Daily Archives: October 6, 2013

Fr. Philip Sang: Life Turned Upside Down

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Sermon delivered on Trinity 19C, Sunday, October 6, 2013, at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

Click here to listen to this powerful sermon.

Lectionary texts: Lamentations 1.1-6; Psalm 137.1-9; 2 Timothy 1.1-14; Luke 17.5-10.

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was born in a log cabin in 1866. He experienced a conversion in his 30’s which led him to become a Methodist pastor. But shortly after becoming a pastor his health began fail. This forced him to leave the pastorate and led to a difficult life of poor health. His life was turned upside down. At age 75 looking back over his long life he saw not the numerous health problems that had plagued him, but the blessings that he had received from God each day. To celebrate his blessed life Chisholm wrote a poem. Join me in singing the first verse:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

The book of Lamentation  is a series of poems of inexpressible sadness, raw pain, and deep sorrow. Jeremiah, as most attribute this to him, put into words Israelites experience of living through enormous public and personal suffering as their home city of Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C. For the Israelites, that city was the focus of dreams and hopes, the sign of God’s presence, the promise of Gods fidelity to them; its hills, its Temple, its walls and gates all spoke to travelers and residents alike of what they treasured. And now the place was gone, and they wept. They wept for being invaded, for their national identity and security damaged; they wept for abandonment by their kings; they wept for old ones killed and unburied; they wept for children dead in the streets. They wept for all the questions shouted, sighed, and whispered to God that the heavens did not answer.

In the midst of all this Jeremiah was having a really bad day. His mind was racing through all that he had been through. He was focused on his own problems which were many and he was fighting despair, His life had turned upside down.

I remember in the year 2005 when my life had turned upside down. My Father, God bless his heart, complained of not feeling well for quite some time even after receiving medication in the existing clinic in the neighborhood. I decided to take him for medical checkup in a better hospital, where he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor that was in his stomach. This was an indication that his life was not going to last long. My father and the entire family were devastated and heartbroken. Our lives were upside down. We desperately needed God’s intervention.

I remember another time also when my father in-law went drinking the whole day and at around midnight when he was going home he fell on a cliff and he was rushed to the clinic and after examination it was found out that his spine was broken and the Nurse said there was nothing they could do and that he just had few weeks to live. Philarice and the family needed friends to comfort them because their life had turned upside down. My wife needed someone to sit with her in waiting as the hours passed.

Have you ever experienced your life being upside down? I am sure most of us have at one time or another. But even if it has never happened to you or your family it happens every day in places like Syria, Sudan, Gaza and Iraq. The epidemic of HIV/AIDs turns lives upside down for millions of people and their families.

In today’s psalm the psalmist sings of the destruction of Jerusalem from the people’s perspective, their lives have been turned upside down they are longing for their home, though the home no longer exists. The last verse, however, speaks to the very human desire to have revenge, even to kill children and infants. It is a horrible verse, speaking to the horrible desire that we as human beings can have and the actions we are capable of.

When our lives turn upside down we may be angered and we try to pray so hard to God, however sometimes our prayers seem to fall on deaf hears. Is God deliberate in not answering prayers or maybe our prayers never reach God? This is the biggest fear of Christians, that our prayers never find their way to God. But listen to Jeremiah’s great reversal, “but this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” In the middle of Jeremiah’s life turning upside down he began singing “Great is Thy Faithfulness”. He did this because his mind was turned from his own upside down life to the faithfulness and love of God who hears every prayer.

Jeremiah knew that God already knows the prayers that are written on our hearts. God’s love was not dependant on things getting better and better. God’s love did not depend on our hard work or our success. Jeremiah knew that the Hebrews would never be cut off from God’s love because God’s love only depends on God’s faithfulness which never ends.

We can’t earn this love. There is nothing we ever do to deserve it. Jeremiah tells it just shows up every day. Who of us by our hard work made the sun rise this morning? How much did you pay for the air in your lungs? Who of us deserves the love we receive from the person closest to us? None of us do. we receive God’s love by God’s mercy, a free gift of God’s grace.

So when our lives turn upside down what should we do? Jeremiah says to wait patiently. Just wait in silence waiting for God to act. It is only while waiting in silence that our souls go looking for God. Waiting is after all the only thing you can do when your life turns upside down. But in the silence, God reminds you of your hopes and dreams and the blessings you have received throughout your life. On our retreat somebody said you will find God everywhere but in comfort. When we think all is done God manifest himself.

The Hebrews in exile were richly blessed by God. After a Sabbatical rest of 70 years they were permitted to return and rebuild their city and God’s temple. The one blessing God withheld from them was having their own king. But they were filled with the hope of the faithfulness of God. So they longed for the day when God would fulfill his promise and restore David’s kingdom. They waited and hoped for 400 years for a descendant of David to return as the messiah. God is faithful. Around 4BC a descendant of David was born, not as the king of an earthly kingdom, but as the king of the heavenly Kingdom of God. In Jesus Christ all of God’s promises were fulfilled to those who had waited and hoped. Great is God’s faithfulness.

Paul’s greeting and opening exhortation in the second letter to Timothy that we read today says: Remember who you are, rekindle the gift in you, don’t be afraid. There is no shame in suffering when it comes from trusting and obeying the Lord. As the Gospel put we are going through what we ought to as slaves. We are obedient to the call we received.

Let us focus on God’s faithfulness when our lives are turned upside down and our faith in him will be strengthened. As we conclude let us sing Thomas’ poem prayerfully as we meditate on how great the faithfulness of God is when we feel hopelessness surrounding us.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Refrain

In the Name of the Father the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dayton Daily News: Kasich Surprises with Social Agenda

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Received via email.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of our governor. His critics simply do not know what they are talking about and one suspects they also do not know what they are missing. This is exactly what a person’s faith ought to lead to, irrespective of one’s work, vocation, or station in life.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has surprised some people with a first-term agenda that called for expanding Medicaid to serve more poor people, improving mental health services, giving ex-cons a second chance and rescuing women and children enslaved by human traffickers.

The positions seem more the wish list of a social worker than a hard-nosed conservative Republican politician who used to work on Wall Street. And the Medicaid expansion in particular is strongly opposed by many members of his party.

Kasich’s close friends and the governor himself say a deep Christian faith is driving him to take these positions. Critics say Kasich is pandering to voters, and his likely opponent in next year’s governor’s race, Democrat Ed FitzGerald, accuses him of paying mere lip service to the Medicaid expansion while doing little to sway GOP leaders in the General Assembly to follow his lead.

But while some may question his actions, few would have predicted he would become such a vocal advocate for expanding Medicaid, a program often targeted by Republicans as wasteful. And Kasich has raised eyebrows with the way he has urged support, often peppering his comments with references to God, life after death and his own religious experience.

University of Akron political scientist John Green, a national expert on politics and religion, said it is common place for politicians to speak in general terms about religion. But Kasich “also puts these faith-based arguments in a policy context, advancing his particular agenda,” he said. “And that is a little bit unusual.”