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I am honored and grateful to be here today and I wanna thank Doctor Irizarry for the invitation. Um , it has, uh, dual purpose. I'm always grateful for the opportunity to share God's word,

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but today, especially, it has given me some . else to be anxious about besides the results of the election. So, um, let's just, I'm gonna take a deep breath. I invite you

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to join me as we ask the spirit to come and flow and speak through the words that we hear today. Long before my grandmother died at the age of 90, she asked me to officiate her memorial

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service, so of course when that day came to be, I was honored to fulfill the promise I had made to her years earlier. And I will never ever forget what happened during that service when I

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stood in the pulpit, I greeted a sea of faces, and many of them were familiar extended family and long term friends of the family. The people I couldn't identify still look like they belong there like

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maybe they were members of my grandmom's Sunday school class , but there was one man, one young man who was clearly. Half the age of every other adult gathered there who sat way in the back all

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by himself with his head in his hand sobbing sobbing into his hands. Now you have to know we all loved my grandmother. She was a woman of deep faith and the kind of grandma every kid should

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get to have where everything their grandkids did was the best thing that any grandchild ever did on the entire planet. And we were sad that she was gone , but we weren't devastated by it because she had

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lived a long and good life of faith, but this man, hardly more than a boy just sat there sobbing and wailing. And at a certain point in the eulogy, I mentioned how my grandma,

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who was a widow at the time, How after my grandfather died, she would turn on her old stereo. Do you remember those, the ones that were a piece of furniture? I'm really dating myself

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, aren't I? We didn't have them in my lifetime, really, but in hers, it was a big thing. She would turn on her stereo and listen to songs late into the evening to help

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her fall asleep. And when I mentioned that in the service, the young man in the back just burst into wild wailing. It was so loud that the people gathered there couldn't help themselves. They just

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reflexively turned around to look at the commotion. I tried to find him after the service to talk with him because honestly, I kinda had wondered, are you in the wrong funeral? My grandma was wonderful

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, but really? He left before I had a chance to talk to him and when I asked folks if anyone knew him, my aunt piped up and said, oh yes, that's the boy who lives

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in the apartment above your grandmother. He told me after the service, I sure am gonna miss Mrs . Henderson's music. Now, you have to know that my grandmom suffered from severe hearing loss. So

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this young man didn't have any choice. If my grandmom was watching TV or listening to her stereo, it was a full blast and could blast you out of the room. But he never complained about it

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. I sure am gonna miss Miss Henderson's music. I don't know how well my grandmother and this young man knew one another, but it was clear that they shared a deep love for music, and that

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love formed an unlikely friendship. A young adult embarking on his adult life for the first time. And an elderly widow who had neared the end of her life. They were separated not only by age and

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gender but by walls of sheetrock. And yet despite their differences, these two were a comfort one to the other, especially in the lonely hours of the night my grandmother reminded this young person that even when

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he felt alone in the world, there was still a song to fill his soul. In today's scripture lesson, the author of Ephesians tries to inspire his weary readers with hope. We don't know the specific

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details about why or to whom this letter was written , but its content provides some clear clues for us today. The scripture reading is actually listed in your bulletin today, so I invite you to read along

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with me uh what this writer had to say. Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil. So do not

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be foolish but understand but what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk on wine, for that's debauchery, but be. Filled with the spirit as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs

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one to another singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts giving thanks to God at all times and for everything in the Lord in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Beautiful, beautiful words.

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And why were they written? We don't know exactly , but we can tell by its content that it is a letter of an encouragement to a fledgling and struggling community of faith. Theologians speculate that this letter

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was written probably 90 years or so after Christ's death , a community that had once believed that Christ would return in their lifetimes to sweep them up from the oppression and the persecution that they had suffered and sweep

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them up into heavenly glory where pain and suffering would be no more. more but days then months then years and decades had passed and that community was becoming more fractured and divided, more fearful about this return

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that may never come. And a funny thing that happens when we get afraid, we start blaming one another whether they're to blame or not. And so this writer is sits down to to for this letter

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to encourage God's children not to lose hope, to not fight over who has the better grasp of God's grace, the old timers who know the law of God inside and out. Or the newcomers, those

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others, those Gentiles. This writer begs the early church, stop the nonsense. Love one another, sing to one another. He would know what it was to be frustrated. Even Disappointed, devastated by

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waiting and waiting for God's hope to come. And yet he still had, this writer still had within him a song. God's love song for humanity. To share with those who were struggling. Now it's

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a pretty tall order for us today, especially on election day when our collective anxiety is high and our trust in the democratic process is wavering when we are bombarded by the news which may or may not be

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exactly factual. But it's almost always depressing and often infuriating. Isn't it easy to lose hope? And of course we're here because we have faith and as people of faith we know what makes for a good

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life, right? We know that we're called to love God and to believe that God loves us so that we can love one another we know we're supposed to pray and to meditate and thank God for all

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. The many gifts we have received we know oh we know we know we know we know we know we're children of God miracles really each of us a unique expression of God's authoritative love in the world living

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colorfully for all God's people to see that we are part of this God who created the stars and hung them in place in the skies and rolled the waters into an ocean. Oh, we know, don't

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we? But there's a big difference between knowing in our heads. And living it through the spirit in our souls. It seems that the early Christians knew the gospel story, but they were just kind of

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waiting around for Christ's return to bring unity and love back to earth. Make the most of this time , the writer of Ephesians urges them, don't keep wasting your gifts. Start using them now. He's

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trying to help God's children to stop waiting for life to just magically get. Better and to start living our God-given dreams here and now today. He is saying, stop putting your lives on hold just because

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everything didn't turn out the way you expected it to . And instead of becoming bitter and disillusioned, we can open our souls to a loving creator and to our neighbors, even the ones we don't like.

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As we learn to love ourselves and those parts of ourselves that we don't like either. And in so doing, We discover What we've been longing for. The presence of the living Christ in our very midst

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. Our world is filled with miserable people who are just waiting, I suppose for some spontaneous combustion to make the world magically change for the better. I can't blame everybody else because I sometimes do this myself

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. And bitter and disillusioned, we don't make the most of the time. We focus on what's wrong with everyone else. On what we don't have. And foolishly, so foolishly we waste our God-given gifts

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because we are not willing to imagine that perhaps just maybe we can create a good and meaningful life even when it doesn't turn out the way we had planned . This letter instructs its readers on what to do

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and what not to do to experience the power of God's love and the here and why, and he insists that we must be wise if we're going to discover the fullness of life on this side of heaven

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. It makes it clear, it's just plain foolishness to get high on wine because we're feeling low about the state of the world. And we know that wisdom comes when we can harness our fears and frustration

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with faith, and then let faith direct our lives , so the spirit can flow through us and create harmony within and around us. And here's the amazing message of the gospel through faith, we get to

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choose. We get to choose whether we wanna let hate and fear rule our lives or if we wanna let love dictate who we are and what our actions will be and how we will respond no matter what

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the results of the election are this writer reminds us that we can choose to either spend our days whining and complaining. And that's one way to go through life, and I gotta tell you, sometimes I'm

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the best Wendy Whier around. But there's a better way. We can choose to sing God's love song for humanity and what a glorious song it is. It is a song that proclaims love for all people

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. It is a song that promises that we are not alone, even on the darkest and loneliest nights we must endure. It is a song that rises above the constant drone of our culture. That urges

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us to get more, spend more, have more . It is a song of life itself and the writer of Ephesians is begging God's children to sing it , sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourself

00:15:00.860 - 00:15:15.970

. Sing and make melody to the Lord in your hearts. Give thanks at all time. Long before science had figured out that there was such a thing as music therapy that could heal our bodies and build

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up whole communities, this ancient writer is prescribing music therapy for God's children. We are to be assigned to the world that we can stand together in God's love, even if we vehemently disagree about policy issues

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. We can love one another even when it's hard . This is not to condone unjust or unjust laws , but we can serve together to lift up the oppressed and the brokenhearted. We don't have to build

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walls of hate between the differences we create. We can build bridges of understanding and we can start by singing and giving thanks to God. I know. I know that there are seasons and seasons in all

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of our lives when we just can't hear God's music anymore when the pain of loneliness or grief is so fierce, there's no joyful melody that dances in our souls and when we experience that kind of divine painful

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silence, God's absence. We have to lean on our faith and trust that perhaps it is a time of a divine extended rest note. And that that time of silence will ultimately provide rhythm and meaning to

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the remainder of our lives. When Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 9th Symphony, he could not even hear it. He was completely deaf, but he heard this song in the silence of his world that would

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not stop playing. As a young man, Beethoven had read a poem by Frederick Shiller, a poem that focused on the goodness and the glory of God , the wonder of discovering divine love through the gift

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of friendship and family, and for years and years and years Beethoven had carried this poem and. He only his head and he always thought about putting it to music and then later in his life when he

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knew his time was precious his days were numbered he made the most of his time. He didn't say I can't compose a piece now. I'm too old . I can't compose this because my life didn't turn

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out the way I wanted it to, and it's not fair that I was given this gift of music and I can't even hear it. His song would not be contained in despair. He was filled with

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this spirit that poured through him and onto paper, and so this brilliant symphony was composed. The critics said the instrumentals were astounding, perfect, and amazing . They'd never heard anything like it, but the

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vocals. They were so high, nobody could sing it. So he had to go back and rewrite the choral section for him. He didn't get mad and say, I'm done, make the best of

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it, do what you can. He was willing to go back. I would imagine that he would be shocked to know that Christians today, well more than 200 years later, are still singing the song

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we know as joyful, joyful. We adore the God of glory, God of love. I bet he never dreamed we would still be singing, ever singing march we onward, victors in the midst of

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strife, joyful music lead us onward in this triumph song of life. See what Ephesians is trying to tell you and to tell me is that we are called to be spiritual musicians vital and alive in faith

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marching onward no matter what injustice comes our way, no matter what hate is spewed from political corners to be victors in the midst of strife, singing and proclaiming grace for those who are struggling, struggling just

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to stay alive. And to believe that there's some kind of divine peace in the world, you and I are called to make the most of this time here and today joining together in a song of life

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, not ripping our country apart or our churches apart with hate and fear. Of course we can't all be a genius like Beethoven, but we can sing even if we can't carry a tune. We can

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still sing. You sing out of tune, you're tone deaf, you don't remember the words, you're a little offbeat. Well, join the club. Come on down to Central. We got a lot

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of offbeat folks there. And I might be the most offbeat of them all. But none of that matters. None of that matters to God. We are called to join in this heavenly chorus of love

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, for it is the spirit of music that breaks the walls that divide us. It is the spirit that reminds us that we are not alone, that our neighbors are just on the other side of the

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wall. Whether it is a wall created by sheetrock or by age or gender or fear or anger, God's spirit penetrates the walls we build to bring us together so that we can indeed be and serve as

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a living body of love and to heal this world . But we gotta make a choice. We gotta be willing to sing. Personally, I, I'm not such a good singer. That's why it was

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so strange for me to find myself in a hospital room one day singing a song to a patient, doing the best I could to sing for a little boy named Patriot. He was a six year old

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from Albania who had come to the states to be treated for leukemia. And by the time he arrived in our country, he had watched his world blown apart by a vicious war. His father had been

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in prison, leaving his mother struggling to survive with him and 3 other children in the mountains. Quite miraculously, his extended family was able to get him out of his home country to send patriot to relatives

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in the United States so that he could finally get the medical treatment he so desperately needed. Patriot ended up living with a family in my congregation, and when he fell ill with a lung infection, he

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was rushed to the hospital and I went to visit . At that time Patriot was in a medically induced coma so that he would lay perfectly still and his body could get the rest it needed to heal.

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The only way this child could communicate was by wiggling his tongue, yes, and if he didn't wiggle his tongue, that meant no. I happened to be alone in the room with him or I probably

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would not have offered. But I said to him , Patriot, I know a song that my mom used to sing to me at night when I was sick and don't feel good. It's a wonderful song

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about a beautiful place. Would you like me to sing it to you now? And he wiggled his tongue. So I began, but I won't sing it for y'all. I'll just tell you this the

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song tells a story about a child who goes for a walk on a lovely summer's day. It describes all the wonderful things this little boy or girl, depending on who you're singing it to, this child

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sees on this day a shining river with fish swimming , a hopping rabbit, flowers swaying, a windmill churning. Patriot, he joined me in song that day, not with words or with sound, but

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by wiggling his tongue the entire time I was singing . This little boy, so battered and beaten down by human hate and physical illness, this boy who from a broke a home broken. Part by war

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and a body broken by cancer, this frail child , he could lay in a bed and still sing he could imagine a world that was not brutalized by human depravity. He could imagine a world that was

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filled with beauty and love and hope, and as he laid there wiggling the only part of his body that he. Could move he wiggled his tongue as if to say, yes, yes, yes,

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show me a world where guns do not shoot at collapsing houses and buildings and show me a world where veins do not collapse at the hands of needles shooting into them. Show me a world where healthy.

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Children can go for a walk on a lovely summer's day without stopping at a soldier's checkpoint or scrounging for food to survive. This child so battered and beaten by a miserable life that was not fair that he

00:24:34.620 - 00:24:51.300

did not deserve, he could lay in a hospital room and still believe and imagine divine goodness up until the day he took his very last breath. A few days before Patriot's 7th birthday, he died and

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our whole congregation was crushed, but we clung to this promise, this promise of the Christian gospel that Patriot no longer was imagining a beautiful world free of pain and suffering because he was now living in it

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. If patriot could sing. If Beethoven could still have music in his soul, though he was completely deaf, you and I, we got hope. No matter what pain or grief we endure on a

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daily basis, we can still rise up and join this heavenly chorus so that others will see and be amazed at God's glory on earth. My final remarks , so just relax. About 120 years ago.

00:25:49.420 - 00:26:06.420

A woman named Berta Smith, who lived in a small podunk town in Georgia, sang a song to her children. And she's had no idea that the song she sang to put her babies to bed would

00:26:06.420 - 00:26:18.940

be passed from one generation to the next in our family. That song was passed from Berta, my great grandmother, to my grandmother, then my mother , and then to me, and if my children

00:26:18.940 - 00:26:36.660

ever get around to having kids, I guess they'll sing it to theirs. And I imagine. That by the world standards, my great grandmother was not a woman of any importance. Her voice was not

00:26:36.660 - 00:26:53.840

heard by most of the world. She didn't even have the right to vote until a decade after her last. And 13th child. My grandmother was born . And yet, she shared God's promise of love

00:26:55.170 - 00:27:11.720

, creation, and life in the midst of human suffering. Berta Smith could have never imagined that her simple tune would one day comfort a small bad boy lying in a bed. Body wracked with cancer.

00:27:11.710 - 00:27:26.660

She had never even left her home state or even heard of the country, Albania. But you see that spirit, that eternal spirit, carried her song to a suffering child who needed a vision of a

00:27:26.660 - 00:27:42.770

better world as he lay dying. Have no doubt my friends the song we sing today will be passed from one generation to the next and our children will sing it to their children and their children will sing

00:27:42.770 - 00:28:00.710

it to theirs. So as we strive to march onward in faith victors in the midst of strife. Let our song proclaim God's love today and always.