Wednesday, October 15 - Teresa of Avila

As the heading indicates, this sermon was prepared for and preached to the SW Nassau Conference of Lutheran pastors here at St. John's. Once a month we gather at one of our churches to worship together, check in with each other, and conduct the "business" of our conference - sharing information, learning from each other, and supporting each other. It is a blessing to be with them. And to hear them sing today (a capella - that means w/ out instruments!) was beautiful - breaking into harmony all over the place. God loves to hear us raise our voices in song! (and so do I!)

October 15 is the day the church commemorates Teresa of Avila, a teacher & renewer of the church. She was a Carmelite nun in the 1500s who sought to reform the Carmelite order. She wrote some books about prayer and connection with God, and co-founded (w/ St. John of the Cross) a new branch of the Carmelites. I did an internet search and found out some interesting things about her life, her faith, and her ministry. Happy reading, if you've gotten this far!





The Lord of hosts is with us!
Psalm 46
Commemoration of Teresa of Avila
SW Nassau Conference Worship
October 15, 2008

When I was in college, my roommate & I had one of those “How Are You Feeling Today?” posters. It had several cartoon faces on it, each depicting a different emotion, from the normal happy and sad to more intense emotions like enraged, ecstatic, hysterical. And I was wondering this morning, how are you feeling? If you had the poster in front of you, which one would you pick?

I suspect that if you have been watching the news or reading the paper at all lately, you might use feeling words like concerned, confused, overwhelmed, or maybe anxious, worried, frightened. For as the Psalmist says, the nations rage, and the kingdoms shake. I like how the NRSV puts it; it's what drew me to preach on this text: The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter. And surely that is true for us, within our country and around the world. The nations are in an uproar. We fear that our kingdom may totter and fall. We can't escape the constant stream of news about the economic turmoil that is gripping the world. Banks failing, mortgage foreclosures, bailouts, the credit crunch, the rise and fall of the stock market – the state of our financial situation is on everybody's mind, and it's certainly been a prime topic of conversation whenever people gather. Is it gonna get worse before it gets better? How is this gonna affect me? How will it affect my church? Are we headed to The Great Depression 2.0, as Time magazine called it?

Now the elections are looming, and the political scene is reaching a frenzied pace. With the wars we have been engaged in for years seeming like they may never come to an end and fears about the economy, we worry about our potential leaders, fearful that more disaster will follow if we vote the wrong one in, whoever you think that may be.

Add to all of this the stress of daily living, just getting through the daily routine, of caring for aging parents, of coping with loved ones who are sick, the highs & lows of ministry. It's no wonder to me if we feel anxious or overwhelmed or just downright frightened, because truly, the world is in an uproar.

Today we remember Teresa of Avila, a teacher and renewer of the church, and she too lived in a time of turmoil. The world around her was changing about as rapidly as ours is. Just a few decades before she was born, Columbus in 1492 sailed the ocean blue to the “new” world, which we remembered earlier this week. Just a few years after she was born, Luther went over to the Wittenburg Door and pounded those 95 Theses into the wall, and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation were off & running, turning over the religious systems of their day. Teresa lived in Spain during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, lucky her! And as she sought to reform the practices of the Carmelite order, to return to the life of poverty, simplicity, and contemplation they had vowed to undertake, trying to set up a new convent that would practice that way of life, Teresa faced opposition from her sisters and religious superiors, who put her name before the Inquisition, although the charges were eventually dropped. Teresa knew what it was to live in a time of upheaval.

And from the Psalm, we know that the Psalmist did too. We don't know the exact circumstances surrounding the writing of this song; scholars are divided on what category to even put it in! But clearly, the psalmist was acquainted with trouble. Natural and political disasters seem near at hand – the earth may move, the mountains shake, the waters rage and foam. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter. The people of Israel were living in unsure & uncertain times, just as we do today.

And yet, the theme that runs under and through this whole psalm is one of trust, trust in God. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear...” We will not fear, though the earth changes, though the mountains shake, though the waters rage & foam. We will not fear, though the world around us is in turmoil, though the kingdoms shake. Why? Because “the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold.” The Psalm sings not of a God who is far off, who watches from on high while the world is crumbling around the people, but of a God who is here, present, who longs to help. This is the God who has the power to speak and make the earth melt away. This is the God “who makes wars to cease in all the world, who breaks the bow, and shatters the spear, and burns the shields with fire.” This is the God who rules over heaven and earth, who stands firm even when the earth is shaking, even when the kingdoms are tottering.

And Teresa, despite all she went through in her life, wrote the words of the poem found on the front of the bulletin -

“Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”

Let nothing frighten you – God alone is enough. Teresa echoes the call of the Psalmist today in verse 10: Be still and know that God is God. God is God, and we're not. And we don't have to be. Whatever is yet to come in the current political scene and financial crisis, whatever is happening in our churches, in our lives, whatever it is that may have us in an uproar lately, God is God. The same God who was with the Israelites in the midst of the trouble that surrounded them, the same God Teresa of Avila found to be enough in all of the circumstances of her life– this is the same God who promises to be with us today. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, therefore we will not fear, for our trust and our hope is not in money or financial institutions or political leaders. Our trust and our hope is in God, who is with us: The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

Be still then this morning, if only for a little while. Be still – an emotion that wasn't on that feelings poster as I recall, and if it had been, we probably wouldn't point to it very often. We don't know how to be “still” very well. But today, be still. Hear God's voice and be renewed. Be still and know, remember that God is God, and God is with us. Amen.