Sunday Worship – January 28, 2024 – Nicole Jiskoot
SERMON – CONSIDERING THE LORD’S WORKS
Raise your hand if you’re feeling joyful. Those of you worshipping online, type into the chat if
you’re feeling joyful. Maudie, a.k.a. Mom-In-Love, that means you, too! By the way, my
Mother-in-law watches every week and each week she blesses all of you in the DPC family, both
in person and online! I just thought you all should know that.
[Turning to the choir…] Now, how many of you are feeling joyful this morning? Did you find the
gifts I left on your seats? [To the balcony…] How about those of you up in the balcony?
[Back to the congregation…] Last week during the Intergenerational moment, the kids all went
fishing for people in the congregation, handing out pictures of fish and telling people that Jesus
loves them. However, it occurred to me later in the day, that we completely neglected the choir
and those who sit in the balcony. I joked with Kathy Morse that we just assume the choir
already knows they’re loved by Jesus, so they don’t need reminding. The thing is, though,
whether we need to be reminded or not, it sure is nice to hear sometimes!
In our PC(USA) Book of Confessions, the first question in the Westminster Larger Catechism
asks, “What is the chief and highest end of man?” In other words, what is the most important
point of being human? The answer that we are supposed to give is that our “chief and highest
end is to glorify God…” okay, well that makes sense… then it says (and this is my favorite part of
any of our confessions of faith)… it says, “and to enjoy God forever”! To enjoy God! As human
beings, according to the English guys who wrote this confession in the 1640s, the whole point
of your LIFE is to glorify God and enjoy God forever!… Just sit with that for a few seconds…
Have you ever had one of those moments when you were just going about your day and
something stopped you in your tracks? Maybe it was one of those bright orange Florida sunsets
on vacation. Maybe it was the sound of water flowing over the rocks in a nearby stream on a
routine walk. Maybe you were feeling overwhelmed with life and just happened to look up at
the sky, just in time to see the breeze rustle through the greenest leaves you’ve ever seen – the
sun flickering through turning them shades of lime and yellow.
I would argue that moments like these, when God seems to whisper peace and beauty into our
hearts, could be an every-day occurrence if we would stop and pay attention more often. That
is what the Psalmist seems to be saying in Psalm 111. It is an ancient Hebrew acrostic poem
reminding us to “Stop and smell the roses!” One of my former CTS professors, now Dean
Cristine Yoder, taught me that an acrostic poem begins each line with the next letter of the
Hebrew alphabet, symbolizing an A-Z (or Aleph to Tav) kind of completeness. Psalm 111 gives
us the full and complete representation of God’s good works.
During Pastor Todd’s Wednesday night class, they pulled out the adjectives that described God
and God’s works in the psalm. God’s works are described as: great, studied, full of honor and
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majesty, wonderful, faithful, just, and trustworthy. Meanwhile, God is described as: gracious,
merciful, mindful provider, covenant keeper, powerful, and holy and awesome redeemer.
These attributes of God and God’s work in the world draw us into response… at least they
should.
Imagine being on vacation at the beach in Florida during that magnificent sunset and ignoring it
to check your phone for social media posts instead. Or maybe you never heard the sound of the
stream on your run, because you had your ear buds in listening to some political podcast.
Maybe you were so overwhelmed, that instead of looking up to see the sunlight through the
trees, you kept your gaze lowered to your feet moving swiftly on the muddy sidewalk. All too
often, we allow the stresses and distractions of our lives to obscure our vision of God’s work in
the world. This doesn’t just involve missed opportunities to witness God’s beauty in creation. It
also means we miss the opportunity to comfort someone who is hurting or the chance to join in
someone’s laughter.
Psalm 111 not only reminds us to look up and notice God’s work in the world… it reminds us to
respond to it with yir’at. Now, unfortunately, the people who translated the Hebrew word yir’at
into English used the word fear. But this is not fear like when I see a spider on my front door,
causing me to jump back and wait for my husband to come deal with it. It isn’t the kind of fear
that prevents you from being able to move forward on an important decision, either. It’s not
even one of those deeply rooted fears that plague your waking nightmares. Yir’at is a deep
awe-inspiring reverence for God, which is the beginning, or epitome, of wisdom, and all who
practice it have good understanding. And what does wisdom and good understanding demand
of us? To praise God and enjoy God forever.
So how do we do that? What kind of praise can I possibly offer a God who invented joy? What
can I give to the God who designed the sound of a baby’s first laugh? What can I do to
adequately glorify the God who fills us with the tart sweetness of a warm grape right off the
vine and sustains us with the Bread of Life?…
I imagine the disciples must have been faced with the same dilemma. For three years, they
walked alongside God in the flesh. They sat and ate with Jesus, listened to him teach, watched
him heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and even cast out demons. In our Mark passage, there
was a man in the synagogue where Jesus was teaching who had what the text calls an “unclean
spirit.” Now, I’ll be honest. In our modern context with our advances in medical science and
psychology, I don’t know where I stand on the existence of demonic possession. On the one
hand, I will not say that there is no possible chance of there being some hidden spiritual realm
that we can’t see… after all, I absolutely hope to see heaven someday. On the other hand, most
of what people used to call “madness” just in the last few hundred years turned out to be
legitimate medical conditions.
The point in Mark is not whether the afflicted man was possessed by a literal demon, but that
Jesus spoke with true, divine authority and made the unclean clean. The people who witnessed
the event were amazed in the presence of such a miraculous act. They were in reverent awe
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over the way Jesus spoke, not as the scribes who read scriptures from the scrolls (or as a
ministry intern who shows pictures while reading from the book of Psalms), but as one who had
real authority, even over the powers of evil. After that, boy did word spread fast! Everyone
seemed to be talking about this new teacher!
The Greek word for authority used here is exousia, which means the liberty or freedom to act
or speak as one chooses. The unclean spirit as presented in Mark is amoral – unholy. It plagues
the man, who has likewise become unclean – an outcast. When Jesus heals the man, it is out of
a willingness to use his own authority to ensure that justice is done for this man. Once he is
healed, he will be able to rejoin society and reengage in life. All of this is accomplished through
the spoken words of Jesus – through his teaching and the transformation it demanded with
authority…
Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them…
What are the amazing works that you see God doing in your life and the life of those around
you?…
What is God doing here at DPC? I can tell you that your elected elders have been asking these
kinds of questions at the elder retreat this weekend. They are eager to discern the ways in
which God is at work in this community and the ways that DPC can live out its core values as a
Matthew 25 church.
What will your response be in the face of all that God is doing? Will you pause in the midst of
your busy schedule to notice the beauty and splendor of creation, praising God in awe and
reverence? Will you be open to seeing people through God’s eyes, speaking with authority of
God’s love to those who are hurting? Will you honor God’s covenantal redemption of all
people, seeking justice for the oppressed and provision for the hungry?
Friends, let see the good works of God and give thanks to the Lord with our whole hearts. God’s
praise endures… Let us glorify God and enjoy God forever!
Amen.
