Ten and Ten

Today is a two-part appeal of faith to the community of the First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy.  The first is an appeal of attendance.  There are many in our church family.  I am requesting and praying in faith that we see ten of our community return to worship with us.  Do I mean every Sunday?  Well, a pastor can dream.  No, a return to church for more than one Sunday over the next couple of months.

Well, what if we have kids?  Two things.  The first will be a children’s sermon during worship.  The second will be a commitment to some time after church with family and pastor for faith based, kid-friendly activities (the only reservations being on a couple of holiday Sundays).  What is that going to look like?  It is going to look like something customized to the kids coming with their family.

Do the kids count toward the ten?  Absolutely.  But I would like to have way more than ten.

Who will you find when you come to worship?  The Present Ten.  We have a cadre of the faithful who are there, pardon the pun, faithfully.  Come and join us.  

Will attendees get a sticker or something?  I do not know.  That is not the kind of thing God has gifted me to excel at.  But if there is someone reading this who is so inspired, absolutely. Please reach out to me so we can coordinate this.

Ten and ten.  The second ten is Ten Thousand.  $10,000.  We have roof repairs to get done that will bring our church back into the usual market for insurance instead of the excess and surplus market, where we currently lie.  It will mean a savings of that much or more to the insurance bill of the church.  But we do not have that money all up front. 

So this is an appeal to fix the roof.  $10,000 is a guesstimate based on past work.  But inflation is killing us, so generosity is our desire.  This is your church, this is our church.  Please contact me, Pastor Peter, if you have any questions.  The church does not exist in a vacuum.  The building is a gorgeous house for the people who are the reality of our church and congregation.  We need your support to make it good, better, and best.

Ten and ten.

According to our church’s constitution, members of a church are marked by those who participate in the work and worship of the place.  I am asking for you to join us in this endeavor.  This is the day, this is the house that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

Homespun Theology: The Letter of James

“Count it all joy that you meet various trials…”  So James begins the body of his letter.  His is one of the Pastoral Letters, to be distinguished from the Pauline Letters. The first difference is that it is not by Paul, which the Pauline Letters are.  The second is that it is not as specific as the letters of Paul.  Paul’s letters are to places and people, the churches in Rome, Corinth, and so on or to Timothy or Titus.  James addresses his letter “To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion…”

What that means is the twelve tribes of the Jews who are scattered across the Roman Empire and beyond.  We can get a sense of the Dispersion from the story of Pentecost in Acts 2. If we take the list of places the Jews are said to have from to the city of Jerusalem and plot them on a map, we will see the dispersal both in and outside of the Roman empire. 

Our focus in July is on the ‘homespun’ theology of James.  ‘Homespun’ has two meanings.  The first, more literal, meaning is “course, handwoven cloth”, like something "pioneer" women would create to clothe their families.  But it also means “simple and unsophisticated”.  This can be used negatively, essentially calling someone a simpleton for what they say.  But “simple and unsophisticated” can also be a counter to complex and excessive.  Put it together with “theology”, whose working definition in this blog is “thinking about God” and what we have in James is “simple and unsophisticated thinking about God.”

So why is it a good thing, something to be counted for joy, when I have met various trials? 

First, we need to recognize that, in the New Testament, there are trials and there are trials.  On the one hand, there are the trials that Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians 11 that lead him to boast in the faith:

 “Five times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.  Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned.  Three times I have been shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

That is not what James is speaking of, not the “Christ-preaching” trials of potential death that was the lot of the apostles.  Rather, James says “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproaching, and it will be given.”  These are not the trials of people persecuted for the faith, these are trials of people trying to live the faith in a world of sin. 

The reality James is speaking of is our world of faith where we are constantly barraged by the trials and temptations of sin.  There is what love calls for and there is what feels good here and now.  Why is there joy in these trials?  Because in these trials, the power of God has the opportunity to act in our lives.  We have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  Where do we experience the reality of this new faith?  In the power of our Savior to overcome the trials of the world.  In the practical realities of overcoming sin with good.  Of celebrating that there is an enemy, a trial of heart and attitude, that has been overcome by our Lord Jesus. 

The joy is not the trial, the joy is the trial overcome.  The joy is the power of Christ coming out in our lives.  The joy is in the victory of God’s love.  The joy is that new life has come, and we are actually seeing it lived out now.  Amen and hallelujah.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Anger with Our God and Anger WITH Our God

David’s anger in Psalm 35 is anger with our God, supported by God.  What I mean by that is David is inviting the Lord alongside his anger, to give to the Lord the responsibility for the vengeance and payback that David believes these enemies so desperately need.

This is different, in how I have entitled this Feed, as Anger WITH Our God.  “WITH” is to indicate that God is the focus of our anger, not the accompaniment in our anger.  Getting mad at God, that is something that exists.  People who have prayed desperately for the ungiven miracle can lash out.  Our neighbors who have been castigated and shamed by people-sometimes sinful and sometimes well meaning-who claim to speak in God’s Name can lash out at the Divine. 

Psalm 35 does not really drift into that territory.  If we think through the events that have led to Psalm 35, if we reflect on what might have been happening in the life of David to provoke such words of vengeance upon his enemies, his anger is seeking the Lord to be with him, to come alongside that anger.  But what if God had another plan?  Another way of dealing with things?  A different outcome?  Could David have gotten angry WITH God, anger directed at the Lord?  Would he have been too ashamed to write a Psalm for that? 

What is behind getting angry at God?  I would give it the name ‘doubt’.  God did not do what we prayed for-we doubt God’s power.  God has been portrayed by his “faithful followers” as a mean, judgmental, being-we doubt God’s love.  God has taken our loved one from us too soon-we doubt God’s mercy.  For me, getting angry at God was like getting angry at my parents when I was growing up.  I got angry, but to express it brought shame-“how could I?”-and retribution-especially since that anger was coupled with acting out.  A healthy manner of expression, naming the emotion and sharing that, it was not in the way our family did things.  That is neither good nor bad, it is just how it was.

Getting angry WITH God, at God, it falls in that same category.  It is something that is not done.  Because its God.  And God is loving, which presupposes that anger at God is then unfair, unwarranted, and just plain sinful.  Well, yes, yes, and yes.  But, precisely because we are sinners, getting mad at God can ultimately be healthy for our souls.  Wait, what?  But anger is a matter of doubting God.  This is true, but the problem is not that so much as it has been deemed an inappropriate form of doubt.

We saw doubt in David’s prayer in Psalm 42.  Best he could manage was that he would see God’s grace again at sometime in the future, because in the moment, not so much.  In times of extreme sadness and depression, doubt will enter in.  Our faith is that God will see us through that time and we will again praise the Lord.  Anger, taken to God, is our doubt of the Lord, taken to the Lord. 

The popular perception of anger is probably expressed best by Yoda.  He said “Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to suffering.”  Yoda’s solution was “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”  So, don’t fear.  It sounds like he is telling us not to love anything, because then it will have no value to us, nothing to provoke a fear of loss.

There are a couple of presuppositions of our faith that take us in a different direction.  The first is that God is love.  The second is that God is all-powerful.  Fear can spring from doubt, doubt in our God’s love and power.  Fear, anger, depression, sadness, all are reactions to doubt.  Bringing it to the Lord opens the way to God’s healing power to overcome our doubt, our fear.  It brings healing power to overcome our anger.  Getting angry WITH our God, at our God, it is a starting point for prayer as surely as any other. 

God’s answer may not be what we expect.  It may not be what we want.  But we are not going to know until we ask, even in anger.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

“Vengeance Is Mine!” Sayeth The Lord-Using This Divine Insurance Policy

Our Psalm for Sunday is Psalm 35. Thus far in the month of June, we have looked at a Psalm of God’s Power, one that crosses emotional states. I have shared Psalm 23 at funeral services but also in the celebration of a miraculous healing. We have looked to triumph in the Lord with Psalm 145. We have shared the Psalm of despair in Psalm 42. All of these are Psalms of David, giving us windows into the emotional power of the psalms through the life of the man who wrote them.

In this Psalm, David is royally ticked off (pun intended). Draw weapons on them Lord!  It appears to be a moment to ‘rage against the machine’, anger at something that is too much for David to handle on his own.  Because, as the king, David had the martial resources to carry out his own anger and vengeance quite handily.

As people who are called upon to ‘love our enemies’, to ask the Lord ‘draw spear and javelin against my pursuers!’ may not seem entirely appropriate.  To speak verse 4 to our Lord Jesus, “Jesus, let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek after my life!” may not easily find its way into our praying repertoire.  In the words of Jesus, as from Matthew 5:11-12, with the Sermon on the Mount, to love our enemy is without condition.  It is Paul who expands upon this in Romans 12.

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him, if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not overcome by  evil, but overcome evil with good.  Heaping burning coals, that is not the language of Jesus, that is the language of the Book of Proverbs, the bible of Jesus.

As a fan of cop shows, I have seen the episode on more than one occasion where there is the ‘crazy’ who kills ‘in God’s name’.  In my recollection, they always seem to get the first part right, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord”.  That is what it says in Romans, quoting Proverbs.  That is the presupposition that leads David to write this Psalm.  Then they mess up completely, “And I am the Lord’s servant! or vengeance!"  That does not reflect our faith, it reflects the show runners trying to score points off our faith.  

Maybe the other best known aphorism, cliché, concerning anger from the Bible is Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”  Thus, the advice to married couples not to go to bed angry.  Paul says that so we “give no opportunity to the devil”.  Feel the feeling, do not sin.  Don’t let your anger lead to vengeance, pray your anger to God to do it instead. 

That offers us a few benefits.  The act of praying for vengeance, of asking the Lord’s intervention gives us the benefit of distance. From Psalm 35:

Vs. 4: “Lord! Let them be put to shame and dishonor…” but…but what if it wasn’t them?  What if I am wrong?  What if I did something I cannot undo in error?  There is a reason we have the legal concept of ‘reasonable doubt’ in this country.  Or the wisdom of “beyond a shadow of a doubt”?  Thus, give it to God.

“Lord! Let them be turned back and confounded…” Maybe that is the ‘official’ prayer, but the subtext prayer, the gut level prayer is “Lord, make me your instrument to turn them back with my fists!!”  The nice way of saying it is that anger can blind us to the consequences of our actions.  The more direct version is that anger can make us do stupid things.  Thus, give it to God.

Vs. 6: “Lord! Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them on!”  I do not know about you, but I get angry FAR more quickly when someone I love has been targeted as opposed to myself.  What if I do something out of my anger that the person I love would never have wanted me to do?  Thus, give it to God.

Vs. 7: “Lord! Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them!”  Is that really who I am?  Who I want to be?  In the moment, maybe, but when I catch my breath?  As people who come to the Lord in prayer to begin with, there is a certain expectation that the power of love would guide our actions.  In the book “On Killing”, David Grossman speaks of the natural instinct we, as humans, have NOT to harm members of our own species.  There are reasons we were created with those instincts.  There is also sin that has corroded the effectiveness of those instincts.  Thus, give it to God. 

Finally, giving it to the Lord gives us the opportunity to follow God’s lead.  Instead of vengeance or violence or some knee jerk reaction, is there an ongoing, systemic response that can lead to change instead of ‘payback’, prevention and resilience instead of ‘balancing the scales’, achieving justice instead of some misguided notion of ‘imposing justice’?  I believe there is.  Be angry, but love anyway.  Start with the Lord to get you there.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

What Is The Most Intense Prayer in the Bible?

What is the most intense prayer in the Bible?  David’s words in Psalm 42 and 43, they are up there certainly.  In my experience of the Bible, I do not think this most intense prayer is in the Psalms.  I think it comes from our Lord Jesus.  It was in the lead up to his own death on the cross, in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In one of the gospel accounts, it goes so far as to describe that Jesus was sweating blood because of the pain in his desperate outreach to God.

What is the wind up to that prayer?  “Thy will be done.”  Jesus is asking for the cup of wrath to be passed from him, but that is not the Plan.  That is not how God is going to redeem humanity.  Now, a presupposition in our faith is that our God is a loving God.  But if I am going to take the witness of Jesus seriously, I need to acknowledge the cruelty of what is happening here.  

Why do we need to be witnesses to a prayer of such pain and depth of feeling to a God who can do anything?  I think it is because it has never been enough to tell us, as humans, anything.  It is as simple as the story about the child warned by their parents not to touch the stove.  The pull to touch the stove is intense.  The history of faith we have in the Bible of Jesus, in the Hebrew Bible, is filled with examples of people who would not simply listen to God. 

God went through such extremes to get through to us.  I must presuppose that God did this because this is what is necessary to get through to us.  Yes, that sounds like circular reasoning, but it would not take a lot of review and reflection on our history as a species to understand that we are capable of some pretty extreme behavior, obscenely graphic and cruel behavior.  But, maybe even worse, is how capable we are, as a species, to gloss over or justify such behavior.  That is where Holocaust deniers prove the point. It is through this capacity that God must break through to get us to truly pay attention.

Maybe the worst thing that the sinful world has presented to humanity is the capacity NOT to care.  This capacity to deny the evil and destructiveness that surrounds us.  And it is not something we try to do, something we seek.  We can simply close our hearts to the world around us.  We can turn off the news, we can deny the reality of a world being ground down into uselessness, we can deflect and blame "those", other, people.

The alternative is to rip off the bandage of our denial and allow, into our souls, the full force of the knowledge that we are a cruel species on a dying planet.  What kind of heart-rending effort will be needed to cut through the denial and dare to love the world, to save the world?  Funny we should ask.  Because in the Garden of Gethsemane, we have our Lord Jesus praying just such a prayer.  The burden of salvation of the world was upon his shoulders.  It was a cruel thing God tasked him with.  And he ripped open his soul to feel the weight of that burden, to confront his denial.  But, in God’s power, he overcame his denial.  And he overcame sin to bring salvation to the world.

It may seem impossible that just one of us or one community of us could possibly, truly, make a difference.  It may seem a cruel thing God has tasked us with, to save the world.  But, in God’s power, we can overcome our denial.  And bring God’s power to the world.  But Jesus shows us the way to pray to that need.  If we are willing.

Peace,

Pastor Peter 

Warning: Today’s Bible Story Contains Adult Themes That May Not Be Suitable for All Audiences

Absalom was the most attractive of David’s sons, apparently known for his luxurious head of hair (that would be the death of him). Early on, he had been involved in a very controversial time in the royal household. His elder brother by another mother, Amnon, was dead at his hand. This is the result of the unique “soap opera” qualities of the household of King David. He was the father of many children by many wives. It seems there was competition between the sons of different mothers but great closeness between the siblings of the same mother.

In this case, Amnon had a deep crush on Absalom’s full sister Tamar. It was so deep that he eventually lured her in to his bedroom and raped her. Then, in the way of men, he blamed her for his behavior and drove her out. Again, in the way of men, she was ‘ruined’. Her worth was so completely defined by men that she, knowing she was now ‘damaged’ goods, begged her rapist to “do right by her” and marry her. And he refused. He drove her own. She found refuge in the house of her brother Absalom. In the course of time, Absalom took revenge for the virtue of his sister and killed his brother. 

Now we return to the attractiveness of the boy, and that he was one of the eldest sons of King David. As we have said before, being the oldest was not the defining virtue of being the king’s heir, but it carried much weight. Amnon seemed to be in that role, which now fell to Absalom-except for fact he’d killed his brother. It put David in a quandary. As the king, he should punish his kin-slaying son, but he loved Absalom. So he did not punish him, but he ignored him, to appease a public view of things. Thus, Absalom had no idea where he stood with his father. Was there a death penalty hanging over his head? Was he forgiven?

Absalom was exiled for awhile but then brought back to the capital, but still with this mixed message. Was all forgiven? What was going on? What is a King’s son supposed to do? After all, there were nineteen of them, well, eighteen with Amnon’s death. What is a shamed son of the king supposed to do? 

It looks like he sought to find his way back into favor by practicing kingship. He set himself up outside the palace to hear cases that were being brought to the capital to be heard by the king. My guess is that this appealed to King David. It was his son showing initiative, setting the stage where the public face of their relationship, the one where Absalom was a kin-slayer, an heir-slayer, could be covered over. 

He trusted Absalom, likely had pride in his son who was digging into the work of kingship to make the nation a better place, to learn the ways of leadership, to aid his father-maybe to win his approval and forgiveness. 

And Absalom used the principles of government, of leadership, of kingship, to put himself into a position of authority. And then he betrayed his father. Absalom used his charisma, his charm, his good looks-all the things that David so loved in the boy-on the people. He gained enough popular support to turn on his father. Forced him to flee Jerusalem with his loyal retainers and run for his life. Absalom started a civil war. 

From the machinations of the soap opera that was David’s household that led to Amnon’s unpunished rape of his sister, to the vengeance wrought by Absalom, to the divided loyalties that David had, sending Absalom a message that his father wanted him close by to keep an eye on him because his dad never sought him out to, I don't know, tell his son he loved him? This led to the rise in power in which Absalom overthrew his father-at least for a time, that is where we come to Psalm 42 (according to the tradition of when it was written).

David is alone and afraid, laughed at and on the run, abandoned by his people and, apparently, by God. And from it, Psalm 42 and 43? This is a second tale of circumstances that I have offered to set the stage for Psalm 42. In the biblical record, the story of Bathsheba precedes that of Amnon and Absalom, so regret piling on regret is feeding what we have in our Psalm this week. 

This is the heart of anguish and, as things were yet unresolved, of hope unfulfilled. What David has given us is one of the most heartfelt passages for our own most tragic and alone moments. “Put your hope in God”, says David at the conclusion, “For I will yet praise Him…” He is not in a position to praise God in the moment, but his belief is that it will come again. But the final power of our God is more than this. We can be so broken, so hurt, so anguished, that we may not even be able to dare to hope anymore. But when we fail, that is when God is more powerful for us. Even if we do not believe, the truth is as David says, “My Savior and My God.”

Peace,

Pastor Peter

So Let Me Tell You the Story of One of The Bible’s Most Accomplished Sinners

I am talking about King David. What made him so accomplished as a sinner was how he did so as an abuse of his power as king, as God’s own anointed king, to replace the "bad" king who came before him.

 What do I mean by that? Well, his army was off to war (and he was not leading in the field, unusual for that way of doing things). That left him with the ongoing distraction of waiting for news from ‘the front’ while he was in Jerusalem. While there were always things to keep a king busy, waiting for news of the unknown has a way of dampening the desire and efficacy of doing the activities of daily living, even for a king.

Now, Jerusalem is built on top of a ridgeline, so the language in the Bible of going ‘up’ to Jerusalem is both metaphorically and geologically true. David’s palace (this is before the temple) was the high point in the City, so he too was up (setting aside any discussions of God’s representative as king and matters of kingly ego). But it meant he could look down on the City.

In one of these times where I imagine him walking away from the boring duties of king, going out to look to the gates to see if there was word from ‘the front’, he looked down over the City instead and committed adultery in his heart. He saw Bathsheba bathing on what she thought was the privacy of her own rooftop.

Now begins the abuse of his power. He has her brought to the palace, despite finding out she is a married woman because “it is good to be the king”. What choice does she truly have to resist his advances? The result is that she gets pregnant. So we have a problem. Her husband is away at the front. But David is king, so he has power to create a coverup.

He sends for her husband, Uriah the Hittite. The plan is simple, make him drunk, send him home, get him into bed with his wife, and he is now the father. If he doesn’t remember? Well, he was drunk, but home on leave. What else could have happened? David is the king and can move his soldiers around as he sees fit. Except there is problem. Uriah is on duty. While the army is in the field, he will not return home. He will stay ‘on call’, and out of his marital bed, at the palace.

This stalemates David for a little while, but he is the king. Conspiracy is the fun that makes ruling worthwhile. He sends Uriah back to the front with his own death warrant. The warrant tells Joab, David’s commanding General, to put Uriah in the front of the fighting and then fall back, leave him exposed to the enemy.

Now it should be said that in the books of Chronicles, Uriah the Hittite is mentioned as one of David’s elite, a general in the king’s army. Unlike David, who hung back in Jerusalem, he led from the front. So it’s easy to carry out David’s plan. Uriah was pushed to the front in an assault on the walls of the city they were besieging, the rest of the troops fell back, and Uriah was left in the open to be cut down by archers on the wall.

To bring this sordid story to a close, Joab sent word back confirming the conspiracy. It was what is probably a normal combat report, with Uriah’s name being highlighted from the casualty list. David, in fact, sends word of support back to Joab on the loss of one of his fighting generals. David then brings Bathsheba into the palace in what has to be an obscenely short of amount of time into her grieving process so they can carry of the charade that she was not already pregnant.

But he is the king, so who is really going to take him to task? Well, except for God. The consequence for David in all of this is that the baby dies. In an effort to appease God, David goes into mourning. He will not eat, he will not do anything but grieve before the Lord. It is so bad, his servants are afraid to tell him that the baby died, probably fearing he would harm himself. But David did not get to be king without being able to read people. He senses something is up and asks. When he finds out the baby died, he took some food and reentered life.

His grief was not so much self-destructive as it was desperate in his desire to change God’s mind.

What if these are the circumstances that shape the writing of Psalm 42? This coming Sunday, we look to the Psalm from the heart of grief. In this moment in David’s life, there are a few things that have come together. The first, I hope, is the realization just how far he has gone from God’s expectations of him to act in love and grace and for the people of God with whom David has been put in charge. Thou shalt not murder; Uriah. Thou shalt not steal; Uriah’s wife. Thou shalt not commit adultery; Bathsheba. Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife…

Secondly, conspiracy depends upon secrecy. That is what makes it so tantalizing for the rest of us. But Joab knows (or will figure it out when he gets back), but David probably assumed he could control the narrative and his commanding General. But now Nathan, God’s prophet, knows. Will the whole kingdom find out? This is the kind of conspiracy that might be expected to bring a figure of great power down. If not, it will make him a laughing stock. History has shown us men’s egos are fragile, especially those in power. I do not just mean characters like Stalin or Hitler. Look at John Adams, our Second President. Look at the McCarthy hearings.

Finally, consider the personal consequences. It is not so much that David lost a son. He did, but, in my modern sensibilities, it is rather disgusting to read about how many other sons he had by how many other women (but he married them or made them concubines so that’s okay). In fact, Nathan points out in downright insulting language (which I will not repeat here, but you are welcome to look to the book of 2 Samuel to see what he said) concerning women about how Uriah had only the one wife compared to all David’s wives. The treatment of women in the time of David was an all-inclusive horror.

I wonder if something else is going on here besides personal consequences. Now, in light of the coronation of King Charles III, we have been reminded that the ‘normal’ practice of royal succession is the eldest son. This has been highlighted by the slow movement into the modern era of doing away with the gender specificity of the line of succession. That is a modern thing-being the oldest (gender not mattering, that is ultra-modern in our world's sensibilities). Being the eldest might have carried weight in the time of David, but it was not the deciding factor on who would be king.

It is Solomon who becomes king. even though Solomon is very far down in line of the king’s sons. He is second-born of Bathsheba. What if one of David’s ways of playing favorites among his wives is promising that his ‘favorite’ wife will have her son on the throne? That he was desperate for the child to live so that Bathsheba would still like him. And yes, if things were that petty in the royal household, it is still something that God can work with in the unfolding of God's plan.

Maybe David is just as human as the rest of us as he pens the words of Psalm 42. Maybe he can be just as petty as we can. I would say he can be just as sinful as the rest of us, but as the king, he had the power to take his sinning up a few notches (and he did). But he is still enough of God’s child to come to our Father in heaven with some of the most intense words of personal grief that we will find in the bible.

May the prayers from his brokenness give us the permission to come to the Lord in our own brokenness.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

Praying the Psalms in the Name of Jesus

We began the experiment back on June 8, with Psalm 23. Rewrite the Psalm, or better, re-frame the Godly center of the Psalm, on Jesus. How would that read in today’s world?  This past Sunday, our Psalm of David was Psalm 145, a song of praise, a prayer of celebration to what the Lord has accomplished.

So, for worship this week, I attempted once again to re-frame the Godly center of this Psalm upon Jesus. It is not an attempt to replace God the Father. Rather, I humbly seek to follow God’s plan, to the center we have in Jesus. What speaks to me so powerfully in the words of David is how God has inspired them to be so reflective of Jesus and what our Lord has accomplished among us. 

What follows are the words to Psalm 145, a Psalm of David, sung in celebration of the power and accomplishment of our Lord. How God has chosen to accomplish God’s work is in Jesus, so seek out Jesus in these beautiful words of triumph:

Psalm 145

I will extol (praise enthusiastically!) you, my God and King, and bless Your name forever and ever because You have given us the gift of Jesus.  2Every day I will bless You, and praise Your name forever and ever, for in Jesus, I have been saved from my sins.  3Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.  4One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts, as the generations of the church pass from Pentecost down to us.

5On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate, on all that the Lord Jesus has accomplished.  6The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness, for the death and resurrection of Jesus are the free gift to restore all humanity as children of our God.

7They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness, and we join in the worship and celebration of Jesus today.  8The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, so steadfast in His love that He gave His life for us.  9The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made, that He surrendered himself to death, even death on the cross, for our sakes.

10All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you.

11They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power, for all that You did for us while You walked among us in the time of the gospels and how you continue to walk among us in the Holy Spirit; 12to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom, as we go forth to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

13Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations, from creation to the day you return to us again, and forever.  The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds.  14The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. 

15The eyes of all look to you, and you, dear Jesus, give them their food in due season.  16You, our Lord Jesus Christ, open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.  17The Lord Jesus  is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.  18The Lord Jesus is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.  19Jesus fulfills the desire of all who fear him; Jesus also hears their cry, and saves them.  20The Lord Jesus watches over all who love him, but all the wicked Jesus will judge and destroy.  21My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

The Psalms: A Broad View and a "How To"

This is God’s Word. As with all of Scripture, it is foundational and speaks with power to our faith. Maybe more powerfully if we have a deeper sense of what it is. 

In this case, it, the Book of Psalms, is 150 chapters long, including both the longest and shortest chapters in the entire bible. The book was written by a bunch of folks, mostly David (at 73 psalms), but includes entries by Moses and Solomon. Some are anonymous. The longest chapter is Psalm 119, at 176 verses. What is interesting about this Psalm, aside from its length, is its focus. Every verse, except for 4, mentions the law and how it is to be celebrated (yes, it might be debatable that what I call 'interesting' actually qualifies). 

To complete the thought, the shortest chapter is Psalm 117, all of two verses.

It is called the hymnbook of the Bible, as well as the Prayer book. It appears to be the deliberate gathering of liturgical elements for worship at the Temple and in the lives of the people. “Liturgical elements” in Christian worship include things like the Lord’s Prayer, our hymns, other elements that have a pre-written form. “Liturgy” is a fancy way of referring to the order in which things occur in a worship service.

In the Christian church, the book of Psalms falls into the first part of our Bible, what we call the “old” testament, the “old” covenant, which speaks to us of how God interacted with God’s people before the coming of Jesus. His tenure in our lives and its effects upon the world are in the “new” testament, the “new” covenant. We have 66 “books” in the library that we call the Bible of which the book of Psalms is one.

The “old” testament is the bible of our Lord Jesus and the early church.  It might be better termed the “Hebrew” bible given its language and the cultural group that it emerges from. The bible often identifies Jews by the term “Hebrews” when they are being referred to by outsiders. 

We divide the Old Testament into 39 books. We broadly categorize them as “law”, “history”, “poetry”, and “prophecy.  The writers of the Hebrew Bible categorized it differently.  They spoke of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The law is the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, written by Moses. The Prophets are inclusive of what we call the ‘Histories’ as well as the ‘Prophets’. Then there are the ‘Writings’, one might consider this category to be ‘the rest that don’t fit our other categories’. This includes what we might designate the Poetry, Job, Proverbs, Psalms, and a few others. 

For those who have the spiritual discipline of regular bible reading, the usual method is to start at the beginning of a book and read through. Most of the books of the Bible will flow with this system. Historical accounts, like the histories and the gospels, they work well with this. Others, like the named Prophets, their prophecies may be more individual units, not always following a ‘historic’ framework, but often chronological. Paul’s letters, again, not history, often track a progression of his thoughts. 

For the Psalms, this kind of discipline is a little harder. Next time you are around a song book, pick it up and try to read it through. It could be a hymn book at the church or a song book of Disney favorites, the design of the book is not to be a chronology. The songs are to be drawn out as appropriate for given situations. So it is with the Psalms. To read them one after another can get redundant, because their structures and forms are of a type to stand alone or to be drawn into a systematized listing for worship. 

It is 150 chapters, so daily for 5 months. Want a devotional reading idea? Pair a Psalm with another chapter from a chronological system of Bible reading. Prayer and Scripture, perfect together.  Until you hit Psalm 119, all one hundred and seventy six verses of it.  No worries, it comes two days after Psalm 117, 2 verses and out. 

This is God’s Word. It speaks powerfully to us. I hope that having this thumbnail sketch of the Psalms will make them even more powerful in our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

A Psalm of David, A Psalm for Us

 Jesus is my shepherd; I shall want for nothing. 

My precious Lord makes me lie down in green pastures; Jesus, He leads me beside still waters; my beloved Savior restores my soul.

For the sake of Jesus’ Blessed Name, I am led in paths of righteousness.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for You, who died for me on Calvary, are with me; Your rod and Your staff-they comfort me.

You, who fed the 5000, prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You, who rose again to set me free, You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows with the Living Waters You promised, so I shall never thirst again.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell where my Jesus has gone to prepare a place for me, in the house of the Lord, forever.

 

We know this Psalm so well.  I know that when I read it, I implicitly make the jump to Jesus in the truth of these words.  Because this is who Jesus is.  He fulfilled what came before.  A principle of  Biblical interpretation is to seek Jesus on every page.  So here is a somewhat different application of interpreting in regards to our Lord.

Let us take what David, Jesus’ great great great (too many ‘greats’ to list without truly sounding silly) grandfather, has written and let us make things explicit. Let us make it about Jesus. And not simply as a pronoun swap.  By who He was and what He did, Jesus is our Savior.  So I offer you this refocusing of the Psalm.  I pray it will instill these favorite, familiar words with fresh meaning and renewed power.

 

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Emerging From Our Cocoon

 

For Communion this past Sunday, we did something we have not done in years. We shared the body of Christ as bread cut and cubed for people to take. We shared the blood of Christ as grape juice in open, actually cups for people to take. As two separate offerings. Without masks. Without distancing. For the longest time in the pandemic, we did not share public worship at all. For an even longer time, we used the “pandemic packets” for our celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

The ”pandemic packets” are ‘all-in-ones’, peel back the first tab for the wafer and the second for the grape juice in the cup beneath. One was clear, the other was silvery purple. It was safe, it was individualized, it got us through. It was annoying. I do not have the dexterity of fingers to open them without feeling clumsy. 

What we did not do, however, was return to our previous mode of serving. It was the practice of our church that people would remain in their seats and servers would come with the bread and the cup in turn. Since the pandemic, we do not have the numbers or the organization to accomplish that.

For us at First Presbyterian in Perth Amboy, the pandemic was the second in a ‘one-two’ combo over the last few years. Before the pandemic, we moved to Westminster Hall for an extended period to remediate the mold and repair the boilers for the Sanctuary. By the grace of God, we had insurance for that, but by the grace of the insurance industry, they dropped us after we used it, citing other repairs to be done.  They can cite what they want, the took our insurance because we used our insurance.

So, we struggle with attendance, we struggle with the financial means to finish some work that would get us a much better insurance deal, we struggle as we look to the future. But we worship the Lord faithfully. What was a tool to worship without gathering, our virtual services, have continued as a means of outreach.

So who are we today as the First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy?  For me, there are three things to define us. We seek to be people who communicate powerfully with our God, committing ourselves to lives of prayer, renewing our connections with the Almighty. We seek to be people who reflect deeply on who are God is, in our heads and in our hearts, drawing together from the Bible, from our experiences, from our traditions to declare for the Lord. We wish to be people who cannot contain this love and grace we have received in Jesus Christ but must carry it to the world.

Join us, support our church in work and in worship. You can give to the church at

First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy

45 Market St.

Perth Amboy, NJ  08861

You can worship with us in person in the sanctuary each Sunday morning at 10am. You can worship with us virtually at our Facebook page, First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy or on our church blog site, https://firstchurchperthamboy.blogspot.com/.  May God bless you and may God bless our church.

Peace,
Pastor Peter