Psalm
18:28-36 The Lord lights up my darkness
It is you
who light my lamp;
The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.
By you I can crush a troop,
And by my God I can leap over a wall.
This
God--his way is perfect;
The promise of the Lord proves true;
He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
For who is God except the Lord?
And who is a rock besides our God?--
The God who girded me with strength,
And made my way safe.
He made my feet like the feet of a deer,
And set me secure on the heights.
He trains my
hands for war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have given me the shield of your salvation,
And your right hand has supported me;
Your help has made me great.
You gave me a wide place for my steps under me,
And my feet did not slip.
Matthew
5:13-16 You are the light of the world
You are
the salt of the earth. But if salt has lost its taste, how can its
saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown
out and trampled under foot.
You are
the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one
after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on a lampstand,
and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your
light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give
glory to your Father in heaven.
Arcana
Coelestia #9548 The light of faith
The
divine truth that emanates from the Lord's divine goodness is what gives
light in heaven. Angels do not have light from any other source. That is
why in the Bible, the Lord is called "the light."
"Light" means faith, as well as an understanding of the truth,
and the wisdom that goes with goodness; these come from the Lord alone.
You
are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No
one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on a
lampstand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way,
let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works
and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)
Another
church year is drawing to a close. Today we will hold our last Church
Committee meeting until the fall. It would be a good time to look back
over our past year, but instead, I would like to look both inward and
forward as we release this church year and begin moving toward the next.
At today's Church Committee meeting we will discuss several projects and
ideas for our church. Of course, we'll talk about the upcoming
rebuilding of our steeple, and how we can use the publicity surrounding
it to help rebuild our church as a faith community. We will also talk
about our new Wedding Ministry, as well as some other growth and
outreach projects that the church could take on in the coming year.
So this
would be a good time for another one of those "church growth"
sermons. But as I considered what I wanted to say to you today, I felt
very strongly that at this time it would be less important to talk about
how we can grow as a church than to talk about why we
would want to put our energy into reaching out to others.
I have
already said at previous meetings and in previous sermons that if we
want to grow simply to build up our church, fill our pews, and improve
our financial situation, we will fail in our efforts because these are
not good motives for church growth. They may seem reasonable enough--we do
want to have a thriving church, and it would be wonderful to see
all our pews filled each Sunday, and we certainly could use the
extra income that all those new members would bring to the church. But
these reasons center around ourselves as a church, and not around those
to whom we are reaching out. If people sense that we want to grow for
our own sake, and not for the sake of serving the people of our
community, they will not be drawn to us, but will resist our invitations
to involvement in our services and programs, and membership in our
church.
We know
some of the wrong reasons for wanting to grow. What are some good
reasons for wanting to reach out and bring others into our church?
I can't
think of a better way to start answering this question than for each of
us to ask ourselves the question, "Why am I involved in this
church? What is it about this church that continues to attract me to
it?" We could get lazy and just say, "Well, my parents went to
this church, and I've always gone to this church, and it's just what I
do." But I really don't think this is the reason any of us are here
this Sunday. Some of our brothers and sisters, children and friends also
grew up in the church, but have not chosen to remain active. So maybe
this is part of the reason, but it is certainly not the whole
reason.
We may
think that we joined this church a long time ago, and it is a completely
different situation than someone who walks into this church for the
first time. In some ways this is true. We're used to being here, while
newcomers are not. But if we look at it from another perspective, each
of us is continually choosing to rejoin this church each time we
come to a service, and each time we take part in its activities and its
business. Not a single one of us is in this church because someone put a
gun to our head and said we had to go. Each one of us walked in this
morning of our own free will. And that means that we chose to be
in this church today.
Why did
we choose to be here today? Why have we chosen to cast in our lot with
this church? For me, the verses we read from Psalm 18 express in
beautiful imagery some of my reasons for joining this church and for rejoining
it each week and even each day. The psalmist writes:
It is you who light my
lamp;
The Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.
Of
course, as Swedenborg points out, the light that the psalmist speaks of
is not physical light. It is spiritual light that the Lord gives
us. And our church is richly blessed with a brilliant floodlight of
truth from the Lord. It is the light of a deeply satisfying faith, from
which we can gain both understanding and wisdom. It is a light that
shines on the Bible and penetrates to its inner levels of meaning with a
clarity, depth, and real-life practicality that no other church can
provide. It is a light that illuminates the formerly shady realm of the
afterlife; it shows us both what we can expect when we die, and how we
can live in such a way that we will build a joyous and heavenly life
within ourselves. That light also gives us the strength to face life's
challenges. The psalmist continues:
By you I can crush a
troop,
And by God I can leap over a wall.
This God--his way is perfect;
The promise of the Lord proves true;
He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
Life does
throw its challenges at us. How often have we experienced that wall in
front of us, blocking our path, preventing us from getting any farther
along our life's journey? How often have we felt that our life was going
nowhere, and that things would never change?
I
remember the years I spent wandering, first literally, and then
figuratively. There was an entire decade after I had completed two years
of college in which I did not have any particular direction in life. I
moved from one thing to the next, never quite sure where it was all
leading. Many times I felt that it was all leading nowhere--that I would
just drift along for the rest of my life.
But there
was something that kept me moving along through that whole time;
something that never let me give up hope and stop searching for a
direction and a calling. That something was my faith. Yes, it was the
wonderful clarity of our church's teachings about the spiritual journey
of our lives. For those times, it was especially the explanation of the
wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel--that they correspond to
the times we spend in our own emotional and spiritual desert, and that
those times will eventually lead to our Holy Land of spiritual
fulfillment in a useful life of serving others in ways that we love.
That was a tremendous shield and refuge for me during those times of
desert wandering.
Yet even
beyond that, it was knowing that whatever may happen, our God is a God
of pure love, who would never reject us--would never reject me--but
always has a purpose for our existence, and is always drawing us toward
that purpose, even when we are not aware of it. It was feeling that
presence of God in my life that especially kept me going. If God was
there helping me, then I knew that there was a reason for everything I
experienced.
For who is God except the
Lord?
And who is a rock besides our God?--
The God who girded me with strength,
And made my way safe.
He made my feet like the feet of a deer,
And set me secure on the heights.
My
experience is certainly not unique. Each one of us in this church has
faced the challenges of life, and is facing the challenges of
life. Each of us has times when we feel that our life is just too much
for us, and we cannot keep going. But we do. And one of the reasons we
are able to keep going is that we have a faith--however strong or weak
it may be--that there is a God who cares for us, who loves us and has a
purpose for our life.
Each of
us, I believe, chooses to come to this church because it is a place
where that faith is strengthened; where we gain new insights; where we
restock our supply of spiritual ammunition so that we can go out and
face the challenges of our life once again.
He trains my hands for
war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
You have given me the shield of your salvation,
And your right hand has supported me;
Your help has made me great.
This is
certainly one of the reasons we continually choose to rejoin this
church, to renew our commitment to this church as our spiritual home. We
do not come here just because it is a habit, but because our church and
our Lord sustain us in a vital way. We come here to renew our faith, so
that the Lord can protect us from spiritual harm and help us to carry
burdens that would crush us if we tried to carry them on our own.
This
church is a special place for us. It keeps us going; it sustains us; it
gives us company and community; it teaches us and inspires us; and most
of all, it keeps us in touch with our Lord and our God, Jesus Christ,
who knows all our joys and our sorrows, and shares them all with us. Our
church gives us a place to stand that will never fail us. To complete
the passage from the Psalm,
You gave me a wide place
for my steps under me,
And my feet did not slip.
These are
some of the reasons we come to this church, continually rejoin it, even
give up our Sunday mornings to be here instead of relaxing out in the
yard or down at the beach or in front of the TV. We come here because
this church gives us something we can get nowhere else. And for each of
us, that something is a little different.
As we
look within ourselves and realize why we come to this church, the
reasons we find are the very same reasons why others might want
to come to this church. We do not come here just to fill the pews and
make sure there is someone to hold down the church. We come here because
of the spiritual benefits and the spiritual companionship that we find
here. And that is exactly why others will come. As we see what light it
is that shines from this church and draws us to it, we have found the
light that will draw others here as well.
Our
challenge is not so much to figure out ways to make our church grow, as
it is to discover and feel very deeply what it is that brings us
here, and to hold that out for others to see. Our church will grow as
each one of us recognizes what it does for us, and as we feel the desire
to share with others the light and the strength that we gain from our
church--for there are many people out there who are seeking the light
that we have found in our church. We can shine our light for others to
see. If we shine it with love and with concern and with respect and with
joy, people will be drawn to the light. Once again, as Jesus says,
You are the light of the
world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting
a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives
light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine
before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to
your Father in heaven.
Amen.
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