sermon by Torin Eikler
John 3:1-17 Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
I have been thinking about Nicodemus a lot this week. He appears in the gospels three times. First, he comes as a Pharisee under cover of night to ask a question of Jesus. Later he speaks as an advocate for Jesus before the ruling council of the Sanhedrin who wants to condemn him without a trial. And finally, he stands with Joseph of Arimathea preparing Jesus body for burial. That’s quite a journey for anyone to make – moving from a member of the council whose authority Jesus was challenging to an intimately involved follower of Christ.
But, we are at the beginning of the journey, and I have been wondering what possessed Nicodemus to go to Jesus in the first place. I imagine him sitting with other members of the Sanhedrin in the council chambers and talking about Jesus and the new movement he seems to be starting. Back and forth they go, discussing what they’ve heard of his teaching, tossing around traditional teachings and bits of scripture about prophets, and wondering about the sign and miracles that are taking place. It seems that a lot of those present came down on the side of treating him as a false prophet since Nicodemus went to see him secretly. He, at least, was left with some nagging questions, and unfortunately … or maybe fortunately, he never got to ask them. Instead, he was given new teachings and a new question to dwell on: “What does it mean to be born anew?”
Last October found me having a similar discussion in Waynesburg. Four of us got together there for a Theology Talk on the topic of Pneumatology – theology involving the Holy Spirit, and I posed the question of how what it means to have “a personal relationship with Jesus.” The question stems from what just might be a pedantic observation on my part that I won’t bore you with this morning, but it did lead us onto very interesting ground. I learned a lot about more charismatic branches of the Christian family tree in that hour and a half and about the short-hand catch phrases that are used in those circles.
Some of those phrases – like having “a personal relationship with Jesus” - were familiar to me. Others I had heard of but really didn’t understand, and even this soon after our discussion, I can’t remember them let alone tell you what they meant. But, as we four great and learn-éd theologians sat around the table, tossing around scripture, experience, and French fries, one question came up again and again in my mind … the same question Nicodemus had: “What does it mean to be born again?”
I have my own answer to that question, but every time I bring up the phrase with someone else, I find that their answer is different from mine. I fully expect that if I sat down with each of you and we got deeper into the catch phrases that inevitably come first, we would find what … ___ different takes on what it means to be born again.
That’s more than a little strange to me. Even though we have similar cultural background and we all read the same scriptures, we don’t have a common understanding about this idea that has come to be central to Christianity in the United States. There are a couple of common assumptions, I think. Accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior – there’s another one of those catch phrases - is one. Another one, at least in the world of believer’s baptism traditions, is getting baptized. But there must be more to it than just that.
One of the friends I made during my time in South Carolina was a Southern Baptist Pastor. Some time ago, I was talking with him about the altar call that was such a part of his tradition and not at all a part of my experience, and he told me that it was actually a frustrating thing for him.
“It is definitely important,” he said. “It’s important to offer a time for people who have felt moved to express their desire to come to Jesus publically and with a supportive group of people. But there are so many times when people start coming to church in Southern Baptist church, and they attend for a couple of months. Then, they come up to the altar call and get baptized a couple of months later, and we don’t ever see them again. They may say that they are born again, but I just don’t see it.”
That frustration struck a chord with me. One of my biggest problems with the whole “born again” culture is that it so often seems to be superficial. It seems to focus on what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace – “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.” Much of that frustration undoubtedly comes from being raised in Anabaptist circles where the truth of your confession of faith is traditionally judged by the manner of your living. But even when I talk with people who do not partake of Anabaptist heritage, there is the sense that being born again goes deeper than baptism or a statement of faith … or at least it should. Even the image of birth implies deeper change … transformative change … change on a level with coming suddenly into a whole new world and a wholly different way of being.
(pause)
That’s a hard thing to come to grips with. We do feel a little different – at least I hope we do, but in many ways, we don’t. It doesn’t feel like we’ve passed into a whole new world, that we’ve found a whole new way of being. Is it realistic or even possible to be so completely reborn?
Nicodemus struggled with some of the same questions; though to be fair, he had a little more confusion to deal with. The phrase that Jesus gave him was “no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born anōthen” which has more than one possible meaning. It can mean born again or born anew, but it can also mean born from above. I imagine him hearing that and thinking what on earth….
And, of course, Jesus responded with … you’re not getting it. It’s not about earth at all. It’s all about the Spirit. Those who believe … those who get it … are no longer entirely of this world. Their faith has transformed – made them more human through the touch of God’s immense love. They are borne on the winds of the Spirit, moving here and there as God directs them. And to everyone else, they seem aimless and rootless.
There is an image from the film “American Beauty” that has wafted its way into my brain. It’s actually from a movie made by one of the characters in the film who makes a habit of watching the world through the lens of his camcorder.
One day his imagination was caught by a plastic bag. The bag had been blown into a corner and was caught up in the eddies made there by the wind. For minutes, it floated up and down, spun around by the currents of air – a common piece of trash transformed into poetry in motion by the breath of the breeze that gave it life.
Are we like that? Are we in the world but not entirely of it? We are all born from the waters of humanity. Have we yet felt the transforming touch of God’s love? Has our faith made us poetry moving at the touch of the Spirit?
Most of us, I think, have experienced that some time in the course of our lives. I invite you now to turn to a brother or sister near you and share one of those experiences, ... one of the times you have become more than yourself, … one of the time when you have been borne by the Spirit. I will gather us back after a time for our sending hymn.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Shaped by Pain
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Genesis 2:15-17, Psalm 32
March 13, 2011 (Lent 1)
One thing I like about this story, about this first fling in the garden, is the fact that it doesn’t hide anything from us. We get it.
We don’t quite understand God making a whole world, and calling it good. We can understand making a delicious apple pie and calling it good…but a world? That’s a little beyond our grasp.
So when Adam and Eve take a bite of that fruit…yeah. We get it. That yearning. That seductive temptation. And like the ice cream to top off that apple pie, one of the first human emotions in the bible is scooped out for us. Shame. Shame which comes from guilt which leads to embarrassment-- melting into the crevices of our lives. The author of Genesis doesn’t even have to label it as such, just paint us a picture of two nearly naked humans hiding from God because of what they did, and…we know. In fact, just mention the word naked, and it’s enough to make us flush a bit with embarrassment.
So of course, it’s a logical story to start Lent. Lent is the season of penance, of self-reflection, of shining a light in our dark corners and seeing what needs to be swept clean. For all the negative associations around Lent, it can actually be fairly joyful, welcomed. That is, if you just see it as a season.
When the darkness and the confrontation with our demons are confined to Lent. After all, it’s only 40 days.
I wish that was the case for everyone.
But it’s not. For some-- for many-- the struggle with demons is not confined to a season. It is an ongoing reality. A constant struggle with shame. Pain, anxiety, self-loathing, confusion.
For some, the garden is not just a story about shame. It embodies the nakedness, and vulnerability that comes when we feel we’ve been placed beyond God’s reach: by events in our lives, by illness, by pain. So I’m tempted to tread into Lent lightly because for some, it is not a mere 40 days from the shame of the Garden to the Alleluias of Easter. For some it is a daily companion of spiritual and emotional nakedness.
Clinical depression will affect one in ten Americans in their lifetime. And more dramatically, one in four women will suffer from it. That means someone in this sanctuary has probably battled with it. That means one of us, likely more than one, currently lives with depression everyday. And if it’s not you, then you likely have loved, and been loved by, someone with depression. It might be the one sitting next to you, a few rows back from you, the one holding your hand right now.
Depression is not something we talk about openly in church. And I’m not surprised because the Christian church hasn’t been helpful when it comes to the topic. The great church father Augustine, labeled the characteristics of depression as a disease of the soul, and as a mark of God’s disfavor. And while such a theology hasn’t persisted in our contemporary world, the stigma we have against depression is alive and well. So many suffer…in silence.
Which is bizarre, if you look at scripture. Can we gloss over the pain of Job? Can we discount the deep laments of the psalmist? And today’s scripture is a perfect example: while I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Now I am hesitant to transfer present-day medical or psychological labels on people of other times and cultures, but what comes to me as I read this is a deep sense of despair. The psalmist even talks about being in a pit of despair. It’s not “shame,” – it’s a desire for fullness,while not knowing why the body wastes away. A physical feeling of heaviness, an oppression of the spirit. The reality of suffering…in silence. While I kept silence, my body wasted away.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I confess that I don’t believe I have walked that lonesome road of depression, of clinical depression. I have walked with others who experienced it. I have felt ill-equipped and confused, not knowing what to do. So I won’t pretend I can speak about the experience of depression from within.
Recently I heard an interview of three well-known authors who live with depression.
Andrew Solomon is the author of the book Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. Anita Barrows is a psychologist and poet, And Parker Palmer, is a Quaker author and educator.
And while I haven’t lived with depression I found their thoughts illuminating to the ways depression affects the soul. And if you think you don’t need to hear what it’s like because it’s not something you struggle with, then perhaps that is exactly why you need to hear it. Remember” One in ten people. One in four women. In some way it does affect you because it will affect someone who needs your love and support.
Andrew Solomon describes his experience with depression. He says “It’s an experience…of finding the most ordinary parts of life incredibly difficult: finding it difficult to eat, finding it difficult to get out of bed, finding it difficult and painful to go outside, being afraid all the time and being overwhelmed all the time. These are the essential qualities of [depression]. It isn’t, I think, primarily an experience of sadness, but experiencing [the opposite of human vitality].
Anita Barrows echoes this: “Suddenly, in depression you are ripped from what felt like your life, from what felt right and familiar and ordinary and ordered, and you’re just thrown into this place where you’re ravaged, where the wind rips the leaves from the tress, …your soul in depression.”
When we were in seminary, Parker Palmer came to campus to speak . Palmer is considered a Quaker “guru,” and being at a Quaker seminary, you could just imagine the energy humming in anticipation of his visit. Being the spiritual giant that many see him to be, I was surprised to discover he, too, has struggled with depression. And because he was so revered-- he was someone who “shouldn’t be depressed”-- he felt ashamed.
He said “On one level you think ‘this is the least spiritual thing I’ve ever done.’ And the soul is absent, God is absent, faith is absent. All of the faculties that I depended on before I went into depression were now utterly useless….people would say, “Gosh Parker why are you sitting in here being depressed …you’re so successful and you’ve written so well, you’ve helped so many people’ and that would leave me feeling more depressed because I would think, ‘I’ve just defrauded another person. [ If] they really knew what a schmuck I was, [they] would cast me into the darkness where I already am.”
The opposite of human vitality. Ripped from what felt like your life. Cast into the darkness. Maybe more than shame, this is the fear that’s taking place in the garden.
Now take a moment. Still yourself. What is your experience with depression? Have you ever glimpsed into that pit of despair? How have you felt it in your body…your soul? How have you witnessed it affecting those around you? Those you love? (hold silence)
When I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then…then I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave [me].
Then… thank God for that “then.” That turning point, The place where it all shifts . Whether it is
then I confess my sin, or
then…I allowed someone to enter my pain or
then…I let go of pride and made my demons known to God.
Then… somehow, I stepped out of hiding to meet God in my nakedness—or maybe I didn’t even step out, but then God stepped into my silence.
It’s not just about sin and forgiveness, but about despair and redemption.
Then…“In a sense” says Andrew Solomon, “after you’ve been through a depression, it gives you a different relationship with the world.”
Then… ““I think depression sort of works on it the way you could work a piece of clay, so that it softens and it becomes more malleable” reflects Anita Barrows. It becomes wider. It becomes able to take in more. But that’s only afterward. In the fire, what you get is the fire.”
Then… Parker Palmer’s therapist offers him a thought, saying “Parker, you seem to look upon depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Do you think you could see it instead as the hand of a friend pressing you down onto ground on which it is safe to stand?”
That is why we should talk about depression. Here. In the church. Where I pray we have cultivated a ground on which it is safe to stand. Because it is one of the things that makes us more human.
In our pain, unwelcomed or not, understood or not, we become more human.
And that is the humanity that God has, and continues to, step into.
---
Benediction – Rainer Maria Rilke
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
You have seen it growing
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power when you plucked the fruit,
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again are a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
and onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under the sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.
Genesis 2:15-17, Psalm 32
March 13, 2011 (Lent 1)
One thing I like about this story, about this first fling in the garden, is the fact that it doesn’t hide anything from us. We get it.
We don’t quite understand God making a whole world, and calling it good. We can understand making a delicious apple pie and calling it good…but a world? That’s a little beyond our grasp.
So when Adam and Eve take a bite of that fruit…yeah. We get it. That yearning. That seductive temptation. And like the ice cream to top off that apple pie, one of the first human emotions in the bible is scooped out for us. Shame. Shame which comes from guilt which leads to embarrassment-- melting into the crevices of our lives. The author of Genesis doesn’t even have to label it as such, just paint us a picture of two nearly naked humans hiding from God because of what they did, and…we know. In fact, just mention the word naked, and it’s enough to make us flush a bit with embarrassment.
So of course, it’s a logical story to start Lent. Lent is the season of penance, of self-reflection, of shining a light in our dark corners and seeing what needs to be swept clean. For all the negative associations around Lent, it can actually be fairly joyful, welcomed. That is, if you just see it as a season.
When the darkness and the confrontation with our demons are confined to Lent. After all, it’s only 40 days.
I wish that was the case for everyone.
But it’s not. For some-- for many-- the struggle with demons is not confined to a season. It is an ongoing reality. A constant struggle with shame. Pain, anxiety, self-loathing, confusion.
For some, the garden is not just a story about shame. It embodies the nakedness, and vulnerability that comes when we feel we’ve been placed beyond God’s reach: by events in our lives, by illness, by pain. So I’m tempted to tread into Lent lightly because for some, it is not a mere 40 days from the shame of the Garden to the Alleluias of Easter. For some it is a daily companion of spiritual and emotional nakedness.
Clinical depression will affect one in ten Americans in their lifetime. And more dramatically, one in four women will suffer from it. That means someone in this sanctuary has probably battled with it. That means one of us, likely more than one, currently lives with depression everyday. And if it’s not you, then you likely have loved, and been loved by, someone with depression. It might be the one sitting next to you, a few rows back from you, the one holding your hand right now.
Depression is not something we talk about openly in church. And I’m not surprised because the Christian church hasn’t been helpful when it comes to the topic. The great church father Augustine, labeled the characteristics of depression as a disease of the soul, and as a mark of God’s disfavor. And while such a theology hasn’t persisted in our contemporary world, the stigma we have against depression is alive and well. So many suffer…in silence.
Which is bizarre, if you look at scripture. Can we gloss over the pain of Job? Can we discount the deep laments of the psalmist? And today’s scripture is a perfect example: while I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
Now I am hesitant to transfer present-day medical or psychological labels on people of other times and cultures, but what comes to me as I read this is a deep sense of despair. The psalmist even talks about being in a pit of despair. It’s not “shame,” – it’s a desire for fullness,while not knowing why the body wastes away. A physical feeling of heaviness, an oppression of the spirit. The reality of suffering…in silence. While I kept silence, my body wasted away.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I confess that I don’t believe I have walked that lonesome road of depression, of clinical depression. I have walked with others who experienced it. I have felt ill-equipped and confused, not knowing what to do. So I won’t pretend I can speak about the experience of depression from within.
Recently I heard an interview of three well-known authors who live with depression.
Andrew Solomon is the author of the book Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. Anita Barrows is a psychologist and poet, And Parker Palmer, is a Quaker author and educator.
And while I haven’t lived with depression I found their thoughts illuminating to the ways depression affects the soul. And if you think you don’t need to hear what it’s like because it’s not something you struggle with, then perhaps that is exactly why you need to hear it. Remember” One in ten people. One in four women. In some way it does affect you because it will affect someone who needs your love and support.
Andrew Solomon describes his experience with depression. He says “It’s an experience…of finding the most ordinary parts of life incredibly difficult: finding it difficult to eat, finding it difficult to get out of bed, finding it difficult and painful to go outside, being afraid all the time and being overwhelmed all the time. These are the essential qualities of [depression]. It isn’t, I think, primarily an experience of sadness, but experiencing [the opposite of human vitality].
Anita Barrows echoes this: “Suddenly, in depression you are ripped from what felt like your life, from what felt right and familiar and ordinary and ordered, and you’re just thrown into this place where you’re ravaged, where the wind rips the leaves from the tress, …your soul in depression.”
When we were in seminary, Parker Palmer came to campus to speak . Palmer is considered a Quaker “guru,” and being at a Quaker seminary, you could just imagine the energy humming in anticipation of his visit. Being the spiritual giant that many see him to be, I was surprised to discover he, too, has struggled with depression. And because he was so revered-- he was someone who “shouldn’t be depressed”-- he felt ashamed.
He said “On one level you think ‘this is the least spiritual thing I’ve ever done.’ And the soul is absent, God is absent, faith is absent. All of the faculties that I depended on before I went into depression were now utterly useless….people would say, “Gosh Parker why are you sitting in here being depressed …you’re so successful and you’ve written so well, you’ve helped so many people’ and that would leave me feeling more depressed because I would think, ‘I’ve just defrauded another person. [ If] they really knew what a schmuck I was, [they] would cast me into the darkness where I already am.”
The opposite of human vitality. Ripped from what felt like your life. Cast into the darkness. Maybe more than shame, this is the fear that’s taking place in the garden.
Now take a moment. Still yourself. What is your experience with depression? Have you ever glimpsed into that pit of despair? How have you felt it in your body…your soul? How have you witnessed it affecting those around you? Those you love? (hold silence)
When I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then…then I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave [me].
Then… thank God for that “then.” That turning point, The place where it all shifts . Whether it is
then I confess my sin, or
then…I allowed someone to enter my pain or
then…I let go of pride and made my demons known to God.
Then… somehow, I stepped out of hiding to meet God in my nakedness—or maybe I didn’t even step out, but then God stepped into my silence.
It’s not just about sin and forgiveness, but about despair and redemption.
Then…“In a sense” says Andrew Solomon, “after you’ve been through a depression, it gives you a different relationship with the world.”
Then… ““I think depression sort of works on it the way you could work a piece of clay, so that it softens and it becomes more malleable” reflects Anita Barrows. It becomes wider. It becomes able to take in more. But that’s only afterward. In the fire, what you get is the fire.”
Then… Parker Palmer’s therapist offers him a thought, saying “Parker, you seem to look upon depression as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Do you think you could see it instead as the hand of a friend pressing you down onto ground on which it is safe to stand?”
That is why we should talk about depression. Here. In the church. Where I pray we have cultivated a ground on which it is safe to stand. Because it is one of the things that makes us more human.
In our pain, unwelcomed or not, understood or not, we become more human.
And that is the humanity that God has, and continues to, step into.
---
Benediction – Rainer Maria Rilke
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
You have seen it growing
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees’ blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power when you plucked the fruit,
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again are a stranger.
Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
and onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.
Through the empty branches the sky remains
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under the sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Meeting God
sermon by Torin Eikler
Matthew 17:1-9 2 Peter 1:16-21
In the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking a lot about our church. Who are we? What is our vision? What do we do well? What should we be doing differently? How can we bring more people in?
We are a wonderful community of faith by any measure. We have meaningful worship experiences together. We are open and welcoming of a large variety of different people. We have an extraordinary music program for a church our size. We have a good program for Sunday School, and an energetic and endearing group of children who are involved in church life in meaningful ways. So … why aren’t we bigger?
And then Cindy read an excerpt from “Meant to be Missional,” an article in Bethany Seminary’s periodical at the start of our Leadership Team meeting, and it caught me up short. It reminded me of something that I used to know, that I thought I knew so deeply that I wouldn’t forget it: the life of faith is not about us. At least it’s not just about us. It’s really about God … and our relationship with God.
That’s easy to lose sight of. Our families, our friends, our jobs, our good works take just about all the time and energy we can manage to throw at them and beg for more – sometimes literally. They fill our minds with thoughts of schedules and worries about the future and questions about what’s next and how we will get there and what we need to do. We don’t look for God in the midst of all that. We don’t expect God to be there. And so we don’t notice God even though she’s right there in front of us… every day. Perhaps there are better questions to ask, questions that would help us find God. Who does God want us to be? What is God already doing around us? What will it take for us to see it and join in?
There are many answers to those questions: simple ones, complex ones, vague ones, so many different ones that they can be overwhelming. What we need in the end, what we want when we are at our strongest is a transfiguration of our own. To be there on the mountain top and see Jesus talking with Moses and Isaiah, glowing brighter and brighter until we bow our heads for the pain of looking. To feel the power of the experience change us in ways that we can only begin to understand.
For some people, those kinds of experiences seem to be common, but I have only ever had one … and it wasn’t on a mountain top. It was in a wet front yard on the side of National Road 40. I was walking out under the cloud wracked sky, doing a little head-clearing leg work as a break from working on a sermon for class. And, as I watched the clouds moving across the sky, I saw the sun send a beam of light shining on the grass a little ways away. I stopped and stared as the spotlight moved quickly across the ground and then disappeared, and I was caught up in the wonder of creation for a moment or a minute or five.
I don’t remember how long it was, but it was long enough to find myself on my knees when it was over. I got to my feet, brushing distractedly at the mud on my pants, and as I looked around to see if anyone had been watching (embarrassment is a powerful force); I noticed something on a nearby tree. It was a triangle made by three cicada shells which was surprising since it wasn’t really the season for them to be out in force. I picked up the shells and carried them carefully back our apartment, looked at them for a little while, and wondered (as seminarians will) if they were symbolic of something greater – a sign, maybe, or the “calling card” of a triune God.
It was not an epiphany. I didn’t hear voices. I didn’t feel any sense of guidance or clarity of thought. In fact, I ended up slapping that sermon together late at night because of all the time I spent looking for some esoteric meaning. When I talked about it with a couple of my closest friends, one of them shrugged and said, “I guess you just got to meet God.” I liked that phrase so much that I think of the whole thing as “The Day I Met God.” (hmm …. sounds like a good title for a movie or at least a book!)
I still don’t know what that moment was about, and I’m pretty sure I’m in good company there. I suspect there are others here who have had powerful experiences that left them wondering. Peter, James, and John didn’t seem to understand what was going on on their mountain top either. In Mark’s version of events, Peter doesn’t even know what to say when he sees Moses and Elijah standing with Jesus. Matthew is a little gentler, but it’s still pretty clear that Peter didn’t get it. He offered to build shelters for the glowing visitors who certainly wouldn’t need them. Even after the voice of God had spoken to them, they still didn’t understand. If anything they were more confused, and in the verses that follow the reading they peppered Jesus with questions.
In response to their confusion, Jesus tells them to hold onto the memory … to hold on and not to tell anyone (even the other disciples) about it until later. I’ve often wondered about that. It seems strange that he didn’t encourage them to talk it out amongst themselves or sit them down and explain like he did on so many other occasions.
We don’t know what his reasons were, but the opening to Peter’s second letter shows how he understood his words years later. Signs and wonders, he says, are not to be understood. They are indications of the mysterious presence of God. They can’t really be interpreted through the use of our own intellect and reasoning.
That kind of thing is difficult for me to come to terms with, usually. I’ll admit that I live much more in my head than in my heart or my spirit. Maybe that’s why I don’t often have ecstatic experiences that knock me to my knees. I’m sure that’s why I have wrestled so much with the one that I have had. But, you know, as time has gone by, I find that I am less worried about trying to figure out some particular message in it and more grateful for the way it has shown me that experiences with the divine really do happen, that we really can meet God.
In three days, the season of Lent will begin. It is a season for reflection in preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time to clear out our lives a little so that we can spend some quality time examining the state of our relationship with God in the face of the suffering that Love will undergo on our behalves.
Usually, I have no problem doing that. I love the slow, considered pace of Lenten reflections. I love have the season uncluttered by frantic preparations. But I sense that it will be more difficult this time around. Lent is coming late and Spring is coming early. Gardens need to prepared, children need to be played with, meetings need to be planned. Busy-ness has already begun to take the place of quiet in the early dark of winter evenings. How am I going to be able to meditate? When will I find time for self-examination? Where is there space for quiet waiting with God? It makes my shoulders bunch up with tension and resentfulness just thinking about it!
Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions again – making it all about me and what I can do all by myself. If I learned anything from that day in Richmond, it was that it doesn’t take specially prepared spaces or quiet times to find God. God comes to us even in everyday moments and mundane places. Maybe I … maybe we just need to ask different questions. Questions that awaken us to the Shining Presence and the Misty Voice when they enter our lives. Questions that open us up to God’s touch. Where is God touching us? Where is God touching the world around us? What is God trying to say to us … to show us in those moments … through those signs? If we ask those questions and pay attention to the answers, we may find God crossing our path in the yard or on the street or over dinner with our families and friends.
For the next seven weeks, pay attention to the times when God crosses your path. You might find understanding or inspiration there before you. You might not. You might only find more questions, but when you open yourself to the presence of God, when you let it touch you, you will find yourself changed … transformed … transfigured in ways that you may never fully understand. And that’s okay. That’s how God works in us. That’s how God guides us toward what we are meant to be … as long as we are willing to open ourselves to that vision.
Are we? Are we prepared? Are we ready to meet God on the mountain or along the road or where ever God comes to us?
Are you?
[Waiting worship]
Confession/Reconciliation:
Would you please stand and join me in the words of confession and the sending hymn….
Our holy and present God, we recognize your power to transform our lives. We confess that we have not always listened to you as closely as we should. We have not always acknowledged your presence. We have not always followed your lead.
(Silence)
God, we know that your grace and mercy extends to us. May your grace cause us to listen more closely, and may your mercy guide us into your ways. AMEN.
Matthew 17:1-9 2 Peter 1:16-21
In the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking a lot about our church. Who are we? What is our vision? What do we do well? What should we be doing differently? How can we bring more people in?
We are a wonderful community of faith by any measure. We have meaningful worship experiences together. We are open and welcoming of a large variety of different people. We have an extraordinary music program for a church our size. We have a good program for Sunday School, and an energetic and endearing group of children who are involved in church life in meaningful ways. So … why aren’t we bigger?
And then Cindy read an excerpt from “Meant to be Missional,” an article in Bethany Seminary’s periodical at the start of our Leadership Team meeting, and it caught me up short. It reminded me of something that I used to know, that I thought I knew so deeply that I wouldn’t forget it: the life of faith is not about us. At least it’s not just about us. It’s really about God … and our relationship with God.
That’s easy to lose sight of. Our families, our friends, our jobs, our good works take just about all the time and energy we can manage to throw at them and beg for more – sometimes literally. They fill our minds with thoughts of schedules and worries about the future and questions about what’s next and how we will get there and what we need to do. We don’t look for God in the midst of all that. We don’t expect God to be there. And so we don’t notice God even though she’s right there in front of us… every day. Perhaps there are better questions to ask, questions that would help us find God. Who does God want us to be? What is God already doing around us? What will it take for us to see it and join in?
There are many answers to those questions: simple ones, complex ones, vague ones, so many different ones that they can be overwhelming. What we need in the end, what we want when we are at our strongest is a transfiguration of our own. To be there on the mountain top and see Jesus talking with Moses and Isaiah, glowing brighter and brighter until we bow our heads for the pain of looking. To feel the power of the experience change us in ways that we can only begin to understand.
For some people, those kinds of experiences seem to be common, but I have only ever had one … and it wasn’t on a mountain top. It was in a wet front yard on the side of National Road 40. I was walking out under the cloud wracked sky, doing a little head-clearing leg work as a break from working on a sermon for class. And, as I watched the clouds moving across the sky, I saw the sun send a beam of light shining on the grass a little ways away. I stopped and stared as the spotlight moved quickly across the ground and then disappeared, and I was caught up in the wonder of creation for a moment or a minute or five.
I don’t remember how long it was, but it was long enough to find myself on my knees when it was over. I got to my feet, brushing distractedly at the mud on my pants, and as I looked around to see if anyone had been watching (embarrassment is a powerful force); I noticed something on a nearby tree. It was a triangle made by three cicada shells which was surprising since it wasn’t really the season for them to be out in force. I picked up the shells and carried them carefully back our apartment, looked at them for a little while, and wondered (as seminarians will) if they were symbolic of something greater – a sign, maybe, or the “calling card” of a triune God.
It was not an epiphany. I didn’t hear voices. I didn’t feel any sense of guidance or clarity of thought. In fact, I ended up slapping that sermon together late at night because of all the time I spent looking for some esoteric meaning. When I talked about it with a couple of my closest friends, one of them shrugged and said, “I guess you just got to meet God.” I liked that phrase so much that I think of the whole thing as “The Day I Met God.” (hmm …. sounds like a good title for a movie or at least a book!)
I still don’t know what that moment was about, and I’m pretty sure I’m in good company there. I suspect there are others here who have had powerful experiences that left them wondering. Peter, James, and John didn’t seem to understand what was going on on their mountain top either. In Mark’s version of events, Peter doesn’t even know what to say when he sees Moses and Elijah standing with Jesus. Matthew is a little gentler, but it’s still pretty clear that Peter didn’t get it. He offered to build shelters for the glowing visitors who certainly wouldn’t need them. Even after the voice of God had spoken to them, they still didn’t understand. If anything they were more confused, and in the verses that follow the reading they peppered Jesus with questions.
In response to their confusion, Jesus tells them to hold onto the memory … to hold on and not to tell anyone (even the other disciples) about it until later. I’ve often wondered about that. It seems strange that he didn’t encourage them to talk it out amongst themselves or sit them down and explain like he did on so many other occasions.
We don’t know what his reasons were, but the opening to Peter’s second letter shows how he understood his words years later. Signs and wonders, he says, are not to be understood. They are indications of the mysterious presence of God. They can’t really be interpreted through the use of our own intellect and reasoning.
That kind of thing is difficult for me to come to terms with, usually. I’ll admit that I live much more in my head than in my heart or my spirit. Maybe that’s why I don’t often have ecstatic experiences that knock me to my knees. I’m sure that’s why I have wrestled so much with the one that I have had. But, you know, as time has gone by, I find that I am less worried about trying to figure out some particular message in it and more grateful for the way it has shown me that experiences with the divine really do happen, that we really can meet God.
In three days, the season of Lent will begin. It is a season for reflection in preparation for the coming of Easter. It is a time to clear out our lives a little so that we can spend some quality time examining the state of our relationship with God in the face of the suffering that Love will undergo on our behalves.
Usually, I have no problem doing that. I love the slow, considered pace of Lenten reflections. I love have the season uncluttered by frantic preparations. But I sense that it will be more difficult this time around. Lent is coming late and Spring is coming early. Gardens need to prepared, children need to be played with, meetings need to be planned. Busy-ness has already begun to take the place of quiet in the early dark of winter evenings. How am I going to be able to meditate? When will I find time for self-examination? Where is there space for quiet waiting with God? It makes my shoulders bunch up with tension and resentfulness just thinking about it!
Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions again – making it all about me and what I can do all by myself. If I learned anything from that day in Richmond, it was that it doesn’t take specially prepared spaces or quiet times to find God. God comes to us even in everyday moments and mundane places. Maybe I … maybe we just need to ask different questions. Questions that awaken us to the Shining Presence and the Misty Voice when they enter our lives. Questions that open us up to God’s touch. Where is God touching us? Where is God touching the world around us? What is God trying to say to us … to show us in those moments … through those signs? If we ask those questions and pay attention to the answers, we may find God crossing our path in the yard or on the street or over dinner with our families and friends.
For the next seven weeks, pay attention to the times when God crosses your path. You might find understanding or inspiration there before you. You might not. You might only find more questions, but when you open yourself to the presence of God, when you let it touch you, you will find yourself changed … transformed … transfigured in ways that you may never fully understand. And that’s okay. That’s how God works in us. That’s how God guides us toward what we are meant to be … as long as we are willing to open ourselves to that vision.
Are we? Are we prepared? Are we ready to meet God on the mountain or along the road or where ever God comes to us?
Are you?
[Waiting worship]
Confession/Reconciliation:
Would you please stand and join me in the words of confession and the sending hymn….
Our holy and present God, we recognize your power to transform our lives. We confess that we have not always listened to you as closely as we should. We have not always acknowledged your presence. We have not always followed your lead.
(Silence)
God, we know that your grace and mercy extends to us. May your grace cause us to listen more closely, and may your mercy guide us into your ways. AMEN.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)