Writing Our New Song – July 5. 2020 Sermon
Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Matthew 11:15-19, 25-30
The original Bible was not written in chapters and verses. Somebody describes it as a love letter from God. I believe it is better to call the Bible as a Love Song from God. A love letter is personal; a song is personal but can also be communal. The Bible is God’s song addressed to you and me as individuals but it is also addressed to all of us as a community and one humanity. A new appointment is an opportunity to write our new songs. The message of our songs are none other than about Jesus Christ who reveals God for all people, whose love is all inclusive, and whose grace is total. And when we say “ALL” it really means “ALL”. When we say we write our new songs, we mean, we use our own words and must be relevant to our world and context today.
The Bible gives us many kinds of songs. A song expressing our pain, anguish, doubts and frustrations, etc. like the one expressed in the first part of our gospel lesson. The Bible not only allows and recognizes our pain, it empowers us to express, talk and discuss them.
The first part of our gospel lesson today shows the frustrations of Jesus about the attitude of the people of his day. He said: This generation 16 “To what will I compare this generation? It is like a child sitting in the marketplaces calling out to others, 17 ‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a funeral song and you didn’t mourn.’ 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 Yet the Human One[a] came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved to be right by her works.”
This is part of being human to name and talk about our pain, our frustrations, doubts and questions. God does not want us to ignore them, or pretend that we are not affected by the harsh realities of life. If you review with me briefly the events of the past century until today, you will realize that every generation faced perhaps even more than their fair share of life’s problems and pain. The first American generation of the 20th century faced the American – Spanish war, followed by the first World War (1914-1918), and at the end of it came the Spanish flu. The second generation was beset with the Great Depression and culminated with the start of WW-II. World War II continues in the third generation followed by the Korean War (1950-1953) and the start of Vietnam war (1955-175) and the same beset domestically the boiling tensions of the evils of segregation and racism. The fourth generation had to face racism and segregation head on led by the Civil Rights movement, the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy… and the Vietnam War continues. The last generation of the 20th century faced wars in the Middle East and in Bosnia and unrest in many parts of the world. Then came the first generation and of this century ushered in by the attack on America in 2001, then the great recession, and now the Coronavirus pandemic.
In the individual and personal level I have seen many people faced unimaginable trials in life: Imagine the the suffering and pain of our ancestors who faced wars, other pandemics, the great depression and recessions and now this Covid 19 pandemic, the plague of our day that killed almost 130,000 Americans and infected 2.5 million people and still counting. I have ministered to people afflicted by cancer – more than one family I saw had 2, 3 or more members diagnosed with this dreaded disease and then died within the span of 6 months.
And yet every generation fought a good fight, faced its trials not with fear but hope for a better day. At the end, every generation even bruised, bewildered, broken, worn and tired; ultimately at the end they came out stronger, better, and wiser than before. Ultimately, they learned the lesson of the past that helped the next generation fight their battles and did not repeat exactly the same mistakes.
And yet, we are people of faith – faith in ourselves, in the goodness and resilience of humanity, and faith in our Creator. We cannot quit. I have to proudly confess that God has gifted me with a wife that is strong and smart, gifted and talented. And recently along the many talents that she has now, she also discovered she is a composer of song – in words and in music. She titled her song: “Be Still, Be Still” – it is based on her experience of the Coronavirus pandemic and also an echo of the psalmist hymn of trust and hope: “Be still and know that I am God.”
At the night, there was pain, there was fear, there were chills; Yet remain, there was a call to be still, through the night.
At the dawn, there was ray, there was light breaking in; Yet remain there was hope to be still, till new day comes.
At the day, there was a call, there were questions, there were doubts. There was love, there was courage to be still through the day.
At the night, there was pain. At the dawn, there was light. At the day, there was a call: to be still, to be still.
Our Old Testament lesson, in
fact the entire book of Song of Solomon
is a love song between God and humanity. Our lover is God. Because God first
loved us, we can also love God back. Listen again to these beautiful words of
our first lesson: Listen! It’s my lover:
here he comes now,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
9 My lover is like a
gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands now,
outside our wall,
peering through the windows,
peeking through the lattices.
10 My lover spoke and said to me,
“Rise up, my dearest,
my fairest, and go.
11 Here, the winter
is past;
the rains have come and gone.
12 Blossoms have
appeared in the land;
the season of singing[a] has arrived,
and the sound of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
13 The green fruit
is on the fig tree,
and the grapevines in bloom are
fragrant.
Rise up,[b] my dearest, my fairest,
and go.
God our Lover, for us Christians, was fully revealed in Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s Word made flesh. Our God loves us so much, God gave us Jesus, God’s only Son to be our Redeemer and Sustainer. As disciples, we are expected to love God in return. Our love for God must be translated in the way we love one another.
In Jesus we can come and lay down our pain, our aches, our frustrations, our doubts, our questions. Lay these down so we can take on the new teachings of Jesus that will give us rest, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light. How could this be? It is because we are made to love, we are made to love God and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. When we do what we are made for, we are doing what we love. And on occasions that we are called to do things that we don’t love at first, we can also find a way to love what we do. So whether we do what we love or love what we do, with God, we can find meaning, purpose and joy in our living.
A New Song to live by of our true creed and values as a nation defined in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
A new song to make the dream a reality and not turn into a nightmare as James Cone and Malcolm X claim. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character… I have a dream that one day … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers… I have a dream today!… when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing…”
A New Song of Diversity and Inclusion. Jesus said come unto me all. When Jesus said “all” he means “all”. In him there is no Gentile or Jew, free or slave, LGBTQ or straight, women or men, children or youth, black, brown, yellow, red, white. As a Reconciling congregation, this is one of our main songs. Let’s live by it every day.
A New Song of Humility especially for people of faith. There is only one God and we are all God’s children. Period. People of faith are not the truth, it is God. Let us learn to accept one another, to learn from each other, work with each other for we work for the same Creator, we have the same mission to love one another as siblings and neighbors. This humility should include returning to living Grace not judgment, exclusion, and go it alone mentality. A new song of humility towards all people and creation.
A New Song of liberation to build on the work of freedom loving ancestors from the brave abolitionists, to the Civil Rights movement, to the Black Lives Matter fighters for calling to dismantle racism once and for all.
A New Song of Liberation to move on from domination of one race, to a melting pot, to a salad bowl. To make equality be a reality for all – equal pay for the equal job, rights of LGBTQ, Women, Black, Brown and indigenous people.
A New Song to claim the essence of living a life with meaning, purpose and joy, that is to care and protect one another especially the most vulnerable. That’s why wearing a mask is not a political symbol, it is a theological expression of our love, respect and care for the other.
A New Song of being a church today. When this pandemic started and we closed down the entire country, perhaps many of us thought that we are no longer the church of Jesus Christ. And yet, we realized that the pandemic helped us to return to the true nature and meaning of being a church. The church is not the building; it is the people – you and me. And there is no sickness, or pandemic or geographical distance, or even death that can stop us from being the Body of Christ. For there is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Today we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion. To many of us, we have been fasting from celebrating this Holy Meal because of the Coronavirus pandemic that we are in. As we celebrate this Sacrament may I remind you of one thing: This meal is not a reward for having been good. After all, none is good except God. Simply put, we don’t deserve God’s grace. We as children of the Wesleyan movement, we understand the Sacrament as a means of grace. It is a way of receiving God’s forgiveness, nurturing our faith, and empowering us to do God’s will. And again as People called Methodists, our calling is three-fold: Do no harm, Do Good and Stay in love with God. Come, let us celebrate our Salvation. Come, let us come and dine with Jesus. Amen.