Who cares, anyway?

The Installation of Franklin Golden – St. John’s Presbyterian Church

September 14, 2008

The 147^th Psalm

Christopher H. Edmonston

I.

I want to begin with a personal word. It is a personal word of thanks to Franklin Golden, to the Session and congregation of the St. John’s Presbyterian Church, and to the Committee on Ministry of the New Hope Presbytery for allowing me to offer a sermon today on the occasion of Franklin’s installation as the pastor here at St. John’s.

Franklin has been among my most loyal friends these past 8 years since we first were in a Bible Study together in Charlotte, and his friendship means a great deal to my family and to me. Franklin is my favorite person to stare at the stars with, to meet for breakfast somewhere, or with whom to sit in my garage and warble cowboy songs. His friendship is a great blessing to me and it is a high honor to be with you today. I pray that through the Spirit of the Living God I may offer a fresh word on this occasion of installation.

As many of you know, several weeks ago Franklin preached for the New Hope Presbytery as part of his examination for membership in the Presbytery. Franklin chose as his text, Psalm 146. And he told a story that I am sure few will forget about his lack of aptitude for praise – you know hands in the air, fallin’ on your knees at the wonder of God, lost in awe, praise. Praise made him uneasy, he said in that sermon, because he was, after all, a Presbyterian and we are not exactly known in larger Protestant or even catholic (with a small ‘c’) circles for fallin’ out in acts of praise.

Long before I left my home that Saturday morning in July I knew that Franklin was going to choose as a text that day something from the Psalms. He and I have spoken for hours about the beauty and the complexity of the Psalms. Since his reading of St. Augustine and an in-depth study of the Psalms at Duke Divinity school he has been moved by them and shaped by their integrity, beauty, and witness. At our church downeast in Tarboro we have enjoyed many years of summer interns and summer ministers and the first day I start passing onto them the bits of wisdom that have, in proper turn, been given to me. Rule one of ministry as far as I am concerned would be this: “When in doubt, go with the Psalms.” So I knew with absolute confidence that Franklin would be preaching the Psalms that day, just as I knew that I would be choosing a Psalm the moment that Franklin asked me to preach this installation.

The church fathers famously called the Psalms “a gospel in miniature,” and said that all the doctrines of our faith could be found in them – repentance and atonement; confession and salvation; providence and conviction; worship and praise. Praise – there is that word again. You should know, as many of you already do, I suspect, that the Psalms are 150 chapters, or 150 Psalms strong. Franklin did something quite ironic when he preached all those weeks ago at Western Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Raleigh. He proclaimed that he was averse to praise even as he chose a text, Psalm 146, that is all about praise. In fact the last five Psalms, Psalms 146 to 150 are about nothing but praise, really. Climaxing at Psalm 150 with the call to “everything that breathes” to praise the Lord! Everything that lives, praising God for all that God has done!

Thus our text for today is Psalm 147, which you have heard read a few moments ago by Rachel. Why Psalm 147? Well – because it follows Psalm 146 of course. I for one think that continuity from one text to the next is important. I also might argue that continuity between events is equally important. Mostly we preach from Psalm 147 today because I am just not that creative and because praise is a fitting attribute and habit for a day of installation. There can be little doubt that Psalm 147, littered with the call to praise, has several important things to say to the church and to a newly ordained minister of Word and Sacrament installed in a first call.

II.

But first, before we can unwrap what it is that Psalm 147 has to say to the church and to a new pastor, and before we can unpack all that there is to share on a day of Baptism, we must take a necessary digression, if y’all will allow it. Way back on January 22, 2006, Orla Swift, writing a review of the Red Clay Ramblers’ classic ‘Diamond Studs, The Life of Jesse James – A Saloon Musical’ began her article with the following two paragraphs:

Theater producer Franklin Golden knew his revival of “Diamond Studs” was on track when the director had to tell a performer what theater’s ‘fourth wall’ is. Anyone who has ever cracked open a book on acting knows that the ‘fourth wall’ is the imaginary one between audience and actor. And Golden is pleased to see thespian virgins on the makeshift stage in the cavernous Fearrington Barn for the first on-site rehearsal of ‘Diamond Studs, the Life of Jesse James – A Saloon Musical.’

“There’s one thing worse than bad acting in this show, and that’s good acting,” Golden whispers as the director coaches the cast. “Diamond Studs” was never designed to be a fine-tuned locomotive.

Every now and then I am asked for proof that God is ever dabbling in the unexpected – how does God surprise us, I am asked? I submit to you that when God calls a man who has produced “Diamond Studs,” a saloon musical about an outlaw, to the Ministry of the Word and Sacrament that we have proof enough that God is still dabbling in the elements of surprise. Opening doors when we see them shut. Building houses where once there was rubble. Forgiving sinners where we see only the unredeemable. Changing lives where we see somebody stuck. Is God still turning tables and making us consider the over-under-looked undersides of the world we easily take for granted, as it is? Absolutely I say – God is still turning tables. And I, for my part, am thankful to my God and my Savior that Franklin, man of praise and music, of art and vision, of chance and opportunity is my colleague in ministry and the pastor of this church.

III.

For you see, what is complex and unexpected to us, is common place and quite natural in the economy of God. Let me say that again -- what is complex and unexpected to us, is common place and quite natural in the economy of God: which is to say that the move from producer of musicals to the pastor of church is not so great a move after all. That is if one is able to get beyond the shock that initially accompanies the reporting of the transaction from producer to pastor.

At its heart, you see, a good musical is about freeing up joy within the performers, in order to free joy in the audience so that a story might be experienced. A good piece of musical theater is praiseworthy of all that makes human beings so tragically beautiful, all that makes love so unavoidably costly, and all that makes even the simplest of lives terribly complex or convoluted. It strikes me that in the same way a good church is a community whose programs, gifts, and mission should be about freeing the joy found only in God, the joy that the Spirit unleashes whenever the gospel is proclaimed or the love of Jesus is shared in ways great and small. A great church is not meant to be a finely tuned locomotive. It is not made of actors who know their parts too well. It is a place where all people of God, both those who act well and those who do not are freed to praise because they find that it is indeed joyful to praise God.

IV.

And that brings us full circle back to the Book of Psalms. At its core, Psalm 147 is Trinitarian poem of praise. It is a Psalm of nearly three equal parts – all three about both our praise for God and God’s care for us. Thomas Currie, Dean at Union-PSCE at Charlotte, writes in his poetic devotional based on the Psalms that he is sure that the Psalmist here in Psalm 147 is convinced that praising God makes life beautiful. Let me say that again – the main theological thrust of Psalm 147 is its conviction that praising God makes life beautiful. “Praise the Lord!” repeats the Psalmist “How good it is to sing praises to our God; for He is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.”

“At times,” Currie writes, “I am overwhelmed with the beauty of worship, when the Christian faith in its praise of God seems to be simply beautiful.”

How lucky we are, brothers and sisters, to have a means of knowing God that is a means of beauty. God could make Himself known in any multitude of ways: cosmic collisions; catastrophic catastrophes. But instead God allows us to see and hear and feel in the beauty of worship. We hear a word proclaimed, and we join in the singing of a hymn, and we see a little boy child baptized in the waters of life and we know that there is beauty in what we offer to God because there is beauty in what God has offered to us.

That is what is ingenious about the “4^th wall” of theater and understanding that there is a transaction between actor and audience. It strikes me that the “4th wall” falls when the actress offers her gifts and she is received by the onlookers; they in turn give attention, appreciation, or suspension of disbelief and in so doing return to the actor the gift of understanding. In this there is a transaction.

Much like in our worship, our pastoral care, our Bible study, our mission work there is a similar transaction. From God comes the call. From us comes the response. And together there is the creation of something vital and beautiful: the creation of church at its best. And so ministry is in part about empowering the church, the people in the pews, and the people on the streets, to do their part and stare down, tear down, and step over the “4^th wall” that keeps them from God. It is about inspiring those who come to listen and who hope to hear about the gospel and about Jesus to participate in the transaction of grace. To feast at a table already prepared. To wash in waters already sanctified. Not to make them learn every line or verse cold and error-free; but just to get the church to show up and to participate in the great banquet of grace. Ministry is about equipping the saints to be overwhelmed by the beauty of a God who knows them by name and saves them from hopelessness. The producer of Diamond Studs was right, that Golden boy was onto something – in order to be believed the acting does not have to be too good. In order to be heard the preacher doesn’t have to be perfect. But the lines must be delivered with conviction because walls don’t fall on their own.

When this happens, when the divide, this “4^th wall”, is felled then you have church. When it happens, it is beautiful. Yes, “Praise the Lord! For He is gracious and a song of praise is fitting.”

V.

There is a trap here, of course. It’s an intellectual trap, but a trap nonetheless. And it is a trap that the Psalmist anticipates. If indeed the primary means of knowing God is through the beauty of praise, what then of those who cannot see or know beauty? What happens when depression and hopelessness pull the veil down and shut out God’s praiseworthy grace? What if the wall seems too high to step over? What do we do if we are confronted with someone who thinks, or somebody who feels, “who cares, anyway?” In the absence of beauty and the absence of praise, does God have anything to prove to us?

One of the little books that has come to mean a great deal to me over the past year is William Sloane Coffin’s final book, Letters to a Young Doubter. In the book, written presumably to a young man in a crisis of faith, Coffin arrives at this point near the exact middle of his book (page 94 of 185 pages). He writes:

In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus asks, ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.’ In those days the rich bought animals to sacrifice while the poor could afford only sparrows. Sparrows went two for a penny, and if you bought two pennies’ worth, a fifth was thrown in. God cares for that fifth sparrow, the one tossed in! Nature is made the symbol of God’s supernatural mercy. It is with an unbounded, unfathomable love that God loves every last human being on the face of the earth from the Pope to the loneliest wino. ‘Do not be afraid,’ adds Jesus, ‘you are of more value than many sparrows.’

Who cares for the forgotten, who cares for the lost, who cares for the least? Well God does, for one. And it is the pastor’s mantle, for better or ill, to help the people of God who will ask why does this matter?, how will this help?, who cares anyway? to help eyes be opened to the beauty of praise.

“Sing to the Lord,” the Psalm proclaims, for “He gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when they cry. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner; But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.”

I think, brothers and sisters that this is one of the most revolutionary verses in all of scripture. The Lord takes pleasure in those who hope for his steadfast love. The Lord takes pleasure in the fifth sparrow, the thrown-ins, those who are yet stuck behind the wall, in those who HOPE. Not those who possess. Not those who have strength. Not those who have numbers. Not those who have power. But in those who HOPE.

Who cares, anyway? God does. God cares. God cares for those who dare to hope and who hope to see steadfast love and who hope to praise in order to know something beautiful. No faith is too fragile, no sinner too lost, no church too small, and no child of God too forlorn than to have the beauty of praise proclaimed to them and to be made welcomed in the church. The Psalmist, I think, would have it no other way.

Neither, for the record, should we. Praise that is worthy of being called beautiful. Beauty that is worthy of praise. The caring heart of a passionate pastor. The creative exuberance of a man of the arts. A faith in Jesus that carves hope in the face of death itself. May these be the hallmarks of your ministry as you praise the Lord who is fitting of praise, and lend words of hope to those who long for the steadfast love of God. Amen.

VI.

Charge to the new pastor:

Franklin, back at Columbia Theological Seminary, sits a pulpit in that chapel in Campbell Hall. On the back of that pulpit, where only the preacher can see it are the words, “that they may see Jesus.” They sit there as a reminder of what we are to do as proclaimers of the word. They have always served me as a good reminder that the art of ministry is not to be about us. It is really only and all about Jesus, who alone is head of the church.

I have always thought that the wall, of course it’s a metaphor, right, that stands between the un-churched and the skeptics and Jesus is best torn down by letting them see Jesus himself. I do not think that gimmicks work. I don’t think there is an easy path to church growth. I think that it is all about Jesus and what he has called us to do – love God, love neighbor; proclaim God, and be a neighbor. Do that, my friend, and the Holy Spirit will work through you and in this place and they will see Jesus. The church is neither a social club nor a political action committee. It is the place where we might come to know Jesus and in him begin to be most fully known by God.

One last thing – and in this I am going to challenge you to draw a strong line between the role of playing Jesus, as you did many, many times in Cotton Patch and allowing the people to see Jesus through the ministry of the church and the ministry of the word that you will practice amongst them. The dirty secret of ministry is that we really do simply equip the saints, as Paul says in the letter to Ephesus. The people really don’t need good ministers as much as we think they do – they need the Lord. And when we play the part so well that they begin to believe they need us more than they need the Lord, well then, in words of William Butler Yeats – “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.”

Even more important than playing Jesus is equipping the church and her disciples to discover what part Jesus wants each of them to play. And that brings us back full circle to Romans 12: 1 – 8. Namely that we each have a part to play in the great drama we call church – and the pastor is the director who empowers the disciples to convincingly play their parts. To just this is the place where a Pastor offers his or her highest praise to God.

So I charge you to equip the saints, the love the church, and to praise God, that they, all of them, would learn the parts they are to play and that all who are touched by your ministry in this place may see Jesus. Amen.