7/13/52

Scripture: Psalm 24

Text: Psalm 24: 1; “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

There are important matters which might fairly claim our attention on this July Sunday. On the world scene, the UN police action continues in Korea with savage fury; and the tension between communism’s grim determination to dominate the world and democratic resistance to that determination continue unabated. At the national level, the two major political parties work out platforms and select their nominees for office. And we shall weigh issues, capabilities and policies during the coming four months before voting decisions of great national importance and world-wide significance.

A series of weddings in a church over a fortnight’s time focuses our attention on the homes of our time - both the homes from which these brides and grooms have come, and the homes they will establish. There are other matters of immediate or long range moment which could well and profitably occupy the focus of our attention for 20 minutes or more during this hour. And there are a host of vital thoughts arising from the pages of the Holy Word in the Scriptures awaiting our reading and study.

However, for this Sunday I feel minded to call attention to the natural world and the manifestations of God in it. For “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

When our family came to Wisconsin from Islands of the Pacific, one of the deacons of this church was a dairyman who left milk each day at the Manse. John Ostermeyer stopped long enough at the door one morning to ask a few questions about our former residence. What was the climate like? Is it true that it is like summer the year round? with no frost; with grass, trees, and shrubs continuing green-leafed all twelve months? We said, “Yes, that is right.” Before he left on the remainder of his route he said: “Well, that sounds very interesting. But I think I like the seasons as we have them here.”

“The seasons,” as we have them here, do provide a contrast and variety that help to put vigor and a kind of appreciation into the lives of those who live in this climate. A few days of hot weather or a few mosquitoes turn our restless thoughts to the time of frost and skates. And the rigors of a prolonged winter make us think of the summer sun, gardens and growing things. And it all serves to assist in keeping us, physically and mentally, “on the move.” There seems something very special, however, about the renewal of nature in each spring and summer. Things become beautifully leafed out and blossoms appear. Birds are seen and heard wherever one will pay attention to their presence. There is a hope and vigor about growing that is a spiritual tonic. Nature has changed from barren coldness to a beautiful and lovely expression, in response to the warmth of God’s sunshine. And the divine love of it all permeates the hearts of people, as well as the realm of swift-growing things.

Something stirs a poetic side of our nature, and we wonder what could happen to our world of human relationships if we should set aside some of our cold calculations, if we discarded hatred and self-seeking, replaced some of the drive for power and control with the warmth of human concern and kindness, of friendship and understanding, appreciation and love which God has put in the human heart.

The revelations of nature can move the human heart nearer to God. They always have. The aborigines of this country paid worshipful homage to the Great Spirit that creates nature and human nature. The Psalmist of many centuries ago was keenly aware of this connection. That ancient writer moved quite naturally from a consideration of the glory of the heavens, the earth and the skies, to the goodness and love of God.

The poet Wordsworth expresses it thus:

` “And I have felt

a presence that disturbs me with the joy

of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man -

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.”

And Coleridge, after gazing on Mont Blanc in the Alps, wrote:

“Dread and silent Mount! I gazed on thee

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought; entranced in prayer,

I worshipped the Invisible alone ... -

Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,

And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.”

One does not have to have the ability in expression of a poet to be led by nature into the nearer presence of God. One has only to look and listen and let his heart respond.

If we live in a day, as we do, when we are pressed by many material considerations, when taxes are so high and money values so low that we feel about a half-a-jump ahead of some devouring wolf, it is yet good for us to remember that some things cost us only the trouble of looking and understanding -- “Something real and fine for nothing” of any material sort. The songs of many birds, early on a morning, is sheer ecstasy. To look out through a window and see a flicker, the brilliant tuft of his red feathered head flashing up and down as he goes about his searching, is to rejoice. In the spring, it costs only the time and gasoline to ride a half dozen miles from here and see the white grace of wild swans settling on the marsh waters for a few days before going on north. (I found that out, through the kindness of a friend, only this year.)

Three years ago I was one of a fortunate group of ministers who could study for 4 weeks at the Christian campgrounds of the Colorado Congregational Conference at La Foret in the Black Forest near Colorado Springs. There, a vista through the pine trees enables one to see lofty Pike’s Peak from the lodge which serves as classroom, from the large dining hall window, or from outside the chapel. And just to lift up one’s eyes to that distant mountain is to set one’s thoughts God-ward.

There is a ministry of nature in which it is as though the soul is bathed and cleansed. It costs only the willingness to respond! I think I have been a privileged soul in some ways, and in this matter among those ways. After student pastorates on the level prairies of eastern South Dakota, I found my first home, after the completion of seminary training, in a house of very modest construction, which, however, looked out over a view that combined marine and mountain scenery. The ever-changing movement and color and the always-constant dependability of the sea in the harbor, and beyond, teaches the soul something about the infinite variety in the Divine will and the complete constancy of God. And the way in which green mountain slopes lift the eyes to the mystery of cloud or sky could not but suggest the Creator of it all -- and of us all.

My second regular pastorate put me at serving a church in a down-town area. There was much traffic hustle. And there was hard living in some of the unattractive buildings not too far away. But again, the hills were nearby. One had to climb only a mile or two away to reach a point high enough so that the place naturally came to be the site of one of the earliest of Easter Day Sunrise services in the world. And my home was set in the beautiful valley of indescribable color and variety in view.

Then we came to Wisconsin Rapids, and I found that some official group of this church had, in years gone by, done its ministers the favor to secure a manse that overlooks one of the more beautiful streams of the nation -- the Wisconsin River. The summer’s rich green on its banks, the riotous colors of the autumn, the clean whiteness of the winter view, the sudden promise of spring budding, are a never-ending treat to the soul of anyone who will only look. Here is one of those spots where one can see God waiting and working. All winter long the quiet waiting reveals no apparent growth. But God is at work in those dormant hours and days. And the blessing of summer’s abundance springs partly from that waiting.

Are there not times when it seems that nothing worthwhile is happening in our lives? Yet these may be the dormant hours when God is preparing the summer, the bloom and growth of our living. Abraham Lincoln had “wilderness years” out of which finally came a beauty and depth of character not often vouchsafed to a life.

Sometimes one of us is shelved by illness and there may be chaffing under enforced idleness. These, too, may be the dormant hours when God is working and character is being deepened and personality strengthened. Here and there, a blessing emerges from the living of one who may be bedridden yet radiant with a beauty of spirit which is the growing of a God-given soul.

Some of the bleakness of society suggests also the same truth. There is no question about the grave urgency of present world conditions, nor about the chaos and confusion that confront and distress and alarm us. But these may be dormant hours; for God is certainly working still, and out of these times He may yet bring a blessing to mankind.

Philosophers make much of the difference between “clock time” and God’s timelessness. The clock becomes our tyrant. We do well to escape its tyranny often enough to avoid its slavery.

God is patient. Nature reveals Him so. Over long ages of time, he has worked and struggled to fulfill His purposes. He works patiently and will not be defeated.

Some sixteen summers ago I took an auto ride with Mrs. Kingdon and my parents, through that part of California where the giant redwoods and sequoia trees are to be seen. There we found ourselves dwarfed among the towering, ancient life represented in those trees. Believed to be the oldest living things upon the earth, they are a witness to the patience and permanence of their Creator. Here and there one of those giant forms showed scarred signs of forest fires of a day gone by. But, in each case, though much might have been burned away, the scars were healed by years of patient, persistent growth. Even in the dormant hours of injury, God was at work.

We may well take time to share the timelessness of God, for He is eternally present. Nature reveals God as the living, working God, working out not only the things of nature, but of human nature. His gifts are more numerous than the mind can comprehend. His works of grace are as numerous as his works in nature. His love is boundless and limitless; his comfort, forgiveness, and strengthening are inexhaustible.

Only see and receive Him, as you see and receive the loveliness of His creation.

(end)

----------------------

Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, July 13, 1952, at Congregational and Methodist Union Services, 7:30 and 11:00 AM.