I remember saying to Bishop Park, at about quarter to ten at night, Thursday night, January 4, 2018, “The older I get, the more I realize I don’t know much. But, I know one thing: God is faithful.” My life, my history, is littered with God’s great faithfulness. And, I thank those of you who have had such an important part in that.
Lord God, as we pause in these moments, we are a people who sometimes need to have our heads dropped to the dust to be reminded that without the breath of life that you freely give without our asking, and most certainly without any of us earning it, we are but dust. Breathe in us, by the power and the promise of your Holy Spirit, that in these moments … we might be refreshed, revitalized, that we might be convicted; where we need the perfect accountability of our only perfect parent. Comfort us when we need your healing balm and convert us more completely to be the offering you intend for us to be. In Jesus Christ be praised. Amen.
I confess I’m not the sharpest tool in the box and I’m not the smartest person in the room... so, I’m just going to offer what God’s laid on my heart.
In seminary, I had to do an exegetical paper on Psalm 126 and I fell in love with it once I learned the history behind this story. It is a Psalm of people who had lost what they thought they could count on—the shining city of Jerusalem where they knew God dwelled—and they were taken by the Babylonians into captivity, where they were made to sing songs of torment and to yearn and wonder in their minds if they could ever go home, asking, ‘Will God ever restore us?’ I love it because in that song is the tension of unbridled joy at their return to Jerusalem, even though the temple was destroyed, and their deep, deep sorrow of the reality of the human condition—when we’ve lost that which we thought was rock-solid sure. As the song goes, “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with…” (congregation: ‘Joy.’)” And also, the other one (in Psalm 30) is: “For the night weeping may carry, with the morning light comes… (congregation: ‘Joy.’)”
God is faithful.
In Lamentations the writer is crying out to God. In chapter two we hear that God is so disgusted and upset with the sin and the separation of His people that He stripped the Tabernacle; He made the assembly a ruin; kings and priests were scorned; the Lord spurned his own altar, He laid a curse upon on His own sanctuary. For those of us a little too caught up in our buildings, it’s a good reminder right now. And yet, in the midst of that—the remembering, the sadness, the loss, the nostalgia, and the pain—the writer is drawn back by God’s great faithfulness in Lamentations 3:23; new every morning are God’s mercies, great is thy faithfulness, O God.
That’s how we can carry on, Church. The God who was, is still present, is still speaking, and is still at work.
Which leads me to another passage that became a key passage for me when I served Messiah UMC in Shippensburg. It’s Romans 12:1-3 and it’s from Eugene Peterson’s offering “The Message.”
The Apostle Paul says; “Here’s what I want to do. God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life.” (Anyone have an everyday, ordinary life?) “—your sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out in you, develops well-formed maturity in you. I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you.”
How many of you have concerns about where this world is headed? “Where is our culture going?” “My goodness, our churches are struggling.” Anyone have any of those concerns? Hear God’s great faithfulness. I am a living witness that God is faithful. God’s got this, Church. God had it back when the lamenter was crying out in Lamentations. God’s got this.
The real question is when God says to me, ‘Troy, are you willing to give your heart, and your mind, and your soul again, and again, and again?’ That’s a struggle for me, but it’s the call of the gospel and of the cross.
I want to offer thanksgiving to God for the way He has continued to grow me beyond my brokenness and my sin condition, because of the power of the church triumphant in my life.
When my wife Dawn, our kids, and I attended Trinity UMC in New Cumberland, I was involved in a variety of ministries and I taught Sunday school for the men’s Bible class. At the end of one Sunday school lesson, Rev. David Long asked, “Troy, have you ever considered ordained ministry?” and I said, “No.” He said, “Really?” I said, “Never.” He said, “Well, I’ve been observing you for a couple years and you have gifts and graces, and I just wanted to say that.”
Later that week I pondered that question while working in my office in the state capital. I went home and told Dawn what Rev. Long had said. I figured she would slam the door for sure. Instead she said, “I could see you doing that.” Then suddenly I remembered that I had lied to David on Sunday. When I was about eight or nine years old—I could see myself in the chair at the table in the Sunday school classroom in prayer or talking about what we wanted to do with our life—I remember thinking, I wonder if Jesus would want me to be a Reverend. Immediately, I knew the answer, No. Because I wouldn’t be good enough. You see, when I was growing up and the Reverend came in the room, I was smart and savvy enough to know that people’s behavior and language change. So, I had done my own computations and was like, No.
That Sunday I confessed, “Hey David, I lied to you. I lied to a Reverend.” And David, with this great flock of white hair, said, “How do you figure?” I told him the story and then he said, “You know, Troy, sometimes God insists on an external voice speaking what’s going on in you, so you know that it’s God, so you can be bold enough.” When David Long died, his wife Veda said, “David wanted you to have his robe.”
There are people waiting for the external affirmation of the internal stirring of the Spirit in their life. Maybe it has nothing to do with being a Reverend or a Pastor. Maybe it has everything to do with knocking off the nonsense, and the dissonance, and the hatred, and the works of the flesh to embrace the works of the Spirit through love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control.
God is faithful. Do you see why I believe that?
My grandmother, who is going to be ninety-nine in February, often-times would say—and she’d be a millionaire if she had a buck for every time she said this—she’d say, “Troy, you’re getting a little too big for your britches.”
When I was in seminary I was sent to Chestnut Grove UMC in Dillsburg and I was dangerous there. I started thinking, I’ve got to get this place revived—a major mistake for any of us. After a couple years I started thinking, I’m pretty good. I can do this. I know all the ‘magic’, the latest church growth stuff. Those things are great, but if they aren’t grounded in Christ they’re, ‘a noisy gong, clanging cymbal.’ (1 Cor 13:1)
One week in seminary I kept having the sense, There’s so much brokenness in me and in the church that I am serving that we need to make it safe for people to own it. That might lead us through.
I prepared a message on anointing and the balm of Gilead. On Sunday morning, I went to the pianist Carolyn Myers and said, “Carolyn, I’m going to do an anointing here, inviting anyone that wants to claim their brokenness and God’s restoring wholeness to come forward.” And, she said “I wonder how that’s going to work? What are you going to do if no one comes forward?” I said, “I’ll kneel and anoint myself. Because they need to know their pastor is broken.” I asked her to play There’s a Balm in Gilead. “You’ll probably only have to play it a couple times through.”
Three years earlier, there were about fifty people in worship; that morning, maybe a hundred. I preached the message and then invited anyone who wanted to claim their brokenness to come forward. The pianist was playing There is a balm in Gilead the second time through and no one was coming up and I thought, Lord, I didn’t hear you right, so I’ll anoint myself. About that time, I saw a young lady (pictured), Cheri Miller, stand up. She’s one of God’s special daughters. She stood up and was fighting with her Dad. She said, “I hurt my arm, I’m broken, and I want healed.” Cheri Miller came up that aisle, and what happened? The church followed. Almost everybody came up that morning claiming their brokenness.
Cheri, I love you because God taught me not to get too big for my britches for you.
Honestly, I didn’t want to go anywhere that the Bishop sent me. But, I was sent to Messiah UMC in Shippensburg and after I spent time there I never wanted to leave. God is faithful. Messiah UMC has giant pillars and the best music ministry around, a beautiful sanctuary, stained glass windows, and a great history. I was privileged to follow a great pastor, Gere Reist, who laid a great foundation. So, we prayed, where would you want us to take this? And God brought to mind, I want you to go deeper and wider as followers.
It was there that I adopted the Romans 12 passage. The denomination sent us a letter one day on fancy stationary that said, “You’ve been cited and identified as a Romans 12:1 church.” And I thought, What’s that? And then I read the Peterson passage: “Take your everyday, ordinary life…” and I thought Wow! God grew me there, and the church.
And then I moved on to Aldersgate UMC in Mechanicsburg. I didn’t want to be there either, but God said, “Troy, I’ve got this. Stop trying to be the best, stop trying to be the brightest. Stop trying to get the numbers, and just relax in meeting the world and it’s woundedness. Jesus was raised with wounds for a reason. Reach in them.”
Reaching into the world God so loved, they started divorce care, single parenting, and grief share small groups, and men’s Timothy studies. They ministered with Daystar and spiritual recovery for addicts. And because we were willing to be led, the Spirit of God revealed in us our brokenness to see the majesty of Christ’s wholeness.
In the preschool at Aldersgate, with kids and families of diverse faiths and backgrounds, we said, “We are going to teach the love of Jesus.” The Preschool Director Kathleen Blazey used to come to my office and say “Troy, it happened again! You know that Muslim family I was telling you about? The Mom just said, ‘Why do you people do this? We didn’t think Christians acted this way.’” Talk about a damning indictment.
It’s been my great privilege to journey wherever God has placed me. I don’t really have an answer for the future, other than ‘I’m willing to walk with people here.’
Church, God’s got this. We have difficult decisions to make; sometimes about buildings, sometimes about renewal and revival, sometimes letting go of our lamentations to see His mercies, that God’s got this. Amen?
That’s the good news of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God.
