If in life you are ever feeling totally swamped or overwhelmed, the average condition of most New Yorkers, might I encourage you to pray “An Order For Compline” found beginning on page 127 of the Book of Common Prayer. One of the Psalms appointed for that office is Psalm 4, traditionally known as the Evening Psalm. I was praying the office with two members of the vestry and we are all amazed at how the song of King David just washed over us and became a real source of comfort.  

In this particular Psalm, David is dealing particularly with slander and injustices he is enduring as King of Israel. Now maybe you are not facing the pressures of being the King of Israel and dealing with a son who is trying to usurp your throne, however you are dealing with pressures that come from living in this city and you are feeling overwhelmed, Psalm 4 is for you.

As we see David make his plea to God, we see him transformed in the prayer from an anxious mess, because of his accusers, into an anxious mess who, for a moment, has a quite trust in God. As David states:

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.“

So often, we are trying to buck against the trend that we are not in control and, in the process, we make ourselves even more anxious.

Psalm 4 reminds us that, in the midst of life, which is so often out of our control, prayer is really, really good.

Prayer refocuses on what is actually real: we need saving and we have a God who has saved us. Prayer in this way becomes almost a form of therapy. It does the Psalmist and all of us good. As James Boice commenting on this Psalm wrote, “There are days in the lives of all human beings which require a psalm like this at their end.”  

So pray and enjoy your forgiveness. We’ll see you this Sunday.

Pax,

Jacob

There’s no direct evidence that Jesus was into funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music.

But his words in this Sunday’s gospel surely set the stage for the musical genius of Sly and the Family Stone. In 1968, Sly sang, “Are you ready?”

“Don’t hate the black

Don’t hate the white

If you get bit

Just hate the bite

Make sure your heart is beating right

Get ready!”

Other musical greats have sung the message of this Sunday’s gospel as well:

“Get ready, ‘cause here I come” - The Temptations, 1966

“Ready or not, here I come” - Delfonics, 1969

“Are you ready for love” - Elton John, 1979

And how do you get ready?

Well, there’s also no direct evidence that Jesus was a Boy Scout. But he would have approved of the Boy Scouts founder, Robert Baden-Powell, articulating the essential foundation for being a Boy Scout - “Be prepared” - as a response to the issue of how you get ready.

How do you get ready?

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus says - by being prepared. And my goodness, examples of the wisdom of this advice are all over the place right now.

• Folks in the Bahamas got ready for Hurricane Dorian this past week by preparing with plywood window covers, extra water and batteries, and access to emergency shelters.

• Thousands of runners are getting ready for the NYC Marathon in November by preparing with daily workouts. (When I got ready for the NYC Marathon many, many years ago, I prepared by cutting back from two packs a day to one…)

• The staff members of Calvary-St. George’s are getting ready for the fall season by preparing all sorts of amazing programs.

• I have a friend who is getting ready for his death by preparing his will. (He also prepares by calling me once a week to change the names of the participants in his funeral…)

• I have another friend who was not ready for getting a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s this past week - pretty hard to prepare for that.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus tells us to get ready for the work of following him. And the truth of the matter is that not one of us can fully handle the preparation needed for that work.

• People still died in the Bahamas.

• Runners still get cramps and drop out of marathons.

• Our programs this fall will not make headlines in the Times.

• My friend will never get his funeral program just right.

• My other friend’s husband shares with me how unprepared he is for his wife’s Alzheimer’s.

Here’s the invitation:

Bring your failed preparations with you to church this Sunday. Because here’s the news: Jesus has already gotten ready for us by bearing the consequences of our failed preparations on his own shoulders on the cross.

And here are two teasers for this Sunday’s sermon:

1. If you smoke a cigar, you are especially welcome.

2. Refrain from saying the phrase, “Count the cost” - for the rest of your life.

See you Sunday!

- Jim

Dear Parish Family,

I am looking forward to being back in the pulpit this Sunday. What an insane last weekend! I must confess that I have become slightly immune to all the news about gun violence in this country. Sadly, when I come across these stories, I often find myself shaking my head and scrolling on to the next thing. However, one of my best friends in the whole world is the Reverend Ben Phillips, who is the amazing and able rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Dayton, OH. So this week’s shooting hit close to home. Ben and his family are fine but when I spoke with him, he said, “This has been a tough year for Dayton.” Prior to the shooting, Dayton had been hit by some of the most extreme weather patterns this country has ever seen, which included destructive tornadoes and floods. So to add a violent and senseless shooting, one must ask:

Who hasn’t posed this question to God? Suffering and grief are part of life and I have never found them comforting when someone pithily responds, “This is not God’s fault.” I would argue that suffering is profoundly at the center of the Christian faith, it is known as the cross. While I have no answer as to why God allows such things, I know that as we, with Jesus, enter into that profound question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we begin to see that God who is at the center of our suffering profoundly uses it for our good.  

First, God uses suffering to pull us up, out of our despair, and point us to God’s own words and promises that he has overcome the world and the devil.

For in that word and those promises, all speculation and hearsay come to an end. For those means reveal to us the cross, where we hear God definitively say that God loves and cares for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   

Second, through those words and promises, God uses suffering to conform us into his image.

Remember, in this age, God hides his glory in the image of Jesus and as St. Paul reminded us last week, as Christians, our glory is also hidden and therefore like our Lord, often revealed in the midst of suffering. However, the promise is, since we are like Jesus, here we can rest in the fact that we will be resurrected and redeemed and gloriously like him in the age that is to come. 

Finally, God uses suffering so that we might know to place all of our trust in him.

When one reads the manifesto of the El Paso shooter and the Twitter feed of the Dayton shooter, and all the other manifestos and social media feeds, we understand that these were disturbed men who had trusted in themselves to change the world. The history of suffering in this world is often caused by well-meaning men and women taking things into their own hands and, “getting sh%# done!” So suffering reminds us that when we trust in ourselves and play God, even with the best of intentions, humans always totally screw things up. 

The fact is, contra to the American prophets of this media and celebrity age, we are not inclined to the good first, but to ourselves. So suffering thrusts us back to Jesus our savior and his promise from this Sunday’s Gospel:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

This promise, in turn, creates hope that, in the midst of our suffering, if God who is only good has suffered and died for us, will He not certainly in His love do what is best for us in all things?

And with our trust in Christ and his cross alone, the answer is always YES! Most certainly yes! So let us pray for El Paso, let us pray for Dayton, let us pray for our hurting nation and trust that it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us his kingdom.  

Love,

The Reverend Jacob Smith