Every Good and Perfect Gift...

It is so good to be back with you after a three month sabbatical. As most of you know, I’ve been on the road…in the air…down the trail…in the desert, at the ocean, journeying for two months in the back country in Africa with a month in Europe. This has been the longest stretch I’ve gone without preaching in twenty five years. This morning is a kind of homecoming for me, and we also welcome our students this day, some back from college break…some here for the first time. We’re so glad to have you with us. So let me speak this morning a word of celebration. A message of homecoming. A word of welcome.
James wrote: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadow. I can’t think of a more appropriate verse to describe my summer journey. It was a good and perfect gift of God. At least once a day I quoted Hopwood sage Danny Hendrix: “Every day’s a holiday.” Or to get to the root of that word: “Every day is a holy day, filled with goodness and possibility.” Today I’d like to share with you word-images of some of those good and perfect gifts I received. Let’s travel together.
The first gift I was given was the gift of sight to behold God’s wondrous world. We started the journey in the African county of Namibia, where the Namib desert meets the sea. May 29-In the Dunes of the Desert Oasis. “I’m sitting in the sand atop a perfect dune, overlooking an ocean of sand and rock. We survived a sandstorm last night which half-buried us and our gear. But we’re quite revived by a breakfast of biscuits and tea. We crossed an incredible salty scrub to get here. We arrived at this spot via a long, hard trek through rough track and shifting sand. We had to stop and scout the trail several times and finally decided to quit working so hard and simply follow the elephant track. In this dry place, all paths lead to the water. They call this place Auses/Oasis, a small desert lake in a most forbidding desert. We’re butted up next to mountains on the South and West, but when the wind dies down, the sound that spills over the mountain gaps is the pounding of the surf on the Skeleton Coast thirty kilometers to the West.
How easy it would be to get lost out here. How easy it would be to get in trouble out here. Your vehicle bogs down in the sand, or breaks down, then trying to walk out would be a bit “dodgy” as they say here. Travel in the desert is difficult. We got stuck twice yesterday and only got through by letting most of the air out of the tyres. But what beauty. We were visited last night by a jackal, and this morning Tyler found lion tracks two dunes over, very fresh. The pug marks were nearly the size of my hand. Thank you Lord, for all this beauty and danger, for the harshness of your sheltering presence. Thank you for this place untouched by cell phones and email, garbage and fast food. Thank you for this place that is so hard to reach and so worth the effort. It is a wondrous, great gift. I’m not going to ask where the next destination is—I’ve taken off my watch and will just let it unfold. Walk with us.”
June 11-Tora Bay, Eastern Atlantic, Skeleton Coast.
Sitting on my camp chair twenty feet from the breaking surf--foamy, green, clean and cold. A cool Westerly breeze blows in my face, shoes off, jacket on. The coastline is totally deserted but for us. We drove perhaps an hour from Wereldsend (World’s End), through craggy crumbling hills, past grey dunes, past rhino tracks in the road, to this. A beach full of white sand, cloudy cool sky, endless water in a place where it never rains. We arrived right at slack tide, now the seas are building again and creeping closer. Very difficult to believe you could be cooking to death just a few hours away on some forsaken chunk of basalt.
June 5-The morning is particularly quiet and still. The sun has reached the far plains, and is rising over the hill to the East, where it will soon pour over the crest and fill my day. Until then, it’s chilly, leaving me to huddle next to a little fire, with its “whispering tea-kettl”e and the black legged cooking pot. The birds are quiet this morning. A pair of tiny owls talked to each other through the night, but they too have gone quiet. Even the cattle are still. It’s so quiet I can hear the singsong chatter of a Himba child in a nearby village.
Thank you, Lord, for the gift of sight, and hearing, and smell, and taste, that we might enjoy this wonderful world.
Our whole family gathered in Kenya where we served as missionaries for eight years to enjoy precious visits with our Maasai friends and neighbors. There God gave us the gift of friends who have become family.
July 6-The Loita Hills, Kenya. Today we spent the afternoon with Koisa and Noonkishu (she of the cows), our long time friends. When we lived here long ago, Koisa struggled with many issues of maturity. Today they just wanted to show us how well they are doing…they wanted us to be proud of them. Noonkishu was probably 17 when she and Marcia gave birth on the same day: Marcia bore Tyler and Noonkishu had a son they named Kunina. Now they have seven children. The older boys are in school and are doing great. Their son is the number one student in this whole area in his class, they told us. They walked us around the new village they are building: spacious house ( made of sticks and cow manure, but with a tin roof), sturdy cattle enclosure. There Jill petted a donkey and picked up a goat, which promptly peed on her dress. We left our kids to play with the children while Koisa and Noonkishu led us into the cool dark wood of olive and cedar, past the garden that produces food for their family, to the stream that gives them clean water. We laughed and talked and remembered all the good times we’ve had. Koisa is clear-eyed and responsible and good natured. Noonkishu, despite her small size…is a worker and a thinker. They love Jesus; they love each other. And they love us. “You helped us,” they said, “And we want you to see how we’re trying.”
In Normandy, France, Craig Farmer and I enjoyed the gift of friendship with new friends named Edith and Roger. Although we were strangers to them, they took us into their beautiful 225 year old stone farmhouse and made us feel like family. First things first, Edith wanted to know where our wives were. Craig told them the truth—we left our wives in the States to work so we could travel! They were so kind to us. And they fed us like kings. Here’s how it went down: August 10-Coutances, France-Before long they called us for supper, a time set aside for feasting and visiting and feasting some more. The main course was quiche-of two types. There was salmon, cheese, Vegetables, breads, wines of numerous varieties, coffee, dessert. The conversation was non-stop. Craig and I were in a wonderful cocoon of graciousness and goodness. When we finally looked at our watches, two hours had passed. We waddled off to bed around midnight. Breakfast brought more generous goodness. Fruit, home-made toast, and stout black coffee served in good-sized soup bowls. Now that’s how coffee was meant to be served…
…The next night’s meal was even grander than the last. “On the way home we picked up small gifts of flowers, chocolates for our hosts, which brought joy and kisses all around…. Then began the evening festivities. Each dish came as a surprise…there can’t be another course, more incredible than the last can there? Each course was accompanied with entertaining tales, with expressions of familiarity and friendship, with humor and grace. By the end of the meal we were all fast friends, exchanging expressions of affection and kindness like we had known each other all our lives. The meal started at 9pm. We rose from the table sometime after midnight.
A final gift I received on this journey was the gift of heavenly worship. Sometimes we enjoyed God’s presence as we read the bible around a campfire, or watched the morning sun. God’s Spirit was there when we attended a worship service in Nairobi at a school for 500 kids from the slums of Pangani. The building was made of sheet metal. Everyone prayed aloud. The music blared out full bore. And our son Andy was the preacher for the day. Imagine the blessing it was to witness your own son preach the gospel in a place like that.
In France, Craig and I stayed four days at Taize, an ecumenical monastery where up to 10,000 people, mostly young people, gather each week to worship. That’s what the Taize community is all about….unity through worship. Taize is slow-paced, quiet, focused on worship, relationships, silence, and song. Here’s what I wrote about evening worship: “Everyone meets in a cavernous church-style structure, think of a gigantic church camp chapel topped with three onion domes. Most people sit on the carpeted floor, some kneel or sit on short benches. The white-robed Brothers, 60 strong, enter the sanctuary as the church bells clang to announce the beginning of service. They file into their places in the middle of the sanctuary. They are of diverse ages and ethnic backgrounds.
A few small stained glass windows light the very top of the front platform, which is decorated with large lighted sails of orange cloth and a wall of candles running the length of the floor. Absent from the platform are people, table, pulpit, choir, instruments. Instead, all face the same way…forward…toward an unseen God.
The service begins with songs—in eight or nine language, small 2-3 line songs sung numerous times from song sheets or song books, which translate the songs into a dozen tongues. Some are sung acapella; some are accompanied by a guitar or flute. The songs are filled with common phrases of great liturgies. Scripture is read in several tongues. A period of silence—10-12 minutes, is kept following the gospel reading. There is no introduction, only a few written instructions, no visible leader. The music starts and the tongues of the nation roll through the hall. Services last a little over an hour, I guess, long enough for one’s bum to go numb. But it’s beautiful, quiet, wholesome and good.”
Well, that’s enough for today. I’m certain that in the days to come you’ll hear so much about the journeys that you’ll be crying for relief. Let me end by saying two things. It is so good to be home, with you. I’ve missed you, and this sabbatical has somehow brought us even closer. James says that God gives all these good and perfect gifts to us so that we might be given birth by the word of truth, so that we might become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. I hope in the coming days we all see much wonderful fruit come from our time apart…and from our coming together again.
And finally, I’ve got a word for all you students who are here today…especially for you students who join us today for the first time. I’ve been talking about gifts of God that were poured out in faraway places, but I want you to know that God is ready to pour these very same gifts upon you…right here. Right here, among us, you can find the gift of sight to behold a wondrous world that God had made. Let these sheltering mountains become your friends. Dip your feet into a mountain stream. Don’t let schoolwork get in the way of your education.
Right here among us God will give you the gift of friends who will become family. Join us after service for what we call an Agape meal…a love feast, and I think you’ll begin to see what I’m talking about. You can find your own community of faith, here God can give you the gift of family.
Here you can find the gift of heavenly worship. Dive into the worship life of Hopwood, and it will change you forever. Don’t forget to join us for a service we call “Adoration” on Tuesday night at 9:00. And there’s even more. Here you can find the gift of a calling, service, purpose, work for your hands and your mind.
So today marks not just my homecoming, but yours. We’re so glad you’re here and we hope this place, these people, this congregation can become home for you. You may think you’ve come to this place to obtain a degree. That may be the least of the good gifts God has for you. Welcome home.