 we look at God's choice to replace Saul. Samuel is seeking out the new leader of the people of God, and he looks at Eliab, a very handsome son of Jesse, and thinks that this may be the one. God responds, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
***
The Bible seems to almost delight in upsetting our expectations about who is good or bad. Moses was wanted by civilized society for murder; Rahab, who preserved the messengers of God, was a prostitute; Ruth was a Moabite, whom Israel saw as the enemies of the people of God; and the list goes on. The supreme example in the Hebrew Scriptures is David. After God had chosen him, David broke almost all of the Ten Commandments, the most obvious of which were adultery and murder. In the New Testament, God took Saul, who was considered an enemy and killer of Christians, and transformed him into God's messenger to the Gentiles. Most of us would not be members of the Christian community if it were not for the early work of Saul/Paul. Jesus' disciples were not exactly the models of leadership that we normally look for. Tax collectors were considered traitors to Israel in their battle with the Romans; James and John had a reputation for having explosive tempers; Peter often spoke first and thought later, and eventually denied Jesus three times. Isn't ironic that the Gospels can't even agree for certain on the names of the twelve people who Jesus chose to be his first disciples? God is not defeated by our weaknesses nor constrained by the characteristics by which we often judge people.
***
As we talk about heroes who have fallen from grace, I remember the words of Dennis DeYoung from Styx:
Every night I say a prayer in the hope that there's a heaven
And every day I'm more confused as the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and legends I knew as a child have fallen to idols of clay
And I feel this empty place inside so afraid that I've lost my faith
Show me the way, show me the way
Take me tonight to the river
And wash my illusions away
Show me the way
-- "Show Me the Way," Styx
***
Seeing the latest scandals from Mother Teresa to Senator Craig demonstrates how much we enjoy finding the pitfalls in others. It is almost as if we hope for that fall and look for things to attack. It reminds me of a story about a congregation that was dead-set against having a woman pastor. Unfortunately, the bishop assigned a woman to that church, thinking that "it would be good for them." It was a difficult relationship. The pastor tried her best to build trust, relationship, and good will. She even went fishing with a couple of the more outspoken men. She joined them early in the morning, got in the boat, baited her own hook, took the fish off the line, and joined in the conversation. When it came time for lunch, she apologized, saying that she had fixed a great lunch but left it on shore. When the men refused to go back, she climbed over the side of the boat and walked on the water to the shore to get the lunch. As she walked back, one of the men shrugged his shoulders and said, "Would you look at that? She can't even swim!"
***
There is a pattern in Holy Scripture. Have you seen it? Noah passed out drunk, Abraham lied about his wife, Joseph was full of pride, Moses killed a man, David was an adulterer, Elijah suffered from doubt, Jeremiah was insecure, Peter denied, Thomas doubted, Paul persecuted. The pattern is that no one is ever preached into heaven based on their own morality. The biblical heroes have one thing in common -- they are fallen sinners in deep need of God's cleansing grace. The best lesson that we can learn from them is not how high they set the bar for all of us to achieve, but rather that the ground before the throne of God is level ground where all approach on our knees.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call to Worship
Leader: We gather in the presence of God:
People: who knows us when we wake up and when we go to sleep,
and in all the moments in between.
Leader: We gather in the house of God:
People: who has created a family for us,
here as well as in Baghdad, in Belfast, and in Nairobi.
Leader: We gather to be the people of God:
People: who appeals to us to follow in love, in faith, in service.
Prayer of the Day (and Our Lord's Prayer)
Eternal God our Potter:
you come to us before we come to you.
You send your Heart, Jesus Christ, to us
before our hearts are turned to you.
You send your Spirit to us,
when our spirits wander far from you.
You set a Table for us,
when our souls are hungry,
when our hearts are empty.
God in Community, Holy in One,
hear us as we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .
Call to Reconciliation
Our sins are not to be hidden from God.
Rather, we bring them into the Light and lay them on the Table,
trusting in the One who shaped us for goodness and who will
transform our brokenness into wholeness.
Please join me as we pray, saying . . .
(Unison) Prayer of Confession
Searching God, we are so attached to our possessions, we have trouble sharing them.
We are so connected to our pleasures that we cannot feel the pain of those around us.
We are so stuck on ourselves, we cannot sense our souls slipping away into the shadows.
Most merciful God:
loosen us from the grip of the world, so we may feel your healing touch.
Sever us from our sin, so your Spirit might bind us to you.
Reshape us, redeem us, renew us,
so we may take
up our crosses and follow our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: The God who calls us is the God who created us;
the God who formed us is the God who forgives us.
This is the Good News -- we are God's new creation.
People: In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
The Cost of Discipleship
Luke 14:25-33
Object: a pad and pencils
I would like to ask all of you today if you really love Jesus. Do you? (Let them answer.) Of course you do. I knew that before I asked you. Do you know what we call people who really love Jesus and try to do what he wants them to do? (Let them answer.) We call them "disciples." To be a disciple of Jesus means being willing to follow him even when it is very hard to do what he wants us to do.
Now I want you to tell me about one of your favorite things to do. Of all the things you might do -- swimming, playing games, going to a movie -- what is your favorite activity? (Let them answer, and write the activity down on the pad with their name next to it. If there are a lot of children, just write three or four of the answers on the pad.)
Okay, now I want to ask you something. __________, if you had a chance to do (name the activity) but there was a need for you to do something important for Jesus, which would you do? Let's say that you had been asking a friend to come to Sunday school with you, and he or she finally agreed to come, but it was at the same time as your activity. Would you give up the activity to bring your friend to Sunday school? (Let the child answer.) Well, that's what being a disciple is all about, being willing to give up something in order to follow Jesus. Sometimes it is very hard to do. (Ask some of the others the same kind of question.)
I think we can all agree that being a disciple of Jesus is not always easy. Let's pray about it.
Prayer: Dear Jesus: Please forgive us for not always being good disciples. When we are tempted to do something else when you need us for your own work, strengthen us so that we will follow you. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 9, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
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In recent history, one would be hard-pressed to find a better example of someone who let God work on the clay of her life than Mother Teresa -- indeed, there is a strong movement promoting her for sainthood. But a soon-to-be-published book (based on more than a half-century of her private correspondence) reveals that Mother Teresa had a turbulent spiritual life characterized by an agonizing sense of doubt and anxiety. Some see this raw account of her struggle as further evidence for her strength of character and the power of her faith, for she was able to persevere in the midst of a terrifying and extended dark night of the soul, and continue with her remarkable ministry.
Team member Paul Bresnahan notes in this installment of The Immediate Word that as we become aware of the peccadilloes of many public figures, it becomes more difficult than ever to give them our trust. When combined with the stunning news of Mother Teresa's crisis of faith, it's only natural to wonder where we can find our bearings in a world so full of sin and doubt. The answer lies in letting the Potter do his work -- we are all sinners, and it is only by trusting in his guidance for our lives that we are made into saints. Team member Barbara Jurgensen provides additional commentary, in which she finds parallels between the process of making pottery and of making steel. It's an instructive comparison, especially because the stress involved in forging steel out of iron provides a useful context for understanding the spiritual stress Mother Teresa endured for so many years.
The Only Way to Make a Saint:
Start with a Sinner
by Paul Bresnahan
How many of our great leaders have fallen from grace? I remember how crestfallen I was when I learned as a young man that apparently John Fitzgerald Kennedy had some indiscretions with Marilyn Monroe, only to learn some years later that this was but the tip of the iceberg. Then come to find out that no less a personage than Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself was thought to have had some liaisons with a "lady" or two at the White House. The revelations just seemed to multiply as we entered a period of "debunking" our heroes. Even Abraham Lincoln did not go unscathed, as he was reputed to have had a dalliance or two with a close male associate. That accusation is vehemently denied by many, doggedly insisted to by others.
On and on and on it goes, it seems, in a rather tiresome sequence of unending disappointment. Bill Clinton's presidency will forever have the cloud of the Lewinsky episode as his legacy. At the same time many so-called pro-family evangelicals have found themselves sullied by personal indiscretions. At the same time as he vigorously led the charge against Clinton, Newt Gingrich was busy with his own mistress -- all while his wife was dying of cancer. More recently, Congressman Foley and Senator Craig -- strong supporters of a constitutional amendment to deny same-sex marriage for others -- were themselves compromised by moral disgrace, in the former case with congressional pages and in the latter at a men's room at a Minneapolis airport.
Now we find out that no less a light than Mother Teresa had nagging doubts about God until the very day of her death. How in the world do we find redemption in a world where sin is so ubiquitous and where doubt is so real? We can take some comfort in the notion of the potter in this week's Old Testament lesson, which tells us that God is not finished with us yet, as well as Kierkegaard's famous quote: "God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners."
That being the case, there is no better place for God to begin than with you and me! Let's consider how being a sinner can lead to sainthood... and if we're not careful, vice versa.
THE WORD
The Jeremiah passage about the Potter's clay is a wonderful resource for a preacher. I also like his turn of phrase "the word of the Lord came to me." The way he uses the language, we come away with a sense that God speaks to the human heart, not to the ear. God gives the sense of what the message is rather than giving a word-for-word directive. The warning that God is articulating in this week's lesson certainly needs to be given to Israel. But it can be given to any nation. It can be given to any individual or family. The scripture becomes profoundly symbolic when we read it in this way. I hear God speaking then in my heart as God speaks for the poor and the outcast, or as God speaks to me and soberly invites me to honesty. It is a wonderful passage.
So too the psalm: here the psalmist postulates that God's knowledge of us is so intimate and so close that God ends up knowing us better than we do ourselves. That's often true. There's much of ourselves that we often don't want to face. But God will not let us get away with that. God's will be done, because God presses in before and behind, and ultimately this knowledge is so wonderful that it becomes my salvation.
The passage from Philemon is a charming piece of redemptive literature too. We don't know what there was about Onesimus, but we do know that he once was utterly useless. Somehow God found a use for him. Somehow this sinner became one of the saints, and no less a light than Paul spoke up for him. He had to press the point. His "indiscretion" or "sin" must have been noteworthy, but ultimately he became another one of the redeemed of God.
The Gospel is difficult today. Taking up the cross to follow Jesus must ultimately rest on an honest appraisal of where we stand on our own with Jesus. No one in the family can stand in for us. We're on our own. There's no way to finesse our way to God. There is only the way of the cross. We cannot buy our way there. We cannot earn our way there. The only way to the heart of God and to the kingdom is through the reality of our own hearts and the truth of who we are.
THE WORLD
It is very sad, isn't it? Senator Craig denied it. Foley denied it. Vitter denied it. Gingrich, Clinton, Nixon all denied it. My grandmother used to say, "Denial is not a river in Egypt." Denial is covering up something that needs a dose of truth. If there was one thing that my grandmother couldn't tolerate, it was a liar. It is as if the lie is itself becomes a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, because the lie prohibits grace from doing its wonders. That's what we find out in the 12-step program. Once we admit that we are powerless over our addictive behaviors, that is the moment of Grace. That is when God can get to work on us and make saints out of the sinners that we are. The sin never goes away, but God can make something beautiful with the sinner who has the courage to be truthful.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, visited the United States often, and once I heard him speak at Trinity Institute. Held annually at Trinity Church, Wall Street, this institute is one of the finest clergy conferences of the Episcopal Church and is the place to be if an Episcopal priest wants to be at the center of things. The focus of the particular conference I attended was the ordained ministry. Ramsey loved one-liners, and he had quite a few in his repertoire. Near the top of the list was one about the quality of the clergy these days. Even then, in the '70s, there was quite a fuss about the "run of the mill" that ended up ordained. Ramsey flashed his twinkling eyes at the assembled gathering and quipped, "When people complain to me about the quality of the clergy, I respond rather sharply that if you want better clergy, give us a better crop to pick from!"
It seems to me that the bishop was right on. When it comes to picking out clergy to lead us, we have no one to pick from but ourselves. The same can be said of politicians, diplomats, corporate leadership, teachers, or any other profession that is held to careful scrutiny these days. If we don't offer ourselves for leadership, someone else will lead. All that apathy guarantees is that someone other than ourselves will lead -- and they will often not be up to our standards. But we ourselves often don't want to get our hands dirty in the grit and grime of leadership.
And so yes, we see a spate of revelations about clergy, politicians, corporate heads, and teachers... and the list goes on. They all come from the general population. And we're all tainted with the reality of human foibles. The only doctrine we can prove in the Christian experience is sin. There is ample evidence of it every day in the newspaper and on CNN. All other doctrine we must take on faith.
And so one by one our heroes fall, as their Achilles heels give way under the pressure that each of us brings to our several endeavors. It seems that when we cannot be honest about who we are, that is when sin gains special power over us. It is that so-called "secret" sin that gains traction in its ability to corrupt us or to let us hide behind our own hypocrisy. We pick specks out of other human eyes, while we cannot see the log that renders us blind in our own eyesight (loose paraphrase of Matthew 7:3). Never did Jesus speak more aptly to the human condition than in that famous "one-liner"!
It is thus that many public figures have lined up to fight for family values and personal probity, while they themselves were engaged in some decidedly compromising and bad habits. Gingrich had his affair while he chased down Clinton for his indiscretion, Foley and Craig fought for a ban on gay marriage while they themselves were reputed to be involved with pages in the former case, and lewd behavior in an airport in the latter. These are but a few of the kinds of cases we see where the "speck and the log" axiom seems to be at work.
But God does not create junk -- and the Potter is busy at the wheel making beautiful things.
There is a case that leads to a better place, it seems to me. Mother Teresa, come to find out, had her doubts about God. Her "dark night of the soul" has come to light now in a new book and on the cover of Time magazine. "In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss," Mother Teresa wrote in 1959, "of God not wanting me -- of God not being God -- of God not existing." This exquisite woman of faith opens her heart to us now even in her death. Her heart is like the hearts of so many, bleak not only with doubt, but sometimes even with a form of certitude that there simply is no God.
Part of me is disappointed. She looked so peaceful and serene... although as I think about it, she may have looked more holy than peaceful or serene. She had so much to come to terms with. How could she work so closely with the utterly destitute and have faith? That really was the question. When the poor are so utterly cast away, how can we believe?
In a perceptive August 29th New York Times op-ed piece, (Jesuit priest James Martin points to the vital role of Spiritual Director for the child of God who dares to be honest to self and to God. "In time," Fr. Martin writes, "with the aid of the priest who acted as her spiritual director, Mother Teresa concluded that these painful experiences could help her identify not only with the abandonment that Jesus Christ felt during the crucifixion, but also with the abandonment that the poor faced daily. In this way she hoped to enter, in her words, the 'dark holes' of the lives of the people with whom she worked. Paradoxically, then, Mother Teresa's doubt may have contributed to the efficacy of one of the more notable faith-based initiatives of the last century."
What is missing for so many of us is the honesty and truth that facing sin can give us. Whether it is addictive behavior around drugs, sex, alcohol, or perhaps greed, or an obsession with power and violence, we cannot even begin to find our way to forgiveness without at first being honest with ourselves and with God. The role of Confessor and Spiritual Director, a valued companion or "heart other" as it is called in spirituality, is a well-documented resource within the tradition of faith. "Come let us reason together" has been the dictum of faith it seems forever.
The prophet Isaiah gave us a first glimpse at the idea: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18).
And thus we come to the thesis of this sermon idea: to make a saint, God must begin with a sinner. Kierkegaard said it. I'll repeat it. It is what Jeremiah had in mind when he wrote of God as being like the potter at his wheel fashioning clay vessels. He works by the hour to make something beautiful. But something goes wrong -- he breaks the pot and starts again. So it is with us. We are clay in the hands of God. And so long as we can be honest to God and with ourselves, the hand of God can indeed touch us and make of us something that is pleasing to see, and something pleasing to be. Thus God makes saints out of sinners. There's no better place to begin than with you. There's no better place to begin than with me. The pathway toward holiness is not to pretend we have no sin. The pathway to holiness is to be honest to God and to ourselves about who we are. That is what we learn from the saints. They too were sinners, each of them -- just like us. But they found a way to be honest about who they are.
It is interesting to me that when God revealed the divine personality, the verb "to be" is used. Hebrew is tough to translate on a good day, but the mood of the verb used in Exodus to Moses is roughly translated "I AM who I AM," or "I AM whatever I WILL BE," or just "I AM." You see, God was honest about the divine nature. No adjectives or adverbs were used, just a very tentative mood of the present tense that can be rendered perhaps a future conditional of some undetermined influence. That is precisely who God is. God will be whoever God will be! If we're honest about it, the same must be said of ourselves. And at the very least, the Bible is honest. The pathway to God's redemptive power then is through this very kind of honesty.
Another bishop I know was fond of saying, "It is not the mission of the church to make good people better; it is the mission of the church to make bad people holy." That's why the first step in the recovery process is overcoming denial. It is to admit that I have no power over the sin that has me in its grip. Once we say that we're on our way -- the truth shall make us free (John 8:32).
God, make of us what You will. But please do make of us, and not as we will but as You will. Take Your hands and we will be clay for You. Mold us to Your purpose, so that we can be something beautiful for You -- just as Mother Teresa was something beautiful for You in her time.
ANOTHER VIEW
The Potter/Steelworker
by Barbara Jurgensen
Our Jeremiah lesson this week takes us on a field trip. Let's go down to the potter's house, where we'll see our loving God, the Master Potter, wearing a big gray potter's apron, preparing a large lump of gray clay, kneading it and smoothing it with his strong hands.
When it's silky smooth, he carefully centers the clay on the revolving table of his potter's wheel, then gets the wheel turning and begins shaping the clay. Minute by minute, using both his hands, he pushes it in a little here and out a little there, working with it skillfully, dipping his hands into a bowl of water as needed, until at last the clay attains the shape that he's planned for it.
He wants it, after all, to be the most beautiful pot, and the most useful pot, that it can possibly be.
Notice that the clay makes no sound, makes no objection, as he works with it. And as he pushes and presses it, it may not shape up the way he wants, and he may need to squash it back into a formless lump and start over. And if he has to refashion it, the clay silently goes along with this.
It's interesting to compare how a potter works with clay to create pots with how a steelworker works with iron to create steel. I have a friend who used to work in the steel industry in Youngtown, Ohio. He says that in the process of turning iron into steel, the iron must first be heated blazing hot, then plunged into icy cold water, and that as the hot metal hits the cold water it lets out a scream that cracks a hole in the air through the whole building, a scream that sounds human, like someone undergoing terrible pain. And this process of heating and cooling needs to be repeated, again and again.
When God is working with me, I would like to be like the clay, pliant in the Master Potter's hands, ready to be shaped and reshaped, without complaining, into whatever he envisions. But I'm afraid I'm more like the iron. "Lord!" I cry out. "How could you make my life so difficult? My life is too hard -- way too hard! I don't want to go through all this! This is too painful! Way too painful! Get me out of all this -- right now!"
I know that the Master Steelworker, who is also the Master Potter, can take me, an old, rusty chunk of iron, and with much effort on his part, and with much pain on my part, turn me into a piece of surgical steel. He can turn me into a piece of fine surgical steel that can be fashioned into a scalpel that, in the hands of a skilled eye surgeon, can do the most delicate eye surgery. The question is: am I willing to go through all the pain to become that fine a piece of steel?
Mother Teresa must have felt something like this. All the world knows Mother Teresa as the woman who won the Nobel Prize in 1979 for giving loving care to the world's poorest of the poor -- to the bone-thin men and women and children who lay crumpled up, dying, on the streets and sidewalks of one of India's most destitute cities, Calcutta.
We know this humble nun as probably the most saintly person of the whole 20th century, as the person who most showed Christ's love.
But now we learn from a soon-to-be-released book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, that she was not always the clay, quietly letting the Potter shape her. She was often more like the iron being formed into steel, crying out in pain. Many times -- in fact, perhaps much of the time -- she felt that God had abandoned her, that God had totally rejected her. She wrote:
"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love -- and now become as the most hated one -- the one You have thrown away as unwanted -- unloved. I call, I cling, I want -- and there is no One to answer -- no One on Whom I can cling -- no, No One."
And again she wrote:
"There is nothing but emptiness and darkness -- My God -- how painful is this unknown pain -- I have no Faith -- I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart -- and make me suffer untold agony."
Mother Teresa was certain that God loved others, but it was hard for her to believe that God loved her. In a letter to her spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van dear Peet, she wrote:
"Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear."
Strangely, this absence of God in her life seems to have started at the very time she began tending the poor and the dying in Calcutta, and, except for one five-week interval during which she experienced peace, never let up throughout the rest of her life.
Sad as this is, her struggles give me hope, as do the lives of all the on-the-way-to-being-made-steel people of the Bible. All of them struggled, but most of them managed to persevere, even during the many occurrences of "the dark night of the soul" that they experienced.
I can remember a song that we used to sing in Sunday School. "Trust and obey," it says, "for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey." Mother Teresa certainly got the "obey" part right. It's hard to think of anyone who did better in the "obey" department than she did, working tirelessly down in the slums of what is often called "the black hole of Calcutta." And she certainly trusted, or she wouldn't have kept on following the Lord's orders all those years.
As we think of her pain -- her deep, deep pain -- we remember Christ's words from the cross: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?" Yet Jesus has promised us that he will be with us always, that he will never leave us or forsake us.
One thing is for sure: we need to trust that our Lord is calling us to grow as his people in love and service, and that he is working with us to help us grow. He is the Potter, we are the clay. And he is the steelworker and we are the rusty iron.
We also need to trust that our Lord will keep his promises. We need to trust that he is with us, and that he will always be with us.
ILLUSTRATIONS
But is John of the Cross right? Can it really be true that when depression passes, all is restored, but when the dark night passes, all is transformed? ...I suppose John of the Cross would respond that the transformation of the soul is what we seek in the Christian life... there is no saying that either mental illness or therapy cannot make one love God more, rather simply that the dark night transforms the soul through hardships, which, like John's, can bring great blessings from God.
-- Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Darkness is My Only Companion (Brazos Press, 2006)
***
I do know that compassion is one of those lessons I must learn from my illness. Doesn't everything boil down to that? God still has much work to do to overcome my being incurvata in me, curved in on myself, the root of sin. I still have far to go there. My struggle with my thorn, my own weakness, is not finished, and will never be finished in this life. Who knows what Paul's "thorn" really was.... In any case, there Satan gave the thorn. And there, ever there, God did not allow it to be removed but planned to use for good.
-- Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Darkness is My Only Companion
***
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
***
The September 4, 2007 issue of Christian Century had a very disturbing article about pastors and pornography. In the article they quoted a Promise Keepers survey that found that 53% of its members consume pornography. A Christianity Today survey found that 37% of pastors said pornography is a "current struggle" of theirs. A Barna Research Group study released in February 2007 said that 35 percent of men and 17 percent of women reported having used pornography in the pat month.
The reality is that human life is a continuing struggle with some dark sides of our lives, and that is true of our leaders as well as their followers.
***
When we seek our leaders, whether in politics, religion, or elsewhere, we are often seduced by appearance or other easily identifiable characteristics. In 1 Samuel 16:6-13 we look at God's choice to replace Saul. Samuel is seeking out the new leader of the people of God, and he looks at Eliab, a very handsome son of Jesse, and thinks that this may be the one. God responds, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."
***
The Bible seems to almost delight in upsetting our expectations about who is good or bad. Moses was wanted by civilized society for murder; Rahab, who preserved the messengers of God, was a prostitute; Ruth was a Moabite, whom Israel saw as the enemies of the people of God; and the list goes on. The supreme example in the Hebrew Scriptures is David. After God had chosen him, David broke almost all of the Ten Commandments, the most obvious of which were adultery and murder. In the New Testament, God took Saul, who was considered an enemy and killer of Christians, and transformed him into God's messenger to the Gentiles. Most of us would not be members of the Christian community if it were not for the early work of Saul/Paul. Jesus' disciples were not exactly the models of leadership that we normally look for. Tax collectors were considered traitors to Israel in their battle with the Romans; James and John had a reputation for having explosive tempers; Peter often spoke first and thought later, and eventually denied Jesus three times. Isn't ironic that the Gospels can't even agree for certain on the names of the twelve people who Jesus chose to be his first disciples? God is not defeated by our weaknesses nor constrained by the characteristics by which we often judge people.
***
As we talk about heroes who have fallen from grace, I remember the words of Dennis DeYoung from Styx:
Every night I say a prayer in the hope that there's a heaven
And every day I'm more confused as the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and legends I knew as a child have fallen to idols of clay
And I feel this empty place inside so afraid that I've lost my faith
Show me the way, show me the way
Take me tonight to the river
And wash my illusions away
Show me the way
-- "Show Me the Way," Styx
***
Seeing the latest scandals from Mother Teresa to Senator Craig demonstrates how much we enjoy finding the pitfalls in others. It is almost as if we hope for that fall and look for things to attack. It reminds me of a story about a congregation that was dead-set against having a woman pastor. Unfortunately, the bishop assigned a woman to that church, thinking that "it would be good for them." It was a difficult relationship. The pastor tried her best to build trust, relationship, and good will. She even went fishing with a couple of the more outspoken men. She joined them early in the morning, got in the boat, baited her own hook, took the fish off the line, and joined in the conversation. When it came time for lunch, she apologized, saying that she had fixed a great lunch but left it on shore. When the men refused to go back, she climbed over the side of the boat and walked on the water to the shore to get the lunch. As she walked back, one of the men shrugged his shoulders and said, "Would you look at that? She can't even swim!"
***
There is a pattern in Holy Scripture. Have you seen it? Noah passed out drunk, Abraham lied about his wife, Joseph was full of pride, Moses killed a man, David was an adulterer, Elijah suffered from doubt, Jeremiah was insecure, Peter denied, Thomas doubted, Paul persecuted. The pattern is that no one is ever preached into heaven based on their own morality. The biblical heroes have one thing in common -- they are fallen sinners in deep need of God's cleansing grace. The best lesson that we can learn from them is not how high they set the bar for all of us to achieve, but rather that the ground before the throne of God is level ground where all approach on our knees.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by Thom M. Shuman
Call to Worship
Leader: We gather in the presence of God:
People: who knows us when we wake up and when we go to sleep,
and in all the moments in between.
Leader: We gather in the house of God:
People: who has created a family for us,
here as well as in Baghdad, in Belfast, and in Nairobi.
Leader: We gather to be the people of God:
People: who appeals to us to follow in love, in faith, in service.
Prayer of the Day (and Our Lord's Prayer)
Eternal God our Potter:
you come to us before we come to you.
You send your Heart, Jesus Christ, to us
before our hearts are turned to you.
You send your Spirit to us,
when our spirits wander far from you.
You set a Table for us,
when our souls are hungry,
when our hearts are empty.
God in Community, Holy in One,
hear us as we pray as Jesus has taught us, saying,
Our Father . . .
Call to Reconciliation
Our sins are not to be hidden from God.
Rather, we bring them into the Light and lay them on the Table,
trusting in the One who shaped us for goodness and who will
transform our brokenness into wholeness.
Please join me as we pray, saying . . .
(Unison) Prayer of Confession
Searching God, we are so attached to our possessions, we have trouble sharing them.
We are so connected to our pleasures that we cannot feel the pain of those around us.
We are so stuck on ourselves, we cannot sense our souls slipping away into the shadows.
Most merciful God:
loosen us from the grip of the world, so we may feel your healing touch.
Sever us from our sin, so your Spirit might bind us to you.
Reshape us, redeem us, renew us,
so we may take
up our crosses and follow our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
(silence is kept)
Assurance of Pardon
Leader: The God who calls us is the God who created us;
the God who formed us is the God who forgives us.
This is the Good News -- we are God's new creation.
People: In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
The Cost of Discipleship
Luke 14:25-33
Object: a pad and pencils
I would like to ask all of you today if you really love Jesus. Do you? (Let them answer.) Of course you do. I knew that before I asked you. Do you know what we call people who really love Jesus and try to do what he wants them to do? (Let them answer.) We call them "disciples." To be a disciple of Jesus means being willing to follow him even when it is very hard to do what he wants us to do.
Now I want you to tell me about one of your favorite things to do. Of all the things you might do -- swimming, playing games, going to a movie -- what is your favorite activity? (Let them answer, and write the activity down on the pad with their name next to it. If there are a lot of children, just write three or four of the answers on the pad.)
Okay, now I want to ask you something. __________, if you had a chance to do (name the activity) but there was a need for you to do something important for Jesus, which would you do? Let's say that you had been asking a friend to come to Sunday school with you, and he or she finally agreed to come, but it was at the same time as your activity. Would you give up the activity to bring your friend to Sunday school? (Let the child answer.) Well, that's what being a disciple is all about, being willing to give up something in order to follow Jesus. Sometimes it is very hard to do. (Ask some of the others the same kind of question.)
I think we can all agree that being a disciple of Jesus is not always easy. Let's pray about it.
Prayer: Dear Jesus: Please forgive us for not always being good disciples. When we are tempted to do something else when you need us for your own work, strengthen us so that we will follow you. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 9, 2007, issue.
Copyright 2007 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.
