This sermon was preached in chapel services at Grand View University on October 18, 2011, by senior Theatre and Music major Keyla Spahr.
Hi there, if you hadn’t looked down at your bulletin because you were so transfixed by the beautiful song you just heard, I am Keyla Spahr, a senior here at Grand View, double majoring in Theatre Arts and Music. When Dr. Jones asked me this summer to give a sermon in the fall, I was terrified. I was terrified when I read the bulletin last week saying I was preaching today. I was terrified yesterday. In theatre, I am someone else, I can perform the most extreme things, while in here, I’m just Keyla. You see me, not the role I have been taught to play. So I stand before you vulnerable, hoping God speaks to you through my words here today. So here it goes.
The scripture you just heard from Psalm 96 is one I relate to on a very deep level. In May of my sophomore year here, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to travel to Italy and Greece for a May term study abroad trip. While in Greece, our group traveled to many places, like the Acropolis, Naufpleon, the original capitol of Greece, and my favorite of the entire trip, and one of my favorite things I have seen in my lifetime so far, Theatre Epidaurus. This is the most intact theatre in the entire ancient world. I had the exciting chance to be able to perform a monologue and a song in this theatre. The second I stood on the stone piece center stage, I sang my first note, the entire place quieted, and I felt the note hit me. Like punch me right in the face. The acoustics were the best I have ever experienced. I kept singing, as tears rolled down my face, teachers and peers on the trip watching me on my right all the way up at the top of the stone seats, not knowing what was happening to me. On my left were people from a different tour group who barely spoke English. I felt each person breathing with me, seeing what I was seeing, feeling the warm Grecian wind on my back as I sang stronger and stronger. As I reached my final note I held onto it, trying so hard to not forget the moment that I had just had with God. Luckily, when I let go, the memory was still there.
Have you ever had one of those moments, where in everything, God breaks down any wall you could have possibly put up between yourself and Him? He brought me from a world I had always known into a world I had never experienced outside of a textbook. God was in the ancient world of Greece and of the Scriptures just as he is in our present and our future.
Music and Christ has always been that thing I can turn to when the world turns it’s back on me. Truthfully, it’s Christ alone that can heal me in my most awful times when even the songs seem to have no words. Christ has never abandoned. Just as Joseph and Moses were carried in their times of need, God has carried me, given me this wonderful gift to make music and to share music with others. God has brought us into a world that is much different than music and theatre in Ancient Greece performing four hour long tragedies, but a world where we Sing Unto the Lord a New Song.
Sure, I have a lot of decisions ahead of me, grad school, jobs… I have no idea what my new song will be, but I do know that Christ will find a way to let me know I am doing the right thing. Whether it be tears streaming down my face as I sing in front of 25 people from Grand View that didn’t even know my name before the trip and 50 people who don’t even have a clue what words I’m even saying, or some small little sign that will keep me guided, Music and Christ will never fail to keep me going.
I am going to read you the translation of the piece Kantorei sang, Cantate Domino.
O Sing to the Lord a new song,
sing and give praise to his name,
for he has done marvelous deeds.
Sing and exult and praise Him
with harp and the sound of psalms,
for he has done marvelous deeds.
Sound familiar?
So I ask you, what are your old songs, your times that you have experienced God so powerfully that it felt as if He hit you like a ton of bricks? Perhaps, for you guys, it was Junction City, Oregon. I know I felt something more with us that night. Where are the places that Christ sings when you have no words? What are your new songs God is leading you to? The times that haven’t happened yet? Where can you seek God so in turn he may seek you and teach you your new song? I pray that you may hear the songs of the past and hear your own song that Christ is teaching you. Amen.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Confidence in the Garbage Collector
This sermon was preached by Pastor Paul Owens at Grand View University's weekly chapel service on October 4, 2011. It is based on Philippians 3:4b-14. Pastor Owens serves in ministry with the members of St. Paul Lutheran Church in New Braunfels, Texas (http://www.splchurch.org).
Prayer: Gracious and almighty father, thank you for Christ, the one worthy of our confidence, and for Paul’s witness to him. Repent each of us from confidence in the garbage heap of our will…it gets really stinky after all. Please grant unto us faith in Christ – in his death and resurrection – so that we may leave behind our garbage and press on to take hold of that for which he has taken hold of us; in Jesus’ name I ask this. Amen.
Each night when I go to my knees and pray with my family for our two sons off at college, I ask the Lord to give them and their friends humility and confidence for their calling. What is confidence? Perhaps not what you think. Literally, the word means “with faith.” So…where do you put your faith?...Who is the trustworthy one…?
Saul, later and better known as Paul, tells us he has more reason than anyone to put confidence in himself, in his will. “If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.” Then he proceeds to lay out a most impressive resume:
Prayer: Gracious and almighty father, thank you for Christ, the one worthy of our confidence, and for Paul’s witness to him. Repent each of us from confidence in the garbage heap of our will…it gets really stinky after all. Please grant unto us faith in Christ – in his death and resurrection – so that we may leave behind our garbage and press on to take hold of that for which he has taken hold of us; in Jesus’ name I ask this. Amen.
Each night when I go to my knees and pray with my family for our two sons off at college, I ask the Lord to give them and their friends humility and confidence for their calling. What is confidence? Perhaps not what you think. Literally, the word means “with faith.” So…where do you put your faith?...Who is the trustworthy one…?
Saul, later and better known as Paul, tells us he has more reason than anyone to put confidence in himself, in his will. “If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.” Then he proceeds to lay out a most impressive resume:
- Clean cut boy, circumcised on the 8th day, the RIGHT day, the politically correct day according to Jewish law.
- And not just an Israelite, one of the chosen, but from the best family among the tribes of Israel: the Benjamins. Joseph’s little brother, his father’s right-hand man.
- Best confirmation student…Top of his class in Hebrew school and in law school…on the dean’s list every semester.
- Zealous, type “A” leader...kept all 10 commandments and then some.
- As far as rightness, goodness gained according to the law, he was in a word: faultless.
Yep, all the reason in the world to put confidence in himself. But Saul, later and better known as Paul, has been down that road…he’s climbed that ladder…Yertle the Turtle he has made it to the top…and been knocked off by none other than Jesus himself. So he confesses: “whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider all my accomplishments, my righteousness as garbage.”
Here’s what garbage looks like: The gracious maintenance/housekeeping crew agreed to help me preach to you this morning: have a familiar Grand View worker bring out a familiar garbage sack…in volume. What’s in here???)
Paul, the faultless one, the one who has more reason than anyone to put confidence, to put faith in himself, confesses that any and all righteousness of his own, that his own self-improvement projects and spiritual practices, are all garbage. Perhaps you are familiar with one of Al Franken’s old character on Saturday Night Live, “Stuart Smalley” and his “Daily Affirmations”…Stuart would look at the man in the mirror and say: “because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
Paul is not saying that! In fact, this is the best, smartest teacher and keeper of law, confessing: “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord... I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
So what does Jesus do about this?...to free Paul and you and me from the pride that gets us to carry around so much garbage…so much of ourselves and our goodness? Well, he goes and gets himself crucified. Where? Golgotha… Golgotha was the garbage heap outside of the city…today we call them landfills…but then there was no covering up the garbage. There, heaped up high is all of Paul’s righteousness, all of mine, all of yours. All of your attempts to say and to prove “I’m a good person, dog gone it, and isn’t that what matters”…all your efforts to defend your own righteousness… to be a “Home Depot Christian” who says “I can do it, God can help.”…the whole smelly mess is there.
And Jesus, the Garbage Collector, comes along and takes it all…not into his truck, but into himself. When the garbage gets picked up at our house, it never gets touched. The truck comes along with a mechanical arm, in a flash picks up the whole bin, dumps it into the hopper, replaces the empty bin…and drives away. Not so sanitary and safe for Christ. In fact, to dispose of your righteousness, your pride, Jesus has to put his hands all over it, all over you. He rolls up his sleeves and takes you, all your garbage into himself, becomes it, and dies from it…goes to death with it in his body. And then after three days, he rises from death, walks out of the landfill of human righteousness…and gives you HIS righteousness…a free gift.
His righteousness is not a “Christian to do list”…that would only throw you back on the garbage heap of your works. His righteousness is a right relationship with the Lord in he takes hold of you in the sweetest way, the way only the true lover can…and sets you free from proud self…free to cling to him and follow him…and to tell others about him with your lips and your life.
Here’s what garbage looks like: The gracious maintenance/housekeeping crew agreed to help me preach to you this morning: have a familiar Grand View worker bring out a familiar garbage sack…in volume. What’s in here???)
Paul, the faultless one, the one who has more reason than anyone to put confidence, to put faith in himself, confesses that any and all righteousness of his own, that his own self-improvement projects and spiritual practices, are all garbage. Perhaps you are familiar with one of Al Franken’s old character on Saturday Night Live, “Stuart Smalley” and his “Daily Affirmations”…Stuart would look at the man in the mirror and say: “because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
Paul is not saying that! In fact, this is the best, smartest teacher and keeper of law, confessing: “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord... I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.”
So what does Jesus do about this?...to free Paul and you and me from the pride that gets us to carry around so much garbage…so much of ourselves and our goodness? Well, he goes and gets himself crucified. Where? Golgotha… Golgotha was the garbage heap outside of the city…today we call them landfills…but then there was no covering up the garbage. There, heaped up high is all of Paul’s righteousness, all of mine, all of yours. All of your attempts to say and to prove “I’m a good person, dog gone it, and isn’t that what matters”…all your efforts to defend your own righteousness… to be a “Home Depot Christian” who says “I can do it, God can help.”…the whole smelly mess is there.
And Jesus, the Garbage Collector, comes along and takes it all…not into his truck, but into himself. When the garbage gets picked up at our house, it never gets touched. The truck comes along with a mechanical arm, in a flash picks up the whole bin, dumps it into the hopper, replaces the empty bin…and drives away. Not so sanitary and safe for Christ. In fact, to dispose of your righteousness, your pride, Jesus has to put his hands all over it, all over you. He rolls up his sleeves and takes you, all your garbage into himself, becomes it, and dies from it…goes to death with it in his body. And then after three days, he rises from death, walks out of the landfill of human righteousness…and gives you HIS righteousness…a free gift.
His righteousness is not a “Christian to do list”…that would only throw you back on the garbage heap of your works. His righteousness is a right relationship with the Lord in he takes hold of you in the sweetest way, the way only the true lover can…and sets you free from proud self…free to cling to him and follow him…and to tell others about him with your lips and your life.
Let me be clear, this is not a condemnation of doing good works. A lifetime of good works is exactly what Christ has taken hold of you for. Paul speaks here to free you from carry around your good works and putting confidence in them and therefore in yourself. Carrying around a bag full of yourself slows you down from following Jesus…and it’s pretty hard to have my hands free to help my neighbor when I’m holding on to the garbage of my righteousness.
Our confidence is not in our flesh, not in that garbage. Our confidence is “in Christ Jesus, who though he was in his very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! …so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Confidence…I pray for it for my children…and for you…not faith in myself nor yourself. Our faith, our confidence is in Jesus Christ alone…’cause when it is, then we can forget what lies behind and press on “in our calling…to know Christ and be like him in his suffering.” Amen.
Our confidence is not in our flesh, not in that garbage. Our confidence is “in Christ Jesus, who though he was in his very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And…he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! …so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Confidence…I pray for it for my children…and for you…not faith in myself nor yourself. Our faith, our confidence is in Jesus Christ alone…’cause when it is, then we can forget what lies behind and press on “in our calling…to know Christ and be like him in his suffering.” Amen.
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