Sermon preached July 18, 2010
Text: Luke 10:25-42
Distract: To cause to turn away from the original focus of attention or interest. Distraction: Something, especially an amusement, that distracts. (American Heritage Dictionary)
A recent commercial that illustrates distraction well is a commercial for Corona beer. Corona is usually served with a lime in the top of the bottle – I have no idea why. The scene is a couple on sitting side by side on beach chairs looking out at a sandy ocean beach. In between them is a small table with an ice bucket and two Coronas with lime in the top of the bottle. The focus of their attention is the beautiful sand beach and ocean waves, that is, until a distraction comes by in the form of an attractive woman in a white bikini. We see the man’s head turn as the woman walks by. We see the woman seated next to him take the lime from the top of her beer bottle and squirt the man. Distraction. Corona commercial
Two times in the gospel for today, in the second story, we hear the word “distracted.” “Martha was distracted by her many tasks.” Jesus: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.” I don’t know about you, but I sympathize with Martha. The picture that often comes to mind when this story is read is a picture of Jesus, perhaps with a small group around him, engaging in conversation. Among the group is Martha’s sister Mary. Martha, while this engaging conversation is happening is preparing a meal or getting beds ready for guests to sleep – doing the things that a good host does. She begins to resent Mary’s inattention to hospitality, and asks Jesus to send Mary to help. Instead, Jesus seems to put Martha down a bit – calling her worried and distracted. Don’t you kind of feel for Martha? But then as I read the story more closely, there is no specification of the work that Martha is doing. Maybe the meal is already prepared, and Martha is just one of those people who can’t sit still, even when it would benefit her.
Distraction here is not a compliment, but then it seems that not all distractions are created equal. That really struck me a few weeks ago when I was reading this chapter in Luke devotionally. This story of Martha and Mary and Jesus follows directly after the story of the Good Samaritan, and I read them together because I don’t usually associate the stories in any way. Together they seem to say that not all distractions are the same. The good example in story 2 is Mary who stays focused on Jesus. The good example in story 1 is the Samaritan whose focus was on getting to Jericho, but who became distracted by a wounded man on the side of the road. Not all distractions are created equal, it seems.
We live in a world where distractions have multiplied exponentially. When Jesus takes Martha to task for being too distracted, how many opportunities for distraction could there be – no telephones, automobiles, movies, television, computers, i pods, cell phones. What was there to be distracted by – sheep, sand? Even then, distraction could be an issue. How much more for us.
The other night I was flipping through some channels and came to Turner Classic movies, which was showing a silent film called “Speedy.” This 1928 film starred Harold Lloyd, who was trying to save his girlfriend’s fathers business, the last horse drawn trolley in New York. Babe Ruth, the baseball player has a cameo role. He needs a taxi ride to the stadium, and Harold Lloyd gives it to him, except Harold – “Speedy” is so taken with his passenger that his driving suffers. He is so distracted that he nearly collides with other cars or people, much to the chagrin of the Babe. Distractions were multiplying.
Recently I have also been watching some of the Ken Burns Baseball series. One of the things that has amazed me are descriptions of the game that are over 100 years old. “In baseball, all is lightening” – Henry Chadwick. [Baseball has] “the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere” (Walt Whitman). These days, baseball, to many, seems slow, ponderous, rather dull, not filled with zip, or pop or zap, go, or fling.
I share these cultural anecdotes simply to remind us how much we have to be distracted by – when the flashing distractions of 100 years ago are now seen as too slow. Distraction is a problem. We can lose our focus on what is most important. It is true for individuals and for churches. And in the church we can be distracted from what is most important not only by what is new and glitzy, but also by what is all too familiar. When we keep doing what we have been doing simply because we have been doing it, then that can be a distraction from what is most important, from listening to the voice of Jesus for our lives and our times, and seeing where the Spirit of God might be taking us. We need to focus on our core values, even as the means for realizing those values may change.
Yet if being distracted can be a problem, and it can be, so, too, can our inability to be distracted. Mary’s singular focus in one story is held up for admiration, while the narrow focus of the priest and Levite in another story are held up for ridicule. In our lives and in our church we need to balance focus with a wide angle lens, not lose our peripheral vision for sometimes what is on the edges needs to grab hold of our attention. There is a place in our lives for being appropriately distracted.
Iris Murdoch, novelist and philosopher, once wrote, “We are fed or damaged spiritually by what we attend to.” If our attention is too scattered, we are damaged spiritually. If our attention is too narrow, we are damaged spiritually.
Psychologist and philosopher William James once wrote, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” Our lives need the rhythm of focus and appropriate distraction, of looking and overlooking.
There are times in pastoral ministry when it seems that it is difficult to get focused work done. Take up a project in the office, and the phone will ring off the hook, or the office door will swing open constantly. Part of the learning of being a pastor is to recognize that the phone calls and office visits are appropriate distractions, are a necessary and vitally important parts of the work of being a pastor – except when the calls are simply solicitations!
From my office I have a beautiful view of Lake Superior, though there are days when that view waxes and wanes with rolling fog. Even then, there can be a certain beauty. Is this view a mere distraction? Sometimes, maybe. Other times that view centers me. I am reminded that God’s grace and love are as vast as waters of that grand lake. The sun gleaming off the waves, a full moon setting the surface ablaze, both fill me with awe and gratitude. Lake Superior, for its beauty, and for many other reasons, should be the object of our attention. Its well being matters, yet it is easy for we who live on its shores to keep it on the periphery and lose sight of it.
Paying attention to dreams can be a distraction, but ever an appropriate distraction? In the Talmud, one reads, “an uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter from God” (Eigen, Conversations, 93). There may be something to be found, at least at times, in paying attention to our dreams. Over the past year I have been paying some attention to mine. Recently I dreamed I was digging through sand in an unusual sandbox. I am on my knees and the box is stomach high with sides that are somewhat buried. It is almost as if the sandbox was constructed of an old dresser of some kind. The sand is dark and dirty and in some places it is very wet. The project is to remove this sand to empty out the box. The old sand will not be discarded but mixed with new sand and put back in the sand box. I keep digging. Not a remarkable dream, but there is in it a sense of some things that have been happening in my life, and also a sense of what I think we need to be doing as a church. In my own life, I have been digging deep into wounds and joys and mixing these in with new experiences.
For our church, as we move into the future, we need to look deeply into who we are and what we do and figure how to build on the best of our past as we also welcome what is new and reinvigorating. We can be distracted by the past. The task is to build on it, focus on our values, yet listen to the voices on the edges of the future.
Not all distractions are created equal. In the Spirit of Jesus, may we learn the art of the appropriate distraction. Amen.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Rescue Me
Sermon preached July 11, 2010
Texts: Colossians 1:11-14; Luke 10:25-37
Words. Words matter. Words are powerful and silly and precious and wasted. With words we proclaim our love, we assert our political views, we offer opinions on movies or music or clothing. Words can hurt and words can heal. Some of us grew up learning the phrase – “sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me.” It is untrue. Sometimes a broken bone heals more quickly and more completely than a cutting insult. The Bee Gees, before “Saturday Night Fever” had a simple song in which they sang – “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.”
Words can be ambiguous. What’s black and white and red/read all over? A newspaper, or a sunburned zebra.
Biblical words, words of our faith, can be challenging sometimes. Take this phrase for instance. “God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” We know something about forgiveness and if we are honest with ourselves we acknowledge our need for it. What does it mean to say that we have been rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ? We know what it might be like to be rescued from water if we were drowning. We know what it might be like to be rescued from being lost in the wilderness. We know what it might be like to be rescued from quick sand – at least if we have watched movies. We know what it might be like to be rescued from an addiction. What does it mean to be rescued from the power of darkness and brought into a new place, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ?
Here is where the beauty of lectionary Scripture readings comes in. The ecumenical lectionary is a set of readings for each Sunday on a three year cycle, and I most often use some Scripture from it as the basis for the Sunday sermon and worship service. There is a Psalm, usually another reading from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, a text from one of the New Testament letters and a reading from a Gospel. Today Colossians, in which the phrase about rescuing appears, is matched with Luke, chapter 10 – a story. And I think the story answers the question I have been posing - What does it mean to be rescued from the power of darkness and brought into a new place, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ?
In Luke 10 we have a story within a story – and there is a wonderful richness in stories that abstract language cannot capture fully. The overarching story is about a lawyer, that is a person versed in Hebrew Scripture, who inquires of Jesus about eternal life. Another way of asking the question might be to ask what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God. Jesus replies with a question and the lawyer answers. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus commends the lawyer, he understands what it means to be a part of God’s kingdom, God’s dream for the world. But the lawyer wonders about an abstract word – neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Then we get the story within the story about the man on the road, robbed and beaten and left for dead. Two persons pass by – a priest and a Levite, both respectable men in that culture. The hero of the story turns out to be the unrespectable Samaritan who cares for the man, who is moved with pity, who shows mercy. This story would have shocked Jesus’ listeners. They were all for poking fun at the respectable people, that has been a human sport for a long time, it seems. But to make a hated and despised Samaritan the hero, well, that goes kind of far.
But back to the question - What does it mean to be rescued from the power of darkness and brought into a new place, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ? The Samaritan helps answer this.
To be rescued from the power of darkness is to see differently. The first people who walked by the wounded traveler saw someone who might take up too much time in their busy lives. More tellingly, they saw someone who could mess up their other obligations. What if the man were dead, and not just half dead? Touching him would have meant ritual contamination and the need to engage in purity rituals. Perhaps both were on their way to perform services requiring their ritual purity. Taking time for, touching an unclean man, well, that could really mess things up. The Samaritan saw this wounded traveler as a human person in need of assistance, in need of help, and not as someone who was simply unclean or a complication.
Rita and Roy are having some problems in their marriage. This is a situation described by a therapist named Michele Weiner-Davis, so no one we know, though the situation may be familiar. Weiner-Davis describes Rita’s range of responses to Roy’s behavior in one part of their life. When she thought Roy was being spiteful, Rita considered punishing him. Compassion was the furthest thing from her mind…. When he was seen as overworked, sad, or depressed, her reaction was compassion. (Divorce Busting, 106)
How often we get stuck in our usual ways of seeing the world, and sometime those ways are not helpful. We need to be rescued so as to see the world with wider vision. We need to be rescued so as to see the world in ways that are humanizing and caring. We need to be rescued so as to see the world with more creativity.
The story of the good Samaritan also tells us that to be rescued from the power of darkness is to feel the world differently. The Samaritan not only sees a human person in need, but is moved by what he sees. The story says he was moved with pity, but that is a mild translation of the Greek. He was moved in the depth of his being, viscerally (William Spohn, Go and Do Likewise, 89).
I have a good friend who is a writer and a county commissioner – not in St. Louis County. Awhile back he forwarded me an e-mail sent to him by a woman about her experience with the church. He did a good job of disguising the woman’s identity, but wanted me to see what she had written. The woman, a United Methodist, had been active in church as a young person and continued to be so as an adult, but some things changed after she was divorced. “One minister even told me he didn’t believe in hit or miss attendance when my kids spent a weekend with their father.” She goes on about her experience with churches as a divorced woman with children. We moved a few times and were often treated as if we didn’t exist. One church going lady even said in front of me that they wanted to attract young families. I said, but I have a young family and she looked blank. My youngest even absolutely refused to attend Sunday School after she was given the third degree by a nosy Sunday School teacher. As a divorced older single person it has also been difficult to fit in. I don’t make very good bars. I have been drug to Bible study groups where there was an on-going argument over which version of the Bible was the REAL one.
Can we hear this story and begin to feel the disappointment and isolation? Are we open to the feelings of others who may have different life experiences from ours but desire a relationship with God and the fellowship of the church? Feeling the pain of others isn’t easy. Often we would rather close off some of those feelings, but that is to be trapped by the power of darkness, cutting off something of our own humanity. There used to be a term of derision – calling someone a “bleeding heart.” Well, I think we as Christians are to be people of bleeding hearts, caring deeply for the world and it hurts and pains. Bleeding hearts don’t imply empty heads – we need both, but if we don’t have the compassionate heart, we are in need of rescuing.
Lastly, the good Samaritan teaches that to be rescued from the power of darkness means to act differently. It is not enough that the Samaritan sees and feel differently, he acts on what he sees and feels. The lawyer gets it just right in the end. Who is neighbor to the man who is beaten, the one who showed mercy – the one who acted with compassion and mercy.
A Japanese coastal village was once threatened by a tidal wave, but the wave was sighted in advance, far out on the horizon, by a lone farmer in the rice fields on the hillside above the village. At once he set fire to the fields, and villagers who came swarming up to save their crops were saved from the flood.
To be rescued from the power of darkness is to find ways to make a positive difference in the lives of others and the world. It is to see, feel and act differently – see, feel and act like we are part of making God’s dream for the world a reality. Rescue us, God, from all that gets in the way of this kind of life. Amen.
Texts: Colossians 1:11-14; Luke 10:25-37
Words. Words matter. Words are powerful and silly and precious and wasted. With words we proclaim our love, we assert our political views, we offer opinions on movies or music or clothing. Words can hurt and words can heal. Some of us grew up learning the phrase – “sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me.” It is untrue. Sometimes a broken bone heals more quickly and more completely than a cutting insult. The Bee Gees, before “Saturday Night Fever” had a simple song in which they sang – “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.”
Words can be ambiguous. What’s black and white and red/read all over? A newspaper, or a sunburned zebra.
Biblical words, words of our faith, can be challenging sometimes. Take this phrase for instance. “God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” We know something about forgiveness and if we are honest with ourselves we acknowledge our need for it. What does it mean to say that we have been rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ? We know what it might be like to be rescued from water if we were drowning. We know what it might be like to be rescued from being lost in the wilderness. We know what it might be like to be rescued from quick sand – at least if we have watched movies. We know what it might be like to be rescued from an addiction. What does it mean to be rescued from the power of darkness and brought into a new place, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ?
Here is where the beauty of lectionary Scripture readings comes in. The ecumenical lectionary is a set of readings for each Sunday on a three year cycle, and I most often use some Scripture from it as the basis for the Sunday sermon and worship service. There is a Psalm, usually another reading from the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, a text from one of the New Testament letters and a reading from a Gospel. Today Colossians, in which the phrase about rescuing appears, is matched with Luke, chapter 10 – a story. And I think the story answers the question I have been posing - What does it mean to be rescued from the power of darkness and brought into a new place, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ?
In Luke 10 we have a story within a story – and there is a wonderful richness in stories that abstract language cannot capture fully. The overarching story is about a lawyer, that is a person versed in Hebrew Scripture, who inquires of Jesus about eternal life. Another way of asking the question might be to ask what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God. Jesus replies with a question and the lawyer answers. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus commends the lawyer, he understands what it means to be a part of God’s kingdom, God’s dream for the world. But the lawyer wonders about an abstract word – neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Then we get the story within the story about the man on the road, robbed and beaten and left for dead. Two persons pass by – a priest and a Levite, both respectable men in that culture. The hero of the story turns out to be the unrespectable Samaritan who cares for the man, who is moved with pity, who shows mercy. This story would have shocked Jesus’ listeners. They were all for poking fun at the respectable people, that has been a human sport for a long time, it seems. But to make a hated and despised Samaritan the hero, well, that goes kind of far.
But back to the question - What does it mean to be rescued from the power of darkness and brought into a new place, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Christ? The Samaritan helps answer this.
To be rescued from the power of darkness is to see differently. The first people who walked by the wounded traveler saw someone who might take up too much time in their busy lives. More tellingly, they saw someone who could mess up their other obligations. What if the man were dead, and not just half dead? Touching him would have meant ritual contamination and the need to engage in purity rituals. Perhaps both were on their way to perform services requiring their ritual purity. Taking time for, touching an unclean man, well, that could really mess things up. The Samaritan saw this wounded traveler as a human person in need of assistance, in need of help, and not as someone who was simply unclean or a complication.
Rita and Roy are having some problems in their marriage. This is a situation described by a therapist named Michele Weiner-Davis, so no one we know, though the situation may be familiar. Weiner-Davis describes Rita’s range of responses to Roy’s behavior in one part of their life. When she thought Roy was being spiteful, Rita considered punishing him. Compassion was the furthest thing from her mind…. When he was seen as overworked, sad, or depressed, her reaction was compassion. (Divorce Busting, 106)
How often we get stuck in our usual ways of seeing the world, and sometime those ways are not helpful. We need to be rescued so as to see the world with wider vision. We need to be rescued so as to see the world in ways that are humanizing and caring. We need to be rescued so as to see the world with more creativity.
The story of the good Samaritan also tells us that to be rescued from the power of darkness is to feel the world differently. The Samaritan not only sees a human person in need, but is moved by what he sees. The story says he was moved with pity, but that is a mild translation of the Greek. He was moved in the depth of his being, viscerally (William Spohn, Go and Do Likewise, 89).
I have a good friend who is a writer and a county commissioner – not in St. Louis County. Awhile back he forwarded me an e-mail sent to him by a woman about her experience with the church. He did a good job of disguising the woman’s identity, but wanted me to see what she had written. The woman, a United Methodist, had been active in church as a young person and continued to be so as an adult, but some things changed after she was divorced. “One minister even told me he didn’t believe in hit or miss attendance when my kids spent a weekend with their father.” She goes on about her experience with churches as a divorced woman with children. We moved a few times and were often treated as if we didn’t exist. One church going lady even said in front of me that they wanted to attract young families. I said, but I have a young family and she looked blank. My youngest even absolutely refused to attend Sunday School after she was given the third degree by a nosy Sunday School teacher. As a divorced older single person it has also been difficult to fit in. I don’t make very good bars. I have been drug to Bible study groups where there was an on-going argument over which version of the Bible was the REAL one.
Can we hear this story and begin to feel the disappointment and isolation? Are we open to the feelings of others who may have different life experiences from ours but desire a relationship with God and the fellowship of the church? Feeling the pain of others isn’t easy. Often we would rather close off some of those feelings, but that is to be trapped by the power of darkness, cutting off something of our own humanity. There used to be a term of derision – calling someone a “bleeding heart.” Well, I think we as Christians are to be people of bleeding hearts, caring deeply for the world and it hurts and pains. Bleeding hearts don’t imply empty heads – we need both, but if we don’t have the compassionate heart, we are in need of rescuing.
Lastly, the good Samaritan teaches that to be rescued from the power of darkness means to act differently. It is not enough that the Samaritan sees and feel differently, he acts on what he sees and feels. The lawyer gets it just right in the end. Who is neighbor to the man who is beaten, the one who showed mercy – the one who acted with compassion and mercy.
A Japanese coastal village was once threatened by a tidal wave, but the wave was sighted in advance, far out on the horizon, by a lone farmer in the rice fields on the hillside above the village. At once he set fire to the fields, and villagers who came swarming up to save their crops were saved from the flood.
To be rescued from the power of darkness is to find ways to make a positive difference in the lives of others and the world. It is to see, feel and act differently – see, feel and act like we are part of making God’s dream for the world a reality. Rescue us, God, from all that gets in the way of this kind of life. Amen.
Mr. Big Stuff
Sermon preached July 4, 2010
Texts: II Kings 5:1-14
This morning we are going to begin with a little quiz. Did you all bring your number 2 pencils? The quiz is called, “Bible or Not,” but I also don’t want to embarrass anyone, so it will be a silent quiz. Only you will know how you did. I am going to share a few quotes, and you have to decide if they are from the Bible or not.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If you don’t know this one you were not here last week!
Cleanliness is next to godliness. Sorry, but your mother’s were wrong about this.
Don’t make love by the garden gate. Love is blind but the neighbors ain’t. No.
My country right or wrong. Again, no.
God helps those who help themselves. No, and it is not even true from a biblical point of view. It is only partially true. We have our role to play in shaping our lives, and we need to be responsive to God. But part of the Bible story is that when we fail to live up to our end of the deal, God is there to help get us back on track.
Pride goes before a fall. Well, close but not exactly. The closest thing we have in the Bible is Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
If that last proverb were to have a song, it might be Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” (play a snippet). If it were to have a story, it might be the story of Naaman. The story of Naaman from II Kings is a story about pride and humility. Before getting into the story more, let me offer some general reflections on pride and humility – these from Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking).
Pride: Pride is self-love, and in that sense a Christian is enjoined to be proud, i.e., another way of saying “Love your neighbor as yourself” is to say, “Love yourself as your neighbor.” That doesn’t mean your pulse is supposed to quicken every time you look in the mirror any more than it’s supposed to quicken every time your neighbor passes the window. It simply means that the ability to work for your own good despite all the less than admirable things you know about yourself is closely related to the ability to work for your neighbor’s good despite all the less than admirable things you know about them…. Self-love or pride is a sin when, instead of leading you to share with others the self you love, it leads you to keep your self in perpetual safe-deposit. You not only don’t accrue any interest that way, but become less and less interesting every day.
Humility: Humility is often confused with the polite self-deprecation of saying you’re not much of a bridge player when you know perfectly well you are. Conscious or otherwise, this kind of humility is a form of gamesmanship. If you really aren’t much of a bridge player, you’re apt to be rather proud of yourself for admitting it so humbly. This kind of humility if a form of low comedy. True humility doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you’d be apt to think of anybody else. It is the capacity for being no more and no less pleased when you play your own hand well than when your opponents do.
Naaman was a great man, a Mr. Big Stuff. He commanded the army of Aram, and was admired by the king. He was a mighty warrior. He had a problem, though – leprosy. No doubt there was shame and embarrassment with this for Naaman. He had probably tried any number of cures, but to no avail. When a servant girl belonging to his wife suggests that Naaman might consult the prophet in Samaria (Elisha), Naaman goes to the king asking for permission to seek out this cure. The king sends him off with his blessings – and with many goods to give and a letter to share with the king of Israel. The letter causes the king of Israel a great deal of consternation – what’s he supposed to do? And if he doesn’t send Naaman back cured, how will the powerful Arameans react?
Enter Elisha. He hears about Naaman and tells the king of Israel to send him his way. Elisha will help Mr. Big Stuff. You can imagine Naaman’s excitement, but his bubble is soon burst. He arrives with his entourage, and is met by Elisha’s messenger who tells Naaman, “Go wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”
Mr. Big Stuff is outraged. Doesn’t Elisha know who he is? How dare he send a servant out with a message! Elisha should have come out and prayed, called out, waved his hands. And don’t we have better rivers back home?! Naaman’s pride has been wounded. His pride is getting in the way of his healing, however.
The story takes a quick and remarkable turn. A servant respectfully suggests that Naaman set his pride aside and think more clearly. If Elisha had asked him to do something hard, wouldn’t he have done this? Isn’t it worth taking a chance and doing something simple. Naaman’s sets aside his overweening pride, is willing to be humble enough to take advice from a foreign prophet and from a servant, and he washed in the Jordan and is made clean.
This is a delightful story with lessons for us – for our lives, for our country.
David Schmelzer, in his book Not the Religious Type argues that our pride can get in the way of the work of God’s Spirit in our lives. When we become too concerned with always “being right,” we can be closed off from new ways God’s Spirit might be weaving her way into our lives. Schmelzer argues that it might be better to be on to something than to “be right” (xii). Naaman almost missed God’s healing because he wanted to be treated as Mr. Big Stuff.
Overweening pride in the form of needing to be right all the time, can mess up our relationships. When we are always concerned with being right, and making sure everyone knows we are right, we can crush others, become blind to the nuances of others feelings.
Excessive pride gets in the way of healing of addictions. It is not a big surprise that the first step in many addiction recovery programs is to admit you have lost power over your lives. Excessive pride blinds us to the harm some of our own behaviors causes for others and for ourselves. The first step in healing can be honesty humility.
Immoderate pride can get in the way of learning and growth. There is no one from whom we cannot learn in some way, yet immoderate pride tells us otherwise. The beauty of the story of Naaman is how again and again this proud man works through his sometimes overweening pride and is willing to listen to servants – people whose education and social standing are quite different from his own. God’s voice speaks to us in unfamiliar accents.
On this July 4, this day when we celebrate our nation, lessons about overweening pride are important as well. I am proud to be a citizen of The United States. I love this country. When I think about some of the things that bring me joy, so many are deeply rooted in this country: jazz, blues, rock n roll, the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, baseball. I am proud to be an American. I am also deeply aware that blind pride is counter-productive. It gets in the way of our progress as a nation and can hinder work toward peace and justice. I wince when I see some of the ways we let our pride become immoderate. When the government of France raised objections to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Congress passed a resolution which changed the name of French fries, and French toast in the congressional cafeteria to “freedom fries” and ‘freedom toast.” How silly. I am bothered by the conversations in the Senate when the Supreme Court is discussed that seem to suggest that learning from the laws of other countries somehow is “un-American.” Really? Are we so proud that we cannot learn from others? I hope not. We all need to find ways to get along as we share this small planet.
At the end of the day, I hope we can be proud of who we are – as individuals, as church, as country. We have a lot to be proud of, a lot to love. And may we be humble enough not to let our pride get in the way of healing, of relationships, of growth and learning, of peace and justice, of the work of God’s Spirit. Amen.
Texts: II Kings 5:1-14
This morning we are going to begin with a little quiz. Did you all bring your number 2 pencils? The quiz is called, “Bible or Not,” but I also don’t want to embarrass anyone, so it will be a silent quiz. Only you will know how you did. I am going to share a few quotes, and you have to decide if they are from the Bible or not.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If you don’t know this one you were not here last week!
Cleanliness is next to godliness. Sorry, but your mother’s were wrong about this.
Don’t make love by the garden gate. Love is blind but the neighbors ain’t. No.
My country right or wrong. Again, no.
God helps those who help themselves. No, and it is not even true from a biblical point of view. It is only partially true. We have our role to play in shaping our lives, and we need to be responsive to God. But part of the Bible story is that when we fail to live up to our end of the deal, God is there to help get us back on track.
Pride goes before a fall. Well, close but not exactly. The closest thing we have in the Bible is Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
If that last proverb were to have a song, it might be Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” (play a snippet). If it were to have a story, it might be the story of Naaman. The story of Naaman from II Kings is a story about pride and humility. Before getting into the story more, let me offer some general reflections on pride and humility – these from Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking).
Pride: Pride is self-love, and in that sense a Christian is enjoined to be proud, i.e., another way of saying “Love your neighbor as yourself” is to say, “Love yourself as your neighbor.” That doesn’t mean your pulse is supposed to quicken every time you look in the mirror any more than it’s supposed to quicken every time your neighbor passes the window. It simply means that the ability to work for your own good despite all the less than admirable things you know about yourself is closely related to the ability to work for your neighbor’s good despite all the less than admirable things you know about them…. Self-love or pride is a sin when, instead of leading you to share with others the self you love, it leads you to keep your self in perpetual safe-deposit. You not only don’t accrue any interest that way, but become less and less interesting every day.
Humility: Humility is often confused with the polite self-deprecation of saying you’re not much of a bridge player when you know perfectly well you are. Conscious or otherwise, this kind of humility is a form of gamesmanship. If you really aren’t much of a bridge player, you’re apt to be rather proud of yourself for admitting it so humbly. This kind of humility if a form of low comedy. True humility doesn’t consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you’d be apt to think of anybody else. It is the capacity for being no more and no less pleased when you play your own hand well than when your opponents do.
Naaman was a great man, a Mr. Big Stuff. He commanded the army of Aram, and was admired by the king. He was a mighty warrior. He had a problem, though – leprosy. No doubt there was shame and embarrassment with this for Naaman. He had probably tried any number of cures, but to no avail. When a servant girl belonging to his wife suggests that Naaman might consult the prophet in Samaria (Elisha), Naaman goes to the king asking for permission to seek out this cure. The king sends him off with his blessings – and with many goods to give and a letter to share with the king of Israel. The letter causes the king of Israel a great deal of consternation – what’s he supposed to do? And if he doesn’t send Naaman back cured, how will the powerful Arameans react?
Enter Elisha. He hears about Naaman and tells the king of Israel to send him his way. Elisha will help Mr. Big Stuff. You can imagine Naaman’s excitement, but his bubble is soon burst. He arrives with his entourage, and is met by Elisha’s messenger who tells Naaman, “Go wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”
Mr. Big Stuff is outraged. Doesn’t Elisha know who he is? How dare he send a servant out with a message! Elisha should have come out and prayed, called out, waved his hands. And don’t we have better rivers back home?! Naaman’s pride has been wounded. His pride is getting in the way of his healing, however.
The story takes a quick and remarkable turn. A servant respectfully suggests that Naaman set his pride aside and think more clearly. If Elisha had asked him to do something hard, wouldn’t he have done this? Isn’t it worth taking a chance and doing something simple. Naaman’s sets aside his overweening pride, is willing to be humble enough to take advice from a foreign prophet and from a servant, and he washed in the Jordan and is made clean.
This is a delightful story with lessons for us – for our lives, for our country.
David Schmelzer, in his book Not the Religious Type argues that our pride can get in the way of the work of God’s Spirit in our lives. When we become too concerned with always “being right,” we can be closed off from new ways God’s Spirit might be weaving her way into our lives. Schmelzer argues that it might be better to be on to something than to “be right” (xii). Naaman almost missed God’s healing because he wanted to be treated as Mr. Big Stuff.
Overweening pride in the form of needing to be right all the time, can mess up our relationships. When we are always concerned with being right, and making sure everyone knows we are right, we can crush others, become blind to the nuances of others feelings.
Excessive pride gets in the way of healing of addictions. It is not a big surprise that the first step in many addiction recovery programs is to admit you have lost power over your lives. Excessive pride blinds us to the harm some of our own behaviors causes for others and for ourselves. The first step in healing can be honesty humility.
Immoderate pride can get in the way of learning and growth. There is no one from whom we cannot learn in some way, yet immoderate pride tells us otherwise. The beauty of the story of Naaman is how again and again this proud man works through his sometimes overweening pride and is willing to listen to servants – people whose education and social standing are quite different from his own. God’s voice speaks to us in unfamiliar accents.
On this July 4, this day when we celebrate our nation, lessons about overweening pride are important as well. I am proud to be a citizen of The United States. I love this country. When I think about some of the things that bring me joy, so many are deeply rooted in this country: jazz, blues, rock n roll, the poetry of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, baseball. I am proud to be an American. I am also deeply aware that blind pride is counter-productive. It gets in the way of our progress as a nation and can hinder work toward peace and justice. I wince when I see some of the ways we let our pride become immoderate. When the government of France raised objections to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Congress passed a resolution which changed the name of French fries, and French toast in the congressional cafeteria to “freedom fries” and ‘freedom toast.” How silly. I am bothered by the conversations in the Senate when the Supreme Court is discussed that seem to suggest that learning from the laws of other countries somehow is “un-American.” Really? Are we so proud that we cannot learn from others? I hope not. We all need to find ways to get along as we share this small planet.
At the end of the day, I hope we can be proud of who we are – as individuals, as church, as country. We have a lot to be proud of, a lot to love. And may we be humble enough not to let our pride get in the way of healing, of relationships, of growth and learning, of peace and justice, of the work of God’s Spirit. Amen.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Well That's Different
Sermon preached June 27, 2010
Texts: Luke 9:51-56; Galatians 5:1, 13-25
How many of you remember the scene from The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy meets the talking apple trees? Walking along the yellow brick road with the scarecrow – who utters one of the movies great lines – “some people without brains do an awful lot of talking” (it is taking a great deal of discipline not to make an election year joke here) - - - any way, Dorothy and the Scarecrow are walking along the yellow brick road and Dorothy decides to pick an apple from a tree. The tree objects, slapping Dorothy’s hand. She is startled. “Did you say something?” Then she states the obvious – “I keep forgetting I’m not in Kansas anymore.” The scarecrow, even without a brain, devises an ingenious plan for procuring apples, knowing that by taunting the trees they will throw their apples. It is picking up apples that Dorothy discovers again that she is not in Kansas as she meets a tin figure, saying, “Why it’s a man.”
Now if Dorothy was not from Kansas, but from Minnesota, instead of saying, “I keep forgetting I’m not in Kansas anymore,” she might say, “Well, that’s different.” A scarecrow without a brain who talks – well, that’s different. Apple trees that talk and are rather thin skinned when it comes to their fruit – well, that’s different. A tin man rusting in the woods - well, that’s different.
So picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies – sorry wrong metaphor. Picture yourself as a tree. What kind of fruit does your life produce? What kind of fruit might come from our lives as disciples of Jesus?
If we are honest, we must admit sometimes we produce crab apples in our lives – wormy, sour apples. I appreciate the honesty in this morning’s gospel reading. Some of the disciples don’t come off so well – just like us sometimes. Jesus and the disciples are walking through a Samaritan village, but they are not well received. James and John react. “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Don’t you feel like that sometime? Let’s call down a little fire from heaven and get rid of the troublemakers.
Christians are sometimes thought of as sour apples. In 2005, the Barna group polled 16-29 year olds asking the question, "What do you think of when you hear the word 'Christian'?" 91% of young adults outside the church replied, "anti-homosexual;" 87% responded "judgmental;" 85% said "hypocritical;" 72% reported that Christians were out of touch with reality; and 68% pegged Christians as "boring." (source: Diana Butler Bass). So Christians have been graceless, humorless, and judgmental. We have sometimes displayed all the warmth of those apple trees in the Wizard of Oz. And sometimes when others have pointed that out to us, we simply threaten them with fire.
Jesus responded to James and John simply and directly. “But he turned and rebuked them.” They had it wrong. To be a disciple of Jesus is not to give in to anger and vengeance. We want to produce a different kind of fruit in our lives – not wormy sour apples, but juicy, succulent, flavorful fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Lives that produce such fruit are richer, fuller lives. Giving in to vengeance and anger can feel good, for a short while, but how often our anger is an overreaction and we need to follow with an apology, often embarrassed by our angry outburst. Living to get even means that we are always on guard against our enemies, who are always trying to get even with us. Better to live with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
This kind of life also attracts others. Hafiz is a beloved Persian poet from the fourteenth century, an Islamic mystic poet whose work sings with religious joy. “What is laughter? It is God waking up.” (I Heard God Laughing, 65) The story of how he came to his deep, joyous faith is a wonderful Persian legend. It is said that when he was twenty-one and working as a baker’s assistant, Hafiz delivered some bread to a mansion and happened to catch a fleeting glimpse of a beautiful young woman on a terrace. However brief, that one glimpse captured his heart and he fell madly in love with the woman. She did not notice him, however. She was from a wealthy, noble family. He was a poor baker’s assistant. She was beautiful, he was short and unattractive. As months went by, Hafiz composed poems and love songs celebrating her beauty and his longing. His wonderful words became well-known and oft repeated in the city of Shiraz. Hafiz remained oblivious of his fame, pining for his beloved. Desperate to win her, he undertook a difficult spiritual discipline which required him to pray at the tomb of a particular saint all night long for forty nights. It was said that anyone who could accomplish this arduous task would be granted his heart’s desire. Every day Hafiz went to work at the bakery and every night he kept vigil, spurred on by his great love. At daybreak on the fortieth day, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Hafiz and told him he could ask for whatever he wished. Hafiz had never seen such a glorious and radiant being as Gabriel. He thought to himself, “If God’s messenger is so beautiful, how much more beautiful must God be!” Hafiz blurted out to Gabriel, “I want God.” (op. cit., 79-80) As our lives burst forth with fruits of the Spirit, others may say that they want the God of Jesus Christ whose Spirit produces those fruits in our lives. Others may look at us and say, “well, that’s different,” and want to join the journey.
At our last Church Council meeting I shared these words from management guru Peter Drucker during the devotion, The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services nor controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human change-agents. Their “product” is… a changed human life altogether.” I ended the devotion with these words – “what we finally have to offer others is our lives and a seat on the bus next to us on the journey with God.” Programs are important – for families, for singles, for youth, for adults. Education in the Bible, in Christian faith, in Methodism is important. Faith formation that takes seriously the biblical injunction to do justice matters – we seek justice and well-being for all regardless of race, place of birth, gender, sexual orientation. Worship that has some energy and liveliness and thoughtfulness matters. But if we are not being made different by all these, if our lives are not growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control then we are missing what is most important. Yes, we will still have our wormy, sour apple moments, but are we moving away from them and toward love? What we finally have to offer others is our lives and a seat on the bus next to us on the journey with God.
Hafiz really was a remarkable poet, even if the story of how he moved toward God is more legend than anything. Let me begin to wrap up with a short poem of his called, “The Only Sin I Know” (op. cit. 56). As you hear it, know that a word Hafiz often uses for God is “the Beloved.”
If someone sits with me
And we talk about the Beloved,
If I cannot give his heart comfort,
If I cannot make him feel better
About himself and this world,
Then, Hafiz,
Quickly run to the mosque and pray –
For you have committed
The only sin I know.
Be fruitful and multiply. May we say of our lives – we are different. May others say of us, “well, they’re different,” and may they join us on our journey with God. Amen.
Texts: Luke 9:51-56; Galatians 5:1, 13-25
How many of you remember the scene from The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy meets the talking apple trees? Walking along the yellow brick road with the scarecrow – who utters one of the movies great lines – “some people without brains do an awful lot of talking” (it is taking a great deal of discipline not to make an election year joke here) - - - any way, Dorothy and the Scarecrow are walking along the yellow brick road and Dorothy decides to pick an apple from a tree. The tree objects, slapping Dorothy’s hand. She is startled. “Did you say something?” Then she states the obvious – “I keep forgetting I’m not in Kansas anymore.” The scarecrow, even without a brain, devises an ingenious plan for procuring apples, knowing that by taunting the trees they will throw their apples. It is picking up apples that Dorothy discovers again that she is not in Kansas as she meets a tin figure, saying, “Why it’s a man.”
Now if Dorothy was not from Kansas, but from Minnesota, instead of saying, “I keep forgetting I’m not in Kansas anymore,” she might say, “Well, that’s different.” A scarecrow without a brain who talks – well, that’s different. Apple trees that talk and are rather thin skinned when it comes to their fruit – well, that’s different. A tin man rusting in the woods - well, that’s different.
So picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies – sorry wrong metaphor. Picture yourself as a tree. What kind of fruit does your life produce? What kind of fruit might come from our lives as disciples of Jesus?
If we are honest, we must admit sometimes we produce crab apples in our lives – wormy, sour apples. I appreciate the honesty in this morning’s gospel reading. Some of the disciples don’t come off so well – just like us sometimes. Jesus and the disciples are walking through a Samaritan village, but they are not well received. James and John react. “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Don’t you feel like that sometime? Let’s call down a little fire from heaven and get rid of the troublemakers.
Christians are sometimes thought of as sour apples. In 2005, the Barna group polled 16-29 year olds asking the question, "What do you think of when you hear the word 'Christian'?" 91% of young adults outside the church replied, "anti-homosexual;" 87% responded "judgmental;" 85% said "hypocritical;" 72% reported that Christians were out of touch with reality; and 68% pegged Christians as "boring." (source: Diana Butler Bass). So Christians have been graceless, humorless, and judgmental. We have sometimes displayed all the warmth of those apple trees in the Wizard of Oz. And sometimes when others have pointed that out to us, we simply threaten them with fire.
Jesus responded to James and John simply and directly. “But he turned and rebuked them.” They had it wrong. To be a disciple of Jesus is not to give in to anger and vengeance. We want to produce a different kind of fruit in our lives – not wormy sour apples, but juicy, succulent, flavorful fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Lives that produce such fruit are richer, fuller lives. Giving in to vengeance and anger can feel good, for a short while, but how often our anger is an overreaction and we need to follow with an apology, often embarrassed by our angry outburst. Living to get even means that we are always on guard against our enemies, who are always trying to get even with us. Better to live with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
This kind of life also attracts others. Hafiz is a beloved Persian poet from the fourteenth century, an Islamic mystic poet whose work sings with religious joy. “What is laughter? It is God waking up.” (I Heard God Laughing, 65) The story of how he came to his deep, joyous faith is a wonderful Persian legend. It is said that when he was twenty-one and working as a baker’s assistant, Hafiz delivered some bread to a mansion and happened to catch a fleeting glimpse of a beautiful young woman on a terrace. However brief, that one glimpse captured his heart and he fell madly in love with the woman. She did not notice him, however. She was from a wealthy, noble family. He was a poor baker’s assistant. She was beautiful, he was short and unattractive. As months went by, Hafiz composed poems and love songs celebrating her beauty and his longing. His wonderful words became well-known and oft repeated in the city of Shiraz. Hafiz remained oblivious of his fame, pining for his beloved. Desperate to win her, he undertook a difficult spiritual discipline which required him to pray at the tomb of a particular saint all night long for forty nights. It was said that anyone who could accomplish this arduous task would be granted his heart’s desire. Every day Hafiz went to work at the bakery and every night he kept vigil, spurred on by his great love. At daybreak on the fortieth day, the archangel Gabriel appeared to Hafiz and told him he could ask for whatever he wished. Hafiz had never seen such a glorious and radiant being as Gabriel. He thought to himself, “If God’s messenger is so beautiful, how much more beautiful must God be!” Hafiz blurted out to Gabriel, “I want God.” (op. cit., 79-80) As our lives burst forth with fruits of the Spirit, others may say that they want the God of Jesus Christ whose Spirit produces those fruits in our lives. Others may look at us and say, “well, that’s different,” and want to join the journey.
At our last Church Council meeting I shared these words from management guru Peter Drucker during the devotion, The “non-profit” institution neither supplies goods or services nor controls. Its “product” is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being. The non-profit institutions are human change-agents. Their “product” is… a changed human life altogether.” I ended the devotion with these words – “what we finally have to offer others is our lives and a seat on the bus next to us on the journey with God.” Programs are important – for families, for singles, for youth, for adults. Education in the Bible, in Christian faith, in Methodism is important. Faith formation that takes seriously the biblical injunction to do justice matters – we seek justice and well-being for all regardless of race, place of birth, gender, sexual orientation. Worship that has some energy and liveliness and thoughtfulness matters. But if we are not being made different by all these, if our lives are not growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control then we are missing what is most important. Yes, we will still have our wormy, sour apple moments, but are we moving away from them and toward love? What we finally have to offer others is our lives and a seat on the bus next to us on the journey with God.
Hafiz really was a remarkable poet, even if the story of how he moved toward God is more legend than anything. Let me begin to wrap up with a short poem of his called, “The Only Sin I Know” (op. cit. 56). As you hear it, know that a word Hafiz often uses for God is “the Beloved.”
If someone sits with me
And we talk about the Beloved,
If I cannot give his heart comfort,
If I cannot make him feel better
About himself and this world,
Then, Hafiz,
Quickly run to the mosque and pray –
For you have committed
The only sin I know.
Be fruitful and multiply. May we say of our lives – we are different. May others say of us, “well, they’re different,” and may they join us on our journey with God. Amen.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
The Sound of Silence
Sermon preached June 20, 2010
Texts: I Kings 19:1-15a
When Elmer Fudd says, “Be very, very quiet” we know why. “Be very, very quiet. I’m hunting rabbits.” Many of us probably remember being told to be quiet as children, but no good explanation was given. Maybe someone offered the old saying, “children should be seen and not heard.” This originated in 15th century England and was supposed to apply particularly to young women. Makes it even less appealing, doesn’t it!
We have very contradictory attitudes about being quiet, about silence. On the one hand, we hear the proverbial saying, “Silence is golden.” Sometimes it is. On the other hand, we hear that silence is deadly. Sometimes it is, as when we keep quiet in the face of wrongdoing, injustice, prejudice, harm. The song, “The Sound of Silence,” from which I took my sermon title, captures something of this ambiguity. On the one hand, the songwriter has a vision planted in his brain within the sound of silence. On the other hand, he has a dream in which he sees “people talking without speaking, people listening without hearing.” His response is to cry out, “silence like a cancer grows.”
The words from the biblical wisdom book, Ecclesiastes, are wise indeed. “For everything there is a season… a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (3:1a, 7b). “When” and “why” remain important. When should we speak or keep silent? Why should we speak or keep silent? There are multiple answers.
The story from I Kings 19 offers us a vitally important reason to find some time for silence in our lives. In the story, Elijah encounters God in “a sound of sheer silence.” Some translations render this “a barely audible whisper.” To feel the full impact of the story, it helps for us to pay attention to certain of its elements. Elijah is not in a good place. He has challenged the powers that be, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Jezebel wants to see Elijah’s life end. He was afraid. He fled into the wilderness by himself and “sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die.” This is the sound of discouragement and despair.
In the wilderness, Elijah encounters God – not just once but multiple times. First an angel, a messenger from God, speaks to him in a dream encouraging him to take care of himself, for he has a journey ahead. The journey takes him to Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai. There God meets Elijah in the question – “What are you doing here, Elijah?” This is not a GPS question, but a deep, existential one – what’s going on in your life? What’s happening with you? Elijah shares his deep sense of loneliness and loss. It is then that the most direct encounter with God occurs – not in a great wind, not in an earthquake, not in a fire, but in the sound of sheer silence. One would expect God to show up in a dramatic way. It certainly would have helped Elijah, who felt alone and dejected. Instead God arrives in an unexpected fashion – in quiet, in silence. Elijah is not immediately changed in a dramatic fashion either, but something has happened, for God gives him some direction. Elijah is changed enough that God sends him back to work.
The sound of sheer silence. Be very, very quiet, for God may be trying to speak to you, to us, in those moments of silence and quiet. Not only may God be trying to speak to you, to us, but I trust that God is doing just that in every moment of our lives.
Hear these words from theologian Marjorie Suchocki about how God speaks in our lives. God’s creative word launches us anew in every moment of our existence, initiating the directive energy that aims us toward what we might become. This word is felt within the depths of the self, which suggests that God’s word comes to us as a whisper…. It is a quiet word, a suggestive word, an inviting word, not always easily noticed. (The Whispered Word, 4)
If God’s word for our lives comes to us as a whisper, barely audible, as the sound of sheer silence, we need, sometimes, to quiet ourselves so that we can listen, hear, and respond. What a challenge in our noisy world, in our noisy lives. Think of all the sounds we have around us. Think of all the ways we can keep sounds coming at us – telephones which we now carry with us everywhere (I saw someone running the marathon yesterday talking on her phone), portable music players (any number of runners used those), televisions, dvd players, computers. I can plug my i pod into my car, and cars can be equipped with satellite radio. How difficult we make it for silence, and yet in silence may be when we hear, feel, sense God best.
I need to add a caveat. I truly believe we all need some silence in our lives, for silence can be a moment of encounter with God. I also believe our need for silence varies. For a period of time in my life there was hardly spiritual advice given that did not seem to indicate that a truly serious spiritual life involved getting up early every morning for time alone with God. I never found that worked very well for me and it taught me something about our varying personalities and spiritual styles. So some of us may need and benefit from more intense, regular silent meditation and prayer. For others, silence can come in smaller doses.
Still, some silence, however brief or however structured, seems indispensible for hearing, feeling, sensing God and responding to God’s whispered word.
I recall a snowy night, traveling home from a meeting. Julie was worried about my safety, and I was driving cautiously. I love to listen to MPR and music, so my car is not usually a zone of quiet. Sometimes, however, I turn it all off just to listen and pray (eyes open). Well this night, I did that, and even more. At one point, near the tall pines on the border of Itasca State Park, I stopped the car, got out and listened to the wind. There was no word from God that brought dramatic change, but I felt intensely and intimately God’s presence. Silent prayer, for me, can be recalling those brief moments before I got back in the car and finished my journey home.
I was a candidate for bishop first in 2004, when we were still living in Alexandria. I remember some of the anxiety around all of that, unsure of what being a candidate might mean, nervous about putting myself out there. One morning, in the shower, in those few quiet moments with only water running, I sensed something deep within. To call it a voice would be too much. But that morning I had this sense that I would not be elected at that time, and that it would be alright – and a wave of peace washed over me as much as the water coming from the shower.
Sometimes sermon ideas come to me in a flash in silent moments – not the whole sermon, mind you, but an idea, even a series of ideas or outlines. Some of what happens with this can be explained by processes of human creativity, but human creativity is wonderful in its own way. There are moments in that process when I trust God’s Spirit is at work.
Our need for silence varies, but lacking all silence means we may miss the creative voice of God whispering to us. Shhh! Be very, very quiet. We are searching for God’s Spirit. God’s Spirit is searching for us in the sound of silence. Amen.
Texts: I Kings 19:1-15a
When Elmer Fudd says, “Be very, very quiet” we know why. “Be very, very quiet. I’m hunting rabbits.” Many of us probably remember being told to be quiet as children, but no good explanation was given. Maybe someone offered the old saying, “children should be seen and not heard.” This originated in 15th century England and was supposed to apply particularly to young women. Makes it even less appealing, doesn’t it!
We have very contradictory attitudes about being quiet, about silence. On the one hand, we hear the proverbial saying, “Silence is golden.” Sometimes it is. On the other hand, we hear that silence is deadly. Sometimes it is, as when we keep quiet in the face of wrongdoing, injustice, prejudice, harm. The song, “The Sound of Silence,” from which I took my sermon title, captures something of this ambiguity. On the one hand, the songwriter has a vision planted in his brain within the sound of silence. On the other hand, he has a dream in which he sees “people talking without speaking, people listening without hearing.” His response is to cry out, “silence like a cancer grows.”
The words from the biblical wisdom book, Ecclesiastes, are wise indeed. “For everything there is a season… a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (3:1a, 7b). “When” and “why” remain important. When should we speak or keep silent? Why should we speak or keep silent? There are multiple answers.
The story from I Kings 19 offers us a vitally important reason to find some time for silence in our lives. In the story, Elijah encounters God in “a sound of sheer silence.” Some translations render this “a barely audible whisper.” To feel the full impact of the story, it helps for us to pay attention to certain of its elements. Elijah is not in a good place. He has challenged the powers that be, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Jezebel wants to see Elijah’s life end. He was afraid. He fled into the wilderness by himself and “sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die.” This is the sound of discouragement and despair.
In the wilderness, Elijah encounters God – not just once but multiple times. First an angel, a messenger from God, speaks to him in a dream encouraging him to take care of himself, for he has a journey ahead. The journey takes him to Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai. There God meets Elijah in the question – “What are you doing here, Elijah?” This is not a GPS question, but a deep, existential one – what’s going on in your life? What’s happening with you? Elijah shares his deep sense of loneliness and loss. It is then that the most direct encounter with God occurs – not in a great wind, not in an earthquake, not in a fire, but in the sound of sheer silence. One would expect God to show up in a dramatic way. It certainly would have helped Elijah, who felt alone and dejected. Instead God arrives in an unexpected fashion – in quiet, in silence. Elijah is not immediately changed in a dramatic fashion either, but something has happened, for God gives him some direction. Elijah is changed enough that God sends him back to work.
The sound of sheer silence. Be very, very quiet, for God may be trying to speak to you, to us, in those moments of silence and quiet. Not only may God be trying to speak to you, to us, but I trust that God is doing just that in every moment of our lives.
Hear these words from theologian Marjorie Suchocki about how God speaks in our lives. God’s creative word launches us anew in every moment of our existence, initiating the directive energy that aims us toward what we might become. This word is felt within the depths of the self, which suggests that God’s word comes to us as a whisper…. It is a quiet word, a suggestive word, an inviting word, not always easily noticed. (The Whispered Word, 4)
If God’s word for our lives comes to us as a whisper, barely audible, as the sound of sheer silence, we need, sometimes, to quiet ourselves so that we can listen, hear, and respond. What a challenge in our noisy world, in our noisy lives. Think of all the sounds we have around us. Think of all the ways we can keep sounds coming at us – telephones which we now carry with us everywhere (I saw someone running the marathon yesterday talking on her phone), portable music players (any number of runners used those), televisions, dvd players, computers. I can plug my i pod into my car, and cars can be equipped with satellite radio. How difficult we make it for silence, and yet in silence may be when we hear, feel, sense God best.
I need to add a caveat. I truly believe we all need some silence in our lives, for silence can be a moment of encounter with God. I also believe our need for silence varies. For a period of time in my life there was hardly spiritual advice given that did not seem to indicate that a truly serious spiritual life involved getting up early every morning for time alone with God. I never found that worked very well for me and it taught me something about our varying personalities and spiritual styles. So some of us may need and benefit from more intense, regular silent meditation and prayer. For others, silence can come in smaller doses.
Still, some silence, however brief or however structured, seems indispensible for hearing, feeling, sensing God and responding to God’s whispered word.
I recall a snowy night, traveling home from a meeting. Julie was worried about my safety, and I was driving cautiously. I love to listen to MPR and music, so my car is not usually a zone of quiet. Sometimes, however, I turn it all off just to listen and pray (eyes open). Well this night, I did that, and even more. At one point, near the tall pines on the border of Itasca State Park, I stopped the car, got out and listened to the wind. There was no word from God that brought dramatic change, but I felt intensely and intimately God’s presence. Silent prayer, for me, can be recalling those brief moments before I got back in the car and finished my journey home.
I was a candidate for bishop first in 2004, when we were still living in Alexandria. I remember some of the anxiety around all of that, unsure of what being a candidate might mean, nervous about putting myself out there. One morning, in the shower, in those few quiet moments with only water running, I sensed something deep within. To call it a voice would be too much. But that morning I had this sense that I would not be elected at that time, and that it would be alright – and a wave of peace washed over me as much as the water coming from the shower.
Sometimes sermon ideas come to me in a flash in silent moments – not the whole sermon, mind you, but an idea, even a series of ideas or outlines. Some of what happens with this can be explained by processes of human creativity, but human creativity is wonderful in its own way. There are moments in that process when I trust God’s Spirit is at work.
Our need for silence varies, but lacking all silence means we may miss the creative voice of God whispering to us. Shhh! Be very, very quiet. We are searching for God’s Spirit. God’s Spirit is searching for us in the sound of silence. Amen.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Pomp and Circumstance
Sermon preached June 13, 2010
Texts: Luke 7:36-8:3
Play a bit of “Pomp and Circumstance.” How many of you have heard this recently? It is a familiar part of the ritual, the ceremony, the customary practice of graduation, at least here in the United States. I asked Maximme if this was a part of commencement in Belgium and she told me that it was not. They must have other customary ways of getting all the graduates into the auditorium for graduation.
Another part of the ritual, ceremony, customary practice of graduation/commencement is the commencement speech. The quality of such speeches varies a great deal. If you were at the East High School commencement on Wednesday night you would have heard an excellent student speech given by Gretel Lee.
Most good commencement speeches have a bit of humor. “Remember the compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.” (“Kurt Vonnegut” commencement address, but not really Vonnegut). Bob Newhart at Catholic University of America in 1997 shared a bit about his own Catholic upbringing. The hardest part I found in being Catholic was when you had to learn the commandments for your first confession…. One that threw me was “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” Now I was 7 and I always thought the priest was saying thou shalt not “cover” thy neighbor’s wife, and I didn’t want to do that anyway. But apparently it’s only a sin if you cover thy neighbor’s wife. You can cover all the other wives in the neighborhood and you’re home free, but the minute you cover thy neighbor’s wife, you’d better get to confession. Jon Stewart, William and Mary, 2004: I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people who have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place.
Many commencement speeches make use of stories, but I am guessing that no one ever used this particular story for a commencement address. It is a story about ritual, ceremony, common practice interrupted. A Pharisee asks Jesus to eat with him at his home. Meals in the ancient near east were surrounded by rituals and common practices of hospitality. It may also be helpful to know that many meals might have been served in an open courtyard with the guests reclining around low tables – we can picture the scene a little better that way. In any event, into this setting barges a woman – an uninvited and unwanted guest, “a sinner” that is someone who did not follow Jewish customs and laws - - - whatever else she may have done. The woman not only arrives on the scene, she creates a scene. The woman weeps, letting her tears fall on Jesus’ feet, and as the tears dampen his feet, she dries them with her hair. She kisses his feet and anoints them with ointment. In a culture where the interactions between men and women were often governed by customary practices, this kind of contact, this kind of intimacy, would have been scandalous, and that the woman was a known sinner made the scene all the more troubling to Jesus’ host.
Commencement ceremonies, steeped in tradition, ritual, customary practice might not be the best place to tell this story where customs are flaunted, where practices are interrupted so egregiously. Yet the story has lessons, something we might expect from a commencement address – something we might expect from a sermon.
Perhaps the first lesson is found in the very scandal of the story. While ritual, ceremony and customary practice can facilitate an authentic life and deepen relationship with God, it can also get in the way. To read this story wherein a woman who interrupts the customs is the hero, along with Jesus, as a story that is against ritual and custom would be to misread it. Notice that one of the criticisms Jesus levels at his host is that the host was not very gracious. The host failed to offer the customary hospitality to Jesus – ho offered no water for his feet, he offered no kiss of greeting, he failed to anoint Jesus head with oil. Rituals and customs have their place in life and in the life of faith. At the same time, they can be used not to deepen our self-understanding or deepen our relationship with God, but can be used to evade richer self-exploration. It can be used as a way to distract ourselves making it more difficult to listen to God’s Spirit. When customary faith practices simply become things to check off the list, rather than moments to allow for deeper prayer, more searching self-reflection, then they are not serving their purpose, and it happens.
If this story were to be used in a commencement address, a second lesson offered might be about the importance of openness and inclusivity. In the religious culture of Jesus time, to label someone a “sinner” meant, among other things, that you did not have to pay attention to them. Their experience did not matter. Women, too, were marginalized. To have a woman who was a sinner be one of the heroes of the story speaks volumes about inclusivity and openness, about our need to listen to voices we might otherwise ignore, about our need to open doors to persons who might otherwise be excluded. The story is followed by a brief travelogue of Jesus’ ministry – noting that he was accompanied by the twelve and by a number of women!
We need to include others and listen to their voices. As a church we need to pay attention to each other, and to voices of those outside our doors who have questions to ask, concerns to raise. We also need to be open to new experiences in our own lives. In newness and otherness the voice of God is often heard, not just in the tried and familiar. When we shy away from what may be new and different, we risk missing the very movement of God’s Spirit.
If this unlikely story were to be used in a commencement address, another lesson offered might about the power of forgiveness. To be able to forgive and be forgiven frees us to love. Part of the lesson here is about the power of self-forgiveness. Jesus pronounces forgiveness for the woman who has come to anoint him with fragrant oil, with her own hair and tears. Then he tells her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Part of the meaning of that is for her to accept her forgiveness and forgive herself. When we cannot forgive ourselves we begin to hide our need for forgiveness. We are reluctant to acknowledge our own cruelties, mistakes, misjudgments. We need to be self-righteous because we cannot find forgiveness, and self-righteousness is the thing Jesus seemed to speak about most. He seemed to say that it was a major stumbling block to an authentic relationship with God. Self-righteousness is so problematic because it is a fundamental dishonesty about our lives. God wants to break through that. The voice of Jesus is the voice of God, “Your sins are forgiven.” When we hear that and welcome that for ourselves, we also hear the voice of God in the voice of Jesus say, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Forgiveness of self is not enough. We are also to be working at forgiving others. It is a process. It is difficult work, incredibly difficult work. People have hurt us, wounded us, and sometimes the most difficult thing we can do is to work toward forgiveness. It is the direction God’s Spirit moves us. It frees us to love, not trapped by our past.
Finally, a commencement address using this story might draw a lesson about passion. Now passion is not necessarily good in itself. Unfortunately phrases like “passionate skinhead” or “passionate terrorist” are not oxymorons. Our own culture is, in some ways, too passionate, that is, we are too moved by fear and anger – these passions are manipulated rather than thoughtfully explored.
Those cautions aside, however, we need passion, and we need to pay attention to our passions. I have for years appreciated Frederick Buechner’s definition of “vocation” (Wishful Thinking): The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Paying attention to our passion is one place to hear the voice of God in our lives. Again, what we seek is a thoughtful passion. Joan Chittister writes, Enthusiasm ought not to be confused with hysteria…. The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps cool. (Living Well, 52-53) We need to be thoughtfully passionate and enthusiastic about our faith in God and in Jesus and about the way we live that faith together here at First United Methodist Church. If we are not passionate about our church, no one else will be.
This story has lessons for life, lessons that could find a place in a commencement address. I like the way that The Cotton Patch Version ends the story. Jesus tells the woman, “What you’ve just done has been the making of you; keep it up – with my blessing.” Openness, inclusivity, forgiveness, passion – these could be the making of us. These could be the making of an adventurous life with God. Not many commencement addresses begin with this story, but they could. Come to think of it, this story might be the start of a good sermon.
Texts: Luke 7:36-8:3
Play a bit of “Pomp and Circumstance.” How many of you have heard this recently? It is a familiar part of the ritual, the ceremony, the customary practice of graduation, at least here in the United States. I asked Maximme if this was a part of commencement in Belgium and she told me that it was not. They must have other customary ways of getting all the graduates into the auditorium for graduation.
Another part of the ritual, ceremony, customary practice of graduation/commencement is the commencement speech. The quality of such speeches varies a great deal. If you were at the East High School commencement on Wednesday night you would have heard an excellent student speech given by Gretel Lee.
Most good commencement speeches have a bit of humor. “Remember the compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.” (“Kurt Vonnegut” commencement address, but not really Vonnegut). Bob Newhart at Catholic University of America in 1997 shared a bit about his own Catholic upbringing. The hardest part I found in being Catholic was when you had to learn the commandments for your first confession…. One that threw me was “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” Now I was 7 and I always thought the priest was saying thou shalt not “cover” thy neighbor’s wife, and I didn’t want to do that anyway. But apparently it’s only a sin if you cover thy neighbor’s wife. You can cover all the other wives in the neighborhood and you’re home free, but the minute you cover thy neighbor’s wife, you’d better get to confession. Jon Stewart, William and Mary, 2004: I am honored to be here and to receive this honorary doctorate. When I think back to the people who have been in this position before me from Benjamin Franklin to Queen Noor of Jordan, I can’t help but wonder what has happened to this place.
Many commencement speeches make use of stories, but I am guessing that no one ever used this particular story for a commencement address. It is a story about ritual, ceremony, common practice interrupted. A Pharisee asks Jesus to eat with him at his home. Meals in the ancient near east were surrounded by rituals and common practices of hospitality. It may also be helpful to know that many meals might have been served in an open courtyard with the guests reclining around low tables – we can picture the scene a little better that way. In any event, into this setting barges a woman – an uninvited and unwanted guest, “a sinner” that is someone who did not follow Jewish customs and laws - - - whatever else she may have done. The woman not only arrives on the scene, she creates a scene. The woman weeps, letting her tears fall on Jesus’ feet, and as the tears dampen his feet, she dries them with her hair. She kisses his feet and anoints them with ointment. In a culture where the interactions between men and women were often governed by customary practices, this kind of contact, this kind of intimacy, would have been scandalous, and that the woman was a known sinner made the scene all the more troubling to Jesus’ host.
Commencement ceremonies, steeped in tradition, ritual, customary practice might not be the best place to tell this story where customs are flaunted, where practices are interrupted so egregiously. Yet the story has lessons, something we might expect from a commencement address – something we might expect from a sermon.
Perhaps the first lesson is found in the very scandal of the story. While ritual, ceremony and customary practice can facilitate an authentic life and deepen relationship with God, it can also get in the way. To read this story wherein a woman who interrupts the customs is the hero, along with Jesus, as a story that is against ritual and custom would be to misread it. Notice that one of the criticisms Jesus levels at his host is that the host was not very gracious. The host failed to offer the customary hospitality to Jesus – ho offered no water for his feet, he offered no kiss of greeting, he failed to anoint Jesus head with oil. Rituals and customs have their place in life and in the life of faith. At the same time, they can be used not to deepen our self-understanding or deepen our relationship with God, but can be used to evade richer self-exploration. It can be used as a way to distract ourselves making it more difficult to listen to God’s Spirit. When customary faith practices simply become things to check off the list, rather than moments to allow for deeper prayer, more searching self-reflection, then they are not serving their purpose, and it happens.
If this story were to be used in a commencement address, a second lesson offered might be about the importance of openness and inclusivity. In the religious culture of Jesus time, to label someone a “sinner” meant, among other things, that you did not have to pay attention to them. Their experience did not matter. Women, too, were marginalized. To have a woman who was a sinner be one of the heroes of the story speaks volumes about inclusivity and openness, about our need to listen to voices we might otherwise ignore, about our need to open doors to persons who might otherwise be excluded. The story is followed by a brief travelogue of Jesus’ ministry – noting that he was accompanied by the twelve and by a number of women!
We need to include others and listen to their voices. As a church we need to pay attention to each other, and to voices of those outside our doors who have questions to ask, concerns to raise. We also need to be open to new experiences in our own lives. In newness and otherness the voice of God is often heard, not just in the tried and familiar. When we shy away from what may be new and different, we risk missing the very movement of God’s Spirit.
If this unlikely story were to be used in a commencement address, another lesson offered might about the power of forgiveness. To be able to forgive and be forgiven frees us to love. Part of the lesson here is about the power of self-forgiveness. Jesus pronounces forgiveness for the woman who has come to anoint him with fragrant oil, with her own hair and tears. Then he tells her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Part of the meaning of that is for her to accept her forgiveness and forgive herself. When we cannot forgive ourselves we begin to hide our need for forgiveness. We are reluctant to acknowledge our own cruelties, mistakes, misjudgments. We need to be self-righteous because we cannot find forgiveness, and self-righteousness is the thing Jesus seemed to speak about most. He seemed to say that it was a major stumbling block to an authentic relationship with God. Self-righteousness is so problematic because it is a fundamental dishonesty about our lives. God wants to break through that. The voice of Jesus is the voice of God, “Your sins are forgiven.” When we hear that and welcome that for ourselves, we also hear the voice of God in the voice of Jesus say, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Forgiveness of self is not enough. We are also to be working at forgiving others. It is a process. It is difficult work, incredibly difficult work. People have hurt us, wounded us, and sometimes the most difficult thing we can do is to work toward forgiveness. It is the direction God’s Spirit moves us. It frees us to love, not trapped by our past.
Finally, a commencement address using this story might draw a lesson about passion. Now passion is not necessarily good in itself. Unfortunately phrases like “passionate skinhead” or “passionate terrorist” are not oxymorons. Our own culture is, in some ways, too passionate, that is, we are too moved by fear and anger – these passions are manipulated rather than thoughtfully explored.
Those cautions aside, however, we need passion, and we need to pay attention to our passions. I have for years appreciated Frederick Buechner’s definition of “vocation” (Wishful Thinking): The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. Paying attention to our passion is one place to hear the voice of God in our lives. Again, what we seek is a thoughtful passion. Joan Chittister writes, Enthusiasm ought not to be confused with hysteria…. The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps cool. (Living Well, 52-53) We need to be thoughtfully passionate and enthusiastic about our faith in God and in Jesus and about the way we live that faith together here at First United Methodist Church. If we are not passionate about our church, no one else will be.
This story has lessons for life, lessons that could find a place in a commencement address. I like the way that The Cotton Patch Version ends the story. Jesus tells the woman, “What you’ve just done has been the making of you; keep it up – with my blessing.” Openness, inclusivity, forgiveness, passion – these could be the making of us. These could be the making of an adventurous life with God. Not many commencement addresses begin with this story, but they could. Come to think of it, this story might be the start of a good sermon.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Wanted Alive
Sermon preached June 6, 2010
Texts: I Kings 17:8-24; Luke 7:11-17
Over thirty years ago, a book became a national best-seller with a very unlikely beginning. Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. Thus began M. Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled. His words echoed words of others in his field of psychology – D. W. Winnicott: Life is difficult, inherently difficult for every human being, for everyone from the beginning (Winnicott, 31). A psychologist whose works I have discovered in recent years and have come to value deeply, Michael Eigen, expresses something similar. There is no trauma-free world, no trauma-free space in real life (Conversations, 113). One cannot experience without suffering (Feeling Matters, 2).
Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun whose writings on the spiritual life continue to shape my spiritual life. She has a couple of books out that use a single verse of Scripture as a springboard for a month’s worth of meditations. She begins each month with a longer story, and this month’s story is about loss and trauma. I have yet to meet a human being who is not in some way still dealing with traumas, most of them garden-variety incidents, perhaps, but traumas nevertheless. Every one of us goes through some kind of personal pain of psychic wounding in life that changes us. She goes on to relate a story from her life, acknowledging that it does not fall under the category of great tragedy, yet was traumatic nonetheless. Joan was ten years old, new to her school and eager to become a part of that community. But when acceptance came I was not available. The night before I was to be the angel who would lead the procession of first communicants to the altar is a sweep of white satin and glory, my appendix heated to the bursting point and all my dreams came to a crashing end. While another girl made the grand entry in my place, I was being prepared for surgery amid a flurry of tense doctors and the protective presence of anxious parents. They were all worried about my dying; I worried about having to live with such a loss. (Living Well).
We could each fill in here with our own stories of difficult moments, small sufferings, garden-variety traumas – and that is for the fortunate, because some of us may have deep tragedy and trauma as a part of our history - - - untimely death, abuse, deep physical pain inflicted, scarring war zone memories. Life is difficult. There are no trauma-free spaces in real life.
With each trying incident, larger or smaller there is the possibility of a kind of death. There is the possibility that we will close ourselves up, wall ourselves off from some part of our own life experience. Maybe we all experience a bit of that as well in our lives. If we can’t feel it it can’t hurt, though we forget that if we can’t feel it, it cannot produce joy either.
Mr. Y lived a charmed life. From childhood on he was good in everything; he was a star athlete, at the top of his class academically, and everyone liked him. His charmed existence continued through adulthood; after attending the best schools, he got the best jobs,, and people gravitated to him and made life easy. Yet he felt he wasn’t living his life; he wasn’t “in” it. It was as if his life too off without him…. Mr. Y felt good but complained of deadness. The good feeling he felt numbed and deadened him. (Eigen, Psychic Deadness, 41).
This morning’s texts speak to this feeling, this experience of deadness, which tempts us all, which is probably a part of most of our experience. Yet we risk dismissing these texts as fanciful. People raised from the dead – what has this to do with us? People die and we do not expect to see them walk among us again. Just Friday, world famous UCLA basketball coach John Wooden died. We don’t expect to see him on the UCLA bench next March. Closer to home, two friends of mine died Friday – Jean Noren, former editor for the Minnesota United Methodist Reporter, who is also Mary Beamish’s aunt; Toby Horst, retired pastor – a kind person and role model. Jean won’t be editing more editions, nor will Toby preach again. What do these texts have to do with us?
I suggest we engage these texts with imagination, that we don’t set them aside, but risk letting them speak to us, risk letting them transform us. Let us listen to them with the soul and the heart.
When we do we hear something that speaks to us in those dead places in our lives, in those places that need healing if they are not to harden, deaden. God’s deepest desire for us is life – full, rich, abundant life. We are wanted – alive. The early Christian theologian Irenaeus put it succinctly and well: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” We are wanted – alive!
These texts also suggest elements of a life fully alive, the kind of life God desires for us.
Fullness of life is to be open to amazement. I am reminded of a short poem of Mary Oliver (Red Bird, 37):
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Each of the stories ends with people being amazed at the life-giving power of God – the widow of Zarephath, the crowds in Nain.
Fullness of life involves being willing to take risks. Some risks are foolish, but being unwilling to risk at all is death in life. Elijah risks traveling outside the holy land. He risks speaking to a non-Jewish woman. He risks staying in her home. He risks speaking to God in what may seem an ill-fitting manner. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” What are you up to God!? This is reminiscent of so many Psalms, where the psalmist addresses God in remarkably bold language – like Psalm 35 where the writer cries out to God to look, to wake up (35:22-23). Jesus risks, too. In Haggai (2:13) we read that contact with a dead body makes one ritually unclean. Jesus risks that to bring a young man to life. In our lives, in our church life, we need to take some risks if we are to live fully.
Fullness of life means extending God’s work of raising the dead. God gives us the power to extend life. When we do that, our own lives are made richer. We raise the dead when we feed the hungry. We raise the dead when we befriend the lonely. We raise the dead when we work for justice and peace. We raise the dead when we share hope. We raise the dead when we love. We raise the dead when we act with courage to make the world better.
Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to be allowed to play major league baseball – the year was 1947. He was not warmly welcomed. Some ball players threatened to boycott. National League president Ford Frick helped by declaring that any player who went on strike because of Robinson would be banned from baseball for life. On the team’s first trip to Cincinnati, fans shouted racial epithets from the stands. When shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a man from Louisville, Kentucky. heard this, he walked over and put his arm around Robinson – demonstrating that this was his teammate. Reese later admitted that this action did not make him very popular with some of his own relatives.
Life is difficult. There are no trauma free zones – not even the green of a baseball field. We know hurt, pain, disappointment, suffering and we can recoil from life into kinds of death in living. But God’s deepest desire for us is life – full, rich abundant life - - - life where we stay open to amazement; life as an adventure where not everything will succeed, but where we keep trying, keep risking; life where we share life with others.
The glory of God is a human being fully alive. Be a part of the glory of God. I say to you, rise. You are wanted – alive! Amen.
Texts: I Kings 17:8-24; Luke 7:11-17
Over thirty years ago, a book became a national best-seller with a very unlikely beginning. Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. Thus began M. Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled. His words echoed words of others in his field of psychology – D. W. Winnicott: Life is difficult, inherently difficult for every human being, for everyone from the beginning (Winnicott, 31). A psychologist whose works I have discovered in recent years and have come to value deeply, Michael Eigen, expresses something similar. There is no trauma-free world, no trauma-free space in real life (Conversations, 113). One cannot experience without suffering (Feeling Matters, 2).
Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun whose writings on the spiritual life continue to shape my spiritual life. She has a couple of books out that use a single verse of Scripture as a springboard for a month’s worth of meditations. She begins each month with a longer story, and this month’s story is about loss and trauma. I have yet to meet a human being who is not in some way still dealing with traumas, most of them garden-variety incidents, perhaps, but traumas nevertheless. Every one of us goes through some kind of personal pain of psychic wounding in life that changes us. She goes on to relate a story from her life, acknowledging that it does not fall under the category of great tragedy, yet was traumatic nonetheless. Joan was ten years old, new to her school and eager to become a part of that community. But when acceptance came I was not available. The night before I was to be the angel who would lead the procession of first communicants to the altar is a sweep of white satin and glory, my appendix heated to the bursting point and all my dreams came to a crashing end. While another girl made the grand entry in my place, I was being prepared for surgery amid a flurry of tense doctors and the protective presence of anxious parents. They were all worried about my dying; I worried about having to live with such a loss. (Living Well).
We could each fill in here with our own stories of difficult moments, small sufferings, garden-variety traumas – and that is for the fortunate, because some of us may have deep tragedy and trauma as a part of our history - - - untimely death, abuse, deep physical pain inflicted, scarring war zone memories. Life is difficult. There are no trauma-free spaces in real life.
With each trying incident, larger or smaller there is the possibility of a kind of death. There is the possibility that we will close ourselves up, wall ourselves off from some part of our own life experience. Maybe we all experience a bit of that as well in our lives. If we can’t feel it it can’t hurt, though we forget that if we can’t feel it, it cannot produce joy either.
Mr. Y lived a charmed life. From childhood on he was good in everything; he was a star athlete, at the top of his class academically, and everyone liked him. His charmed existence continued through adulthood; after attending the best schools, he got the best jobs,, and people gravitated to him and made life easy. Yet he felt he wasn’t living his life; he wasn’t “in” it. It was as if his life too off without him…. Mr. Y felt good but complained of deadness. The good feeling he felt numbed and deadened him. (Eigen, Psychic Deadness, 41).
This morning’s texts speak to this feeling, this experience of deadness, which tempts us all, which is probably a part of most of our experience. Yet we risk dismissing these texts as fanciful. People raised from the dead – what has this to do with us? People die and we do not expect to see them walk among us again. Just Friday, world famous UCLA basketball coach John Wooden died. We don’t expect to see him on the UCLA bench next March. Closer to home, two friends of mine died Friday – Jean Noren, former editor for the Minnesota United Methodist Reporter, who is also Mary Beamish’s aunt; Toby Horst, retired pastor – a kind person and role model. Jean won’t be editing more editions, nor will Toby preach again. What do these texts have to do with us?
I suggest we engage these texts with imagination, that we don’t set them aside, but risk letting them speak to us, risk letting them transform us. Let us listen to them with the soul and the heart.
When we do we hear something that speaks to us in those dead places in our lives, in those places that need healing if they are not to harden, deaden. God’s deepest desire for us is life – full, rich, abundant life. We are wanted – alive. The early Christian theologian Irenaeus put it succinctly and well: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” We are wanted – alive!
These texts also suggest elements of a life fully alive, the kind of life God desires for us.
Fullness of life is to be open to amazement. I am reminded of a short poem of Mary Oliver (Red Bird, 37):
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Each of the stories ends with people being amazed at the life-giving power of God – the widow of Zarephath, the crowds in Nain.
Fullness of life involves being willing to take risks. Some risks are foolish, but being unwilling to risk at all is death in life. Elijah risks traveling outside the holy land. He risks speaking to a non-Jewish woman. He risks staying in her home. He risks speaking to God in what may seem an ill-fitting manner. “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” What are you up to God!? This is reminiscent of so many Psalms, where the psalmist addresses God in remarkably bold language – like Psalm 35 where the writer cries out to God to look, to wake up (35:22-23). Jesus risks, too. In Haggai (2:13) we read that contact with a dead body makes one ritually unclean. Jesus risks that to bring a young man to life. In our lives, in our church life, we need to take some risks if we are to live fully.
Fullness of life means extending God’s work of raising the dead. God gives us the power to extend life. When we do that, our own lives are made richer. We raise the dead when we feed the hungry. We raise the dead when we befriend the lonely. We raise the dead when we work for justice and peace. We raise the dead when we share hope. We raise the dead when we love. We raise the dead when we act with courage to make the world better.
Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to be allowed to play major league baseball – the year was 1947. He was not warmly welcomed. Some ball players threatened to boycott. National League president Ford Frick helped by declaring that any player who went on strike because of Robinson would be banned from baseball for life. On the team’s first trip to Cincinnati, fans shouted racial epithets from the stands. When shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a man from Louisville, Kentucky. heard this, he walked over and put his arm around Robinson – demonstrating that this was his teammate. Reese later admitted that this action did not make him very popular with some of his own relatives.
Life is difficult. There are no trauma free zones – not even the green of a baseball field. We know hurt, pain, disappointment, suffering and we can recoil from life into kinds of death in living. But God’s deepest desire for us is life – full, rich abundant life - - - life where we stay open to amazement; life as an adventure where not everything will succeed, but where we keep trying, keep risking; life where we share life with others.
The glory of God is a human being fully alive. Be a part of the glory of God. I say to you, rise. You are wanted – alive! Amen.
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