James Earl Massey - "Gifts for the Journey" (February 4, 1990)
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| - | 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 |
