Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Introduction

Two summers ago, our uncle and his wife—Dr.

& Mrs. Carl and Arlene Ermshar—took me and my family to Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve.

We drove there from their home in Angwin, in two separate cars—northwest to Calistoga then turning southwest, skirting the northern edge of Santa Rosa and the southern edge of Healdsburg in turn, as we sped down the length of Porter Creek Rd.

It was my first time seeing a redwood forest.

I got to see the majestic redwood trees, huddled in circles like homesteaders’ wagons, for mutual support and strength.

We walked up and down the trails.

We took pictures.

We had lunch.

We soaked it all up.

As we entered the forest, my intuition immediately kicked in.

I felt myself in the very presence of God.

I don’t know exactly how.

It is a mystery to me, and I am perfectly content not to dissect in order to understand it.

It is the same feeling I get whenever I am out in the great outdoors.

I do not plunge myself headlong in nature in order to enter it.

I step out my front door, and it enters me.

And it always manages to assert itself silently on me in its undefined, mysterious way.

I was following Carl along one path, when he stopped to observe a redwood sapling.

He strokes the leaves and points to the new growth.

“You see this tender shoot here?

You notice the color?

This growth happened only this year.”

Carl kept going, completely absorbed in studying this sapling, pointing out its various scientific details and its habitat—details about which I cared very little.

To me, it is enough to be out in nature soaking up the sun, the redwoods, and God.

To Carl perhaps, though he didn’t say it out loud, he prefers to see God in the scientific logic of the budding tree.

I prefer to intuitively feel my way through creation without minding the science beneath it all, to taste God’s savory goodness and sweet presence.

Carl prefers to think his way through with his senses to analyze God’s creation and let God speak to him in this way.

And the beauty of it all is that God’s creation is primed for our enjoyment and the various ways we prefer to do so.

1) Preferences

There are those who prefer to soak up God’s power by plunging themselves head first into the physical world, relishing every physical contact.

Then there are those who prefer to pull back from the physical world preferring to draw their energy from God in the inner world of solitude, reflection, and ideas.

There are those who prefer to discover and enjoy God by engaging their physical senses with the physical world.

Then there are those who prefer to use their sixth sense of intuition—preferring the route of inferences, hunches, and insights in discovering and enjoying God.

There are those who prefer to be moved by God through the logical exercise of their minds.

Then there are those who prefer to be moved by God through the emotive subjectivity of the human heart.

There are those who prefer to act on God’s voice by careful analysis of principles and truths.

Then there are those who prefer to be moved by God to immediate, spontaneous, in-the-moment action.

Whatever your personality preference is, it is a gift of God to enable you to reach out to Him who is unseen through His physical and visible creation.

1) Heavens’ Glorious Speech

C. S. Lewis wrote of :

“I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world” (Reflections on the Psalms, p-.56).

We find it hard to disagree.

combines the most beautiful poetry with the most comprehensive worldview.

It isn’t only a beautiful poem recited privately.

It is music sung at the center of congregational worship with musical instruments.

We may imagine the ancient Hebrews singing this psalm with their percussion, brass, and string instruments.

It must have been majestic!

It still is today—even without the singers the instrumentalists.

is definitely still worthy of our meditations and prayers.

But how do we pray this psalm?

How do we learn from it?

We learn from it by observing how it moves and mirroring its movement, its energy, its passion, and its realism in our prayers and meditations.

We find that moves in three stages like a funnel.

It begins with the large universe and the sun that makes earthly life

It moves to the Torah-the revealed word of God—that makes human life possible

It ends with the one human response necessary to enjoy this life

II.

God’s Silent Voice: The Chorus of Creation-at-Large

begins by painting a glowing picture of God’s heavenly creation—silent though not mute; speechless though not dumb; mustering no human voice, yet sustaining an unbroken line of speech that comes from God and touches our human world of speech.

“The heavens are making God’s glory known; the vault of the skies are proclaiming the work of his hands.

Day after day they are saying something; night after night they are declaring intimate knowledge.

They do not speak; they have no words; their voice is not heard.

Yet their unbroken line of expression has spread across the world; yes, their silent words into the world of talking human beings.”

(, my extended translation)

The vault of the skies include not just what we see on a starry night or on a cloudless day in the skies above.

It also includes all that the skies touch—the earth and all the non-human creatures and inanimate objects in it big and small.

The psalmist says that they have one common thread of expression—a single sentiment; a single voice.

And it isn’t human voice.

This voice can be observed on reflection when we behold the mighty stars; when we take in nature’s beauty; when we reflect on even the tiniest of all creatures.

Even the most quirky ones—like my dog Smokey Bear.

In 2015, almost a year before we left Orange County for Auburn, we put our Smokey Bear to sleep.

He was the craziest dog we ever had the misfortune of loving.

It was very hard to love him.

He had boundless energy which he didn’t mind using in mischievous ways.

He spied on us opening the front door all the time and made a dash to who knows what.

Twice, those mad dash should have ended his life.

He ran into the street and got run over by a car, yet survived.

One of those episodes was on a Sabbath before we left for church.

I was in my study, heard a car sped by, a big thud, and a yelp.

I looked out the window and saw Smokey Bear in the middle of the street completely still.

I rushed outside and carried him into the house in my preaching suit.

I saw a dark burnt line clear down his back where the car had buzzed him.

He stunk like crazy.

But there was no blood.

I was sure he was dead from massive internal bleeding.

Five minutes later, he started to move.

Another five minutes, and he was back to being himself.

I couldn’t believe it!

There must be a God in heaven!

Julie gave him two baths that morning.

We were late to church, but our crazy dog had survived.

One day I saw him tearing up the backyard running from one corner to the other and back again.

I started counting midway through his crazy sprints and counted over thirty laps.

When he was done, he got himself so sick that went into the house and vomited on the carpet.

One late summer night, he was in and out of the doggie door so much that he attracted a rabid coyote, that jumped our backyard fence to eat him alive.

The coyote bit him above his hind legs.

But Smokey Bear escaped, ran into the house, stunk like crazy, and survived.

Julie scared the coyote away, and snarled at her before jumping out.

Julie gave Smokey another after-a-death-defying-encounter bath.