North Wilkesboro Presbyterian Church

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the LORD surrounds his people,

from this time on and forevermore. (Psalm 125:2)

Throughout the Book of the Psalms, song writers often use the image of a mother bird nestling her chicks under her wing (see Psa. 17, 36, 57, 61, 63, 91). The image is comforting, gentle, and nurturing, safe, warm, and tender. However, that is not the image used in Psalm 125. Today, the psalmist offers not an image of steadfast love and tender care, but instead draws upon the sustaining strength and protective power of the mountains that surround Jerusalem. There is, perhaps, no better image of immovable strength and permanent power than the mountains . . . and when we look around us here in Wilkes, we see what the psalmist sings. In these uncertain times, it is good to be enveloped in the strength and security of a sustaining God.              – rc

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry . . . (Matthew 21:14–15)

This episode follows on the heals of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple in which Jesus turns over the money-changers’ tables and accuses them of turning the “house of prayer” into a “den of robbers” (Matt. 21:13). This is important background to our story for this morning because it adds more fuel to the anger of the chief priests and the scribes. All too often, I’ve heard that their anger had more to do with Jesus’ blasphemous silence about the crowds’ proclamation that he was the “Son of David.” However, the cleansing of the Temple, the miraculous healings, and the crowds’ recognition that Jesus is, in fact, the Savior all serve to threaten the status quo for the chief priests and scribes; it all threatens the power and privilege of those in charge. With all of this in mind, our story today is much more about creating a world in which everyone has access to God’s abundance – where no one is blind, no one is lame, no one lords power over people . . . where everyone experiences peace. And it is Jesus that shows us the way. – rc

Restore us, O God;

let your face shine, that we may be saved. (Psalm 80:3, 7, 19)

Today, the psalmist calls out from her despair, cries out in her frustration, sings out her desire for some peace and normalcy in her life. “How long?” she wonders (v. 4). How long will everything be in disarray? How long will the world feel as if it’s crumbling down around us? How long before things are set right? She remembers the good ol’ days when things were going so well (vv. 8–11) but now there is neither rest nor peace. “How long?” she asks. “How long?” It’s the same question many of us are asking ourselves these days. How long will we have to keep this social distancing up? How long will we have to wear these face masks? How long will we be apart from one another? How long?

It is the circumstance(s) of the psalmist that lead her to cry out in hopeful prayer (or, prayerful hope) and it is our own circumstances that lead us to do the same. Restore us. Shine upon us. Save us, we pray. – rc

Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” (Matthew 19:27)

What we have before us today is Peter’s response to Jesus’ teaching about wealth and discipleship – that it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God (v. 24). So after hearing about giving everything up to follow Jesus, Peter asks about what he’s going to get, how he’s going to be rewarded. It seems to me that he’s asked just the wrong question, he’s missed the point about true discipleship, he seems to be more concerned with becoming first rather than becoming a follower. This is why Jesus confronts him – for “many who are first ill be last, and the last will be first (v. 30).

The time has come for the Church to stop asking the same questions that Peter is credited with asking. The time has come for the Church to stop seeking rewards for herself. The time has come to give up ourselves for the good of following Christ.  – rc

You desire truth in the inward being;

          therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. (Psalm 51:6)

Today is Juneteenth, a day when our African-American sisters and brothers celebrate the symbolic end of slavery as June 19, 1865 was the day when the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Texas, the last of the Confederate States in which the address was read. So it is fitting that the psalmist today sings a song of confession, a song of repentance. It is a deeply personal psalm – “me” and “I” abound in the song as the psalmist recognizes past sin and begs forgiveness. But it is also a deeply corporate psalm – it is a community of people coming together in worship who sing this song together, recognizing their past sin and begging forgiveness.

Yes, today is Juneteenth, an important day for our Black sisters and brothers. But it is also an important day for our White sisters and brothers as well, a day when we might search our inward being and change our ways so that there might be justice for all. – rc