Date: May 21, 2017
THE BIG REVEAL
SCRIPTURE: PSALM 66: 8
–
20; JOHN 14:15
–
21
GRACE COVENANT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ASHEVILLE, NC
May 21, 2017
The
Rev. Dr. Marcia Mount Shoop, Pastor
Psalm 66:8
–
20
66:8 Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard,
66:9 who ha
s kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
66:10 For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.
66:11 You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;
66:12 you let people ride over our heads; we went th
rough fire and through water;
yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
66:13 I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows,
66:14 those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.
66:15 I will off
er to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of
rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah
66:16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me.
66:17 I cried aloud to him, and he was e
xtolled with my tongue.
66:18 If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.
66:19 But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer.
66:20 Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or remove
d his
steadfast love from me.
John 14:15
–
21
14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with
you forever.
14:17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot re
ceive, because it neither
sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be
in you.
14:18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
14:19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; bec
ause I
live, you also will live.
14:20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
14:21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me;
and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will lo
ve them and reveal
myself to them.”
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
There are some things about today’s world that raise some big questions for me
—
and maybe for you, too. Questions that seem unanswerable, questions that are hard
to ask. These
questions
challenge us to take a hard look at ourselves
—
to open our
eyes to something we might not want to see.
It is one of those questions that I bring to you today
—
a hard question, a possibly
unanswerable question, a que
stion that challenges us to l
ook in the mirror
….
Why are there so many shows about house remodeling
and house buying
on TV
right now?
No really, I am serious. What is up with that?
I counted over 32 shows:
just to name a few
—
flip or flop, fixer upper, house hunters,
rehab addi
ct, tiny house hunters, tiny house nation, beachfront bargain hunt,
lakefront bargain hunt, house crashers, kitchen crashers, bath crashers
, we bought
the farm, my house/your money, curb appeal, this new house, you live in what?, and
one that I am sure is
absolutely fascinating: the vanilla ice project
—
people of
my
generation remember the rapper
vanilla ice and
his song
ice, ice baby
—
the promo
for the show reads (I am not making this up), “Vanilla Ice has gone from rapping
music to rapping nails… When he’s
done and admires all the changes, might he
shout out ‘nice, nice baby!’”
What is it that makes these shows so alluring, so captivating, so telling?
We hang on through contrived drama and ridiculous math about the cost of things
that we know cannot be tru
e
—
just to get to the big reveal
—
where we get to see the
finished product and t
he reaction of the home owners and everything seems ok just
for a few minutes until we go into our bathroom and think about how much better
the bathroom would look with a new flo
or or a cool faucet and more windows.
