CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

May 11, 2008

Rev. Dr. Thomas J. Boone, PhD

SERMON TITLE: “Gaining Strength When the Chips are Down”

1 Samuel 22: 1-2; 1 Corinthians 12: 7 – 10

Lord, we come to Your Word this morning humbled by our circumstances, humbled by the life that surrounds us and glad that we are your children. It’s as your children that we come to Your Word with eager hearts. Open our ears so that we might hear what you have to say; open our minds so that in hearing we might understand. Having heard and understood, open our hands that we may go forth and do what Your Word says. It’s in Your Name that we pray, Amen

I want to share with you at the start of my meditation two promises from scripture. First, may the peace of your Lord Jesus Christ strengthen each of you now and forever. Second, may the peace of Christ that surpasses all our understanding guard your hearts forever! Peace!

In a world racked by war, a political season infused with negative messages and doubts, and in a culture where self-interest gives birth to violence far too often, the message that, through Christ, we can have true peace is perhaps the most significant one that we can hear and bear. It’s also a message that’s so very appropriate in today’s worship. Three significant celebrations merge into one today: There’s Mother’s Day, the birth of the church that is Pentecost, and also our monthly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, Communion Sunday. And each of these celebrations proclaims the message that when the chips are down in our lives peace abides because our hope is in the Lord.

When Julia Ward Howe conceived of a national Mother’s Day in the late 1800’s she wanted people to unite under the banner of hope through the abolishment of slavery and the realization of peace among the disfavored, disinherited, and underprivileged of society who had been fighting the wars declared by those in power. In her 1870 proclamation of Mother’s Day, Howe wrote, “Our husbands will not come to us reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of our country, will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

Unfortunately, when we peer out of our sanctuary it might be tempting to describe Howe’s vision of peace as an abysmal failure; just one more expression of an ideologue that has caved in under the weight of reality. But to say that her vision of peace, the vision of hope that lies at the heart of Mother’s Day (and Pentecost, by the way), is by any calculation a failure to miss one important point. You see, Howe was a Christian woman, and her vision of peace was born from Christ’s vision that through the Spirit, and through the Spirit alone, the world will have peace. And there’s not anyone here who would ever suggest that Christ’s vision of peace through the Holy Spirit was in anyway overstated.

So when Pentecost, Communion, and Mother’s Day come together then we have a profound message to convey prophetically to this world. Where Christ abides, there the weak will be strengthened rather than tormented. What Christ’s blood has atoned no one can deem undeserving of grace. This is the message of hope and peace that Christ died to bring, and it’s the message that we bear to this world when through us the Spirit lifts up the oppressed, binds the wounds of the broken hearted, and comforts the downtrodden.

For generations, God has been in the business of giving strength to those who are at their lowest. Take the story we read about David in the cave at Adullah. It’s a powerful account even though it’s only two verses long. David’s on the lam because Saul, the King, is insanely jealous about David’s successes. Yet, even with his successes, David ends up alone in a dark, damp cave. Up to this point David hadn’t known a lower point. Anointed by God, yet alone and wanted by the King whom God had said he would replace. But, God has a habit of turning things around in caves. He did it when he resurrected Jesus from the dead and he did it with David. When the chips were down for David, God gave him strength through other people. But notice the people who came to David’s side. The people whom God strengthened David with were not the noble ones or the well-trained generals; not the ones who David would have thought. .Rather, they were his brothers, and remember, they were sons of a shepherd who were tending sheep. God’s strength came not from those who had it all together in this world, or those who had achieved notoriety. Rather, it was the distressed and indebted, the disenchanted and discouraged who came to David’s side. David became a fugitive captain over a renegade lot, but through them God fulfilled his promise. That’s how God works.

It’s the activity of the Spirit that we celebrate on Pentecost. He works with us when we’re weak so that we and everyone else around us will be able to say only that by God’s strength alone are we strong. That is the crux of our hope as Pentecost people who believe in the Son of God who was born in a stable to a carpenter and who died a criminal’s humiliating death. We serve this Jesus, the one who sought out a Samaritan woman for water when others would turn her away for the sake of her race. We worship this Jesus, the One who when confronted with a woman caught in adultery judged not her, but those who accused her. We call this Jesus our Lord, the one who called a tax collector to be a disciple, who washed the feet of his betrayer, and who made a Christian-killing Pharisaic zealot the father of the gentile church.

Praise be to our Lord, Jesus Christ, that He’s the Master of paradox. When the chips are down, our God reigns. When the tidal waves of life seem most tempestuous, our God sustains us rather than lets us down. When there’s nowhere to go but up, our God shows us the way. I’ve experienced this paradox in my life too many times to doubt the truth I’m saying ever again. I admit that at one time I believed in my head that my God is a God of hope against all odds, but that was before the Spirit let me experience depths of drought I never thought I’d have to endure. God has taught my heart the truth behind Edward Mote’s hymn. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ Name. On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

The blessings of Pentecost lie in having hope that the Spirit can forge peace when the chips have all fallen down! Paul spoke of a thorn in the flesh that God gave him in order to keep impressing upon him these words, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in your weakness.” God does the un-doable! Where every measure of our strength and reserves are sapped, God is able to provide. God’s power is perfected in our weaknesses and you can fill in the blank of just what that weakness is in your life right now. God strengthened David in the cave of Adullah; He strengthened Peter who in the end died a martyr’s death; He transformed Paul despite his past, and He’ll grant you strength when all of your chips have fallen down on the floor and you’re staring down at them wondering what on earth happened.

Today is Mother’s Day; it is Pentecost; and it is Communion, so we pause from a hostile and power-driven culture to reflect on the peace that surpasses our understanding. We silence ourselves for this moment to praise God that when all our chips have fallen onto the ground, our hope abides through the Spirit alone. And we hold these dear to us, not only for ourselves, but we proclaim them courageously to this world that desperately needs to know the depth of God’s eternal love.

Hallelujah! AMEN