First Presbyterian Church
God is King from A to Z
Sermon for November 11, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's time: I tell them about a lullaby I learned, that I sing to babies when I rock them. Some of you older than I am will remember Perry Como singing this song. I'm just going to tell you the words, I'm not going to sing it. I learned it when the Chenille sisters sang it.

A You're adorable

B You're so beautiful

C you're a cutey full of charms.

D you're a darling and

E you're exciting and

F you're a feather in my arms.

G you look good to me

H you're so heavenly

I you're the one I idolize

J we're like Jack and Jill

K you're so kissable

L you're the lovelight in my eyes.

M,N,O,P, I could go on all day

Q,R,S,T, alphabetically speaking, You're OK!

U make my life complete

V means you're very sweet

W,W,Y,Z

Oh, I love to wander through

The alphabet with you

To tell you what you mean to me!" 1

What do you think that song is about? Why do you think the writers used the alphabet? What do you think would happen if we tried it in another language? In Spanish, adorable is

In the Bible, there's some poetry that has the alphabet in it. But the alphabet looks like this: (show the Hebrew alphabet). It's very different. And when we translate it into English, it doesn't follow our alphabet at all. So we just have to know it has the Hebrew alphabet in it. The psalm we're going to read is about how wonderful God is. Do you think God is adorable?

Our psalm reading is in unison on page 581.The title of Psalm 145 is Praise. In Hebrew, the noun for praise is ‘tehillah.' The verb for praise, in its imperative form, is hallelu, as in halleluia. This psalm is called the Tehillah of David, or Praise of David.

Psalm 145 invites us to praise God. It is an acrostic psalm, with every line beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet 2. It's as if the poet were saying God is king from A to Z.

According to the Talmud, repeating this psalm three times a day means you are a child of the world to come, that is, you belong to God's kingdom, God's realm.

In the world of God's realm, the foundation is the gracious, compassionate, faithful love of God. Listen for the word of God as we read it together in Psalm 145.

1 Praise. Of David.

I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.

2 Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever.

3 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable.

4 One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.

5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.

6 The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness.

7 They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.

8 The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9 The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.

10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your faithful shall bless you.

11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power,

12 to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The LORD is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds.

14 The LORD upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.

15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.

16 You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.

17 The LORD is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.

18 The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

19 He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them.

20 The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.

21 My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.

This ends our reading of the psalm.

I liked the way theologian J. Clinton McCann speaks of this psalm; he says, “The destruction of the wicked is not so much a punishment as it is the result of their own choice to cut themselves off from the source of life. The compassionate God does not will to destroy the wicked, but their own autonomy leads to their ruin. … The happiness or prosperity of the righteous is not a reward, but the experience of being connected to the true source of life – God.

Let's listen to the choir.

Jesus invites his followers to this life. In the world of God's reign, the poor and the persecuted are happy, the humble are exalted, and the last are first.” 3

In Jesus' day, the temple was allied with the nobles and aristocrats—the rich people. The priests, Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees backed the kings, caesars, emperors and lords more often than not. We tend to think of the priests, Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees as the group out to get Jesus. But really, they were four different groups separated by ancestry, nationality, and religious views, as well as by occupation. All of them vied for power during the civil unrest of the first century in Jerusalem. Not every member of every faction is out to get Jesus; we have stories of a Pharisee who hosted Jesus, followed Jesus and another who brought spices to his tomb, elders who asked Jesus for help, and scribes who followed Jesus and were taught by him.

You can follow along on page 84, but we'll be reading from my translation, so the words will be a little different. Jesus is teaching in the temple and telling the good news. The scribes and chief priests have asked Jesus about where his authority comes from; he responded with the parable of the wicked tenants. Then they ask him about the legality of paying taxes to the emperor, and he answers, “Give to God the things that are God's.” Now it's another faction's turn.

Listen for the word of God as it is found in Luke 20:27-38.

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 and asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if someone's brother dies, who had a wife but is childless, then the brother takes the wife and raises offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers and the first had a wife, and died childless; 30 then the second 31 and the third took her in the same way, and so in the same way all seven died without a child. 32 Finally the woman also died.

33 In the resurrection, therefore, of them, whose will the woman be? For the seven had her for a wife.”

34 Jesus said to them,

“The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; 35 but those considered worthy of that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, and are children of the resurrection.

37 And that the dead are raised, Moses made known [in the story about] the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38 Now God is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to God all of them are alive.”

This ends our gospel reading.

To the Sadducees, the question was about a man's possessions, ownership, a name, and someone to inherit his possessions, ownership, and name. But that's not what Jesus was about. It's not what God's about.

Did you notice that the Sadducees wanted to know who the woman belonged to? In those days a man's wife was considered one of his possessions, along with his land, home, animals, children, and slaves. That idea is an old one. We still talk about a father “giving the bride away.” That's what fathers did; they gave their daughters to their new owner, their husbands.

It wasn't until 1900 that women could own property in their own names in every state. Many states had different laws regarding women's property. Some were further along than others. In 1674 in Maryland if a husband wanted to sell his wife's property, the law required a judge to meet independently with the woman, away from her husband, to get her permission. But it wasn't until 1809 in Connecticut, a woman was entitled to make her own will. Today, internationally, women own less that 2% of titled land.

Some people may hear this as it's all men's fault. But it is not; it's the consequence of patriarchy and the way the system values powerful men and does not value powerless men, women, or children. This is why it is so important to hear the reversal in Psalm 145: 14 “The LORD upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.”

Patriarchy says something different: blessed are those who are high and mighty; God shows his favor upon the powerful.”

In Bible times, if a man died without a child, his name would die off. Having a son to carry on his name was important. That's why a man was obligated to marry his brother's widow; his brother could have a son through him, and although his brother was dead, his name would be carried on. So the Sadducees' question was a question of property – who will own her in heaven? They don't even say “Who will she be married to,” they ask “whose will she be?”

Jesus does not answer their question using their words of ownership; he simply says there is no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven. Instead, people are children of God.

Hearing that good news makes a difference to your mothers, your sisters, your wives, and your daughters. I read an account by a Ph.D. candidate who shared what that good news meant to her.

Seongh Hee Kim writes:

“The early Korean Christian women, who eagerly longed for the gospel in their national, social, and economic desperate situations, were usually the poor and the widow. Their economic and social life was miserable, and living without a husband was disgrace. The first baptized woman in Korea, Sam-Duk Chun, said, ‘I couldn't see, although I had eyes. I couldn't hear, while I had ears, And I couldn't speak despite the fact that I had a mouth. However, I became an independent person after I knew Jesus Christ.'

This is a common experience of the first generation of Korean female Christians. Because they suffered under the …patriarchal society and Japanese colonization, they could easily find the light of their salvation in the Christian gospel which gave them comfort and joy with a new self-identity. The Korean women were nameless in those days. They were named in relation to the closest male relative. When they were young, they were usually referred to as father's daughter or son's sister by other people. After marriage, a woman was called husband's wife. Once her husband died, she was known as a widow. After they became Christians, they received the name with their baptism. Kim Circus, who was baptized in 1899 in Pyongyang stated her “happiest moment” occurred when she received her name:

‘The day I was baptized was the happiest day in my life. We …women have lived under the men's oppressions without lives for several thousand years. Without the Christian gospel, Korean women's status could not improve even like this. The Korean women's liberation movement began the day when the gospel spread into Korea. Therefore, I confess that the day I was baptized was the happiest day in my life. Furthermore, I who lived without a name for fifty years have got my name, “Circus,” with my baptism.' 4

These women were known as the ‘Bible women' ( Chondobuin ) who became the cornerstone of building Korean Christianity. The ‘Bible women' literally meant the women who carried the Bible and sold the Bible to disseminate the gospel. Although the foreign missionaries came to Korea to spread the gospel, they faced several obstacles such as their lack of knowledge of the Korean language, different customs, and culture. Especially, there was a Confucian law in Korea that men could not communicate with women so that women were excluded not only from society but also from receiving the gospel from male missionaries. Thus, male missionaries definitely needed the Bible women because they could not have direct contact with Korean women. Most of the Bible women were poor widows who were alienated in terms of their social and economic status. They could not fit in the patriarchal and Confucian society, and they could not help but be in silence. Encountering the gospel for them was a clashing moment to move on toward the opening space to be reborn.

The Bible Women served several roles in building up Korean Christianity. While selling the Bible, they popularized it and could contact the Korean women indoors. They taught the Korean women how to read and to write because most were illiterate. They even preached wherever they met people. The Bible women preached, taught, and sold the Bible. 5 They also played the role of minister, visiting, taking care of people's problems, and comforting them. The Bible Women were leaders, even though their positions started as helpers of missionaries. They led Bible studies in groups and founded associations within the churches. The missionaries realized that the Korean women, themselves, had the ability and authority to lead the churches. 6 Their activities included educating Korean women, establishing the church, reviving the churches, and spreading the gospel. Without their existence and service, the Korean churches would not have grown or developed. However, their names began to disappear again once the church started to” grow and men took the leadership positions 7. Recently, these women are being re-discovered by Korean feminist scholars as they research the origins of the early Korean churches. 8

1 Buddy Kaye, Fred Wise, Sidney Lipman, 1948.

2 except for nun (n), which the major Hebrew manuscripts left out, maybe to emphasize the mem for melekh, king. The Qumran manuscript and other manuscripts added a line for nun, which is in our NRSV text as “The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds.”

3The New Interpreter's Bible IV, p. 1260.

4 Kim, Circus, Victorious Lives of Early Christians in Korea (Seoul: Christian Literature Society, 1927), 72

5Bible Society Record (October, 1990), 24

6 K. Wambold, “Women's class,” Korean Mission Field (1913), 53

7 her words are “be systematized by the hegemony of male leaders. Recently, they are being re-discovered by Korean feminist scholars through their efforts of deconstructing and reconstructing the origin of the early Korean churches.”

8 Kim, Seongh Hee, Rupturing the Empire, www.lectio.unibe.ch/06_1/kim_rupturing.htm