August 25, 2024
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus
" Awakening Curiosity"
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
August 25, 2024 Based on Isiaah 50:4-9
In 2008, NASA was trying to come up with a name for its newest Mars rover, that would be its biggest and most advanced to date. In just two years It would be launched to travel the 128 million miles to Mars to collect samples of soil and rock, take pictures, and study the red planet, but it still needed a name.
They created an online contest for kids and teens to submit essays with name suggestions and received 9,000 ideas. Clara Ma, a 12-year-old sixth grader in a Kansas City suburb had the winning submission. She was just starting to develop an interest in science. She had recently entered her first science fair and watched a movie about a journey from Earth to the far reaches of the universe.
As she looked up at the night sky, her head practically exploded wondering about the mysteries of the cosmos. When Ma read a magazine article about NASA’s essay contest to name the next Mars rover, she knew precisely which name to propose: Curiosity.
"Students from every state suggested names for this rover. That's testimony to the excitement Mars missions spark in our next generation of explorers," said Mark Dahl, the mission's program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Many of the nominating essays were excellent and several of the names would have fit well. But I am especially pleased with the choice of curiosity, which recognizes something universally human and essential to science.”
Here is Clara Ma’s winning essay:
“Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day. Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today.
When I was younger, I wondered,
'Why is the sky blue?', 'Why do the stars twinkle?', 'Why am I me?', and I still do.
I had so many questions, and America is the place where I want to find my answers. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder.
Sure, there are many risks and dangers, but despite that, we still continue to wonder and dream and create and hope. We have discovered so much about the world, but still so little.
We will never know everything there is to know, but with our burning curiosity, we have learned so much.”
Clara calls curiosity an everlasting flame that burns in everyone’s mind and wakes you up in the morning, which isn’t a far cry from how the prophet Isaiah describes his own experience as both a lifelong learner as well as a teacher…
“God awakens my ear in the morning” the prophet writes “ to listen, as educated people do.”
and
“God gave me “an educated tongue”
To know how to respond to the weary”
"with a word that will awaken them in the morning”
In just two verses here there is so much for us…
The first thing is that education is described as a gift from God. To learn about our world, to learn about God is a gift God has given humans. It’s a gift to wake up every morning and get to learn, to seek to better understand, to ask questions and grow in knowledge.
And in Isaiah’s view this gift has a purpose… to inspire and uplift the weary. In other words God sparks us to get up in the morning to listen and learn so that we might be able to communicate that learning in a way that ignites others. To share our learning so that the weary might find a spark for themselves to wake them up in the morning to learn and grow and find their own new inspiration.
As winner of the naming contest, 12 yr old Clara Ma got to go to Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and meet all of the scientists and engineers who built the Mars rover, and she got to go and see The Curiosity Rover herself, to go into the clean room where they were working on it before it went to mars and sign her name on it.
Her signature, sparked by her curiosity about the world, is on Mars, still a part of a project that continues conducting experiments and still working to inform our own curiosity about our nearest celestial neighbor.
In 2019, 10 years after she won the contest, NASA caught up back up with Clara. She recently graduated from Yale with a degree in geophysics, where her work focused on how Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and climate interact with one another. When Nasa spoke with her, she had just started a master’s in science, technology and environmental policy at the University of Cambridge in the UK, where she is still working as a PHD candidate, still waking up and learning, still sparked to be curious about our world.
When thinking back on curiosity Clara remarked:
“Thinking about sending a robot to another planet made me realize how special and fragile life is on Earth. Space is incredibly vast.,” she said. “ There are trillions and trillions of planets out there. And yet we’re still the only place that we know of where life exists. So I realized that studying the Earth was the most important thing I could do.”
At the core of faith is a drive to seek to understand, to learn more about God… about God’s word and about God’s world.
And I think at the core of that drive to learn and to teach is curiosity, that divine spark that leads us to wonder and ask questions.
That drive that wakes us up in the morning and makes us feel inspired, that makes us want to push and explore.
So what are you curious about?
What do you wake in the morning wondering about?
What sparks you to learn and listen?
May you recognize your curiosity not only as a core part of what makes you human but also as part of the divine spark within you.
May your God given curiosity lead you to learn and grow as a person but may it also lead you toward the call of igniting the spark within others. To help those who are weary in this world find new hope and energy to learn and grow themselves.
May it be so, amen.
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE “Lord, Speak to Me That I May Speak” (CANONBURY) arr. Pam Turner
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch
One: This is the day that the Lord has made
All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it
*CALL TO WORSHIP Written by John W. Howell
One: We worship the God who inhabits our world and indwells our lives.
All: We need not look up to find God; we need only look around:
within ourselves, beyond ourselves, into the eyes of another.
One: We need not listen for distant thunder to find God;
All: we need only listen to the music of life, the words of children,
One: the questions of the curious, the rhythm of a heartbeat.
All: Let us worship the God who inhabits our world and who indwells our lives.
*HYMN 455 “Listen to the Word That God Has Spoken” LISTEN
*PRAYER OF CONFESSION adapted from Peter Englert Jeremy Carroll
Lord, we confess our rigidity, our reluctance to ask questions, to see another's perspective, or to challenge our own assumptions. We lack the strength to change alone. Grant us curiosity, open minds, and hearts. Release us from cynicism and obstinance. We long to see what You see, to experience the transformative power of the Gospel that puts sin to death and offers new life. Ignite in us a childlike faith, filled with questions rather than statements. Make us curious today, dynamic instead of static, so we might encounter You in new and profound ways.
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
*RESPONSE OF PRAISE 205 “Ubi Caritas” UBI CARITAS
*PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
MUSICAL OFFERING “The Lord Is My Shepherd” arr. Nate Terry
SCRIPTURE Isaiah 50:4-9a
The Lord God gave me an educated tongue
to know how to respond to the weary
with a word that will awaken them in the morning.
God awakens my ear in the morning to listen,
as educated people do.
The Lord God opened my ear;
I didn’t rebel; I didn’t turn my back.
Instead, I gave my body to attackers,
and my cheeks to beard pluckers.
I didn’t hide my face
from insults and spitting.
The Lord God will help me;
therefore, I haven’t been insulted.
Therefore, I set my face like flint,
and knew I wouldn’t be ashamed.
The one who will declare me innocent is near.
Who will argue with me?
Let’s stand up together.
Who will bring judgment against me?
Let him approach me.
Look! The Lord God will help me.
Who will condemn me?
Holy Wisdom, Holy Word
Thanks be to God
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE Jeremy Carroll
SERMON Rev. Trip Porch
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
*HYMN 722 “Lord, Speak to Me That I May Speak” CANONBURY
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE followed by the Lord’s Prayer on screen
TIME OF OFFERING online giving is available at www. indianolapres.org/give
OFFERTORY Venetian Boat Song, Op. 30 No. 6 Felix Mendelssohn
*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 697 vs. 6
Take my love; my Lord, I pour
At thy feet its treasure store;
Take myself, and I will be
Ever, only all for thee
Ever, only, all for thee.
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION by Carol Penner
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to give, which we do with joyful, grateful hearts. We look at the needs of the world, and our offerings are small. May they be like yeast, gifts that grow in your kingdom, bringing a rich harvest of righteousness. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
*HYMN 697 “Take My Life and Let It Be” HENDON
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
POSTLUDE “Stand Still and Listen” Sharon Wilson
Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452