"KNCMIKl GOD11

A Sermon By

Philip A. C •. Clarke

Park Avenue United Methodist Church 106 East 86th Street New York, New York 10028 October 26, 1997

"KN()TtliNG GOD"

INTRODUCTION One slUID'Iler night in Sca,tland a young rran decided to take a shortcut across the moors on his way home to the town where

he lived. The countryside was noted for its limestone quarries. That night he knew he would be passing near one of those quarries, but the young man thought he could avoid it. Though the night was starless and i~-black, he set out through the rock and heather walking at top speed. Suddenly he heard a voice call out with great urgency, "Peter! Peter1"

He stopped •••• a bit unnerved •••• and called back into the darkness of the night, "Yes ••• who is it? What do you want?" But there was no response ••• just a bit of wind sweeping across that lonely, desola.w; beautiful stone and heather •••

Concluding he had been mistaken, this young Scots lad walked on a few more steps, but slowing down his hurried pace. Again he heard the voice ••• more urgent than before. "Peterl" Stopping in his tracks, and stumbling to his lmees, he. bent forward through the darkness and reaching out a hand to the ground before him, he clutched thin air. He was on the edge of the quarry. Sure enough, as Peter carefully felt around in a semicircle he discovered he had stopped on the very edge of an abandoned limestone quarry •••• one step before a fatal plunge into the deep .... 90 to 100 feet dorm ••• water and rock •••

Out there in the darkness of the desolate moor someone knew him and someone cared for him and Peter Marshall never forgot that incident, that moment. And dedicating his life to the One who had,c&l,1ed him by name, he became one of America's greatest preachers as well as Chaplain to the United States Senate. Those of us who grew up in the nineteen forties and fifties remember well the deep sadness we felt when Peter Marshall was "called home" at the young age of 47. Peter Marshall's faith was no dusty relia1 inherited from his parents. It was vibrant, real and utterly compelling. Peter Marshall knew God - firstham.

KNOWIMl GOD AND ONLY KN<MING ABOOT HJJ.f There is a difference between knowing God and only lmowing about

Him. Many people know about God. God is on our money. God is in our sacred documents. God's name is used by devout and profane alike, though sometimes only in a curse. Everybody knows about God. We're told that nine out of ten people today in this land believe in God, but •••

But knowing God ••• that, I think, is something else. Remember the time­honored account of the theological professor who was given a choice of two doors. One was marked "LOVE" and the other was .marked, "KNOWLEDGE ABOUT LOVE". He chose the latter. And just as there is a difference between knowing about love and experiencing love, so there is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. As Jesus once said, even the demons believe - and tremble!

KNOWINJ GOD AND LIVOO BY GOD'S LAW And this can be said, too •••• there is even a difference between knowing God

and living by God's law. Israel lived by God's law ••• as they understood it.

The world can never adequately repay the Jewish people for giving us God's Law. You and I do not read a "truncated Bible". We value the New Testament, for it tells us about Jesus and Paul and those valiant spirits of the early churCh.

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But we also value our Old Testament - the Bible of our Jewish friends. There is no document on earth quite like it. Imagine, for a moment, our spiritual life without the Ten Commandments or the Psalms, or the writings of the great prophets of Israel or those magnificent stories - Adam and Eve, Noah, Ruth, David and Jonathan, Solomon ••• just to name but a few. He owe much to ancient Greece and we owe just as much to the Romans, but our greatest debt is to the children of Israel, for they laid the foundation for our faith. It is astounding, therefore, to me to think of how we have treated the Jews in return.

One of my ear~ memories goes back to 1939 •••• nine hundred Jewish people, mostly women and children, got on a ship called the St. Louis •• heading for the shores of this country ••• fleeing Hitler's shadow. They got within eyesight of Miami Beach, where they were turned away. Surely there was roam in our land for nine hundred Jews, but there was no room in our hearts •••• and we we turned our. backs on them. What happened? Some, you may recall, tried to swim to Cuba and they were drowned. Others went back to Germany and were eventual~ killed. How in the world could a Christian land be guilty of such horrendous callousness. Because there is a difference between knOwing about God and knowing God.

Israel lived by God's law. In fact ••• if there is one criticism that may be leveled at the Jews, it is that they have from time to time focussed too much attention on the Law. Jesus had no quarrel with Judaism. After all, He was Je1,rish. His quarrel was with those scholars and leaders who would turn the Sacred Word - the Law - into a suffocating legalism.

I've always enjoyed the writings of Herman Wouk. He's one of my favorite authors, having penned such works as The Caine Mutiny, Winds of War, War and Remembrance and Marjorie Morningside.. In one of his books (I think it's Inside, ~utside), he tells a story about a Jewish boy whose parents immigrated from Russia. David Goodkind was his name. David explains that his family was very orthodox, thoroughly orthodox. Everything was done proper~. Not only did the family not eat pork, but young David's mother never served meat and milk at the same ~al, because it was against the Code of Leviticus. Everything ingested had to be KOSHER. Even drinking Coca Cola was a very big deal, not that there was something wrong with the drink itself •••• but as David says,

"The pious few pointed out that the glue in the corks of Coca-Cola bottles could have come from horses; hence, with your Coke you might consume a trace of an unkosher animal"

Well ••• one day a Rabbi came over from Russia and watched David's mother preparing food. With great seriousness, he advised her to use different cooking utensils for cooking meat and T.rarming soup made from milk. So David's mother bought another pot. Then another Rabbi came over, the most "reverent" one of all. And this Rabbi told her that it was dangerous to dry the two pots with the same dish towel after you've cooked with them. So, she went out and bought two new dish towels - one with a red stripe and :Jne with a blue stripe, so the pots could be dried separately.

A few years later when David went off to study at the Talmudical Acade~ of Yeshiva University, all these rules learned from childhood had such a strange hold on his life that he wasn't free to really know and love God. To him, God was something of a legalist tyrant, not a loving Father. And troubled with the dish towel issue, David raises it with another student and ask$,

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"Will God strike me dead if I use the wrong towel? What is the point of it?"

The answer his friend gives him solemnly supports his troubling system and he says,

"Once you start to compromise the whole thing will break down. Yo11 have to stick to the rules ••• •"

·But David is still not satisfied. He meets an older student from his neighbor­hood who also has been deeply-influenced by the ststem. He cannot leave the School, much as he would like to, because •••• because his father is a trustee. But he says with deep emotion to his younger friend,

"Don't let it happen to you, Davey~ Get out. Get away from this 'dish towel' religion."

As Stan Mooneyham says in his book, Dancing on the sgait and Narrow1 Orthodox Jews are not the only ones ~rith a suffocating, legalistic "dish towel" religion. I know of Christians who have one, too. And in my early years in the United Methodist Church, I often found myself troubled with the strict rules and the institutional r .. ;giditY' of the Methodist Discipline ••• and frustrated by it. I mentioned it once to Bishop Wicke of our Church, speaking of the "Lovers 1 Quarrel" I was experiencing and he quietly replied •••

"I never have let the Discipline of the Church get in the way of doing the Lord 1 s workl" And with that "word" from "on high", I relaxed ani breathed a lot easier ••••

I think that when church law makes itself absolute, it risks becomi~~ idolatrous •••• deeying God 1 s power to instruct and inform and inspire. Yes, just because you keep all the rules and regulations of religion does not mean 70u kn(Ji( God. 'l'h.ere are many people who live within the letter of the law who have hearts that are heavy with bitterness and hatred. Living by the law does not mean you know God.

NEITHER DOES BELONGOO TO THE CHURCH MEAN YOU KNOW GOD

be longing to the Church mean you know God.

And this, too.~ •• neither does

I love the Church. Some of my earliest memories go back to a Church in Albany •••• an inner city church •••• where my dad was pasto~ a church where I put a bflseball through a stained glass window ••• right through the Bible ••• when I was about ten years of age. (I had to earn three dollars to pay far the repair). I still believe in the Church even after hO years of living, serving, struggling and working hard to keep this church voing. Some of my greatest experiences and highest mmrnents, believe it or not, have been in the Church. Therefore •••

I can relate to some of the stories that Bruce Mciver tells in his book, Just As Long As I'm Riding Up Front. Now a retired pastor with many years under his belt and with some vivid memories of mistakes suffered in·his early years of minist~, he tells of a revival he was to le?d in a Baptist Church in Texas. The church members were excited and all worked up about the revival that was to happen.

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One youth in particular whose name was Vicki was just bubbling over with enthusiasm for the revival and told Bruce, her pastor, that she had invited a friend who played the accordion to came with her. Vicki had told her friend, whose name was Juanita, that she could pl~ on the opening night of the revival. Now Bruce, the minister, took great pride in Vicki's enthusiasm and he assured her that her friend was most welcome to come and play her accordion.

The night of the revival came and Bruce shook hands with a noticeable nervous Juanita who had never been in a Baptist church before ••• and really didn't know what was expected of her. Bruce tried to calm her a bit and asked her what she planned to play for the revival service and she remarked that she would like to play "Ave Maria" and although Bruce loved the song, "Ave Maria", he felt it might be a bit out of place at a revival in a Baptist Charch in Texas. Most of the other music that night would be live~ old salvation hymns. You know the type ••• the ones "you know who" doesn't like to play on our organ.

He didn't Juanita to be uncomfortable and he didn't want the congregation to fall asleep and so he suggested that she pick a more "upbeat" tune •••• to w"ich she gla.rUy agreed and when time came for Juanita to play, all of her nervousness vanished from her countenance and crashing her fingers dawn on her accordion, she played a rollicking tune that kept everyone awake. Bruce, the minister, was straining to identify the hymn and with a start he realized that she was playing "La. Cucuracha11 •••• a fun, Spanish tune that translates into "The Cockroach". It really wasn't what he had in mind for the revival in that Baptist Texas town~

Fl11lll,Y' things happen in church and beautiful things happen in Church. And futmy' things and beautiful things have happened here, but did you know, however, that you can be very active in the church and not know God? You can be active in the Church and not really know God.

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE Consider our lessons from the Scripture for this Reformation Day.sermon. In our lesson from Paul's

Letter to the Romans, Paul is answering people who think they will be justified by their "good works" •••• by their adherence to the Law, but Paul·· says, it just isn't enough. And in our lesson from the Old Testament, from Jeremiah, we find this word,

"But thts is the covenant which I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put My law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my neople. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor •••• saying,

'Know the Lord 1 •••• for they shall all know Me!"

That alone is enough. We need to "internalize" the La.1.r within our hearts. ~ve need to open our hearts to a living knowledge of God. Like Peter Marshall, we need a vibrant, real and compelling faith - not an inherited one.

CLOSING Corrie Ten Boom, the author who has written of her suffering in a Nazi concentration camp and her devout faith in God, tells of

trying to comfort concentration camp survivors at a Refugee Camp during the war. One day she came upon an elderly woman who seemd to lack any hope or will to go on living. Corrie sat dawn with the w man and asked her about herself.

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The woman revaled that she had once taught music at the Dresden Conserva­tory, a proud and beautiful city now decimated by the war. Fortunately, Corrie knew and loved much classical music and she was able to converse easily with this former professor. A local minister had granted Corrie access to his piano but it had been ravaged by bombings, too. It was woeful~ worn down and out of tune, but Corrie took the •roman to it. The woman, unhesitating~, asked Corrie to name a piece for her to play. Without thinking, Corrie requested Bach's Chromatic Phantasy, and almost immediatelly regreted her choice •••• for after all, here was an emotionally wracked and wrecked woman, who hadn't been able to practice her craft in a long time about to attempt to play an incredibly intricate and difficult piece on a battered, broken down, bombed out piano she had never played before.

Corrie felt that she should have suggested something simpler, but the woma face lit up as she deftly coaxed some beautiful music from that lost cause of a instrument. When she had finished, a ray of hope had been restored in· her eyes She was more open to talking, too. She told Corrie of her career as a concert pianist before the war and later as a professor who inspired many musicians. Her impressive career, her lovely home and all she had held dear had been lost to the l-rar. She lamented the fact that, in fleeing from the fighting, she had not taken any of her precious possesi'::Jns with her. But Corrie vras quick to correct the woman, pointing out th"lt she had taken something very precious with her. "And what was that" asked the woman, sornewhat taken aback. She ~aid,

"Your music. For that which is in your heart can never be taken from you •••• 11

TODAY'S MESSAGE And that is the message for today. '!That ·which is in your heart can never be taken away from you". Let me

leave this question with you ••• place it gently on your heart. Do you know God or do you only know about Himf In moments like this, I would like to believe that God is seeking entrance into your heart ••• here, now and in this place on this Sunday morning. That there is someone present here today who needs to oper his or her heart to God's mysterious touch and together let us pray for that to happen ••••

PRAYER Help us, 0 God, to open our hearts to Your touch, your ne§.I'ness 1 .

_ Your presence. Wrestle with us in the hidden corners of our lives where lack of a real faith prevents us from a firsthand encounter with You, 0 Thou, who has broken through t0 us in the life and love of Christ. Make us sensitive to Your nea.rness. Come into our lives, our hearts •••• and lead us on to know You and to Love You - rather than to only know about You. Amen.

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ANTHEM: "Kittery"

"Our Father who in heaven art, All hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done throughout this earthly frame".

ANTHEM: "Surely, the Lord Is In This Place"

"Surely the Lord is in this place: This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And this stone shall be God's house.

Behold now, praise the Lord all ye servants of the Lord. Praise the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and praise the Lord.

Blessed be the Lord of God of Israel from everlasting and world without end; and let all the people say, Amen. Alleluia. Amen".

ORGAN POSTLUDE

The organ postlude - a final offering of our praise to God - is played after the Benediction. Time permitting, we invite you to share in the beauty of it.

FOR THOSE WHO SING

New members are always welcome to audi­tion to sing in the Choir. Rehearsals are held on Sunday mornings at 9:30 in the down­stairs Choir Room.

NEW MEMBERS TO JOIN

New members will be received into the Church on Sunday, December 7th. Persons who are interested in strengthening a tie with the church should be in touch with Mr. Clarke.

TODAY'S COFFEE HOUR

The coffee hour this morning is "in honor" of new friends of recent months. If you're a new friend, we invite you to "come on down" and get to know us better. We have a Sunday in the Fall and one in the Spring when we take extra care to make new friends feel at home and welcome in this Church. Today is that Sunday!

TUESDAY EVENING

Join us on Tuesday evening at 6:30 pm in Fellowship Hall (3rd floor) where "two or three" come together in Christ's name for Bible study and prayer. New friends as well as old friends are most welcome.

NEXT SUNDAY

We shall "kick-off" the 1998 Financial Canvass of the Church next Sunday. Our 1998 budget materials will be mailed out this week to our many givers and supporters. Next Sun­day evening the Finance Committee will conduct a PHONO-A-THON beginning around 5 pm and ex­tending through 8 pm. 20 callers will be at work making over 200 calls. Those participa­ting in the Phono-A~Thon will be treated to a special meal provided by Michael and Mavis Vann.

CHRISTMAS CARDS

Christmas cards are available at the coffee hour. Take a look at the selection of cards and place an order with Julie Klein. Proceeds from the sale of the cards go in the direction of the All Church Fair.

' .. PARK AVENUE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

106 East 86th Street New York, N.Y. 10028

427-5421

CHURCH DIRECTORY

Philip A. C. Clarke ............................... ...... ................. .. Minister William Bonwitt ............ .................. Minister of Administration Lyndon Woodside ................................. Organist-Choir Director Judi Ferland ................................................................ Secretary

Judith Keisman ········ ·······················-·· ··· ··· · Day School Director Roberto Me riles ......................................................... Custodian

GENERAL OFFICERS

Lay Members, Annual Conference ....... ... ..... .... Edward J. Brown Larry Morales

Lay Leader .......................................................... Larry Morales Associate Lay Leader ... ............... ... .... ... ............ .. Eric de Freitas President, Board of Trustees ...... ........ ........... Michael Schaffield Chairperson, Administrative Council .................. George Leopold Chairperson, Education Committee ............. .. . ... ..... . Carl Condra Chairperson, Finance Committee ............................. Dan Boone Chairperson, Membership Committee ........... Douglas McPheters Chairperson, Outreach Committee .......................... Janet Ernst Chairperson, Worship Committee ........................... Jane Chaney Chairperson, Publicity Committee .......................... Sam Wilson Chairperson, Day School Committee ...................... Anna Delson Chairperson, Ushers ........................................... ..... Effie French Superintendent, Sunday School, ......... .................. ... Tom DeBow

PARK AVENUE

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

ORGAN

TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST October 26, 1997

ORDER OF WORSHIP 11 A. M.

"Sonata in B Minor" CALL TO WORSHIP HYMN NO. 110 "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" PRAYER OF CONFESSION (seated)

J. K. Paine

0 God, our Father, Your freedom enables You to relate to all persons in love; to the poor and the prosperous; to the sinner and the saint; the 'out' and the 'in' crowds; the strange and the familiar. Forgive our shortcomings and set us free from our hangups to love as You love, that we may realize, 0 God, when we meet the problems of the forgotten, we meet You; when we receive them, we receive You; when we love them, we love You. So help us, 0 God, to learn in this short life to live eternally. We ask this now in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

SILENT MEDITATION - WORDS OF ASSURANCE - LORD'S PRAYER ***

GREETING TO THE CHILDREN A SONG BY THE CHILDREN HYMN OF DEPARTURE

*** ANTHEM SCRIPTURE

PASTORAL PRAYER PARISH CONCERNS

"Kittery" Jeremiah 31: 31 - 34

Romans 3: 19 - 28

Billings Page 680 Page 979

ANTHEM "Surely The Lord Is In This Place" Coke-Jephcott PRESENTATION OF THE OFFERING WITH THE DOXOLOGY HYMN NO. 369 "Blessed Assurance" SERMON "Knowing God" Mr. Clarke HYMN NO. 384 "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" BENEDICTION ORGAN "Final (Symphony I)" Louis Vierne

*** Interval for Ushering

LAY READER

We welcome Carl Condra to the lectern today. A native of Lubbock, Texas, Carl is pursuing a career in acting. Here in the church he is Chairperson of the Education Committee, teaches Sunday School and is an active member on several other Church Committees.

GREETERS AND USHERS

The greeters for today are Tina and Jay Sayers. The ushers are Walter Spencer, Jill Gray, Mark Jenkins, Beverly Judge and Joyce Williams.

AN INVITATION

\

Coffee and tea will be served in the Russell Room following the service. All are invited to share in these moments of warm fellowship made possible for us today by members of the church.

CHURCH SCHOOL AND NURSERY CARE

Sessions of Church School for children are offered Sunday morning from ten-thirty to twelve. Nursery care for infants and toddlers is available on the fourth floor.

ADULT BIBLE CLASS

The Adult Bible Class meets on Sunday morning at 9:30 in Fellowship Hall under the direction of Teal Usher, our Assistant Minister.

AT THE ORGAN CONSOLE

..

We welcome Kevin Jones to the organ console in the ab­sence of Lyndon Woodside who is in South Carolina today.

DEADLINE

Wednesday, October 29th is the deadline for you to call the church office with any news you wish to share with us in the November issue of "A Word In Edgeways".