HOW
FAR CAN YOU SEE?
Sermon by Dwyn M. Mounger, M.Div., Ph.D. Interim Pastor Community Presbyterian Church, Deerfield Beach, Florida, 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. November 15th, 2009, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 98 (paraphrase); Psalm 96 (paraphrase); Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-12; John 6:1-14.
I
spent my teen years in that GOLDEN AGE before the interstates
had snuffed out traffic on the two-lane highways. You
could drive throughout the South and find EVERYWHERE the slogan,
scrawled on barns and outbuildings: “SEE ROCK CITY!”
Those signs have vanished now--along with cars with tailfins. And Elvis belting out “Hound Dog” on the radio. But, back then, for literally HUNDREDS OF MILES in every direction radiating from Chattanooga, the “SEE ROCK CITY” signs urged us to come admire the view from Lookout Mountain!
Tell me, has ANYONE ever REALLY been able to see seven states from up there?--Even in the days before smokestacks and air pollution?--Surely NOT! And yet it’s fun to imagine standing on a peak so high. We’d be like ol’ Moses, in our First Lesson. Yes, Moses, gazing from the top of Mount Nebo, could view the whole PROMISED LAND—and BEYOND! Please turn back to the front of your bulletin—and look at the map there. Do you see the location of Mount Nebo—there, just near the top of the Dead Sea (the big body of water, towards the bottom), between the words “Jericho” and “Qumran”?
Come with me now up to the top of Mt. Nebo ALONGSIDE Moses. In clear weather Nebo affords a magnificent view! How far can you see? -- Some years ago I was leading a group of college students on a study tour to the Middle East. And I myself stood there. That day the view from Nebo wasn’t good. Haze covered the Jordan Valley--to our disappointment and that of our Arab guide.
But here in our lesson, to ol’ Moses, the panorama is BRILLIANT: the deep Jordan Rift and Dead Sea itself, lowest point on earth! To the north, the snows of Mt. Hermon, in Lebanon. Yes, from Nebo Moses, says our lesson, can behold he high hills of Judah, to the west, across the valley. And, to the southwest, the distant Negev Desert!
What does God say to Moses as he drinks in the view? –LISTEN!—‘THIS IS THE LAND OF WHICH I SWORE TO ABRAHAM, TO ISAAC, AND TO JACOB, SAYING, ‘I WILL GIVE IT TO YOUR DESCENDANTS.’”
And Moses, in this magic moment, views the Promised Land so clearly! Indeed, despite his old age, as the Scripture tells us, Moses’ “sight” is “unimpaired and his vigor . . . not abated.” Yes, friends, MOSES here sees it ALL! How far can YOU see?
Unlike Moses, so many of us suffer from vision trouble. Yet Moses’ “sight (is) unimpaired!” All his years he’s WORKED, PRAYED, SUFFERED for THIS VERY MOMENT! Moses remembers the horrors of slavery in Egypt, and the sufferings of his people, the Jews, under the lash of Pharaoh. So this view of the Promised Land THRILLS him!
How far can YOU see? – Can you see all the places that Moses, here on Mount Nebo, beholds? Just what are those places? –LISTEN: “And the Lord showed [Moses] the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar.”
You know, some folks do ascend Mt. Nebo but, sadly, their gaze encompasses only part of the view. For example, “Jericho, the city of palm trees.” Now Jericho is synonymous with pleasure. It was (and is) an oasis city. The name “Jericho” means “Place of Fragrance.” Rahab the harlot maintains her house of ill fame in Jericho.
Tell me, is your view limited only to the Jerichos of life? To the pursuit of sensual happiness a la TV and the Internet and Hollywood? If so, you’re LOST in the WILDERNESS! Oh, you’re not alone! Millions of folks stand on that mountain with you—drooling for Jericho, ready to SELL THEIR VERY SOULS for it! And, friends, that’s DESPITE the cold dose of REALISM that the present world economic recession is teaching us, if we but learn!
Be assured, you’ll make it to Jericho, all right. But you’ll never reach God’s great PROMISED LAND! Instead, you may, indeed, die in that desert valley! And your bones BLEACH in the sun!
But perhaps I’m totally WRONG about you! As you gaze from Nebo, maybe Jericho interests you less than your view of Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim and Manasseh are the rich, green BREADBASKET of Palestine. Wonderful CROPS grow there! Fat HERDS graze!
How far can you see? – Is your vision limited only to your business or your investments or your nest egg for retirement? --To making those profits mount ever higher? Is personal prosperity your greatest interest in this world?
If SO, how SELFISH, and, really, in all honesty, how MISERABLE you are! You’re no Moses, who’s sacrificed EVERYTHING—even his pampered life in an Egyptian royal palace—for the sake of God and God’s people! If Ephraim and Manasseh, if your BUSINESS, your MONEY, your INVESTMENTS are your NUMBER ONE REASON for LIVING, then your soul, too, is in grave danger!
But let’s go back to Mt. Nebo and old Moses standing there. If he looks directly west across the valley—and high up on the crest of Palestine’s central ridge, he’ll just barely see the towers of a city: “JEBUS.” Many years later King David will capture Jebus and make it his capital, renaming it “YERUSHALIM” – Yes, “JERUSALEM,” the HOLY CITY! And David’s son Solomon will build the GREAT TEMPLE there. –The HOUSE OF GOD! The HOLY SHRINE, where God will come to meet God’s people!
What about YOU? As you stand on Nebo, can you see JEBUS? –If so, that’s GOOD! For you behold the CHURCH, CHRIST’S HOLY BRIDE—and all its NEEDS!
Now, friends, ALL of us KNOW WELL the big needs of THIS congregation. This church isn’t LARGE. And MEETING those needs is always a financial CHALLENGE—especially in 2010, as your Pastor Nominating Committee searches for the one whom you’ll call as your next pastor. And more specifically, in this time when the recession challenges individuals, businesses, churches, and whole nations!
All right, just WHAT in our projected congregational budget for 2010 is Jebus? –Everything that has to do with the CHURCH’S OPERATION: with maintenance of BUILDINGS and GROUNDS; with provision for a STAFF; with funding of PROGRAMS; with payment of UTILITIES and INSURANCE on this beautiful, large complex of buildings; with provision for WORSHIP, week after week.
Now it’s always GOOD when Christians can see Jebus—when they see the Church and its needs. But that’s not the TOTAL vision. Oh, some congregations, especially during Stewardship Season, ACT like it is! They hold “loyalty dinners” and stress to their people, ‘GIVE, for the Church can’t SURVIVE without your money!”
HOGWASH! YOU and I don’t keep the Church alive; CHRIST does! The Church doesn’t NEED your money. But YOU need spiritually yourself to give to the work of Christ your Savior, as part of spreading the good news of the Savior to all the world.
No, the church’s survival doesn’t depend on YOU and ME, but on God alone! I didn’t fully realize this until, some years ago, on my first visit to Dresden, Germany. I stood before the soaring Kreuzkirche, or Lutheran Church of the Cross. On a single, horrible night—February 13th and 14th, 1945—glorious, Baroque Dresden, “the Florence of the North,” went through HELL! Waves of bombers (both from Britain’s Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Corps) deliberately and repeatedly dropped incendiaries, creating literally a FLAMING HURRICANE in that city, that engulfed six square miles. No one KNOWS how many DIED that night in Dresden. Estimates vary from a low of 35,000 men, women, and children to a high of 135,000. Because many trains, crammed with refugees from the East, were halted overnight at Dresden’s main railway station—and all the people on them were turned into torches. The searing flame utterly consumed everything organic: human beings (even those in the air raid shelters), animals, plants, wood—leaving only STONES, including the stones of the Church of the Cross.
Three months after the bombing, the Communists marched into Dresden—bent on destroying all traces of religious faith. And the Communists would STAY in Dresden for 44 long years—in fact, until the wall dividing Germany FELL, in 1989, just 20 years ago this past Monday!
And yet the Church of the Cross has survived. And today the gospel goes forth from its reconstructed pulpit. And the glorious music of Bach soars from its organ. And from the voices of its 700-year-old boy choir, and of the congregation, resound chorales of praise to the Lord!
No, friends, I don’t tell you today, “Give because the Church’s survival depends on it.” It doesn’t! Why, CHRIST HIMSELF THUNDERS: “On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of HELL shall not prevail against it!”
What, then, is the RIGHT vision to see from Mt. Nebo? –Look again at one of the places that Moses glimpses here. “And the Lord showed him . . . all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea . . . .”
THAT’S IT!—THE WESTERN SEA! THAT’S IT! --The MIGHTY MEDITERRANEAN, CENTER of the ANCIENT Euro-Asian-North African WORLD!
Friends, the Western Sea for you and me is ALL THE EARTH WAITING TO HEAR THE GOOD NEWS OF SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED JUST OUTSIDE JEBUS! --Just outside Jerusalem. -- Namely, the death and the resurrection of our SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST! The Western Sea is our hurting world longing to learn of a God who LOVES all people, and who SAVES them for all eternity!
The Western Sea is that tiny child in a Sunday school classroom who learns to lisp the tune to “Jesus Loves Me.” The Western Sea is that elderly woman in a nursing home, faithful member but in frail health now, to whom a deacon or elder and your pastor take Holy Communion. It’s that young pastor of that mission church in rural Florida, or in one of our many inner cities, who’s working hard but whose family livelihood will depend, at least for awhile, on the support of us and this presbytery.
The Western Sea is that missionary doctor, in Africa, and in nearby, impoverished, hurting Haiti, whose work of healing continues BECAUSE you and I CARE!
I could go on and on. So could YOU! But let me finish by simply asking you, in all seriousness: Have you seen God’s glorious Promised Land? Do YOU today stand on the MOUNTAIN of that promise?
If so, just HOW FAR CAN YOU SEE?
Prayers:
Sermon by Dwyn M. Mounger, M.Div., Ph.D. Interim Pastor Community Presbyterian Church, Deerfield Beach, Florida, 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. November 15th, 2009, the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Scripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 98 (paraphrase); Psalm 96 (paraphrase); Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-12; John 6:1-14.
Those signs have vanished now--along with cars with tailfins. And Elvis belting out “Hound Dog” on the radio. But, back then, for literally HUNDREDS OF MILES in every direction radiating from Chattanooga, the “SEE ROCK CITY” signs urged us to come admire the view from Lookout Mountain!
Tell me, has ANYONE ever REALLY been able to see seven states from up there?--Even in the days before smokestacks and air pollution?--Surely NOT! And yet it’s fun to imagine standing on a peak so high. We’d be like ol’ Moses, in our First Lesson. Yes, Moses, gazing from the top of Mount Nebo, could view the whole PROMISED LAND—and BEYOND! Please turn back to the front of your bulletin—and look at the map there. Do you see the location of Mount Nebo—there, just near the top of the Dead Sea (the big body of water, towards the bottom), between the words “Jericho” and “Qumran”?
Come with me now up to the top of Mt. Nebo ALONGSIDE Moses. In clear weather Nebo affords a magnificent view! How far can you see? -- Some years ago I was leading a group of college students on a study tour to the Middle East. And I myself stood there. That day the view from Nebo wasn’t good. Haze covered the Jordan Valley--to our disappointment and that of our Arab guide.
But here in our lesson, to ol’ Moses, the panorama is BRILLIANT: the deep Jordan Rift and Dead Sea itself, lowest point on earth! To the north, the snows of Mt. Hermon, in Lebanon. Yes, from Nebo Moses, says our lesson, can behold he high hills of Judah, to the west, across the valley. And, to the southwest, the distant Negev Desert!
What does God say to Moses as he drinks in the view? –LISTEN!—‘THIS IS THE LAND OF WHICH I SWORE TO ABRAHAM, TO ISAAC, AND TO JACOB, SAYING, ‘I WILL GIVE IT TO YOUR DESCENDANTS.’”
And Moses, in this magic moment, views the Promised Land so clearly! Indeed, despite his old age, as the Scripture tells us, Moses’ “sight” is “unimpaired and his vigor . . . not abated.” Yes, friends, MOSES here sees it ALL! How far can YOU see?
Unlike Moses, so many of us suffer from vision trouble. Yet Moses’ “sight (is) unimpaired!” All his years he’s WORKED, PRAYED, SUFFERED for THIS VERY MOMENT! Moses remembers the horrors of slavery in Egypt, and the sufferings of his people, the Jews, under the lash of Pharaoh. So this view of the Promised Land THRILLS him!
How far can YOU see? – Can you see all the places that Moses, here on Mount Nebo, beholds? Just what are those places? –LISTEN: “And the Lord showed [Moses] the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar.”
You know, some folks do ascend Mt. Nebo but, sadly, their gaze encompasses only part of the view. For example, “Jericho, the city of palm trees.” Now Jericho is synonymous with pleasure. It was (and is) an oasis city. The name “Jericho” means “Place of Fragrance.” Rahab the harlot maintains her house of ill fame in Jericho.
Tell me, is your view limited only to the Jerichos of life? To the pursuit of sensual happiness a la TV and the Internet and Hollywood? If so, you’re LOST in the WILDERNESS! Oh, you’re not alone! Millions of folks stand on that mountain with you—drooling for Jericho, ready to SELL THEIR VERY SOULS for it! And, friends, that’s DESPITE the cold dose of REALISM that the present world economic recession is teaching us, if we but learn!
Be assured, you’ll make it to Jericho, all right. But you’ll never reach God’s great PROMISED LAND! Instead, you may, indeed, die in that desert valley! And your bones BLEACH in the sun!
But perhaps I’m totally WRONG about you! As you gaze from Nebo, maybe Jericho interests you less than your view of Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim and Manasseh are the rich, green BREADBASKET of Palestine. Wonderful CROPS grow there! Fat HERDS graze!
How far can you see? – Is your vision limited only to your business or your investments or your nest egg for retirement? --To making those profits mount ever higher? Is personal prosperity your greatest interest in this world?
If SO, how SELFISH, and, really, in all honesty, how MISERABLE you are! You’re no Moses, who’s sacrificed EVERYTHING—even his pampered life in an Egyptian royal palace—for the sake of God and God’s people! If Ephraim and Manasseh, if your BUSINESS, your MONEY, your INVESTMENTS are your NUMBER ONE REASON for LIVING, then your soul, too, is in grave danger!
But let’s go back to Mt. Nebo and old Moses standing there. If he looks directly west across the valley—and high up on the crest of Palestine’s central ridge, he’ll just barely see the towers of a city: “JEBUS.” Many years later King David will capture Jebus and make it his capital, renaming it “YERUSHALIM” – Yes, “JERUSALEM,” the HOLY CITY! And David’s son Solomon will build the GREAT TEMPLE there. –The HOUSE OF GOD! The HOLY SHRINE, where God will come to meet God’s people!
What about YOU? As you stand on Nebo, can you see JEBUS? –If so, that’s GOOD! For you behold the CHURCH, CHRIST’S HOLY BRIDE—and all its NEEDS!
Now, friends, ALL of us KNOW WELL the big needs of THIS congregation. This church isn’t LARGE. And MEETING those needs is always a financial CHALLENGE—especially in 2010, as your Pastor Nominating Committee searches for the one whom you’ll call as your next pastor. And more specifically, in this time when the recession challenges individuals, businesses, churches, and whole nations!
All right, just WHAT in our projected congregational budget for 2010 is Jebus? –Everything that has to do with the CHURCH’S OPERATION: with maintenance of BUILDINGS and GROUNDS; with provision for a STAFF; with funding of PROGRAMS; with payment of UTILITIES and INSURANCE on this beautiful, large complex of buildings; with provision for WORSHIP, week after week.
Now it’s always GOOD when Christians can see Jebus—when they see the Church and its needs. But that’s not the TOTAL vision. Oh, some congregations, especially during Stewardship Season, ACT like it is! They hold “loyalty dinners” and stress to their people, ‘GIVE, for the Church can’t SURVIVE without your money!”
HOGWASH! YOU and I don’t keep the Church alive; CHRIST does! The Church doesn’t NEED your money. But YOU need spiritually yourself to give to the work of Christ your Savior, as part of spreading the good news of the Savior to all the world.
No, the church’s survival doesn’t depend on YOU and ME, but on God alone! I didn’t fully realize this until, some years ago, on my first visit to Dresden, Germany. I stood before the soaring Kreuzkirche, or Lutheran Church of the Cross. On a single, horrible night—February 13th and 14th, 1945—glorious, Baroque Dresden, “the Florence of the North,” went through HELL! Waves of bombers (both from Britain’s Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Corps) deliberately and repeatedly dropped incendiaries, creating literally a FLAMING HURRICANE in that city, that engulfed six square miles. No one KNOWS how many DIED that night in Dresden. Estimates vary from a low of 35,000 men, women, and children to a high of 135,000. Because many trains, crammed with refugees from the East, were halted overnight at Dresden’s main railway station—and all the people on them were turned into torches. The searing flame utterly consumed everything organic: human beings (even those in the air raid shelters), animals, plants, wood—leaving only STONES, including the stones of the Church of the Cross.
Three months after the bombing, the Communists marched into Dresden—bent on destroying all traces of religious faith. And the Communists would STAY in Dresden for 44 long years—in fact, until the wall dividing Germany FELL, in 1989, just 20 years ago this past Monday!
And yet the Church of the Cross has survived. And today the gospel goes forth from its reconstructed pulpit. And the glorious music of Bach soars from its organ. And from the voices of its 700-year-old boy choir, and of the congregation, resound chorales of praise to the Lord!
No, friends, I don’t tell you today, “Give because the Church’s survival depends on it.” It doesn’t! Why, CHRIST HIMSELF THUNDERS: “On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of HELL shall not prevail against it!”
What, then, is the RIGHT vision to see from Mt. Nebo? –Look again at one of the places that Moses glimpses here. “And the Lord showed him . . . all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea . . . .”
THAT’S IT!—THE WESTERN SEA! THAT’S IT! --The MIGHTY MEDITERRANEAN, CENTER of the ANCIENT Euro-Asian-North African WORLD!
Friends, the Western Sea for you and me is ALL THE EARTH WAITING TO HEAR THE GOOD NEWS OF SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED JUST OUTSIDE JEBUS! --Just outside Jerusalem. -- Namely, the death and the resurrection of our SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST! The Western Sea is our hurting world longing to learn of a God who LOVES all people, and who SAVES them for all eternity!
The Western Sea is that tiny child in a Sunday school classroom who learns to lisp the tune to “Jesus Loves Me.” The Western Sea is that elderly woman in a nursing home, faithful member but in frail health now, to whom a deacon or elder and your pastor take Holy Communion. It’s that young pastor of that mission church in rural Florida, or in one of our many inner cities, who’s working hard but whose family livelihood will depend, at least for awhile, on the support of us and this presbytery.
The Western Sea is that missionary doctor, in Africa, and in nearby, impoverished, hurting Haiti, whose work of healing continues BECAUSE you and I CARE!
I could go on and on. So could YOU! But let me finish by simply asking you, in all seriousness: Have you seen God’s glorious Promised Land? Do YOU today stand on the MOUNTAIN of that promise?
If so, just HOW FAR CAN YOU SEE?
Prayers:
O God the great Vision-giver,
you want us ever to LOOK UP and be THRILLED to behold the
PROMISED LAND, your GLORIOUS, COMING KINGDOM! Deliver
us from all nearsightedness. Help us to look beyond
our noses to the GREAT WORLD, so in need of your Son, who
died to save it. Hear our prayer, through Jesus Christ
our Lord. . .
Eternal God, whose Son is the KING and HEAD of the Church, his
Body, bless your people throughout the earth, and particularly
this congregation of your saints and those represented here
today; through Jesus Christ our Lord . . .Amen.
Amen.
Loving God, send peace on earth, and put down greed, pride,
and anger, that turn person against person, and nation against
nation. Make the U.S.A. a nation of peacemakers. Bless
the United Nations, and especially bring justice, freedom, and
stability to the Middle East. Speed the day when wars
everywhere will end, and all people call you Lord; through Jesus
Christ our Lord . . .Amen.
Merciful God: you bear the HURT of the world. Look with
compassion on those who are sick. Comfort with your sure promises
and presence those who mourn; through Jesus Christ our Lord
. . .Amen.
Finally, God of our fathers and our mothers, in gratitude we
remember the tie that binds us to all who, in Christ, have gone
before us into your perfect Kingdom. Keep us in unity
with them until we, like them, see you face-to-face; through
Jesus Christ our Lord . . .Amen.
For we ask these and ALL our petitions in his strong Name.Amen.