This is Our Story

Creation Care Series 3
sermon by Torin Eikler
Psalm 1, 23, 42:1-5     Ephesians 3:14-19

Last week our series took us to looking at many images of God and how they can help us relate to the infinite Creator we worship.  This week builds on that by asking to look at what we are like.  But, we are not infinite … quite the opposite.  So metaphors are a little less appropriate.  That doesn’t mean that we cannot learn and grow from comparing ourselves to other things, but it does mean that we need to use similes (you know … those statements with “like” and “as”). to tell those stories.  And stories are exactly what we are telling ourselves when we answer the question of what we are like.

It’s interesting that Linda started off our series reminding us that stories are nothing if they are rooted in a place and time and a life context.  It’s so true, isn’t it?  We hear stories all the time, and they just pass us by.  Then something changes in our lives … maybe a piece of missing information falls into place, and the stories we just ignored come back to us with a power and poignancy that can take our breath away.  Or we listen to one person tell a story and we hear their struggle and feel their pain or their indignation or their pride.  Then we hear another side of the experience from someone else, and our empathy for their experience begs the questions, “How could this be the same story?  Who should I believe?  What should I believe?”

 

In the middle of that last question is where we, as a people, find our definition … at least according to Joseph Campbell.  In his book, “The Power of Myth,” he examines how myths – the stories we tell ourselves about how the world works and our place in it – how they have shaped our societies over the millennia.  Now I have to admit that I have not read the book.  I did watch a series of videoed interviews Bill Moyers did with Campbell when I was in high school, and they made a big impression on me – probably more than reading the book would have.  They were a story of sorts after all.

What I learned is nothing new to those of you who have studied sociology or psychology or have worked in retail business or have thought about how the books, TV shows, movies, or radio shows influence your lives.  Stories shape our view of the world.  They influence the decisions that we make, the desires we have, and the way we choose to live together.  Stories have the power to change the world.

Like I said … nothing new.  Scary perhaps … and comforting, but nothing new.  I knew that even before I watched those videos in English … even if I didn’t realize that I knew it.  What I didn’t know … or perhaps didn’t realize that I know, is that stories shape our identity … our very being.  I don’t mean the stories we read or hear now.  Again … that old news.  I mean the stories that we tell ourselves….

 

A few weeks ago, I happened into an interview on the radio.  I can’t remember who was speaking, and I haven’t been able to locate that information.  But I do remember the subject of the conversation.  It was about the stories that we tell ourselves – our memories - and how they can affect who we are.

It has been known for a long time that our memories can affect our mood and vice versa.  Think about it….  When you remember a particularly sad or disappointing experience in your life, you find yourself feeling upset or less confident in yourself or the world.  And, when you are feeling down or embarrassed, you tend to remember other times when you felt the same way.  The two are linked, and if we get too caught up in the back and forth, it is powerful enough that it can even lead us into a downward spiral that ends in depression or illness.

What this guest had to add to the discussion was a newer understanding that memories can even affect our core self-identity.  The stories that we tell ourselves, he said, are what give our lives context and inform our own understandings of our selves.  If we focus on memories of failure, then we see ourselves more and more as failures.  If we focus on times when we were angry or even violent, then we see ourselves more and more as angry, violent people.  If we focus on our experiences as victims, then we become victims.  But if we spend more time remembering our successes and our happy times, then we become stronger, more successful, more contented people.

 

That all sounds a bit “fluffy” to me at first.  It reminds me of a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch from around 1990 where a “counselor” (we’ll be kind and call him that) hosted a television segment.  His name was Stewart Smalley, and he was a caricature of all the new-age-y self-help hosts that were on TV at the time.  Stewart began each segment by looking at himself in the mirror and saying, “Your good enough.  Your smart enough.  And, doggon-it, people like you.”

If you have seen the sketch, you know that poor Stewart never did well.  He always ended up talking his way into a corner or putting his foot in his mouth in spectacular ways.  Usually he was almost in tears by the end of his segment, but he always turned back to the mirror when his time was up and repeated his catch phrase, “Your good enough.  Your smart enough.  And, doggon-it, people like you.”

The sketch was … funny … but not in the roll-around-on-the-floor-laughing kind of way.  It was more along the lines of I’m-laughing-because-I’m-so-relieved-that-I’m-not-him funny.  (Although, some of the things he ended up saying and doing were funny in and of themselves.) 

And after watching several of the scenes over time, I came away with a feeling of pity for Stewart.  He tried so hard, and he only got worse.

The guest on that radio interview might say that Stewart’s central problem was that he was focused on the memories of all of his past failures.  That’s probably true (or it would be if he had been a real person).  No matter what it was he was saying into the mirror, there was no denying that he began each segment afraid of what was coming.  And by the end of each show, he had succeeded in becoming exactly what his memories told him he was … a failure.

 

Like I said … a bit “fluffy.”  The more I have thought about it, though, the more I think there is truth to the idea that our memories do influence us.  They tell us the story of our lives and so they shape how we think, what we do, and who we understand ourselves to be.  And the more deeply we believe those stories the more power they have over us.  I believe that because I have experienced it myself.

 

Several weeks ago, I told you all about the chant that I learned from Matt Guynn and how I sing it to Patrick when I’m trying to help him fall asleep.  As all chants, it is repetitive and simple, and so in the course of one 20-minute bedtime, I may sing the same phrases dozens of times.  One of my favorites has been “I am a loving may.  I am a patient man.” because, though I often fail to show patience or be openly and extravagantly loving in my behavior, that is what I want to be for my children.

After that sermon, I began to sing the chant to myself more often during the day, and I have found that I have been showing more patience and expressing my love more often.  Carrie has even commented on it.  It may just be that I am reminding myself more often, and so I am more aware of my behavior.  But, the truth is that I am feeling impatience, frustration, and anger less often than I had been, and I think of myself (like I used to) as a patient person.  The story that I have been telling myself in that song has changed how I act and how I think of myself.  And having Carrie confirm that – having her tell me the story of how I am a patient person has certainly helped.

 

The Psalms for today tell us stories about who we are, too.  We are like strongly-rooted trees standing by the water.  We are like trusting sheep following our loving shepherd.  We are like deer longing to quench our thirst for God.  Of course we are.  We have heard that enough times throughout the years that we have attended church.  We know that we are “like” all of those things in some ways and not like them in others.  Similes are easy that way – easy to accept and easy to dismiss.

The scripture from Ephesians, though, is less ambiguous.  It’s a prayer written by a follower of Paul to the believers in Ephesus, and it asks that the people be rooted and grounded in love.  It asks that they be strengthened in their faith and granted to the power to comprehend the immensity of Christ’s love so that they would be filled with the fullness of God. 

It is just a prayer, of course, not a statement of fact, but it is not a comparison either.  It states an image of the believers as a fact.  No “like” or “as” … “be.”  Be deeply rooted in love (like the trees by the water.)  Be strong in faith (like sheep who trust their shepherd completely.)  Be filled with understanding and desire for Christ’s great love (like a deer who longs for water).

 

Imagine if those believers took that prayer seriously.  Imagine if they changed their story … if they stopped telling themselves that they were new didn’t really understand everything yet, that they were tempted to turn away from The Way of Christ in favor of society’s path, that they were a divided community of believers who shouted their disagreement with one another with their voices and their actions.

What if they told themselves that they were strong, faithful disciples whose love for God and for each other would overcome all the challenges they faced and keep them whole?

 

That’s the story that I want to tell myself … to tell us.  We are a beloved people who have been given what we seek – living spiritual water to meet all the needs of our souls.  We are a strong and faithful people who love one another and the world just as we love God … with all our heart, soul, and mind.  We are followers of Christ who are growing together – growing more and more deeply rooted in love as we grow more and more fully into the story that God tells us about who we can be … who we are.

 

That’s my story.  I pray that it is ours….

The Infinite Metaphor

Creation Care Series 2
sermon by Torin Eikler
Deuteronomy 32:4-18

I think most of you are aware that members of this congregation discerned two priorities to serve as guides for our ministry as a faithful community following God’s call to discipleship.  To refresh your memories they are Congregational Community and Creation Care, and as part of our on-going commitment to these guiding themes, Carrie and I will be preaching a series on each during the next three or four months.

Our first series on God’s Good Creation actually began last week and I want to say a special thank you to Dave, Cindy, and Linda for giving us a good start with a worship focused on “God’s Promise to Creation” and the reading by Lillian Daniel about God’s promise of steadfast care and the continuation of life.  Over the next several weeks, we will be engaging the themes of Celebrating Creation, The Steadfast Care of God for all, God’s Covenant, God’s Nurture of the Animals, Our Place in Nature, God the Creator, and What We are Like.  But today we are exploring what “God is Like…”.

 

Sebastian loves jokes.  He has always loved jokes from the time he first fell in love with knock-knock jokes at two years old.  Now, as he nears the age of seven, he has begun to move into the more subtle humor that involves puns, and his most recent discoveries include the ones that go “When is a _____ like a ______?”  A couple of weeks ago now he proudly came up to me and asked, “When is a man like a dog?”  To which I responded with the required “I don’t know.”  And he answered with glee, “When he’s a boxer.”  He followed that one up with “When is a chair like fabric?  When it is “sat-in.”  (When is a fish a bargain?  When it’s a “sail-fish.”)

I am thrilled that Sebastian has finally made it to this point … and not just because these jokes are a whole lot more fun for me.  Understanding metaphors and similes well enough to have fun with them is a big developmental step because it means that he can use those tools to explore and understand the connections in the world around him.  That means that he can begin to look more deeply into life as well as the world around him and … ultimately … God.  

 

That’s what we do after all … when we think about God.  We play around with similes and metaphors.  We almost have to use them because the nature of the Divine is so far beyond our understanding in so many ways.  If we want to have any hope of understanding anything about that Infinite Being, we have to grab hold of the tiny pieces that we can grasp and use them to wiggle our way more deeply in – to find our way toward a more complete picture of what God is like.

I don’t know about you, but it seems strange to me that a service exploring images of God would have a scripture from a book of law.  I would have thought first of the prophets with their imaginative imagery.  They are full of vivid descriptions like Elijah’s sheer silence and chariot of flames to Ezekiel’s dry bones, but they are a bit thin on actual images of God.  The Psalms offer a lot of poetic variety too, but they spend most of their energy on humanity.  So, as it turns out, we are left to look in the books of history like Exodus and Deuteronomy for the best metaphors (although there are quite a few juicy bits in the Song of Solomon, too).

 

A little bit about Deuteronomy….  Tradition has it that this text was a speech given by Moses on the eve of the Israelites entry into the Promised Land – a sort of final sermon that he used to retell and reinforce everything that had happened over the past 40 years.  Much more likely is the theory that Deuteronomy was compiled from previous writings and oral histories hundreds of years later when religious leaders were trying to hold together the Jewish community during their exile in Babylon and maintain a unity of belief and practice in the face of the multitude of gods present in Babylonian society.

To accomplish that task, the compliers of the book took two major collections of the law that governed the lives of the chosen people and imbedded them in a retelling of the story of Moses and the Israelites.  So, even though the title Deuteronomy means “second law” (since it follows Leviticus), it is actually much more than a book of law.  It is a history of the years wondering in the wilderness with the law of the covenant set in that context, and its primary purpose is to outline what the chosen people’s special relationship with God implied by defining proper patterns of conduct that conformed to the covenant.  Alongside that is a secondary goal of persuading readers of the rightness and necessity of living according to the law which it does by relating many stories of how the people were blessed when they followed the law and suffered when they turned away. 

In order to do that, the authors included images of God that the people could grab hold of – metaphors that spoke to the spiritual needs of a people who had just suffered a defeat that uprooted them from their homes and scattered them across a foreign land.  And so, toward the end of the book – in the section where Moses says goodbye to the people and expresses his longing for the people to hear, understand, and remember all that he has taught them about living according to the covenant so that they will continue to be blessed – we find three powerful images for God: the Rock, the sheltering Mother Hen, and the Eagle. 

These three are familiar metaphors – images that we use in church fairly often as we talk about God.  The rock is a solid foundation on which we can build our lives.  It becomes the strong shield that protects us not just from our enemies, but also from the un-looked-for danger of floods and fires.  It is an unchanging, enduring anchor holding fast in the midst of every storm and providing security for all who put their trust in it.

The eagle is the powerful, daring ruler of the skies who fears no foe.  His wings are swift and strong enough to catch hatchlings who fail in their first flights and lift them back into the safety of the high aerie.  His far-sighted eyes search out food and danger and safe passage to provide for its young.

The hen is the nurturing mother who scratches in the dirt with her chicks as she teaches them how to find what they need to live.  She leads her little flock through the world with an eye toward their safety until they grow large enough to care for themselves.  She gathers them under her wings at night and at times of danger so that they can snuggle into the warm, feathery caress of her love and feel safe.  She will even stay there – crouched between them and a predator – offering her own life to protect them.

Every one of those images would speak to a people who feel vulnerable.  Yet standing alone, each metaphor is less complete. 

Adrift and threatened in an unknown territory, it would feel wonderful to have a stable rock to anchor to, but rocks are cold, unfeeling, and unmoving.  They can never understand, commiserate, or actually do anything to help. 

Spiraling out of control, it would be breathtaking to be caught on the back of a majestic eagle who could lift you up and away, but eagles can be fierce and unpredictable creatures who leave the injured or suffering for dead or, sometimes, help them along so as to feed their own hunger.  

Newly come to a new and threatening culture, it would be comforting to have a hen walking beside you to teach you how to survive and to enfold you in the secure warmth of her love, but a hen is weak and near-sighted.  She cannot carve out and defend a space for her family nor stand as firm and enduring protection in a harsh and threatening territory.

BUT, if you ask the question, “When is a rock like a mother hen and like an eagle,” pulling all three images together, then you find yourself considering God:  God who is an unchanging, enduring protector; God who is a fierce foe and strong support; God who is a protective, nurturing parent.  That reliable, tough, protective, living God is exactly what the people of Israel needed in the midst of their exile.

 

Our congregation also finds itself in a challenging situation as do every individual and every congregation from time to time.  Perhaps the rock and the eagle and the hen speak to you or to us or perhaps not.  Either way, that’s okay.  The wonderful and challenging thing about our infinite God is that there are an infinite number of metaphors that can describe her.  So, I offer you another set that you are already familiar with:  a gardener, a shepherd, and a creator.

God the gardener readying the soil and planting seeds in preparation for new growth when the season is right.  God the shepherd leading the flock down paths that will bring them safely to the fields and folds that will nourish and protect.  And God the creator whose wisdom and foresight knows the needs of every person she has made and so provides for them not just to survive but to thrive.

Each of these images is powerful for me (largely because of my own life experience), and when I hold them together, I discover a God who not only knows what I need, but has made ready to meet those needs before I even knew what they were.  I discover a God who knows what I could become and cares enough to lead me in a way that will help me reach that potential.  I discover a God who will uproot the weeds that threaten me and carefully and gently prune away the wayward growth that steals vitality from my living spirit.  I discover a God who will do all of that – who is all of that for each one of us and for all of us together.

That gives me both hope and confidence in the future and it frees me to feel and appreciate joy in the present.  Even when things seem dark and desperate, I feel hope and joy, and I am at peace and content to live and act in the trust that God is at work, guiding and caring for me and for those I care about.