Sermon Archive

“When in our music God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried: Alleluia!

“So has the church in liturgy and song,
In faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
Borne witness to the truth in every tongue: Alleluia!

“Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always: Alleluia! Amen.”
(vss. 1, 3, 4 of the hymn “When in Our Music God Is Glorified”)

Words from today’s Opening Hymn!

No one now knows what the music in the ancient Israelite temple at Jerusalem sounded like—the temple music exemplified by this morning’s psalms. But if it was anything like today’s first hymn, written by the English Methodist minister Fred Pratt Green to a magisterial tune composed for the Church of England by Charles Villiers Stanford (Engelberg)—if that ancient temple music sounded anything at all like today’s first hymn, then it was truly a piece of heaven come down to earth.

And for nearly 3,000 years, in the sacred spaces where God’s glory dwells and abides—that is, in houses of worship like this one, where God’s presence can be so palpably felt and experienced—people have been giving thanks to God our Creator and Deliverer, thanks accompanied by instruments “tuned for praise,” like our organ of old and our organ that is yet-to-be. In the words of today’s psalm:

“It is good … to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
to declare Your steadfast love … to the melody of the lyre,
to the music of the lute and the harp.…
[A]t the works of Your hands I sing for joy.”
(Psalm 92:1–4, abbreviated and slightly altered in order)

For nearly 3,000 years, people have been gathering in sanctuaries like ours to experience God, to praise God, and to receive from God the gifts that come from above, including the gift longed for in another one of the psalms, Psalm 51—the gift of God’s wisdom:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.…
You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.…
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”
(Psalm 51:1a, 6, 15)

And this same gift, God’s gift of wisdom, is spoken of as well in a Jewish writing that comes roughly from the time of Jesus’s birth—the book entitled “The Wisdom of Solomon,” which says:

“Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me;
I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.”
(Wisdom of Solomon 7:7)

And it is this same gift, the gift of God’s wisdom, that is so vividly described for us in this morning’s Second Lesson from the Book of James, which says: the wisdom that comes from above is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” (James 3:17)

Yes, as we humans, accompanied by instruments “tuned for praise,” sing our songs of joy in sanctuaries here below, we receive from above God’s gift of wisdom, a wisdom that is not so much about processing reason as it is about leading humankind into practices of peace and gentleness, about leading us all into a harvest of righteousness sown in peace. (James 3:13, 17–18) Indeed, it is precisely because of our trust that God is even now bestowing upon us this gift of wisdom that leads to action—it’s because of this trust that we have been able to sing today: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

So all of the songs and scriptural texts that we are using in our service of worship this morning sing of joy and sing of peace. They sing of the joy that comes from experiencing God’s presence in houses of worship like this, and they sing of the peace that comes as the fruit of God’s gift of wisdom.

Now as the Book of James says, this wisdom that comes from above differs radically from the earthly wisdom that is usually shaping our thoughts and actions, the kind of debased wisdom that is focused on personal advantage and selfish ambition and that leads to the wickedness of conflict and strife.

Yes, true wisdom, the wisdom that comes from above, can be readily distinguished from this debased, earthly wisdom by its vastly different fruits. For the fruits of the wisdom that comes from above are the righteousness of gentleness and peace.

When I was on the radio, one of the questions most frequently asked of me was, “Why are religions, which talk of peace, so frequently the cause of violence and warfare?”

Having in mind this text of ours from James, I once answered: humans often perpetrate violence and warfare in the name of religion, in the name of God, but whenever we do so we are falsely labeling as “divine” something that is in reality “human and earthly.” For divine guidance never leads to violence and warfare. The fruit of divine wisdom is always peace and gentleness. Therefore, any calculation that leads to violence and warfare is always some form of debased “wisdom,” rooted in trying to outsmart others and lord it over others. But we often delude ourselves by labeling this kind of worldly “wisdom,” which is born of human sin—by labeling it, quite falsely, as “the will of God,” or as “wisdom come from above.”

So, true religion, religion guided by a wisdom that comes genuinely from above, needs regularly to reassert its fundamental message of peace and gentleness in order to counteract the corruption of religion that is being spread among religions’ adherents across our planet by human fanaticisms claiming falsely to be religious.

This morning, I am happy to report to you that quite a positive step in reclaiming religions’ message of peace and gentleness has recently occurred, although our American media scarcely noticed it. On September 23rd and 24th, more than 120 leaders representing 18 different world and traditional religions gathered in the city of Astana, the capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is a majority Muslim country that practices full religious freedom and includes among its population quite a large number of Orthodox Christians and adherents of some 40 other religions as well.

These 120 leaders met “to condemn terrorism and lay the foundations of an organization … to reduce violent clashes between faiths around the world.” The conclave ended with a series of joint resolutions.

Among other things, the final declaration recognized “the right of each human person to freely … choose, express and practice his/her religion”; it spoke of “inter-religious dialogue as one of the most important instruments for ensuring peace and harmony among peoples and nations”; it condemned “the misrepresentation of religions and the incorrect use of differences among religions as a means for achieving selfish, disruptive and violent goals”; it acknowledged “the serious challenges posed to global stability by poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, … and lack of access to clean water and health care”; and it declared: “That extremism, terrorism and other forms of violence in the name of religion have nothing to do with genuine understanding of religion”; “That the diversity of religious beliefs and practices should not lead to mutual suspicion, discrimination and humiliation but to a mutual acceptance and harmony”; and “That religions must aspire towards greater co-operation, recognizing tolerance and mutual acceptance as essential instruments in the peaceful co-existence of all peoples.”

The leaders concluded by pledging to convene a second Congress in three years’ time.

This is a fine example of religions’ reclaiming their authentic nature, of religions’ reclaiming the truth that God wills that peace and gentleness should reign in our world—reclaiming that truth from amidst the cacophony of so many false voices of fanaticism.

We come now to the Lord’s Supper—this sacred meal of wheat and wine, this banquet of joy shared by Christians of every denomination, this feast which is a fountain of peace for the world.

So, as we gather here today on World Communion Sunday, we can be greatly heartened by the fact that representatives of all the major branches of Christianity—Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic—were signatories to these expressions of peace and gentleness adopted by this first Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

Today, as the sun makes its way around our planet, Christians are celebrating the Lord’s Supper in Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, China, South Korea, North Korea, Tibet, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, the West Bank, Israel, South Africa, Liberia, Colombia, Mexico, the United States, and Samoa.

Today, as more than a billion people gather at Christ’s table, we are being empowered, through the saving wisdom of God given to us in this sacred meal, to grow in peace with one another and with all the earth!

Eleanor Roosevelt, the much-honored widow of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had many wise things to say during her life, but one of the wisest was this sage piece of advice delivered in a 1951 radio broadcast. Mrs. Roosevelt said: “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work for it.”

Well today, right here in this sanctuary, we have a golden opportunity to fulfill our praise of God and our receiving of a measure of God’s wisdom here at Christ’s table—we have a golden opportunity to fulfill these through a quite concrete action for advancing peace.

For, along with two million other Presbyterians gathered at Christ’s table throughout this country, we have the opportunity to make a significant contribution to our denomination’s special Peacemaking Offering. I hope that you already have with you today your check for God’s work of peace in this community, throughout our nation, and around the world—so that righteousness may flourish and peace abound. If you don’t, please take out your checkbook right now, or reach into your wallet or pocketbook for your very largest bills. You see, the work of peace and reconciliation is indispensable to honoring Christ, indispensable to fulfilling the mission of the church.

So sing joy, sing peace! And give joy, give peace!

Let us pray: