Two men went to the Temple to pray.
And there was in a difference.
One wanted to been seen.
The other felt unseemly.
Yesterday, I watched the 1983 documentary "Say Amen Somebody".
It spotlighted the world of gospel music and at least 12 hand-clapping songs were featured. The film traced the lives and careers– or ministries- of two giants: the singers "Mother" Willie Mae Ford Smith and "Professor" Thomas A. Dorsey.
Professor Dorsey wrote the perennial favorite hymn "Precious Lord"
in 1932 after his wife Nettie died in childbirth and was followed in death by their newborn son two days later. Understandably, he was despondent. And rendered mute. By his own account, he felt God had done him an injustice. He didn’t want to serve God anymore or write gospel songs. He wanted to return to the jazz that had been his start.
Hunched alone, in his dark apartment, he remembered how he had hesitated before going to sing in St. Louis, "Something kept telling me to stay with Nettie. Was that something God? Oh, if I had paid more attention to Him that day, I would have stayed and been with Nettie when she died. From that moment on I vowed to listen more closely to Him."
But Dorsey was still grieving and not singing. A friend sat him down at a piano. And Dorsey says, "something happened to me. I felt at peace. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, and the words seemed to fall into place."
The next day, Sunday, he sang the hymn at the Ebenezer Church in Chicago. This hymn, these words, have sustained many faithful people over the years. It was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite gospel hymn and Mahalia Jackson sang it at his funeral.
Precious Lord, take my hand,
Lead me on, let me stand,
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light:
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.
When my way grows drear,
Precious Lord, linger near,
When my life is almost gone,
Hear my cry, hear my call,
Hold my hand lest I fall:
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.
When the darkness appears
And the night draws near,
And the day is past and gone,
At the river I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand:
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.
Tommy Dorsey, not the famous big band leader...but the famous gospel singer, wrote: "The Lord gave me these words and melody. He also healed my spirit. I learned that when we are in our deepest grief, when we feel farthest from God, this is when He is closest...."
Like Dorsey, Mother Smith sang and taught and traveled for years. Then she took her music in Convention Halls and Civic Centers. The narrators of the documentary discuss the tension felt at the time. If it’s not in church, is it still worship? If you buy an $8 ticket to get in, is it now entertainment?
One woman singing the same gospel songs.
Was there a difference?
Yes. Now her spirited and spiritual music could reach more people.
That is today’s gospel question, isn’t it?
Is what we do for show? To be seen?
Or...
Is what we do for God? To be seemly and presentable to God?
Good News.
It’s a win/win for us.
God loves us and accepts us just as we are.
Seemly or unseemly.
And the truth is that we are all both seemly and unseemly.
A mix of saint and sinner.
And I think this is important...
God loves us enough not to leave us there.
God invites us to a journey toward wholeness and holiness.
And we can chose.
To walk in the way of Christ.
Or to sit and wait.
We are to be ethical and moral people.
Walking in the light of Christ.
The humorist Henny Youngman suggests:
"If you are going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for tomorrow... Sleep late."
What did Jesus say to his sleeping disciples in the Garden of Gethseame?
According to Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Matthew’s Gospel,
Jesus "came back and found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, ‘Simon, you went to sleep on me? Can't you stick it out with me a single hour? [38] Stay alert, be in prayer, so you don't enter the danger zone without even knowing it. Don't be naive. Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire."
Today we are told that we are to know not to do things for show.
But to do them because they are good, and right, and make a difference.
Now sometimes/ often times/ those choices are hard.
Sometimes/ often times/ they don’t even feel like choices at all.
We wonder about fate and bad luck and predestination.
But in the end, the choice is still ours.
To be seen or unseen.
To be seemly or unseemly.
Many others of you read some of my favorite authors too.
One of those authors writes in the English tradition of Christian literature.
With JR Tolkien. And CS Lewis.
I’m talking about JR Rowling.
Her young wizard Harry Potter is often faced with difficult choices and finds himself in life threatening situations.
Does the prophecy that he will have to meet and face off with the dark, evil Lord Voledmort mean that his free will is just an illusion?
Does he move along some predestined programming? A robot?
Or is he a moral agent?
Able to choose good?
Yes. He can act and choose for the good. And we identify with him as he makes this realization in the book entitled The Half Blood Prince. [p. 512]
Harry "understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew– and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents– that there was all the difference in the world.
We are to be people who know and live that difference.
We are to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.
That difference is ours
Because we know and serve God in Jesus Christ.
Because God is with us. Emmanuel.
Because we know that no in all creation can separate us
from the love of God.
Thank, God.
Amen.
