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Called to be a Light in the Rockfish Valley
Serving GOD with JOY and GENEROSITY
Serving GOD with JOY and GENEROSITY
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David Cameron has been the pastor of Rockfish Church since January, 2000.
Ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in 1982, David has served churches in
North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. With additional training in counseling he has
also worked as a family counselor. David is married to Kathryn, also a Presbyterian
minister, and they have two grown children, Katie and Will.
Archives of David's Sermons may be found here.
Ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in 1982, David has served churches in
North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. With additional training in counseling he has
also worked as a family counselor. David is married to Kathryn, also a Presbyterian
minister, and they have two grown children, Katie and Will.
Archives of David's Sermons may be found here.
Keys to the Kingdom
Isaiah 51:1-3
Matthew 16:13-20
Romans 12:1-5
Graffiti on the bathroom wall in the Undergraduate Library at UNC.
“God is dead.” Nietzsche, 1882.
“Nietzsche is dead.” God, 1900.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a favorite target of the oh-so-earnest members
of my college Bible study group,
though I’m guessing few, if any of us, had actually read his works.
We just knew he had dared to write the words, “God is dead.”
We didn’t know he had put those words in the mouth of a character in a story,
a character who was, in fact, insane.
In the 1960’s you may remember there was a “God is Dead” movement
heralded by the cover of Time magazine asking in bold letters, “Is God Dead?”
This time it was professors of religion, one at Emory University in Atlanta,
who quoted Nietzsche to their own end.
You can bet they stirred up mainline preachers, especially in the Bible belt
though what they were suggesting seems quite tame by today’s standards.
They weren’t saying that God as a deity was dead,
so much as they were saying that the traditional ways of speaking about
and conceiving God needed to be called into question.
Given the horror of the holocaust,
the advent of the atomic bomb,
and the scientific and technological advances of the 20th century
these professors were simply saying that the God of the dominant culture
had been revealed to be nothing more than an idol.
The safe and familiar words used in talking about God
no longer held any meaning.
It was time we were reminded that our ways are not God’s ways
our thoughts are not God’s thoughts
and any effort we make to conceive of God or describe God
is automatically hamstrung by our all-too-human limitations.
God is dead.
Contrary to what I and my college companions assumed,
Nietzsche did not make that assertion with glee.
It was a statement born of anxiety,
anxiety based on what he observed of the inhumanity of war and poverty,
of corruption and hypocrisy among those whom society celebrated.
If anything, Frederick Nietzsche was more a prophet after the manner of Jeremiah
speaking and writing words nobody much wanted to hear or read;
speaking a word of judgment against the religious elite.
Religious leaders of his day thought they had God hemmed in.
They assumed God’s blessing was theirs for the taking.
They did not hesitate to speak for God.
Their God, in Nietzsche’s eyes, might as well have been stuffed or mummified;
an artifact gathering dust in a museum
to be trotted out and propped up whenever necessary.
Their God was indeed dead.
The same goes for us.
Any god we can trot out for an automatic blessing on ourselves
or our self-made plans and schemes is no god at all – merely an idol;
a fabrication of our own corrupt and wishful thinking.
Any god we try to conform to OUR standards,
or make step to the beat of OUR drum is a pale shadow
of the God who has the power to transform us into instruments of God’s will.
When Jesus put the question directly to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”
it was Peter, of all people, who had the flash of insight to say,
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the LIVING God.”
Though in his tenure as a disciple Peter had more ups and downs than a camel’s back,
in this moment, by God’s grace, he seemed to get it.
“You are the Messiah, Son of the LIVING God:”
Not the dead god of money and military might,
Not the dead god of self-promotion and manipulation,
Not the dead god of racial and class division.
“You are the Son of the LIVING God:”
the living God of covenant promise and steadfast faithfulness,
the living God of creative engagement and undying hope,
the living God of bottomless grace and second, third, and fourth chances.
Paul knew this LIVING God.
Paul knew this LIVING God as the only God capable of true transformation;
capable of molding and shaping us,
of breathing new life into us.
He exhorts his Roman friends to present themselves as a LIVING sacrifice
to this LIVING God.
It’s the only reasonable thing to do.
Paul wants his friends to know that God has had it up to here with dead sacrifices.
We all know people (maybe it’s us) who, over time lose their spark.
They get beaten down or they focus on the things of life
that lead to inflexibility, stubbornness, an inability to yield.
They get angry or they play the victim or they just sit and stew.
They come to church and sit in their pew and dare anyone to ask them
to do anything different than they’ve done the last forty years.
This is not the kind of sacrifice God wants – dead - with rigor mortis already setting in.
But we also know people who jump on one fad after another –
who keep their finger to the shifting breezes of novelty and celebrity endorsements.
They seem SO open, so tuned in, so enlightened,
but they are more interested in being conformed to what is popular at the moment
than in being transformed into confident, hope-filled servants of God’s Kingdom.
Paul counsels us in his letter to Rome to pay attention to what is holy,
to what is acceptable.
in the first eleven chapters of his letter he urges us to plant both feet firmly
on the solid foundation of that ancient covenant struck first with Abraham
and carried forward by the apostles.
But he warns us that the foundation of the prophets and the apostles
is not a place to hide out, but a place from which to launch;
that no congregation worth it’s salt can discern God’s will
by sitting in the dark and replaying home movies of the past.
“Present your whole selves to God,” Paul writes
Fully accountable and reporting for duty.
Present your whole selves to God, ready to be changed
into the people God intends you to be.
It seems almost a fluke that Peter got it right when, speaking for the others,
he said to Jesus “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
He fans the pitch so many times in the gospel accounts
that it’s hard to imagine him finally connecting with a home run ball.
But at least for a moment Peter is transformed.
Jesus acknowledges as much when he says to him,
“Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah…
by God’s grace you are a changed man.
And to signify that change, I’m going to call you Peter…that is…ROCK.
and on this rock I will build my church, a LIVING church
so that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
The Gates of Hades. Hades was in Jesus day not a place of torment
but instead simply the realm of the dead,
a gray, colorless place where the dead languished.
Imagine the Department of Motor Vehicles on a Thursday afternoon.
“The Gates of Hades will not prevail,” Jesus promises.
But that’s a big promise and we have all kinds of evidence
that the gates of Hades are strong…nearly overwhelming.
Jesus gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven
and the popular image we have is of Peter at Heaven’s gate standing guard,
checking credentials,
making sure only the elite and the elect get in.
But maybe that’s not the right way to look at it.
Maybe Jesus entrusted Peter with the keys to the Kingdom
not to keep the Kingdom locked up but to let the Kingdom out.
Think of it this way.
Imagine that he gates of Hades, strong as they are,
keep pushing the gates of the Kingdom shut.
We are complicit in this any time we are indifferent to the suffering of others,
any time we indulge our fascination with violence,
any time we let fear rule our decision-making
any time we are willing to settle for conformity instead of being transformed.
But Jesus gives the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven
to any of us who are willing to be transformed –
who are willing to let God renew our minds and help us discern God’s will.
Imagine that, as God’s transformed people,
it’s our job not to let the gates of Hades prevail.
Every time the gates of Hades push the gates of Heaven shut,
we are there to unlock the Kingdom of Heaven where we are,
to persistently and faithfully keep letting the Kingdom of Heaven
loose into this world.
Most of the visible signs around us – in the news, in our gossip
tell us that God is Dead, that the Gates of Hades are just too strong.
But we know differently.
And it’s our job to keep letting the world know
that war and fear and death are not the final word
that compassion and cooperation and trust and hospitality to neighbor
are not pipe dreams but are, instead, the ultimate reality,
all appearances to the contrary.
It’s our job to carry the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven everywhere we go
so that we can let all whom we meet know that our God is very much alive.
David M. Cameron, Copyright, 2008
Isaiah 51:1-3
Matthew 16:13-20
Romans 12:1-5
Graffiti on the bathroom wall in the Undergraduate Library at UNC.
“God is dead.” Nietzsche, 1882.
“Nietzsche is dead.” God, 1900.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a favorite target of the oh-so-earnest members
of my college Bible study group,
though I’m guessing few, if any of us, had actually read his works.
We just knew he had dared to write the words, “God is dead.”
We didn’t know he had put those words in the mouth of a character in a story,
a character who was, in fact, insane.
In the 1960’s you may remember there was a “God is Dead” movement
heralded by the cover of Time magazine asking in bold letters, “Is God Dead?”
This time it was professors of religion, one at Emory University in Atlanta,
who quoted Nietzsche to their own end.
You can bet they stirred up mainline preachers, especially in the Bible belt
though what they were suggesting seems quite tame by today’s standards.
They weren’t saying that God as a deity was dead,
so much as they were saying that the traditional ways of speaking about
and conceiving God needed to be called into question.
Given the horror of the holocaust,
the advent of the atomic bomb,
and the scientific and technological advances of the 20th century
these professors were simply saying that the God of the dominant culture
had been revealed to be nothing more than an idol.
The safe and familiar words used in talking about God
no longer held any meaning.
It was time we were reminded that our ways are not God’s ways
our thoughts are not God’s thoughts
and any effort we make to conceive of God or describe God
is automatically hamstrung by our all-too-human limitations.
God is dead.
Contrary to what I and my college companions assumed,
Nietzsche did not make that assertion with glee.
It was a statement born of anxiety,
anxiety based on what he observed of the inhumanity of war and poverty,
of corruption and hypocrisy among those whom society celebrated.
If anything, Frederick Nietzsche was more a prophet after the manner of Jeremiah
speaking and writing words nobody much wanted to hear or read;
speaking a word of judgment against the religious elite.
Religious leaders of his day thought they had God hemmed in.
They assumed God’s blessing was theirs for the taking.
They did not hesitate to speak for God.
Their God, in Nietzsche’s eyes, might as well have been stuffed or mummified;
an artifact gathering dust in a museum
to be trotted out and propped up whenever necessary.
Their God was indeed dead.
The same goes for us.
Any god we can trot out for an automatic blessing on ourselves
or our self-made plans and schemes is no god at all – merely an idol;
a fabrication of our own corrupt and wishful thinking.
Any god we try to conform to OUR standards,
or make step to the beat of OUR drum is a pale shadow
of the God who has the power to transform us into instruments of God’s will.
When Jesus put the question directly to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”
it was Peter, of all people, who had the flash of insight to say,
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the LIVING God.”
Though in his tenure as a disciple Peter had more ups and downs than a camel’s back,
in this moment, by God’s grace, he seemed to get it.
“You are the Messiah, Son of the LIVING God:”
Not the dead god of money and military might,
Not the dead god of self-promotion and manipulation,
Not the dead god of racial and class division.
“You are the Son of the LIVING God:”
the living God of covenant promise and steadfast faithfulness,
the living God of creative engagement and undying hope,
the living God of bottomless grace and second, third, and fourth chances.
Paul knew this LIVING God.
Paul knew this LIVING God as the only God capable of true transformation;
capable of molding and shaping us,
of breathing new life into us.
He exhorts his Roman friends to present themselves as a LIVING sacrifice
to this LIVING God.
It’s the only reasonable thing to do.
Paul wants his friends to know that God has had it up to here with dead sacrifices.
We all know people (maybe it’s us) who, over time lose their spark.
They get beaten down or they focus on the things of life
that lead to inflexibility, stubbornness, an inability to yield.
They get angry or they play the victim or they just sit and stew.
They come to church and sit in their pew and dare anyone to ask them
to do anything different than they’ve done the last forty years.
This is not the kind of sacrifice God wants – dead - with rigor mortis already setting in.
But we also know people who jump on one fad after another –
who keep their finger to the shifting breezes of novelty and celebrity endorsements.
They seem SO open, so tuned in, so enlightened,
but they are more interested in being conformed to what is popular at the moment
than in being transformed into confident, hope-filled servants of God’s Kingdom.
Paul counsels us in his letter to Rome to pay attention to what is holy,
to what is acceptable.
in the first eleven chapters of his letter he urges us to plant both feet firmly
on the solid foundation of that ancient covenant struck first with Abraham
and carried forward by the apostles.
But he warns us that the foundation of the prophets and the apostles
is not a place to hide out, but a place from which to launch;
that no congregation worth it’s salt can discern God’s will
by sitting in the dark and replaying home movies of the past.
“Present your whole selves to God,” Paul writes
Fully accountable and reporting for duty.
Present your whole selves to God, ready to be changed
into the people God intends you to be.
It seems almost a fluke that Peter got it right when, speaking for the others,
he said to Jesus “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
He fans the pitch so many times in the gospel accounts
that it’s hard to imagine him finally connecting with a home run ball.
But at least for a moment Peter is transformed.
Jesus acknowledges as much when he says to him,
“Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah…
by God’s grace you are a changed man.
And to signify that change, I’m going to call you Peter…that is…ROCK.
and on this rock I will build my church, a LIVING church
so that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
The Gates of Hades. Hades was in Jesus day not a place of torment
but instead simply the realm of the dead,
a gray, colorless place where the dead languished.
Imagine the Department of Motor Vehicles on a Thursday afternoon.
“The Gates of Hades will not prevail,” Jesus promises.
But that’s a big promise and we have all kinds of evidence
that the gates of Hades are strong…nearly overwhelming.
Jesus gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven
and the popular image we have is of Peter at Heaven’s gate standing guard,
checking credentials,
making sure only the elite and the elect get in.
But maybe that’s not the right way to look at it.
Maybe Jesus entrusted Peter with the keys to the Kingdom
not to keep the Kingdom locked up but to let the Kingdom out.
Think of it this way.
Imagine that he gates of Hades, strong as they are,
keep pushing the gates of the Kingdom shut.
We are complicit in this any time we are indifferent to the suffering of others,
any time we indulge our fascination with violence,
any time we let fear rule our decision-making
any time we are willing to settle for conformity instead of being transformed.
But Jesus gives the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven
to any of us who are willing to be transformed –
who are willing to let God renew our minds and help us discern God’s will.
Imagine that, as God’s transformed people,
it’s our job not to let the gates of Hades prevail.
Every time the gates of Hades push the gates of Heaven shut,
we are there to unlock the Kingdom of Heaven where we are,
to persistently and faithfully keep letting the Kingdom of Heaven
loose into this world.
Most of the visible signs around us – in the news, in our gossip
tell us that God is Dead, that the Gates of Hades are just too strong.
But we know differently.
And it’s our job to keep letting the world know
that war and fear and death are not the final word
that compassion and cooperation and trust and hospitality to neighbor
are not pipe dreams but are, instead, the ultimate reality,
all appearances to the contrary.
It’s our job to carry the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven everywhere we go
so that we can let all whom we meet know that our God is very much alive.
David M. Cameron, Copyright, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
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