James Earl Massey - "Gifts for the Journey" (February 4, 1990)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | How warmly I have been welcomed as your guest. | 0:02 |
And how eagerly I greet you | 0:08 | |
in the name of the Father, | 0:10 | |
and of the son, | 0:12 | |
and of the Holy Spirit. | 0:14 | |
The textual passage | 0:19 | |
is Psalm 73. | 0:23 | |
I begin with verse 24. | 0:28 | |
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel. | 0:33 | |
And afterward, | 0:39 | |
thou will receive me to glory. | 0:41 | |
There is in this text at least four gifts | 0:52 | |
to which I call your attention. | 0:57 | |
They are gifts from God | 1:00 | |
which are pertinent for your journey and mine. | 1:03 | |
Not only during this year, | 1:07 | |
the first month of which is almost over. | 1:09 | |
But during the rest of this year | 1:14 | |
and for the rest of our lives here. | 1:16 | |
I speak of gifts, | 1:22 | |
mindful of what Martialis once wrote, | 1:25 | |
Gifts are like hooks. | 1:28 | |
He said that lamenting the craftiness of humans | 1:33 | |
who give in order to seduce by such a favor. | 1:36 | |
And in turn win favors from those to whom | 1:41 | |
the gifts were given. | 1:45 | |
But God's gifts are never hooks. | 1:48 | |
They're always helps. | 1:52 | |
And I am eager to share the enumeration of these four gifts | 1:56 | |
with you this morning. | 2:01 | |
First of all, | 2:06 | |
for your journey and mine, there is the obvious gift | 2:08 | |
of guiding counsel. | 2:14 | |
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel. | 2:19 | |
The counsel of God issues from his wisdom | 2:27 | |
and appeals to our need because of our | 2:31 | |
constitutional ignorance | 2:36 | |
as George Buttrick used to put it. | 2:38 | |
We humans do not know | 2:43 | |
how best to proceed with the living of our days, | 2:46 | |
apart from the wise counsel which God grants | 2:49 | |
for our guidance. | 2:52 | |
The counsel issues from wisdom, yes. | 2:55 | |
And immediately relates to our condition. | 2:58 | |
And it does so, honoring our freedom. | 3:02 | |
But we need the counsel because we are free, | 3:07 | |
since we humans are chronic mistake makers | 3:10 | |
when left entirely to ourselves. | 3:13 | |
God offers and gives this kind of counsel | 3:16 | |
because we need such direction. | 3:18 | |
Mark you the counsel of God is not mere advice giving, | 3:23 | |
it is always conversational. | 3:28 | |
He | 3:32 | |
offers. | 3:34 | |
We have the freedom to accept or reject. | 3:36 | |
But even when we reject, | 3:40 | |
we do not do so in an absolute freedom, | 3:42 | |
but in a relative one. | 3:45 | |
Because always there is human freedom | 3:47 | |
bounded by divine sovereignty. | 3:51 | |
Roger Hazelton used to say, | 3:57 | |
"God has a controlling interest in the course | 4:00 | |
of our living from day to day. | 4:02 | |
It is an interest on which we may rely | 4:04 | |
and with which we may in some real measure cooperate." | 4:08 | |
The psalmist understood that. | 4:14 | |
And in the text which I read, | 4:17 | |
he was affirming his openness to receive | 4:19 | |
the guiding counsel of God | 4:23 | |
as he would make his journey on through life. | 4:25 | |
This theme of divine counsel is highlighted in the psalms. | 4:31 | |
Psalm 16, verse 7, it's a near parallel to the text I read. | 4:35 | |
I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. | 4:40 | |
While in Psalm 32:8, God is quoted as promising, | 4:45 | |
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go. | 4:50 | |
I will guide you with mine eye upon you. | 4:54 | |
As for the watchful eyes of God, | 5:00 | |
Howard Thurman | 5:03 | |
put it like this. | 5:05 | |
The burning stare of the eyes of God, | 5:07 | |
pierces my innermost core. | 5:11 | |
Beyond my strength. | 5:14 | |
Beyond my weakness. | 5:16 | |
Beyond what I am. | 5:17 | |
Beyond what I would be until my refuge | 5:19 | |
is in Him alone. | 5:23 | |
Those who rightly value life, | 5:29 | |
want God's counsel. | 5:33 | |
And they follow it with a very responsible freedom. | 5:36 | |
Aware, as the Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore, | 5:40 | |
grippingly put it, | 5:44 | |
Emancipation from the bondage of the soil, | 5:46 | |
does not mean freedom for the tree. | 5:51 | |
It means death. | 5:55 | |
Fullness of life comes in receiving this gift | 5:59 | |
that God offers for our journey. | 6:03 | |
The gift of guiding counsel. | 6:06 | |
Thou dost guide me | 6:11 | |
with thy counsel. | 6:15 | |
That counsel ensures a wise use of the second gift | 6:21 | |
which I enumerate. | 6:26 | |
Namely a personal share in Time. | 6:28 | |
Capital T. | 6:33 | |
For the text goes on to say, | 6:38 | |
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel, | 6:39 | |
and afterward thou will receive me to glory. | 6:41 | |
You and I are not there at that ultimate point | 6:45 | |
to which the psalmist pointed when he spoke of glory. | 6:48 | |
That essential estate | 6:52 | |
toward which we are heading, | 6:56 | |
which is held out for us | 6:59 | |
as a benefit | 7:01 | |
to crown our years | 7:04 | |
and to grant us that privileged position | 7:08 | |
for which we were born. | 7:11 | |
Glory. | 7:14 | |
That weighted existence that means more | 7:15 | |
than we could ever imagine. | 7:19 | |
For no eyes have ever seen it. | 7:20 | |
Nor any ear heard fully about it. | 7:22 | |
But the heart yearns for it. | 7:25 | |
And the psalmist knew he would reach it | 7:28 | |
if he followed counsel and wisely handled his days | 7:31 | |
as he invested his personal share in Time. | 7:37 | |
As a sharer in Time, you and I are affected by one of the | 7:45 | |
most profound riddles to which the human mind | 7:48 | |
has ever been directed. | 7:52 | |
It's very difficult to define time precisely. | 7:55 | |
But yet all of us know what it is, | 7:59 | |
We experience it daily. | 8:01 | |
And in such intimacy that | 8:04 | |
we fear it. | 8:07 | |
For the more time we experience, | 8:09 | |
the more we tend to be bothered about living. | 8:12 | |
All of us know time as a constant that is universal. | 8:18 | |
It's everywhere. | 8:22 | |
It touches everyone. | 8:25 | |
It is relentless in its pace. | 8:27 | |
And it is unavoidable in its effects. | 8:28 | |
We experience time as a succession of moments. | 8:32 | |
And as we move from one moment into another, | 8:35 | |
or as the moments move within us, | 8:39 | |
or pile up in us, | 8:41 | |
we're usually anxious to see every moment confirm | 8:44 | |
the one that went before. | 8:47 | |
And then complete the one that went before. | 8:48 | |
And then connect meaningfully | 8:51 | |
with the moment that comes afterward. | 8:52 | |
We're anxious about time. | 8:57 | |
We wonder about time. | 9:03 | |
We are proud of time, | 9:06 | |
As when we count our age. | 9:09 | |
Or we hide time as when we don't want to betray our age. | 9:13 | |
Time is something we take, | 9:19 | |
something we use. | 9:23 | |
But time is also something that takes us | 9:27 | |
forever onward | 9:31 | |
and finally takes us away. | 9:33 | |
As Isaac Watts put it in the hymn we sometimes sing, | 9:36 | |
Time, like an ever rolling stream, | 9:39 | |
bears all its sons away. | 9:43 | |
They fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day. | 9:46 | |
What is time? | 9:51 | |
Something that puzzles the mind and ages the body. | 9:54 | |
Frenchman Blaise Pascal | 10:02 | |
admitted the riddle that time poses. | 10:05 | |
And he stood in awe before God as he contemplated | 10:08 | |
his own personal share in time | 10:10 | |
and wrote in his Pensées, | 10:13 | |
When I consider the short duration of my life, | 10:16 | |
swallowed up in the eternity before and after. | 10:20 | |
The little space which I fill and even can see, | 10:24 | |
engulfed in the immensity of spaces of | 10:29 | |
which I am ignorant, and which know me not, | 10:31 | |
I am frightened. | 10:35 | |
Who has put me here? | 10:40 | |
By whose order and direction have this place | 10:42 | |
and this time been allotted to me? | 10:45 | |
He knew the answer just as you and I know the answer. | 10:49 | |
God. | 10:51 | |
He was not raising this question out of his doubt. | 10:52 | |
He was raising it in the spirit of awe. | 10:56 | |
Because he wondered | 10:59 | |
about the grand privilege of sharing in time | 11:02 | |
in such a personal way. | 11:07 | |
And he remembered also that eventful moment in time | 11:11 | |
when he surrounded to the claiming | 11:15 | |
touch of God upon his life. | 11:17 | |
And he wrote in his diary about the fire | 11:20 | |
that had come into his life | 11:23 | |
as he considered and prayed to the God | 11:25 | |
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Jesus Christ. | 11:28 | |
There is a way to handle time rightly. | 11:33 | |
It is by receiving and obeying the guiding counsel of God. | 11:36 | |
Two mysteries intersect within you and me. | 11:45 | |
Being | 11:48 | |
and Time. | 11:51 | |
And we need divine council for the handling of both. | 11:55 | |
I have only just a minute | 12:05 | |
only 60 seconds in it forced upon me. | 12:08 | |
Can't refuse it. | 12:12 | |
Didn't seek it. | 12:13 | |
Didn't choose it. | 12:14 | |
But it's up to me to use it, | 12:15 | |
give account if I abuse it. | 12:17 | |
And suffer if I lose it. | 12:20 | |
Just a tiny little minute. | 12:24 | |
But eternity is in it. | 12:29 | |
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel | 12:37 | |
and afterward | 12:42 | |
will receive me to glory. | 12:45 | |
There's a third gift | 12:51 | |
about which this text speaks, | 12:55 | |
but one senses this gift only as one reads the entire psalm | 12:58 | |
from which the text emerges. | 13:05 | |
It is the gift of perspective, | 13:10 | |
which steadies the mind while we live. | 13:14 | |
As you begin the psalm you discover, | 13:19 | |
that he arrives at this point, | 13:23 | |
which is verse 24, | 13:25 | |
after a very crucial encounter with life | 13:27 | |
and with an experience which made him wonder about God | 13:31 | |
and about the meaning of things. | 13:35 | |
It begins with an affirmation, | 13:39 | |
something he had learned while | 13:41 | |
hearing the | 13:43 | |
generations of worshipers sing or chant at the temple. | 13:45 | |
But now life has brought into his awareness | 13:50 | |
some problems that he cannot solve, | 13:53 | |
and he wonders did he learn rightly. | 13:57 | |
This is what he had heard and perhaps himself had sung | 14:03 | |
with the thousands of others as they came | 14:06 | |
in their pilgrimage to Jerusalem to praise and honor God. | 14:10 | |
Truly God is good to the upright | 14:14 | |
to those who are pure in heart. | 14:17 | |
That was the affirmation. | 14:21 | |
He states it. | 14:25 | |
And then tells how he had been forced by life | 14:27 | |
to reconsider it. | 14:30 | |
Verse 2. | 14:32 | |
But as for me, | 14:34 | |
my feet had almost stumbled. | 14:37 | |
My steps had well nigh slipped. | 14:40 | |
Because I was envious of the arrogant | 14:42 | |
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. | 14:44 | |
Here is a man who looks out on life | 14:48 | |
and he sees that those who are godly | 14:49 | |
are having a hard time of it. | 14:55 | |
While those who don't profess any godliness, | 14:58 | |
nor do they seek it, | 15:01 | |
seem to be moving through the world with great prosperity. | 15:03 | |
The inequity here disturbs his thought. | 15:08 | |
He goes on to describe these | 15:12 | |
who seem to be the prosperous ones in the world, | 15:15 | |
they have no pangs, | 15:18 | |
their bodies are sound and sleek, | 15:20 | |
they're not in trouble as other men are, | 15:22 | |
they're not stricken as other men. | 15:24 | |
Pride is their necklace. | 15:27 | |
Violence covers them as a garment. | 15:29 | |
Their eyes swell out with fatness. | 15:31 | |
Their hearts overflow with fatness and follies. | 15:33 | |
They scoff, | 15:37 | |
they speak with malice. | 15:38 | |
Loftily, they threaten oppression. | 15:40 | |
They set their mouths against the heavens | 15:43 | |
and their tongues strut through the earth. | 15:45 | |
The people turn and praise them, | 15:49 | |
finding no fault in them. | 15:51 | |
These are the wicked. | 15:54 | |
Always at ease. | 15:56 | |
Always increasing in riches. | 15:58 | |
So all in vain have I kept my heart clean | 16:01 | |
and washed my hands in innocence. | 16:05 | |
For all the day long I have been stricken | 16:07 | |
and chastened every morning. | 16:09 | |
As he thinks this, he just won't say it. | 16:13 | |
He keeps it under wraps. | 16:17 | |
But keeping it under wraps bothers him greatly. | 16:19 | |
You know how it is when you keep inside, | 16:22 | |
something that you want to speak, but because of | 16:25 | |
wisdom, you know it shouldn't be said. | 16:30 | |
Yet it haunts you. | 16:35 | |
So in verse 15, he goes on. | 16:37 | |
If I had said, I will speak thus. | 16:39 | |
In other words, I'll blurt it out! | 16:42 | |
I'll tell the world what I'm thinking. | 16:44 | |
I would've been untrue to the generation of thy children. | 16:46 | |
But when I thought how to wrap my mind around the problem, | 16:51 | |
it seemed to me such a wearisome task. | 16:56 | |
Until I went into the sanctuary of God, | 17:00 | |
then I understood. | 17:05 | |
There are some problems | 17:13 | |
we learn how to deal with them only when we find perspective | 17:17 | |
An angle by which to view the problem, | 17:22 | |
in order to see it holistically | 17:27 | |
in relation to everything else that is. | 17:30 | |
This is what I mean by perspective. | 17:34 | |
This importance of perspective is steadily stressed | 17:39 | |
for those who are seeking skill to become an artist, | 17:42 | |
or a sculptor, or an architect. | 17:46 | |
And they learn how to use lines and angles and colors | 17:49 | |
and a point of approach. | 17:55 | |
Learning how to rightly plan these and achieve these | 17:58 | |
so that realism and depth can result for the viewer. | 18:02 | |
You recall standing back from some portrait or work of art. | 18:07 | |
In order to catch just that angle by which to view and see | 18:13 | |
what the artist intended to convey. | 18:17 | |
And so the psalmist finds that point in life | 18:20 | |
by which to view all other aspects in life | 18:25 | |
with perspective. | 18:29 | |
And now, | 18:32 | |
he's ready to live. | 18:35 | |
This instance of perspective | 18:40 | |
comes to us in a poem | 18:43 | |
by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. | 18:46 | |
A poem which he simply entitles, Life. | 18:49 | |
Two stanzas. | 18:54 | |
The first | 18:58 | |
A crust of bread | 19:00 | |
and a corner to sleep in, | 19:02 | |
A minute to smile. | 19:05 | |
An hour to weep in, | 19:06 | |
A pint of joy | 19:09 | |
to a peck of trouble, | 19:11 | |
And never a laugh | 19:13 | |
but the moans come double; | 19:15 | |
And that is life! | 19:17 | |
So he began, | 19:21 | |
this gifted black bard born to slave parents | 19:22 | |
in Dayton Ohio in 1872. | 19:25 | |
A man who was lamenting what had been a hard | 19:27 | |
and sometimes tragic existence. | 19:30 | |
But here's a man who had, | 19:35 | |
at some point in his life found perspective. | 19:36 | |
And so he continued, | 19:41 | |
adding a spiritual note because of his faith. | 19:43 | |
A crust in a corner that love makes precious. | 19:46 | |
And a smile to warm, | 19:51 | |
and tears to refresh us. | 19:52 | |
And joy seems sweeter | 19:55 | |
when cares come after, | 19:57 | |
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter; | 20:00 | |
And that is life! | 20:04 | |
Please notice | 20:11 | |
that in the instance of the psalmist, | 20:13 | |
perspective came | 20:16 | |
when he was in the sanctuary. | 20:19 | |
While he was giving attention to the reality of God. | 20:25 | |
While he was pondering the meaning and the rightfulness | 20:28 | |
of the affirmations he was hearing sung, | 20:32 | |
the questions raised by life | 20:36 | |
or rather | 20:40 | |
the questions he'd experienced in life | 20:42 | |
found an answer | 20:48 | |
in the setting where answers are normally expected. | 20:51 | |
What better place than the sanctuary of God, | 20:58 | |
where religious meanings are known and valued, | 21:01 | |
and voiced, and rehearsed, and sung? | 21:03 | |
What better place than the sanctuary | 21:08 | |
where burdened questioning minds are most apt to find | 21:10 | |
heaven's help and counsel? | 21:14 | |
What better place than here | 21:16 | |
to see what is the meaning of | 21:20 | |
here in the light of hereafter? | 21:22 | |
What better place than here | 21:27 | |
by which to see life | 21:31 | |
in the light of eternity? | 21:33 | |
And now the ancient song becomes his song. | 21:38 | |
Truly God is good to the upright, | 21:44 | |
to those who are pure in heart! | 21:48 | |
Exclamation point! | 21:51 | |
It is out of this that worship emerges. | 21:57 | |
For we praise because | 22:03 | |
we don't sing our way into praise, | 22:08 | |
we sing and praise because | 22:12 | |
God is good to the upright. | 22:17 | |
He sees now that the future does not happen | 22:21 | |
for those who are selfishly alive, | 22:24 | |
but for those who are spiritually aligned. | 22:27 | |
In his novel, Candide, | 22:32 | |
Voltaire raises the problem of human suffering. | 22:35 | |
And he has Candide put this question to Martin, | 22:38 | |
"But what was this world created for?" | 22:43 | |
And Martin replies, | 22:47 | |
"To drive us mad." | 22:50 | |
Right perspective | 22:56 | |
rids us of this kind of protesting complaint against God. | 22:59 | |
It lets us see, however dimly, | 23:06 | |
what we see clearly enough in order to see and know | 23:10 | |
what we are seeing. | 23:15 | |
That God is working his purpose out. | 23:18 | |
As year succeeds to year, | 23:21 | |
God is working his purpose out. | 23:24 | |
And the time is drawing near. | 23:27 | |
Nearer and nearer draws the time. | 23:29 | |
The time that will surely be when the earth | 23:31 | |
shall be filled with the knowledge of God | 23:34 | |
as the waters cover the sea. | 23:36 | |
Do you see life | 23:39 | |
by this perspective? | 23:44 | |
If you do, then the details of your living | 23:48 | |
can be handled | 23:52 | |
with a sense of privilege | 23:54 | |
and purpose. | 23:57 | |
Now the forth gift, | 24:08 | |
with which I close. | 24:10 | |
It is the unspeakable gift of God's presence with us. | 24:16 | |
Thou | 24:22 | |
dost guide me | 24:24 | |
with thy counsel. | 24:25 | |
And afterward, thou will receive me to glory. | 24:28 | |
God is best known and understood | 24:33 | |
as a companioning Thou. | 24:36 | |
It makes prayer so meaningful | 24:41 | |
when we know that when we speak out of our spirit | 24:47 | |
to address our creator, | 24:51 | |
we're addressing the ultimate person | 24:54 | |
who regards us out of an ultimate love | 25:00 | |
at the level of our personhood. | 25:06 | |
There are happenings in life | 25:14 | |
during which only the presence of God can sustain us. | 25:15 | |
You'll meet some of those happenings. | 25:19 | |
You have met some of those happenings. | 25:22 | |
The awareness of the companioning presence of God | 25:27 | |
steadies us for whatever life brings our way | 25:32 | |
on our journey. | 25:36 | |
One year ago, | 25:39 | |
on this very Sunday, | 25:42 | |
I was taken to the hospital | 25:45 | |
right from the chapel | 25:48 | |
deathly ill. | 25:52 | |
Week's later, I had an operation in that hospital. | 26:13 | |
It was touch and go. | 26:19 | |
I did not know, nor did the doctor's know. | 26:21 | |
Certainly my wife did not know if I would last to go home. | 26:24 | |
But I am here today. | 26:32 | |
Whole. | 26:35 | |
Healthy. | 26:38 | |
In that hospital room, | 26:41 | |
I experienced the underside of life | 26:46 | |
that dark, | 26:50 | |
unknown aspect of life | 26:52 | |
which people normally experience when they are about to die. | 26:56 | |
I have come through that. | 27:03 | |
And I stand before you with a grateful heart | 27:07 | |
thanking God for a longer share in time. | 27:11 | |
And with a deeper awareness of the meaning of his presence | 27:18 | |
to help me handle those aspects in time | 27:22 | |
which make me wonder whether I will have any time left. | 27:26 | |
Through what have you passed within the past year? | 27:33 | |
What are you facing now? | 27:37 | |
Notice the affirmation of the text, | 27:44 | |
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel. | 27:47 | |
Wherever you are in your befuddlement, | 27:52 | |
in your puzzled state of mind. | 27:54 | |
In your doubt. | 27:57 | |
In your severe questioning. | 27:58 | |
In your deliberation about an illness. | 28:00 | |
As you wrestle with some perplexity. | 28:06 | |
As you raise your prayers. | 28:10 | |
As you drown in your tears. | 28:12 | |
There is the eternal Thou to whom you can address yourself. | 28:14 | |
Know that you are valued as a thou. | 28:21 | |
Thou dost guide me with thy counsel. | 28:27 | |
T.S. Eliot wrote about some of those happenings | 28:36 | |
which you and I lament. | 28:39 | |
And he wrote about them in his poem, Little Gidding. | 28:41 | |
Here is a man with great aptness of mind. | 28:45 | |
Filled with anxiety about the effects of time and aging. | 28:47 | |
And he said these effects of time are usually experienced as | 28:55 | |
gifts reserved for age to set a crown | 28:59 | |
upon our lifetime's effort. | 29:02 | |
But as a believer, he knew that there was more | 29:06 | |
to look forward to in life | 29:09 | |
than just what time does to us. | 29:12 | |
The psalmist understood that long ago. | 29:20 | |
Thou dost guide me with they counsel | 29:23 | |
and afterward | 29:25 | |
thou wilt receive me. | 29:28 | |
To what do you look forward | 29:33 | |
as you face each day? | 29:36 | |
Given the gift of God's grace, | 29:39 | |
there is for you and for me | 29:43 | |
additional gifts | 29:47 | |
which rightly appreciated | 29:50 | |
can grant us a lifetime of meaning | 29:56 | |
so that on through life's long path, | 29:59 | |
we can chant as we go. | 30:02 | |
From youth to age by day and night. | 30:05 | |
in gladness and in woe, | 30:09 | |
we can rejoice! | 30:12 | |
Rejoice! | 30:15 | |
Rejoice! | 30:17 | |
Give thanks! | 30:19 | |
And sing! | 30:20 | |
So let it be. | 30:25 | |
(organ joyfully plays) | 30:32 |