LOVE SONG TO GOD

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit or the kingdom o God.”

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs, to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.”
Luke 9:57-10:2

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to God, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust...”

Because you have made God your refuge,
The Most High your dwelling place,
no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.
For God will command the angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone...

Those who love me I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name,
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue them and honor them,
With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation
- Psalm 91

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through the One who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39

Journey is one of our favorite words, I think, certainly one of my favorite words. It signifies that our walk in faith, in the Spirit, in Christ, is a continuing adventure of trust in the ever changing circumstances of our life, our world, and the presence of God in our hearts.

We have come to the end of one of the milestones of our faith walk. This is the last time we will worship and pray and meditate in the place we have called Point of Vision, but which now becomes just 1318 South Stevenson Highway in Royal Oak.

Its been quite a journey, and a struggle. At times we have been discouraged, or even in despair, sometimes excited or even ecstatic, at times confused and uncertain about what to do next. But I believe that in the process those of us who have banded together in this struggle have become a stronger, closer, more spiritual community as we have persevered in the journey. We are more of a community now that we were before.

I have here the timeline we created a few years ago in which we recorded our collective memory, and the personal experiences of some of us in that journey.

Here is the first panel:
founded as Christ Memorial Presbyterian Church
we brought a building here from an Episcopal church, built a sanctuary, saw this church grow to almost six hundred members,

In the second panel,
the membership declined with the changing of the neighborhood,,
grieved the burning of the building and the resulting struggles, rebuilt it,

In the third panel,
celebrated the rebirth and change of name to Point of Vision Presbyterian Church,
built a new congregation
developed our ministry as a community for healing living the contemplative Spirit.

And here is the beginning of the fourth panel in our minds and faith, not yet actual on paper or reality.
We have given away most of our worldly goods to worthy causes
We are in dialog with St Johns Episcopal church for a new home. Mara, Dawn and Gloria have presented our community to their vestry, they are praying about it until their next meeting in September
Dawn has gracious offered to have us store our essential belongings in her garage,
And we will worship, gather for contemplative prayer, energy healing, session and other occasions in her home.

I'm sure we have so many feelings about this occasion, I know I do. Name a feeling, and we have experienced it in the last few months. It takes time and the fellowship of community to process all that. I thought we might do so in symbolizing our faith journey by actually walking to several places in the church where we have spent our lives for the past nine years, or past 52 years, depending on how one counts. I thought we might walk first to the fellowship hall in the basement, then to the conference room and my office, then to what we called the healing room, then pause next to the outer offices, and then come back to the sanctuary.

At each place I will invite us to share stories and memories and feelings as they come to us, and then in prayer share blessings for the past and the future of the ministries symbolized by each of these places.

Before we begin our symbolic journey, I want to offer for our guidance in the celebration and blessings the scriptures that were just read. The trust and safety that Christ offers is never in external things, as he reminds us again and again in the gospels, and as Paul repeats in his letters. Our trust is in Spirit alone, not in anything that we can control or manage by ourselves. Some of his examples seem extreme, even bizarre to us, we are not even to bury our family before we follow him. I do not think he means that we are not to grieve and complete our emotional and feeling responses to all that happens. In fact I think it is essential to do so before we move on. To say it even more strongly, our ability to move on depends upon finishing and completing what is past. And that is the purpose of this partial and symbolic journey we are about to begin.

But why does he so strongly empathize trusting only in him and not in any externals we can manage? Because, he says in the passage, we are to go, two by two, into all the mission fields that he himself will enter. We are to journey with him to harvest with love the fields he is preparing for us. The harvest that awaits the gospel and our loving presence is plentiful, he says Even though we the laborers are few, in faith and joy and trust, we are to walk with him, journey with him, in love with him.

The psalm, portions of which were just read, is perhaps the favorite psalm of Christians in Africa. The Christian church in Africa is the fastest growing church in the world. We have some distant idea of the struggles of poverty, democracies emerging from civil war and tyranny, persecution from Muslim and other beliefs. So in the midst of all that change and struggle, the great assurances of Psalm 91 take on profound meaning. You will notice that the dwelling place mentioned in the psalm is a tent. Fortress refers only to the presence of God, not to a building. God's protection goes with us wherever we go because God sends us in faith.

And finally, the wonderful words that end the eighth chapter of Romans. In all these things we are more than conquerors through the One who loves us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let us hear the words again, and then set out on our journey.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit or the kingdom o God.”

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs, to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.”
Luke 9:57-10:2

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to God, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust...”

Because you have made God your refuge,
The Most High your dwelling place,
no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.
For God will command the angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone...

Those who love me I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name,
When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble.
I will rescue them and honor them,
With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation
- Psalm 91

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through the One who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39.
It is right, and a good and joyful thing, that we remember and grieve and celebrate this time of transition and our journey as we leave this church home for another to celebrate and live our community of healing and living the contemplative Spirit.

Let us pray:
We are here to witness an end and a beginning.
God, whose everlasting love for all is trustworthy,
help us to trust the future which rests in your care.
We give thanks for the moments we have shared in this place
in worship, contemplative prayer, healing, in community, fellowship and service.
Guide us as with these cherished memories we move in new directions.
Make us aware of your Spirit's guidance as we continue our journey in faith.

Go forth into the world in peace;
be of good courage; hold fast to that which is good;
render to no one evil for evil;
strengthen the fainthearted;
support the weak;
help the afflicted;
honor all people;
love and serve God,
rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit
Amen.