We are looking forward to great program year of activities for our tween and teen age congregants! Pioneers is our youth group for 5th-7th grade. Students 9th grade and up participate in High School Youth Group. 8th grade students often participate in Confirmation and are always welcome at All Youth events.

At The Brick Church, there are many ways to find community, discover your purpose, and go deeper spiritually including Sunday morning worship services, men’s and women’s Bible studies, robust children’s programming, and meaningful outreach. Getting involved at Brick Church is a wonderful way to connect with our vibrant community and give back in meaningful ways. We invite you to help extend a warm welcome to all who enter our doors by participating in our community and congregational care opportunities. Register He Christians believe that God created us for life together and that the Christian life is most faithfully and joyfully lived in the community of faith that is the church. This community sustains, nourishes and challenges us to greater and steadier faithfulness to Jesus Christ. If you wish to explore membership, you are invited to attend one of our series of three New Member Meetings.

Proverbs 16:1-3 Last week we learned from Proverbs that, “ A cheerful heart is good medicine. ” This saying helps center our thoughts and emotions, reminding us that there is so much in life to be joyful about, and that true joy means not only delighting ourselves but sharing with others. And yet, a sunny disposition can only get us so far, and our emotions are subject to change in a moment. We want a life of happiness and joy, but it won’t come only through a positive attitude. In order to “live long and prosper,” Proverbs teaches us we must commit our plans to God. If last week was about our heart—our emotions—this week is about our mind, our will. The root of the Hebrew word for  commit  means to roll. To commit our plans to God is to roll them over to God, for God’s input, shaping, and approval, which might be thought of as a divine tennis match. Your opening serve is not only the plan you make to win the point, but your choice to lob it in, use a slice or top spin, aim down the line, or in the corner. Once the ball is in God’s court, the Lord’s shot determines your next move. God can slow down the point by taking pace off, send it to the far corner—thus completely changing the point—or blow it past you, saying,  Thispoint, this plan needs to end; it’s time to start over. To roll our plans over to God is to admit that ultimately we don’t have control of our destiny. “ Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails .” — Proverbs 19:21 (NIV). All of us have made plans which have failed, which have gone astray. This can be frustrating and debilitating, but there is a path that does not wallow in defeat and dismay—one which allows your will to remain resolute. If we hold onto our plans ourselves and don’t give them over to God, and they fail, we have nowhere else to turn. But if we have committed them to God, we trust that, if they fail, God is working with them and that a good future will come. In this way, failure is not a step back but a step forward into your new future. But it requires trust in God:  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This quote provides a tremendous amount of comfort, but don’t be fooled by it—it doesn’t promise that things will be easy. It can take a long time and many hard knocks to finally get there. In fact, there’s a whole book devoted to how frustrating life can be. Ecclesiastes is the Biblical counterpoint to the faith of endless positivity. That author asserts the exact opposite of Proverbs, voicing his frustration with the world and God’s lack of action in a rather stark statement: “In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: the righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness.” Ecclesiastes deals with the truth of our emotions, which are healthy to acknowledge, but we can’t let anxious thoughts deter our will. Proverbs 29:11 tells us, “ A fool expresses all his emotions, but a wise person controls them. ” The control function comes from our will. Unlike our emotions, our mind’s function is to keep our overall well-being in mind, to keep our life goals ever before us, and to do what we know is right even when we don’t feel like it. When I meet with couples in pre-marital counseling, I always ask them to define love. Often, they will talk about how they feel about someone. And the answers are almost always meaningful. But there is a part they all leave out—the will. Love is not just how we feel about someone; it is a decision we make, and it is right in the vows:  “I promise before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband, in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.” Love is a decision to do what is good and right for another when our natural inclination of self-gratification might lead us to do otherwise. Love is not only what we do for another because we feel positive emotions toward them. Otherwise, there would be no point to the vows. The vows are the act of committing to God that we will care for them even if we don’t feel the magic during certain times in life. In a marriage, when the initial rapturous romance fades, that’s when the work begins. That’s when it gets hard. And, to tell the truth, that is when true, deep love grows. So too in faith. It is only when tested that its true power is revealed. That is the challenge for our wills: Do we have the courage to place our plans in God’s hands? Because that’s the promise—God will prosper our future if we roll it over. But oh, it can be a long time coming! To begin to make sense of the tension between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, we turn to Genesis and the story of Joseph. He confronted this exact problem. After being enslaved by his brothers, he rose to a place of prominence in Potiphar’s household. Obviously, Joseph’s plan for his own life was a life of freedom after suffering the horror of slavery. But his freedom was threatened. Potiphar’s wife wanted to have an affair. Joseph refused her advances, for in committing his plans to the Lord he knew he could not betray Potiphar. Upon being spurned, she presented false testimony, and Joseph was thrown into prison. What would you have done if you were faced with Joseph’s terrible choice—go to prison for who knows how long, or submit to a relationship you knew was a betrayal? Joseph certainly knew the pain expressed in Ecclesiastes. But the failure of his personal plan did not turn him aside from being a moral person. This kind of faithful and committed will is what God uses to turn our personal plans into something much greater. In a book published in 1905,  Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry  addresses this problem: “We cannot understand the moral Universe. The arc is a long one, and our eyes reach but a little way; we cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; but we can divine it by conscience, and we surely know that it bends toward justice. Justice will not fail, though wickedness appears strong, and has on its side the armies and thrones of power, the riches and the glory of the world, and though poor men crouch down in despair. Justice will not fail and perish out from the world of men, nor will what is really wrong and contrary to God’s real law of justice continually endure.” When we cannot see justice, we can quickly despair, and in this case Proverbs has a simple but powerful instruction:  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Not just trust, but trust with everything you have. Have the courage to do what is right no matter what, and the Lord’s justice will circle back—either in this life or the next. For Joseph, it circled back in this one. As you know, he eventually became second only to Pharaoh in all of Egypt. And as he is reunited with his brothers, he speaks some of the most heartening, tender, powerful words in all the Bible:  “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Joseph’s homeland suffered a severe drought, but as Pharaoh’s right-hand man he had the means to liberate them from starvation. This is how God’s plans and ours intertwine for the ultimate justice and prospering of all. A committed will is a powerful force for the Lord’s work on this earth, and it is critical to moving through tests and trials to find a future that you and God can both find joy in.

The Brick Presbyterian Church keeps bound records of Orders of Worship, financial statements, and important documents dating back to 1885 in the archive of the Anderson library and in the Senior Pastor’s Study. Spending the summer researching in the library, I had the opportunity to examine these records up close. Though records have changed in style and content since the mid-nineteenth century, with varying format and additional information, the church’s emphasis on record keeping is consistent. The archive is filled with invaluable information: minutes, essays, sermons, even the bodice of Reverend Henry Van Dyke’s wife. However, in taking a closer look at the various bound records, I noticed that the bound Orders of Worship and their respective financial records from the 1937-1938 year appeared to be missing. In researching this abnormally undocumented year, what began as a search for the missing records became the uncovering of 1937’s role in the Brick Church’s rich history.  It is worth noting that while completing my research, I contacted a representative of the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia regarding the location of the 1937-1938 Orders of Worship. The Orders of Worship in question could not be located in either the Anderson library or the Senior Pastor’s Study, where Orders of Worship are normally kept. The Historical Society does indeed possess a copy of the 1937-1938 Orders of Worship and was kind enough to photocopy its first few pages for me. The Foreword on the pages sent to me by the Historical Society call 1937 a “memorable” and “significant” year for the church. Though the Orders of Worship had not been “missing” as I had previously assumed, they had led me on a journey of learning about one of the Brick Church’s most landmark years.  The general climate of 1937, both within the Brick Church and on a larger global scale, was tense. The Great Depression was coming to a painful end, tensions which would lead to the outbreak of the second world war were rising, and the mosaic of New York City was shifting. The Brick community surely felt this shift, with much of the relatively loyal congregation moving uptown. This affected membership and attendance of worship at the time, given lesser modes of transportation and an alleged aversion to using available transportation on holy days. In addition to changing demographics, the Brick Church was experiencing considerable financial hardship as a result of the move and economic depression of the larger city. Despite some of the profound benefactors of the Church, the general financial upheaval caused by The Depression led to less donations from the congregation. In a memorandum identifying posthumous donors to the church, there is recorded a “1937 list” of donors who presumably contributed to Brick’s relocation effort. In addition to financial and societal turbulence, 1937 also saw the end of Reverend William Pierson Merrill’s time as head pastor and the search for his successor. Needless to say, 1937 represented transition. Changes in surrounding society, economy, and location play into 1937’s historicity. In addition to the logistical challenges of the move and adjustments made by the church, there was indeed an emotional component to this period of change. In his last sermon to the congregation in Brick’s 37th Street location, Reverend William Pierson Merrill references Moses leaving Sinai, the place where “he [Moses] had found God”. Merrill recognized that, in many ways, much of the congregation had “found God” in the 37th St church. He urged the crowd to understand that the God of the Brick Church and Presbyterianism in general was not confined to the altar or a physical space, rather accessible wherever there was faith. The resilience of 1937 speaks to a larger motivation in the Brick Church Community: a motivation to strengthen and grow in faith, despite discomfort or hardship. During my research, I also grew increasingly grateful for the diligent record keeping done by archive committees over the years. Each volume, book, and sermon provides a gateway into the Brick church of the past, in turn informing our present and future. Grateful to have located and done research on the 1937-1938 Orders of Worship, I understand deeply the importance of archival and historical work in the context of the church.

Confirmation is a year-long opportunity for students (typically 8th Graders) to spend time with their peers, discuss the Christian faith, and get more involved in the Brick Church community. At the end of the year, students may choose to join The Brick Church as an active member. Confirmation Class meets Sundays at 9:00 AM beginning on Sunday, October 5th in the Carnegie Room (3rd Floor). We ask parents to join us for the first 30-45 minutes on that first day of class while we go over the calendar, logistics, and answer any questions. We are extremely excited for the year ahead and can’t wait to get to know your students better. Confirmation Class Schedule Carnegie Room | 9:00 - 10:30 10/5/25 - Parent Kick-Off Meeting 10/19/25 10/26/25 11/2/25 11/9/25 11/16/25 11/23/25 11/30/25 1/11/26 1/25/26 2/1/26 2/8/26 2/22/26 3/1/26 3/8/26 3/15/26 4/12/26 4/19/26

Rev. William Pierson Merrill was a prominent Presbyterian minister and public advocate for peace in the early 20th century. He served as pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City and was known for his preaching and leadership. On May 18, 1914, he delivered a sermon titled  The Making of Peace  at Brick Church, in which he posed the question, “How can we make peace?” Merrill presented answers from the perspectives of the militarist, statesman, and Christian. He rejected the militarist’s reliance on force, stating that he would not “keep a tiger chained in my yard” to feel safe. He supported the statesman’s call for arbitration and international law, and most strongly endorsed the Christian ideal of peace through brotherhood and the breaking down of racial and national barriers. He concluded with a vision of the United States taking down its fences and choosing to assume the naturalness of peace rather than the inevitability of war. In February 1914, Andrew Carnegie established the Church Peace Union (CPU), endowing it with $2 million in five percent bonds. The CPU’s purpose was to unite religious leaders across denominations to promote peace, moral leadership, and alternatives to armed conflict. Suggestions for its activities included international exchanges between clergymen, peace conferences, and the distribution of peace literature and sermons. On the executive committee of the CPU was Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, and the trustees included Rev. William Merrill, who was elected as the first vice president. Shortly after Merrill delivered  The Making of Peace , Carnegie’s wife Louise and daughter Margaret joined Brick Church, and Merrill was appointed the first president of the CPU. The Church Peace Union’s first international event was scheduled for August 2–5, 1914, on Lake Constance at the border of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Delegates were already traveling to the conference when World War I began. On August 4, Germany mobilized its forces, and American and British delegates in Germany had to evacuate. They hired a private train car, endured extreme heat, and were warned by German police not to open windows for fear of bombs. They regrouped in London to continue their discussions and respond to the new reality of war. Although Andrew Carnegie died shortly after the war ended, his wife Louise Whitfield Carnegie continued to support the CPU and remained close to Rev. Merrill and his successor at Brick Church, Rev. Austin Wolfe. The Constance Convention of 1914

In his last sermon preached at the pulpit of the Brick Church on 37th street, Reverend William Pierson Merrill spoke to a crowd in limbo. New York City was changing: The New Deal, Great Depression, and early indicators of the second World War were reforming the city. The church, located on 37th and 5th, had been witness to an active congregation and a maturing city, having been previously located on Beekman street. The church had moved uptown in response to a general migration of the congregation in the same direction. In pursuit of community and stable membership, Brick was motivated to change location. Following a similar rationale in 1937, Brick Church decided to follow the growing congregation further uptown to its present site. The move was in response to many changes circling the church community during the era. In 1936, after 25 years of ministry, Rev. William Pierson Merrill expressed the wish to retire. His last sermon at 37th Street pulpit on October 17th, 1937 spoke to the uncertainties of the congregation during a time of relative upheaval. The congregation, soon to be temporarily relocated to the 85th street Park Avenue Presbyterian Church during the construction of the present site, was fraught with transition. Rev. Merrill was certainly aware of the attitude of his audience: the congregation who were witnessing a changing city, country, world, and adjusting their own lives accordingly.  “It has been instinctive in the heart of man to associate God with special sacred places”, Merrill says in that sermon titled The Real Presence . There is a sentimentality to his tone, an understanding that an end to Brick on 37th Street did not arrive devoid of emotion. Preaching on Exodus 33:14, Rev. Merrill analyzes Moses leaving Sinai, the place where he had “found God…as nowhere else”. In a similar way, much of the congregation had found spiritual community in the 37th Street location: found refuge, peace, and in many ways, God. Rev. Merrill attempts to assuage their melancholy, reminding that “We do not need to go here or there to find Him [God]… He goes with us”. Despite the change weighing heavy on the congregation, Merrill reminded that the spirit of Christianity need not be confined to any one place. He continues by quoting an unnamed Episcopalian leader, saying “for the Catholic, God is localized on the altar, while the Protestant finds God everywhere.” Though I cannot speak on the experiences or beliefs of Catholics, I can certainly understand the notion of omnipresence in Protestantism. I have been attending the Brick Church my entire life, and for most of that life my faith has been somewhat localized. In awe of its historicity and grandeur, the church has always been a place which I have revered, a place which has expanded my spiritual thinking and religious understanding. I was under the impression that God was native to this place, that here would be where I understand God most potently. The “everywhere” which Merrill quotes did not occur to me until the High School Mission trip to Fairbanks, Alaska in June of 2024. I had attended the mission trip the year prior in Boston, but its proximity to New York fostered similar cultures, attitudes, and landscapes to the city which I call my home. Coincidently, in Fairbanks I met a similar religious awakening to Moses: on a mountaintop. After a week of service in the Fairbanks community, our group was given the opportunity to hike Mt. Healy in Denali National Park on our free day. Once we reached the top, we worshiped amidst the breathtaking view of the park. Below us, a canopy of evergreen trees, above us, a clear sky. While gazing up, we were greeted with a rainbow stretching from behind a neighboring mountain. In that moment, I grew emotional, profoundly moved by the sense of spirituality I had found so far from my church, my home. There my faith grew alongside my sincere appreciation for my church community. My life at Brick has taught me to look for God everywhere, including hundreds of miles away.  In The Real Presence, Rev. Merrill refers to God as “the architect”, the creator of the ever-present home for those who believe in Him. Merrill preaches to a crowd moving through change and insecurity, ensuring a never-ending sense of belonging in belief. As our current congregation moves through periods of uncertainty, societal insecurity, and personal strife, we can be sure that there will be a home for us in and out of the Brick Church: a home in our faith.  The Brick Church Sanctuary at 37th Street and Fifth Avenue. ( Source )

The Brick Church Children's Ministry offers engaging Sunday programming designed for children from ages 3 through 7th grade. Our dedicated and enthusiastic volunteer staff will guide your children through inspiring Bible stories, nurturing their spiritual curiosity along the way. Our inclusive programs feature a variety of activities, including family dinners and worship, Sacraments Class, Advent Crafts, the joyous Christmas Pageant, as well as special services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for families to celebrate together. Parents with children aged 0-2 years are invited to register for our Sunday childcare services at The Brick Church. Our top priority in the childcare program is to provide exceptional care, ensuring that each child receives dedicated attention and support. The nursery is staffed by highly skilled professionals from The Baby Sitters' Guild, guaranteeing a safe and nurturing environment for your little ones.

Proverbs 19:20-23   Listen to advice, Proverbs tells. An incredibly simple statement. In fact, it is so obvious that it seems completely unnecessary to say, especially in the limited space of the Holy Bible. But I suspect you know why, for even though we know we ought to listen, it is exceedingly hard to truly, fully, completely listen. And so the wise person will devote every ounce of energy to being a good listener. The wise person cultivates their ability to listen. The wise person recognizes their deficiencies and seeks to fix them. The wise person knows they don’t know everything, especially about the things they think they know the most about. Listening is so hard because it requires humility. It requires believing that the person you think is wrong or perhaps even a fool still has something to teach you. And in some ways, listening to the Bible might even be harder. It was written thousands of years ago in a different language, that purports to be the word of God — an incredibly audacious, preposterous, outdated, superstitious point of view. And yet there is something about this book that has drawn people to it for 3,000 years, and they number in the billions. Those who have devoted the most to it have made more impact in history than any other group. The wise person knows that the voice we are truly trying to hear in these pages — it’s not the apostle Paul or Luke or Matthew or Isaiah or Jeremiah — but what we are really trying to do is to hear the voice of God. And what’s more, this book not only purports to contain the voice of God, but it tells us that a listening ear can hear that voice anytime, any place, in any circumstance. As Hebrews explains, God speaks in “ many and various ways .” God speaks through angels, like with Mary. God speaks through bizarre writing on the wall, as with Daniel. God speaks through burning bushes, as to Moses, and God even speaks directly in an audible voice, like with Samuel. We envy those days in which God communicated so clearly, and we want to know if (or rather how) God still speaks today.In the Bible, God makes somewhat regular use of fantastic creatures to speak to us. In Revelation, these angels have six wings, can fly, and perpetually declare God’s truth. At Jesus’ resurrection, angels speak words of comfort to Mary. But does God still send these angels today? It is clear that many Christians believe that God sends them special messengers to give them comfort, guidance, and direction. It may be a chance encounter with a stranger who offers a kind word, and since “angel” means messenger, perhaps we can conclude that yes, God does still speak to us through angels. But if by “angels” we are referring to these six-winged beings that live with God, are not human, and come down to earth to convey divine truth, I am not so sure. It simply does not reflect how I have experienced God or the world in general. There are no stories I have heard that are compelling. I must admit that there is a measure of skepticism in my 21st-century mind. But I am not the only one. In fact, it is the Bible that tells us to be careful — that we have to be careful not to too quickly believe somebody’s claim that an angel spoke to them. In Colossians, Paul says, “ Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind .” The apostle Paul, who saw a fantastic and incredible vision when Christ struck him blind on the road to Damascus — he’s the one who doubts angels have visited other people. Does God speak to us in a voice we can hear? Curiously enough, even in the Bible, which is literally God’s word to us — God speaking to us — there is an acute absence of God’s voice. There are moments in which God not only seemed silent but was silent. In the book of Samuel, we are told, “ Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread .” So, when Samuel was lying down in the temple near the Ark and he heard a voice call his name, he assumed it was Eli. He went to Eli, only to discover he hadn’t called him. This happens two times more, and finally Eli catches on that God is calling him, so he tells Samuel, “‘ Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say,   ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ”So even though this story is about God speaking, we are first told that this is a rare occurrence. And it was so unexpected that neither Samuel nor Eli knew it was God. But that was in biblical times. What about today? There’s an old joke: When you talk to God, we call it prayer, but when God talks to you, we call it schizophrenia. So, while we can accept that God spoke in days of old, we have a much harder time believing it today.We have a hard time believing today because we have seen so many instances throughout history and in our times of people claiming with utter certainty that God has spoken to them. We want to be open to the idea that God still speaks directly and clearly to individuals. So how precisely do we cultivate a wise listening ear — one that is not so cynical that we disbelieve any potential message from God, but one that is not so foolish that it leaps at every claim? We find it comes out of the whirlwind. From Job, we learn about the voice of God and how to listen.As you recall, Job has been afflicted by disease, by death of his loved ones, and then afflicted even further by his friends! For several chapters, his friends try to teach Job what it is that God has to say — their shortsighted, pedantic, and trivial thoughts. His friends speak with utter confidence and conviction concerning God’s thoughts. And then his friends turn those thoughts — and they turn those beliefs — on to Job in order to condemn him. Have we all become like Job’s friends? Claiming to know what God wants, what God thinks, what God has to say, but never bothering to truly listen — while explaining to everyone who does not think like us why they are foolish and ignorant troglodytes.But Job is different from his friends. And it is his suffering that has done this. Job, like you and me, desperately wants to know exactly what God thinks. Job wants the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, or the message from an angel — to know what to do, to know what to believe, to know why his life is so hard.And to truly get a feel for Job’s aching, yearning desire to hear God’s word, you have to sit down and read this book all in one sitting — because only then do you get a full sense of his existential crisis, and how impossibly hard it was for him to not be given an answer.Why, God? Why!!! Why all this suffering? Why all this injustice!!! Why, why, why!! Then you appreciate not only his deep frustration but how incredibly devastating it must’ve been to have his friends make it even worse by blaming him!!! So, this frustration builds and builds and builds over chapter after chapter — and that building is a metaphor for the course of our life, for the years and decades that we experience, yearning to know what it is that God has to say to us — yearning, aching, desperate, pleading, praying, exhausted, spent… …and finally, ready. Ready to listen. And then, the Bible tells us, “ Out of the whirlwind God spoke! ” Essentially, God says, “ I am God; you are not. There are things in this world that have nothing to do with you, that you will never understand .” At that point, Job realizes that he had tried to speak for God rather than listen to what God had to say. He realizes that the only way to hear is openness, humility, and an unrestrained desire to actually hear what God has to say without inserting the smallest bit of his own will and his own thoughts.And though Job doesn’t learn why — because he can’t, and neither can we — there is something profound that happens, and it changes everything. Instead of Job continuing to focus on his suffering, his loss, his lack of understanding, and his questions, Job goes to God in prayer not for himself, but to ask that God would be merciful and forgiving to those that had blamed him, condemned him, and shamed him. In his humility, his willingness to place himself utterly before God, his heart was turned by the voice of God. Amen.

“We walk by faith and not by sight.” - II Corinthians 5:7 During the last season of Lent, I led a series of conversations on the  nature of faith , which generated a plethora of perspectives that enriched everyone who was a part. This fall, I'm going to share some of the most salient thoughts that come from those discussions so that, together as a congregation, we'll explore the nature of faith at its core.   What does it mean to believe and trust in God?   We live in New York City - a society of people with many different faiths and no faith. How, as Christians, are we to relate to those people while sharing the nature of our convictions and passion, respecting each person's journey and freedom of conscience to decide for themselves what they believe? Living in America, we speak much about freedom of religion, which is sometimes unclear - whether that means freedom from religion or exercising religion within certain constraints to not impinge upon others' ability to do the same.   These complex relationships of faith in our society require us to carefully think through faith in a pluralistic society - but not a secular one. Unlike other countries, America is not a secular society. It is a society that has its roots founded in religion. And so, we will explore, together, what role religion should and does, or does not, play in the public sphere.   Often, we are afraid as individuals to speak of our faith to others, in the workplace or on the street, for fear of coming across as a religious zealot. But when we remove religion's fundamental role as part of the very fabric of our society, we lose the common ground for our morals and our shared sense of purpose and service beyond ourselves.   Prayer of Confession Lord, Your Spirit has given us hope, courage, and love. But too often we are timid in our faith, failing to follow Your Word, Your ways, and Your will. We forget all You have done, and we become focused on ourselves. Cleanse us of fear, grant us focused purpose, and most of all, a heart filled with love that we might faithfully serve You in joy.

Proverbs 17:22-24   The ancient world, like today, was filled with quips meant to impart wisdom for life. Sayings like, “ Liars, when they speak the truth, are not believed ,” from Aristotle, and “ He who will not economize will have to agonize ,” from Confucius offered help that is just as useful today as it was thousands of years ago. The Bible also has its share of sayings, and some of them are curious, like Ecclesiastes 9: “ Better a living dog than a dead lion ,” and others outright surprising, like Proverbs 31: “ Let beer be for those who are perishing, wine for those who are in anguish! ” But the ancient world went one better than our modern one. Whereas we have self-help, they had Wisdom literature. Unlike our modern works, which are mostly pabulum wrapped in the aura of authority—all manufactured by the publishing industry to do more help to the author’s and publisher’s bottom line—these wisdom works generally had no official author and were collections gathered over the course of centuries that offered true, lasting insight into the human condition. Steer clear of the former. You cannot trust them. Cling to the latter. For they have stood the test of time. The Bible has several books within the Wisdom literature tradition—Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes—and for the next weeks, we will explore the insights of Proverbs’ wisdom for life. The core of the entire book of Proverbs, and in fact the foundation of all wisdom for your life, can be found in one simple and powerful phrase that not only occurs repeatedly in Proverbs but throughout the Bible: “ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. ” No single piece of advice will do more to set your life back on track than this dictum. No single piece of advice would do more to set the world back on its feet than these words. And yet, our temptation would be to treat it as a pithy saying that can be absorbed in a minute. No, this would only wreak more havoc—and it has. To properly fear the Lord necessitates a lifetime of committed study filled with profound humility. If we have lost one thing in our modern understanding of the faith, it is this fear, this respect, this awe-filled disposition towards God and all of life, stemming from our finite, creaturely nature in contrast to the eternal, all-powerful Creator. The fear of which the Bible speaks is not about terror, but a proper respect for the vastness of God. It is with this respect-filled awe that we approach the Lord and listen to His words with a hungry willingness to serve with all of our being. Our faith should reflect this awareness, and to begin living through this lens, we will explore three of Proverbs’ admonitions this month: a listening ear, a committed will, and—beginning today—cultivating a cheerful heart. Proverbs declares: “ A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. ” Our modern world drives the individual to quick anger, snap judgments, and a generalized anxiety that makes us all sick in the mind, sick in the heart, and sick in the soul. The Bible’s prescription, though, is not more vitamins but a heart filled with delight. If fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then its culmination is joy. Fear is the realization of all the power, wisdom, and holiness of God. Joy is discovering that God uses this power, wisdom, and holiness to bring abundant life. A heart that fails to be cheerful is one that fails to know God. This cheerful heart is not only pleasure in the grand moments. The first level is found in daily living—the “whistle while you work” attitude that finds pleasure in the routines of life. The Hebrew word used here means joyful, glad, and merry. The person rooted in the cheer of life will not tear their clothes when the little things go wrong. Someone whose heart is centered in the everyday joy of life will not allow a delayed package in the mail, or a broken transmission to control their mood. She does not let outward events control inward thoughts. Our modern life robs us of this kind of cheer because we have forgotten who made us and for what purpose. A person of faith finds cheer in these tasks because she knows it is part of God’s intentions for us to play an active part in this world. Unlike a rock or a clump of dirt that simply exists, God has given to humans the blessed gift of work—to do things of consequence. Nothing erodes the human spirit quite so thoroughly as a complete lack of purpose. When we realize our purpose is found in the everydayness of life, we find joy in knowing we are living out the will of our Creator. The second level of this prescription of cheer is not just about an emotion of happiness but a heart centered on joy. If happiness is a bite of your favorite cake, then joy is giving someone else a slice. Joy is the Christian emotion that finds delight in the prospering of others. Since our world is filled with injustice and evil, bringing others good news is hard work. Paul and Barnabas proclaimed the gospel with boldness and incurred the wrath and scorn of many. Obviously, that means occasions of fear and even despondency. In one of their travels, they landed in Antioch of Pisidia. On the Sabbath day, they went to temple, and at the time of invitation to speak, Paul stood and proclaimed the gospel. The next week, more people came to receive the word, and we are told scores of people became believers. Becoming fearful of their success, the religious leaders incited people of prominence to persecute them and drove them out of the region. It is easy to imagine that Paul experienced anger at his fellow Jews, fear for his own life, and frustration with this repeated cycle. It is the same type of eternal frustration and fear the modern world besets us with that makes us so sick! However, in the midst of everything, the final verse of this section declares, “ The disciples were filled with joy. ” We cannot possibly fix the world. We cannot win this war. Only God can. But we can find joy—and we must, and we should—when God uses us to bless others, whether in the grand things of life or the simple pleasure of putting a smile on a child’s face when, after they say, “ Trick or treat! ” Which leads us to the third and final level in our prescription. Our cheerful heart is not only good medicine for us—it is a panacea for the world. If believers of God in Jesus Christ are not people of joy, why would anyone want to become one? A few years ago, I had the chance to hear Peter Wehner speak—presidential speechwriter for George W. Bush and occasional  New York Times  columnist. It turns out he is Presbyterian and used to attend National Presbyterian Church in D.C. He spent some time assessing the state of our country and then offered some thoughts about how the church ought to respond. He spoke about the need to regain the virtue of Christian humility and to model trust. Then he cited a recent study, that—though the results weren’t new to me and don't surprise me—they struck deep. When hundreds of people were asked what comes to mind when they think of Christians, not one person said “grace.” That is tragic because it is the unique characteristic of our faith. It struck me right then that we need to take back our faith. We need to take it back from the doom-and-gloom preachers. We need to take it back from the prosperity gospel nonsense. We need to take it back from the harsh, self-righteous, twisted version it has become in the popular mindset. We need to put the Christ back in Christianity—Christ who showed us what true love is, who stopped to heal and show compassion on the lowliest of people, while at the same time redeeming the world. Years ago, when my son Matthew was filling out his college applications, he claimed his faith but went on to say that he was not too religious. I asked him about that, and he said that in today’s world, being religious means being judgmental and closed-minded. People won't come to believe because of the logic of our argument. They will know we are Christians by our love—by our grace-filled love. Love is what we do. Grace is how we do it. Think about this for a moment: in a world filled with abuse of power, the one with the most used it to bless and redeem us. In a world in which people cling ever so tightly to what they have, God gives away everything. In a world filled with the promise of war and death, we claim that God in Jesus Christ will end all war, that the wolf will lie down with the lamb, that every tear shall be wiped away, and that death will be no more. We claim to believe that God’s love conquers all. So, if we believe this, people rightly would expect to see it on our faces. They would expect us not to be filled with fear, or cynicism, but hope and joy—hearts filled with cheer. Joy at the good news of the gospel that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

Calling all seventh - twelfth graders! Members of The Order of St. Paul assist in the worship service each Sunday, carrying the cross (we call the crucifer) in the Procession, serving as flag-bearers, and serving as candle attendants, as well as assisting the pastors at special services during Lent. If you are a seventh grader or older and interested in worship leadership, The Order of St. Paul is for you! Community service credit is available at program-year end based on service hours and commitment to the Order.