The First Presbyterian Church of Jackson Mississippi

"P.D. Mercer"

I was ready. This morning's blog was to be a meditation upon a culture that produces anxiety and dissatisfaction as it embraces image management and self-fashioned lifestyles. In a postmodern world, we're not supposed to be thankful for grace; we're supposed to be courageous self-actualizers. "America is a country," writes Ralph Wood in Contending for the Faith, "in which no one can be too slender or too rich." "We have all become consumers within the marketplace of personal choices; no matter how contradictory." Our "consumerist culture of comfort and convenience" has conspired to produce more sophisticated consumers not more virtuous disciples. I was ready.

Then, I lost my dog. He's nothing special, a small, five-year-old Boston Terrier who answers to "puppy"--we're not very creative with names. But he's ours; and he's gone. We prayed, emailed the Belhaven neighborhood association, then took to the streets with several flashlight wielding neighbors. Nothing, not a trace. We fell into our beds exhausted and brokenhearted. Some of you know the feeling.

This morning the sun came up early--in more ways than one. The phone rang. P.D. had wandered his way into the embrace of a loving family a few blocks away. After enjoying a good meal, he spent the evening romping on the floor with two young children before settling in for the night under the toasty covers of the master bed. He's home now. I'm glad he can't talk, I suspect he would have refused to come home.

"I like monotony," C.S. Lewis told Time magazine in a 1947 interview. He is not saying that he likes boredom. He is calling us to reject being herded like proverbial sheep through the chute of discontentment, covetousness, and greed. He emphasizes that every ordinary moment of every ordinary day is charged with eternal significance. There is no such thing as an ordinary day or a mere mortal. What do we expect when lift our eyes in prayer to God? We expect and desire daily, hourly grace.

Psalm 123:1-2:

To Thee I lift up my eyes,
O Thou who art enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress;
So our eyes look to the Lord our God,
Until He shall be gracious to us.

This Thanksgiving, don’t miss the significance of every breath you take, of faithful friends, good conversation, a moving memory, a long walk, an autumn afternoon sunset, a weekend at deer camp, hot coffee, tailgating, or the return of a lost dog!

Hear Lewis:

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment 'as to the Lord.' It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

The Library of Congress's copy of the Bay Psalm Book is one of eleven surviving copies and one of five remaining copies that are in their original bindings.

Title page of the Bay Psalm Book (1640), printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The sermon will be based on a text from Colossians 2 in which Paul is addressing the issue of worship and we will illustrate how this was implemented in Geneva under Calvin's directions.

Unlike Calvin, however, we will have the aid of an instrument in the singing of God's praise!

The service will begin at 6.00 pm.

Cindy Mercer Photography

Exploring the hedges and hollows on a silvery, moonlit night yields the unexpected. Rat and Mole find themselves confronted by a “Presence” and a sweet, transcendent melody. “Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him,” Rat declared. Grahame writes,

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror--indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy--but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend. and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew and grew. . . . Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.

In this beautiful passage it appears that Rat and Mole understand Psalm 2:11 better than most: “Worship the Lord with reverence, and rejoice with trembling.”

Fear-of-the-Lord is a lost art. This is a “stock biblical phrase for the way of life that is lived responsively and appropriately before who God is, who he is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” writes Eugene Peterson in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. But, often, we’re not interested: “We desperately want to get out of the uncomfortableness of the situation. Rather than make ourselves available, we seek to hide. We hide behind the noise, the busyness, the self-importance, even the self-sacrifices of our existence. Rarely are we stopped and in fear of moving on, we're mostly running away from those moments.”

“Fear-of-the-Lord is not studying about God but living in reverence before God. We don't so much lack knowledge, we lack reverence. Fear-of-the-Lord is not a technique for acquiring spiritual know-how but a willed not-knowing. It is not so much know-how we lack; we lack a simple being-there.”

How do we cultivate Fear-of-the-Lord? “The primary way in which we cultivate fear-of-the-Lord is in prayer and worship--personal prayer and corporate worship. We deliberately interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to God. . . . We become silent and still in order to listen and respond to what is Other than us. . . . Prayer and worship provide the base.”