No Matter What

Scripture  Psalm 121  NRSV

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?

2 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.

4 He who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.

8 The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time on and forevermore.

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We have heard some pretty amazing preaching in the last couple of weeks.  Patty Evans said “Exhale the past.  Inhale the future.” and be open to new possibilities, even to things that seem impossible.   For all things are possible with God.

Chad challenged us to dream, and dream big.   He reminded us that not all that long ago our Youth Group grew from 3 to 43, when nobody thought that could happen.  

Jordan reminded us that if we aren’t moving forward, we are dying.  If we are sitting back comfortably, we are already dead.   After all, what’s the worst that can happen? If we dare to dream and maybe we don’t make it - the first time?  It might take 2 or 3 or 1,000 tries to level up.  The important part is trying our best. (Yes, I know that technically Jordan did not preach - but you all heard him.  His stewardship meditation made a pretty good sermon.)  

And I am here to tell you - No matter what, God will love us.   When things get weird - weirder - and we wonder from where will my help come? We find our answer in the psalmist’s words, “My help comes from the Lord,  who made heaven and earth.”

I grew up on Popeye the Sailor cartoons.  There were several sort of stereotypical characters - Popeye is the good guy, Bluto (or Brutus depending on what year it was) is his enemy, Olive Oyle is the girl they both loved, and Wimpy, who was the perpetually broke friend whose most famous line was, “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”  You were supposed to learn things from cartoons, like the good guy might get beat up but he always wins, everyone should eat their spinach, and how to do CPR.  Well, maybe not CPR.  But there was one episode when Olive Oyle nearly drowned and Popeye resuscitated her by moving her arms up and down and saying “Out with bad air, in with the good.”   That’s not really how CPR works - but it is kinda how breathing works.  The air that is exhaled isn’t bad.  It has just had all the good oxygen used up by the body and what’s left over needs to be exhaled so new and fresh, oxygen-laden air can come in.  

British novelist LP Hartley said, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”   And we did do things differently in the past than we do today.  I remember having to wear a hat and gloves to church - and a skirt.  No pants.  Definitely no jeans.  Women didn’t used to be allowed to serve as elders or ministers.  We used to have hundreds of people in worship on Sundays!  Now we get excited when there are 60 people here on Sunday.  Some things were good in the past - and some things weren’t — but that’s the past.  That’s history.  Things have changed.  

Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise famously said to the Klingon Chancellor, “Some people think the future means the end of history.  Well...We haven't run out of history quite yet.. . the future…[is] the undiscovered country.  People can be very frightened of change.”  

This is true.  Change can be terrifying.  But it is part of living.  No matter what happens to us, no matter what decisions we make in our personal lives or our congregational life - when we exhale the past, we need to remember and celebrate the value of what went before so we can build on it for the future.   Once upon a time we inhaled a future that made it possible for us to welcome every person who showed up - every person.  And that decision, that inhalation, that doing of something new made folks uncomfortable.  But we did it any way.  Once upon a time we (you) made a decision to inhale a possibility that probably scared some of us half to death.   No matter what, when we exhale the past we need to keep the important stuff.  We need to remember that change is not always bad - or always good.  It’s just different.  It’s an undiscovered country, and we have no map, no idea what we might find there.  So we trust that God will guide us through it.

But no matter what, no matter what dreams we dare to dream, no matter what impossible possibilities we consider, we must  continue to be who we are - a welcoming, loving, caring community of faith.  I was talking to a young woman on Wednesday who was very sad that she had made the very difficult decision to leave her church, where she grew up and had once been a youth leader.  She lamented the fact that they talked a good “love your neighbor” but put conditions on their love and on God’s love.  Everyone is welcome, they said, but they also found it necessary to pray over a gay man in the congregation - who is now trying to “act straight” so he can stay in the church, so he can be worthy.  She lamented the fact that they preached “if you don’t tithe, God won’t love you.”  Her sorrow  was mixed with a goodly portion of anger . . . So I told her about us, and gave her our web address, and I’ve been praying for her, and for all the others like her . . . 

Can we just talk about tithing - you know, money - for a minute?  It is Stewardship month, after all.  Most of you have received an invitation to increase your giving if you possibly can.  We know that not everyone can give as generously as they would like.  Here are a couple of things I would like you all to keep in mind.  

First - the people of Israel were told they must tithe 10% of their income, 10% of everything they received each year - crops, animals, money, whatever - and that 10% went to support the priests (who had no other income) and to care for the poor - widows and orphans who had no one else to support them.   God did not stop loving people who could not tithe.  They’re the ones who got fed out everyone else’s tithe.   That’s what the tithe was for.   Some people were well enough off that they gave gifts over and above their tithe. That’s great, but - God did not love them any better because they gave more.  

Second -   Whatever you can give financially goes to support this church - things like salaries, the electric bill, music for the choir - and our local ministries, and our larger communities of faith in Northern California and Nevada, and globally.  Whatever you can give helps us feed the hungry in Selma, support missionaries in Eastern Europe, provide educational opportunities including scholarships, helps victims of fires and earthquakes, and so many other things.  If all you can afford to give is $5 or $10 a month, that is perfectly ok.   If  you don’t have money to put in the plate every Sunday, that is perfectly ok.  Many of us only give once a month - our giving to the church is part of our monthly budget, just like rent and groceries and car payments.  Filing out the pledge card does two things - the part we turn in helps our budget team figure out how much money we might have in the coming year, and the part we keep reminds each of us what we have pledged.  God will not love you any less if you cannot give as much as someone else.  God loves you, no matter what.   

We are challenging everyone to Level Up in our giving and our welcoming and our dreaming.   We are talking about changes, which are always scary.  Some of them are pretty easy, like moving pews around so wheelchairs and walkers (and cellos) fit better.  Some are harder - like the possibility we might need to leave this building.   We’ve been talking about that since Patty was here.  

Maybe we’ll build something new.  

Maybe we’ll move in with another congregation or two.  

We don’t know what the future holds for us but we can dream and we can try out our dreams.  If one fails, we can try again, or try another way.  

And we can trust that God will be with us, no matter what.    

As we lift our eyes up to the hills, 

to the undiscovered country, 

as we exhale the past, and inhale the future, 

as we dream our big dreams, 

and look to level up, no matter how hard reaching that next level might be,

we need to remember that

Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

And God will not let our foot be moved;
 he who keeps us will not slumber.

4 God will neither slumber nor sleep

For the Lord is our keeper, 

No matter how difficult or frightening the next level might be,

we can trust in God’s help and provision,

because ALL things are possible with God.

We just need to trust in God to guide us.