Consecration
Scripture Reading Psalm 33:1-5
Harvesting Pennies
Sometimes
you just need a psalm. Psalms live more
in the gut than in the brain – in feelings and wants; in fears and joys; in
discouragements and thanksgiving. They
aren’t careful treatises on theological complexities; they only rarely cite
specific data beyond the imminent threat of an enemy or the notation of a
recent rescue. Instead, psalms
articulate the moist and loamy language of the soul – the reach for God out of
the depths of estrangement or the touch of God in the euphoria of spiritual awareness. Psalms ache, and rage, and wonder, and give
thanks. Among the same pages of this
collection we walk beside still waters and we bang the drums and crash the
cymbals; we dream of bashing babies’ brains out and we marvel at the intricate
care that God has taken in the individual creation of each human life. There are virtually no human emotions absent
from this book. In the psalms we vent,
we lament, we repent, marvel and ultimately praise – and in the midst of it
all, we call this scripture.
Psalms
aren’t the laboratory rats of scripture – word and phrase specimens we
tediously dissect and parse, analyze and distill. More often speaking for us than to us, they
are spiritual fodder, catharsis and food.
And people of faith, generation after generation, have found in their
simple straightforwardness, at one time or another, “just the thing” they need.
And
gathered here in the crisp joy of Autumn, on this day of consecration and
celebration, senses heightened to the “pennies” of grace and blessing with
which are lives are veritably planted, perhaps the psalmist says all we want to
say: the
earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.
The
earth is full. Don’t we marvel at that
every year at various moments on the calendar – in the profligate colors of
spring and summer, and the bountiful harvest each autumn? And every year we expect it, in a way, but are also surprised by it. Living in
And
people are always touching our lives. A
card shows up in the mailbox at just the right time; a phone call or a hug; a
word of encouragement or a voice of support.
Someone shows up, sits beside us – or simply agrees with us; someone
inspires us or recalls us to our better selves.
Someone lends a helping hand. Someone
challenges us with a different point of view or a practice that contrasts or
enlarges our own. And in the grace of
that human touch, we notice a glimmer of bronze, bend down and pick up a penny,
of sorts, planted in our path. The earth is full of the steadfast love of
the LORD.
And
though our evangelistic sensibilities prefer a quieter, subtler proclamation
than some of our more strident brothers and sisters in the faith, we do believe
that God did something decisive in our life and the world around us through the
life and ministry of Jesus that is, indeed, “Good News.” We have some comprehension of the reality of
sin that, however else we may understand it, boils down to a contortion of the
will of God and an estrangement from the presence of God. Human selfishness is prone to trump divine
intent in the choices we make and the actions we take. And though we are loath to admit it, the end
result is death – our own, oftentimes others, and still more often the creation
our appetites pillage and abuse.
And
yet, we believe with the Apostle Paul, “God was in Christ reconciling the world
to God’s own self, not counting their sins against them.” God proves God’s love for us in that, “while
we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
While we were yet sinners – without any merit other than the value God’s
own love placed on us – God drew us close, held us, and pointed us in a fresh
direction. Good news, indeed – of the
deepest, profoundest kind. In each of
us, individually, and among us, collectively, the Reign of God is glinting in
the sun – tiny, sometimes barely visible, and oftentimes seemingly
insignificant pennies of the kingdom. In
who we are. In what we do. In what we contribute and accomplish and
challenge and inspire. The earth is full of the steadfast love of
the LORD.
The
earth, the church, and you: full of
the steadfast love of the LORD. In
the reflection that has been teasing our imagination throughout this month,
Annie Dillard observes that, “The world is fairly studded and strewn with
pennies cast broadside from a generous hand,” but in our busyness or our
misguided estimation of value, we seldom bother to notice – or care. And the result is the anxious, defensive
bunkering of scarcity. If, however, we
take Dillard’s advice; “if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so
that finding a penny will literally make your day, then since the world is in
fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.”
And
you have, with your awe-filled, perhaps even childlike gratitude, been minted
into the very currency of heaven. In our
tithes and our offerings, in our hospitality and our prayers, in our compassion
and our agitation, our sermons and our songs; in our dreaming and our doing,
our investing and protesting, in our trusting and remembering and embracing and
questioning; in our talents and the myriad ways we enflesh the gospel, the earth is full of the steadfast love of
the LORD.
And
the harvest of pennies – of all those small but precious expressions of the
reign of God among us – is rich beyond all counting. Thanks be to God.