Sermon Series: The Things that Make for Peace
sermon by Torin Eikler
Colossians 3:12-17 Ephesians 4:1-16
Have you ever seen a painting by Kandinsky? Or a stained glass window by Chagall? Or a Rembrant? All three artists work with colors very creatively as they express their own particular take on some theme, but they produce very, very different results. Kandinsky is well known for canvases covered in swirls and geometric designs defined in bright colors that represent something – though you would have to know what he had in mind before you could have a chance of figuring it out on your own. Chagall’s work is much more fluid though equally colorful. His windows tell stories. Usually they are scenes from the volumes of Christian folklore telling the stories of martyrs and prophets, saints and sinners in the watery, flowing medium of light streaming through stained glass. And Rembrant is the guy who painted all those little angels: bored, excited, naughty little cherubs that some think give you an idea about artist’s emotional perspective as he was working on each particular piece.
I was fortunate to grow up with these four artists and many, many more as a part of my education and not just as pictures in books. The English classes that I was a part of in Junior High and High School were a bit unique. We were always a small group, and we followed a different curriculum than most of the students. That meant that we got to do a lot of extra things: attend plays, work with mentors in the community, study the oh-so-fascinating details of grammar, and write several extra papers among others. But the one thing that we all looked forward to was our annual class trip to Chicago and the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue.
Wandering through that museum each year, I walked past wall after wall of famous paintings most of which I have no memory of. One year, there was a special exhibition of modern art sculpture with pieces like “Hoovers in Repose” – a collection of three 1950-60s model Hoover vacuums leaning back on each other in a strange sort of circle – and “Mobil #3” – a group of about 20 items taken from a public park trash can and hanging from invisible wires above our heads. Each year, I would dutifully look at stylistic or thematic sections we were suppose to be appreciating, and then I would take some time to stand in front of the one Rembrant, the three O’Keefe flowers, the two or three Kandinskys, and the Chagall window in the front. But, the place that I always found myself - sitting or standing - almost without realizing it, was in front of the Seurot painting “A Sunday on the Grand Jatte.”
Seurot, for those of you who don’t know, was a pointillist, and is probably the best known pointillist in the world. His well-known works are large canvases covered with circular dots of paint about the size of a large pencil eraser, each dot distinct and separated from the others by exactly the same amount of space (or so it seems.) Up close, they look like the little LED bulbs that make up tail-lights on a semi trailer or a child’s pre-colored water color (the kind where the paint is already imbedding in the paper and you just use a wet paint brush to make the picture come to life.) The farther away from the painting you get, the more the dots come together, disappearing in your eye as a scene from daily life takes form – in this case, a park on one Sunday afternoon in 1880s Paris.
Paul, too, was an artist. His palette was the words he wrote in his letters. His canvas was the faith community. That was a tricky medium. So easy for words to be misconstrued. So important to pay attention to inflexion and context. So many different hearts and minds from all different backgrounds – Jews and gentiles, wealthy and poor, wise, foolish, strong, weak, bold, meek. Given all this uncertainty, you might think that the results would be a muddy mess, but Paul shows himself to be one of the greats. His work not only helped support and encourage the congregations he pastored, it still speaks volumes to us today.
The base layer – the foundation that Paul lays for his work – is painted in bold strokes. All of us, he says, will have gifts – talents, skills, and passions granted to us by Christ. Some will be apostles, holding in trust the authority of the master.
They are the elders (though they are not always elderly).
Weighty Brethren …or an equivalent term in the Mennonite church
The ones we go to for advice when we are struggling because we all respect
them, and though they may sit silently for a long time, when they open their mouths, everyone stops to listen because when they speak, wisdom flows.
Others will be prophets, hearing the voice of the Spirit and passing on that inspiration to the rest of us.
Our conscience, they listen to the still small voice and call us back, again
and again, to the vision God has for us as a people.
Some will be evangelists, ranging across the world to share the promise of the Realm of God and the hope we have in Christ.
Missionaries ... overseas and at home.
The ones who cannot help but share the good news they hold
and find ways to do it that are not imposing or absolute but
inviting and welcoming.
Others will be pastors, shepherding communities of faith through their spiritual journeys.
They help us find ways through the dark and dangerous times of our
lives.
They guide us back to the green fields for nourishment…
The deep, still waters that refresh our faith.
Still others will be teachers, opening the scriptures, the traditions of the church, and the great mysteries to the minds of believers.
They hold the storehouse of our knowledge.
Through study and inspiration they have found their way deep into
the wonders and challenges that live in our holy books and the
wisdom that comes from our ancestors in the faith.
Their curiosity compels them to explore the mysteries of theology
and spirituality, faith and science.
Their flexible minds and skills as moving from one perspective to
another serve us all as they pass on what they have learned.
And, though he does not say it outright, Paul implies that many will have other gifts and callings to other work within the body of faith. Deacons to care for the needs of the community. Those who speak in tongues of angels or the language of music and art, and their counterparts who can interpret their words. Administrators and other workers with skilled hands and logical minds who keep things running smoothly and prevent little problems from gumming up the works. Prayer partners to hold us all – the whole world and each living things within it – before the presence of God, opening paths for grace to flow. Story-tellers to hold our past and our traditions as living, vibrant things rather than flat words on a page.
Every one of us here and every one of God’s children near or far has a special role, a unique color to add to the mix. And Paul splashes these colors – bright primaries and secondaries, subtle undertones that give depth, rich hues that glow – splashes them freely across the canvas as he describes each distinct element that makes up the body of believers.
Then after outlining the image of God’s people in these bold strokes, the master moves on to another layer that begins to bring shape and form. Stepping back from the canvas, Paul invites us to take a broader perspective. With a delicate brush filled from the palette of unity and peace he begins an overlay in which all those pieces begin to fit into a large whole.
Humility, gentleness, kindness, compassion, meekness, and patience… these are the things that hold it all together. With these things, shared in common by all, the bright flashes of passion and talent are molded together into one. One body – the body of believers – brought together by the promise of Christ. One Spirit – the spirit of peace – bringing inspiration and hope to each of us and to the world. One faith expressed through baptism and service to the will of the One God who made us all and whose great love redeems and saves us – who is above all, through all, and within all.
The interesting thing about that painting by Seurot, probably the thing that kept me coming back, was that I could never get far enough away from the canvas to see the whole without seeing the dots as well. Always, the picture was just a little fuzzy – a little soft – because of the style the artist chose to use and the context in which I saw it. It kept me moving back and forth from the details to the larger whole, and with each circuit I discovered something new, learned a little more about the scene itself and the artist who painted it.
Paul’s letters do the same thing as they describe the body of Christ. We read them and we ponder, moving back and forth because we just can’t seem to get far enough away for it to come into focus. It’s much easier to focus on each little piece – our own piece or that of another – than it is to understand the whole, but we are drawn to try again and again by the intriguing way things seem to come together.
It happens on all different levels. When we try to understand the Christian church as a whole with all its different incarnations and all its mixed up history, we swing back and forth from the big picture to the details. When we look at our particular denominations, we find the whole a little undefined and each detail leads us to another until we are standing back trying to grasp the big picture once again. Our own congregation stands on the edge of an exploration in the same vein as we seek to understand each other’s gifts, talents, and passions and how they will come together in the greater body of our ministry together. Even within ourselves, we feel the reflective movement of discipleship as we move from particular expressions of faith and passion to explore the holistic expression of our faith in our lives and back again.
On every level, we know there is a bigger picture, but at best we see it darkly and it stays fuzzy in our minds. Yet, our wondering takes us back and forth, and we learn a little more about ourselves and each other even as we come to understand the entire body and the one who created it a little better. Somehow, in the midst of all the shifting – all the searching movement inward and outward – everything holds together. And, it will hold together as long as we remember compassion and patience and humility – bearing with one another in love. With that as our glue, we will continue to learn and become, growing in the unity of the faith, growing in the Spirit of peace, and growing up in every way into Christ who stands with us and among us.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
For Love of Peace
Sermon Series: The Things that Make for Peace
sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 10:25-37 Mark 12:28-34
It often feels as if our society is fascinated by love. We use the word all the time for almost any frivolous thing we enjoy – I love ice cream … I love the wintertime … I love movies. It’s at the center of the single most popular genre of literature in this country - the romance novel. And, whether they are comedies, action/adventures, or thrillers a love interest is part of almost all the movies that make it big. One very popular television show, The Bachelor, is based on the premise that one eligible young man can interview a small group of women (all of whom are gorgeous and talented, of course) and, over the course of a few months, fall in love and get married. We even have a special holiday created just to honor love, and however much we may complain about Hallmark holidays, we may find ourselves in quite a bit of trouble if we let February 14th pass us by without making some sort of gesture. (That’s only a month away …. Let this serve as your reminder.)
Of course, the love I have been talking about is really just enjoyment – at least most of the time. (Though I suppose some might say the love of chocolate is deeper and more enduring than what passes for love in many relationships.) It really doesn’t compare with the love most of us have for our spouses, our parents, our children … our God …. Perhaps we shouldn’t even call it love in order to avoid confusion, but I’m not entirely convinced that we could really stop even if we wanted to. The habits of our language are just too strong, especially when they are re-enforced so strongly by the obsession of our culture.
Love is also one of the favorite themes of Christianity. That comes as no surprise to you, I’m sure. Most of us have heard about love in church or Sunday school from the time we were small children. Many of us chose to have I Corinthians 13 read at our weddings (or have heard it read at the weddings of others): “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol …. Love is patient, love is kind …. Love never ends.” And, all of us know the central claim of Christian dogma that it is the love of Christ that brings salvation by reuniting us with the heart and Spirit of God.
The scriptures are rife with admonitions to love. And, that’s not surprising either since one of the most common claims about the nature of God (right up there with all-powerful and all-knowing) is echoed in I John 4 – “God is love.” Love laces the speech of the prophets, is written between the lines of many of the stories of the First Testament, and the psalmists decorate their poems and prayers with elegant images of love for God and the love of God for all creation. Perhaps the best known verse from the gospel of John affirms that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believes on him would not perish but have everlasting life.” And, as we heard in the reading from Mark, Christ himself rates the commandment to love God and the commandment to love others right at the top of the list. Love, it seems, is more important even than following the Ten Commandments … which, I suppose, makes sense since all the laws of our faith are grow out of a sacred commitment to living out those two ideals.
As we know, this love is not at all the same as the light, easy love we claim so often. It has little to do with how much we like something. After all, we have all been in the position of disliking – perhaps even hating – someone at the same time that we feel a deep love toward them. It’s one of the most confusing experiences I have had in my life. It is a deeper reality intimately connected to the deepest part of our being. It is involves caring about and for the well-being of another person – of all other people – as well as all of creation in the same way that we care about and for ourselves… caring so much, in fact, that we are willing, at times, to submit ourselves – our hopes, our desires, our plans, and our dreams – to God’s dreams, plans, and over-riding passion for the world.
And since this love is connected to us at such a deep level it is more than just a state of being. It really isn’t possible to love in this way and not be active. Such deep love, as I have come to know it and as I see it embodied in Christ, calls for action. As Anabaptists, we know this in our bones, and for us, that action goes beyond prayer and seeking the salvation of others – though that is an important part of it. We push ourselves to strive for lives motivated by that love – lives of service to others in service of God. And, on Maundy Thursday when we mark the last night Jesus spent with his disciples in the ritual of the Love Feast, we practice the service of foot-washing as a symbol and reminder of what active love looks and feels like.
Of course, the continual challenge for us is to be open to have our lives shaped and guided by love. It is hard, if not impossible, to hold ourselves in a space of submission and openness to God’s will. As soon as we feel the pull of the Spirit toward some action, we latch onto that and work at fulfilling that call. We focus our minds and our energy on the task at hand, and we tend to lose the perspective and receptivity to feel any other nudges that may come our way. Or, we don’t sense any particular leading at all, and we become discouraged. It is just hard to hold ourselves open to God for very long without feeling exposed and vulnerable. Perhaps the most challenging moments, though, are the times when we find ourselves in the struggle to love and care for people that we don’t know, don’t like, disagree with, or judge as wrong-headed – perhaps even evil. It’s hard to find love within ourselves for the stranger or the enemy.
Yes, it’s hard to love our enemies as the news shows us. From the Middle East to Eastern Europe to Central Africa and the courtrooms of western China, people around the world are caught up in violence and struggle with enemies they know or think they know. And, yet there are stories of some who reach out across the lines of conflict and find a way to work for peace through the power of love.
Listening to All Things Considered on NPR this week, I heard a story of Peace and Hope. In this case, Peace and Hope are two men who partner to write a blog about the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, but their story is one of hope for peace.
Eric Yellin and his partner live about 10 miles apart – one in the Israeli town of Sderot and the other in the Gaza neighborhood of Sajaiya, yet it was not until they met and became friends that either man stopped to think about the lives of those on the other side of the border. As Yellin, Hope Man, put it:
“Living in Sderot, not knowing anyone, it just seemed like, well, [more] refugees … another area of the world where people suffer. We are suffering, too, through this conflict. There are places all over the world where people suffer. But, as soon as I started meeting people [in Gaza], it created a real connection. I realized that there were people on the other side – people exactly like us who are suffering in the same way, and then I began to understand the situation differently. The only way to end this conflict is through some kind of connection and dialogue.”
His own perception is that Peace Man had a similar experience:
“First of all, for him it was the first time to meet Israelis. And for him, they were always the enemy, always the oppressor. It took a while to create trust even between the two of us, and I think, over time, we have really become friends. Even though he lives in a difficult area and fears for his safety, he continues to share in this work with me. And, I think there is full and complete trust. I would trust him with my life and I think vice versa.”
In the midst of generations of conflict, these two men have found the power of love can break down entrenched barriers and open a way to peace. In other places around the world, people have surprised themselves by reaching out to their enemies and discovering brothers and sisters who share the same experiences, the same hopes, and the same dreams – experiences of violence and suffering, hopes for peace, and dreams of a brighter future for themselves and those they love. Often, when they come together, their examples shine as a beacon that draws others to join them and small and large groups of people begin to work for peace.
While most of us don’t live in a war zone, we are often faced with less extreme “enemies” in our daily lives…. There is one person in the office who feels hostile and is always dismissing our ideas or undermining our authority. There is someone in our meetings who just rubs us the wrong way. There is that clique that pushes everything through and doesn’t care about anyone outside their own group.
A had a conversation with a friend and brother about two months ago, and he told me a story. His “enemy” was his boss which is always problematic. This man was, he felt, a misguided, unethical scoundrel (my words, not his). As he struggled to find a way to work with him, he turned to his mother for advice and heard this question in response, “Have you prayed for him?”
I don’t know how my friend took that, but I know I would be a bit put out by such a response. I generally turn to my mother for support and sympathy. Even if ask for advice, what I really want is commiseration and validation. But, I guess if you ask for advice you will get it, and my mother usually has a good deal to offer me in those times. In my friend’s case, the advice was all the more memorable for echoing the Sermon on the Mount, and he reasoned that if anyone needed prayer, it was this man. He went away from the conversation with a commitment to follow through.
What he discovered was that praying actually helped. Whether it changed his boss is up for debate. He certainly didn’t see much difference over time. But, it did change him. He began to feel pity and empathy for his erstwhile “enemy,” and that helped him to get past the actions and attitude that he didn’t like. He began to see his boss as a person who had his own struggles and difficulties. As he came to see the man as another child of God, he found that he was able to look deeper, see the good in him, and love that Christ-spirit even if he would never really like him.
I have to admit that I have never turned to prayer to deal with my own nemeses. Usually, I just dismiss them and move on to people that I actually like. Yet, there are people I carry with me. I remember them with anger or pain because they have done me wrong, and they live in my dreams and my fears, coloring my memories and shaping my response to others. I don’t like the power they have over me, but I have learned to live with it. After that conversation, I have begun to wonder if it has to be that way….
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. You shall love you neighbor as yourself.” Two commandments – the two commandments that rest at the heart of our lives as disciples. It doesn’t sound so difficult or complicated, but it is. Yet, looking at the life of the one we follow, we cannot avoid this calling. Christ lived these commandments. He struggled with them too, if his prayers in the garden and his raging in the temple are any indicator. Still, found a way to love everyone, even to the point of praying for his executioners with his last breaths.
That kind of love can and does endure. It hopes and believes. It does not insist on its own way, and it lets go of anger or fear or hate. It does not stand by passively but reaches out to meet pain and suffering with compassion and service. It does all this because it is hard to stay angry, to stay at war, or to watch injustice when the others involved are people you truly love. That is the flavor of the love Christ showed – the kind of love we are invited to hold and to share. And that kind of love is the way to peace – peace and one-ness with God, peace and one-ness with one another, peace and one-ness within ourselves. I pray that each one of us finds the way into that love and the peace it brings.
sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 10:25-37 Mark 12:28-34
It often feels as if our society is fascinated by love. We use the word all the time for almost any frivolous thing we enjoy – I love ice cream … I love the wintertime … I love movies. It’s at the center of the single most popular genre of literature in this country - the romance novel. And, whether they are comedies, action/adventures, or thrillers a love interest is part of almost all the movies that make it big. One very popular television show, The Bachelor, is based on the premise that one eligible young man can interview a small group of women (all of whom are gorgeous and talented, of course) and, over the course of a few months, fall in love and get married. We even have a special holiday created just to honor love, and however much we may complain about Hallmark holidays, we may find ourselves in quite a bit of trouble if we let February 14th pass us by without making some sort of gesture. (That’s only a month away …. Let this serve as your reminder.)
Of course, the love I have been talking about is really just enjoyment – at least most of the time. (Though I suppose some might say the love of chocolate is deeper and more enduring than what passes for love in many relationships.) It really doesn’t compare with the love most of us have for our spouses, our parents, our children … our God …. Perhaps we shouldn’t even call it love in order to avoid confusion, but I’m not entirely convinced that we could really stop even if we wanted to. The habits of our language are just too strong, especially when they are re-enforced so strongly by the obsession of our culture.
Love is also one of the favorite themes of Christianity. That comes as no surprise to you, I’m sure. Most of us have heard about love in church or Sunday school from the time we were small children. Many of us chose to have I Corinthians 13 read at our weddings (or have heard it read at the weddings of others): “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol …. Love is patient, love is kind …. Love never ends.” And, all of us know the central claim of Christian dogma that it is the love of Christ that brings salvation by reuniting us with the heart and Spirit of God.
The scriptures are rife with admonitions to love. And, that’s not surprising either since one of the most common claims about the nature of God (right up there with all-powerful and all-knowing) is echoed in I John 4 – “God is love.” Love laces the speech of the prophets, is written between the lines of many of the stories of the First Testament, and the psalmists decorate their poems and prayers with elegant images of love for God and the love of God for all creation. Perhaps the best known verse from the gospel of John affirms that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believes on him would not perish but have everlasting life.” And, as we heard in the reading from Mark, Christ himself rates the commandment to love God and the commandment to love others right at the top of the list. Love, it seems, is more important even than following the Ten Commandments … which, I suppose, makes sense since all the laws of our faith are grow out of a sacred commitment to living out those two ideals.
As we know, this love is not at all the same as the light, easy love we claim so often. It has little to do with how much we like something. After all, we have all been in the position of disliking – perhaps even hating – someone at the same time that we feel a deep love toward them. It’s one of the most confusing experiences I have had in my life. It is a deeper reality intimately connected to the deepest part of our being. It is involves caring about and for the well-being of another person – of all other people – as well as all of creation in the same way that we care about and for ourselves… caring so much, in fact, that we are willing, at times, to submit ourselves – our hopes, our desires, our plans, and our dreams – to God’s dreams, plans, and over-riding passion for the world.
And since this love is connected to us at such a deep level it is more than just a state of being. It really isn’t possible to love in this way and not be active. Such deep love, as I have come to know it and as I see it embodied in Christ, calls for action. As Anabaptists, we know this in our bones, and for us, that action goes beyond prayer and seeking the salvation of others – though that is an important part of it. We push ourselves to strive for lives motivated by that love – lives of service to others in service of God. And, on Maundy Thursday when we mark the last night Jesus spent with his disciples in the ritual of the Love Feast, we practice the service of foot-washing as a symbol and reminder of what active love looks and feels like.
Of course, the continual challenge for us is to be open to have our lives shaped and guided by love. It is hard, if not impossible, to hold ourselves in a space of submission and openness to God’s will. As soon as we feel the pull of the Spirit toward some action, we latch onto that and work at fulfilling that call. We focus our minds and our energy on the task at hand, and we tend to lose the perspective and receptivity to feel any other nudges that may come our way. Or, we don’t sense any particular leading at all, and we become discouraged. It is just hard to hold ourselves open to God for very long without feeling exposed and vulnerable. Perhaps the most challenging moments, though, are the times when we find ourselves in the struggle to love and care for people that we don’t know, don’t like, disagree with, or judge as wrong-headed – perhaps even evil. It’s hard to find love within ourselves for the stranger or the enemy.
Yes, it’s hard to love our enemies as the news shows us. From the Middle East to Eastern Europe to Central Africa and the courtrooms of western China, people around the world are caught up in violence and struggle with enemies they know or think they know. And, yet there are stories of some who reach out across the lines of conflict and find a way to work for peace through the power of love.
Listening to All Things Considered on NPR this week, I heard a story of Peace and Hope. In this case, Peace and Hope are two men who partner to write a blog about the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, but their story is one of hope for peace.
Eric Yellin and his partner live about 10 miles apart – one in the Israeli town of Sderot and the other in the Gaza neighborhood of Sajaiya, yet it was not until they met and became friends that either man stopped to think about the lives of those on the other side of the border. As Yellin, Hope Man, put it:
“Living in Sderot, not knowing anyone, it just seemed like, well, [more] refugees … another area of the world where people suffer. We are suffering, too, through this conflict. There are places all over the world where people suffer. But, as soon as I started meeting people [in Gaza], it created a real connection. I realized that there were people on the other side – people exactly like us who are suffering in the same way, and then I began to understand the situation differently. The only way to end this conflict is through some kind of connection and dialogue.”
His own perception is that Peace Man had a similar experience:
“First of all, for him it was the first time to meet Israelis. And for him, they were always the enemy, always the oppressor. It took a while to create trust even between the two of us, and I think, over time, we have really become friends. Even though he lives in a difficult area and fears for his safety, he continues to share in this work with me. And, I think there is full and complete trust. I would trust him with my life and I think vice versa.”
In the midst of generations of conflict, these two men have found the power of love can break down entrenched barriers and open a way to peace. In other places around the world, people have surprised themselves by reaching out to their enemies and discovering brothers and sisters who share the same experiences, the same hopes, and the same dreams – experiences of violence and suffering, hopes for peace, and dreams of a brighter future for themselves and those they love. Often, when they come together, their examples shine as a beacon that draws others to join them and small and large groups of people begin to work for peace.
While most of us don’t live in a war zone, we are often faced with less extreme “enemies” in our daily lives…. There is one person in the office who feels hostile and is always dismissing our ideas or undermining our authority. There is someone in our meetings who just rubs us the wrong way. There is that clique that pushes everything through and doesn’t care about anyone outside their own group.
A had a conversation with a friend and brother about two months ago, and he told me a story. His “enemy” was his boss which is always problematic. This man was, he felt, a misguided, unethical scoundrel (my words, not his). As he struggled to find a way to work with him, he turned to his mother for advice and heard this question in response, “Have you prayed for him?”
I don’t know how my friend took that, but I know I would be a bit put out by such a response. I generally turn to my mother for support and sympathy. Even if ask for advice, what I really want is commiseration and validation. But, I guess if you ask for advice you will get it, and my mother usually has a good deal to offer me in those times. In my friend’s case, the advice was all the more memorable for echoing the Sermon on the Mount, and he reasoned that if anyone needed prayer, it was this man. He went away from the conversation with a commitment to follow through.
What he discovered was that praying actually helped. Whether it changed his boss is up for debate. He certainly didn’t see much difference over time. But, it did change him. He began to feel pity and empathy for his erstwhile “enemy,” and that helped him to get past the actions and attitude that he didn’t like. He began to see his boss as a person who had his own struggles and difficulties. As he came to see the man as another child of God, he found that he was able to look deeper, see the good in him, and love that Christ-spirit even if he would never really like him.
I have to admit that I have never turned to prayer to deal with my own nemeses. Usually, I just dismiss them and move on to people that I actually like. Yet, there are people I carry with me. I remember them with anger or pain because they have done me wrong, and they live in my dreams and my fears, coloring my memories and shaping my response to others. I don’t like the power they have over me, but I have learned to live with it. After that conversation, I have begun to wonder if it has to be that way….
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. You shall love you neighbor as yourself.” Two commandments – the two commandments that rest at the heart of our lives as disciples. It doesn’t sound so difficult or complicated, but it is. Yet, looking at the life of the one we follow, we cannot avoid this calling. Christ lived these commandments. He struggled with them too, if his prayers in the garden and his raging in the temple are any indicator. Still, found a way to love everyone, even to the point of praying for his executioners with his last breaths.
That kind of love can and does endure. It hopes and believes. It does not insist on its own way, and it lets go of anger or fear or hate. It does not stand by passively but reaches out to meet pain and suffering with compassion and service. It does all this because it is hard to stay angry, to stay at war, or to watch injustice when the others involved are people you truly love. That is the flavor of the love Christ showed – the kind of love we are invited to hold and to share. And that kind of love is the way to peace – peace and one-ness with God, peace and one-ness with one another, peace and one-ness within ourselves. I pray that each one of us finds the way into that love and the peace it brings.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
(Re)Illuminating our Lives
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6
Epiphany
Reading: "Christmas Day, 1949" (ed. Paul Auster, I Thought my Father was God and Other True Stories from NPR's National Story Project. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001.)
This story comes from a book called I Thought My Father was God. It is a compilation of stories received as part of a National Public Radio series, where people were invited to send in stories of their lives. They didn’t have to be astonishing, or particularly dramatic. Just true.
This particular story, entitled “Christmas Day, 1949” was written by a woman named Sharon from Tennessee. And as I was reading this over the holidays, I thought of it as an Epiphany story. Today we celebrate epiphany (which actually comes 12 days after Christmas…hence inspiring the Christmas song we all know and love or loathe as the case may be). But even though Epiphany comes on January 6th, this Sunday we celebrate the conclusion of the Christmas season by remembering the visitors who came to Bethlehem from the east, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So why is this an Epiphany story? OK, it does take place around Christmas time. It is about giving gifts, and maybe the magi were the first holiday gift givers—a comparison I hesitate to make—and it is about unlikely people coming into relationship with one another, if only for a brief time. These are obvious connections. But Epiphany is more than that. It about a revelation, it is about a manifestation. “Ah, I’ve had an epiphany!” we may say. In a sense, Jesus was revealed to the world on epiphany, as the world came to him in the visit of the Magi, the visitors from the far away lands, nothing like the Bethlehem, or Jerusalem, or Nazareth of Jesus’ people.
In this short story of Christmas 1949, two epiphanies happen: the woman writing says “that was the Christmas when my sisters and I learned the joy of making others happy.” A first illumination, a “Eureka!” moment, a transformative event that revealed a deeper meaning and purpose. Many of us have hopefully had this first epiphany in our faith lives, when we discovered what it meant to be a follower of Christ, when we stepped into the waters of baptism, when we felt an internal conversion--when we finally found the Christ-child we have been traveling so long to worship, like the Magi first encountering the baby Jesus. For many of us, that first epiphany is one long discovery, a journey made and not simply a destination found. If you haven’t had that moment or moments such as these yet in your faith life, I pray that you will keep searching.
But there is another epiphany in the story that extends that first illumination, one that is the reality of Christian discipleship. It is articulated by the father when he tries to give the travelers money.
He says “I’ve been broke before, and I know what it’s like when you can’t feed your family.” This epiphany comes when we return to what we have known, in a new way, a way that reminds of where we have been, and where we might be headed. Or, how our experience in the past can teach us about how to respond in the present moment. We live this in the story of the Magi not because it is the first time we have encountered the Christ child, but because we are invited to return—to become re-illumined by what is waiting for us.
But all our stories need re-illuminating, each of our faith needs a little luster restored. Let’s face it. The Magi story is likely an old one to us, sort of the way the Jesus story can start to feel old and stale. Sort of the way our faith lives start to feel old and stale. Reliving the story of the Magi can seem more like Christmas pageantry, just retelling a story that has been solidified through the centuries.
Rick Gardner, a former biblical studies professor of mine writes in a commentary on Matthew regarding the way this story can move from bland to relevant. He writes: “In the church today, the magi play leading roles in the typical annual Christmas pageant. It is debatable, however, whether those pageants let us perceive the full significance of the visit of the magi. What we usually miss is the powerful impact of the contrasting reactions to Jesus’ birth which Matthew portrays. A more faithful script might include a scene focusing on the anxiety of the authorities over the birth of a new leader who would upset the current establishment. Herod would be cast as present day ruler, surrounded by advisers in three-piece suits and clerical garb. The magi in turn might consist of persons today who come from the “outside” and who are looking for a new order—perhaps an ardent feminist, a human rights advocate, maybe even a new age mystic. In such a pageant, the cutting edge of Matthew’s story would again become evident” (Believers Church Bible Commentary: Matthew. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991)
Perhaps our first epiphanies we have experienced in our faith life border on the sublime, the excitement of finding a child who can save us and the world. Many people talk about their early faith being a “child-like” faith that doesn’t satisfy after a while, a Christmas pageant story of the Magi perhaps. Getting stuck in the initial satisfaction can grow stale and if we dwell with how it grows stale we likely get cynical about our faith. Or, if we are satisfied with simply being happy with what was revealed to us at the beginning of our journey with no commitment to growing in faith, we likely will become terrified like Herod—anything that challenges us will be suspect.
The story of the Magi doesn’t just stop with finding the Christ and with being illuminated. It calls us to return to the world, likely by a different path than we first journeyed. It calls us to remember, like the father in the Christmas Day story, what it was like when we first encountered that experience, and let it move us into deepening faith, and re-illumination.
So we are invited to move out of the pageantry and move into real journey.
As we prepare to move into this new year, perhaps we might look back and ask ourselves some questions about our journey, so it might help guide us into re-illuminating our faith walk in the coming year. If you feel comfortable, I invite you to close your eyes and meditate on these questions that the spirit of Epiphany calls us to ponder
How have you felt distant from God in the past year? Or, how has your faith life felt stale?
How have you felt close to God recently? Or, has your faith life been vibrant at any time this past year?
What is it that needs illuminated in your life at this moment? How can you invite Christ’s light into your life?
Now, hear these words of the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, as a blessing for you, words that spoke of the coming light that would shine into the world, and continues to illuminate our lives: “Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.” AMEN
Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6
Epiphany
Reading: "Christmas Day, 1949" (ed. Paul Auster, I Thought my Father was God and Other True Stories from NPR's National Story Project. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001.)
This story comes from a book called I Thought My Father was God. It is a compilation of stories received as part of a National Public Radio series, where people were invited to send in stories of their lives. They didn’t have to be astonishing, or particularly dramatic. Just true.
This particular story, entitled “Christmas Day, 1949” was written by a woman named Sharon from Tennessee. And as I was reading this over the holidays, I thought of it as an Epiphany story. Today we celebrate epiphany (which actually comes 12 days after Christmas…hence inspiring the Christmas song we all know and love or loathe as the case may be). But even though Epiphany comes on January 6th, this Sunday we celebrate the conclusion of the Christmas season by remembering the visitors who came to Bethlehem from the east, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So why is this an Epiphany story? OK, it does take place around Christmas time. It is about giving gifts, and maybe the magi were the first holiday gift givers—a comparison I hesitate to make—and it is about unlikely people coming into relationship with one another, if only for a brief time. These are obvious connections. But Epiphany is more than that. It about a revelation, it is about a manifestation. “Ah, I’ve had an epiphany!” we may say. In a sense, Jesus was revealed to the world on epiphany, as the world came to him in the visit of the Magi, the visitors from the far away lands, nothing like the Bethlehem, or Jerusalem, or Nazareth of Jesus’ people.
In this short story of Christmas 1949, two epiphanies happen: the woman writing says “that was the Christmas when my sisters and I learned the joy of making others happy.” A first illumination, a “Eureka!” moment, a transformative event that revealed a deeper meaning and purpose. Many of us have hopefully had this first epiphany in our faith lives, when we discovered what it meant to be a follower of Christ, when we stepped into the waters of baptism, when we felt an internal conversion--when we finally found the Christ-child we have been traveling so long to worship, like the Magi first encountering the baby Jesus. For many of us, that first epiphany is one long discovery, a journey made and not simply a destination found. If you haven’t had that moment or moments such as these yet in your faith life, I pray that you will keep searching.
But there is another epiphany in the story that extends that first illumination, one that is the reality of Christian discipleship. It is articulated by the father when he tries to give the travelers money.
He says “I’ve been broke before, and I know what it’s like when you can’t feed your family.” This epiphany comes when we return to what we have known, in a new way, a way that reminds of where we have been, and where we might be headed. Or, how our experience in the past can teach us about how to respond in the present moment. We live this in the story of the Magi not because it is the first time we have encountered the Christ child, but because we are invited to return—to become re-illumined by what is waiting for us.
But all our stories need re-illuminating, each of our faith needs a little luster restored. Let’s face it. The Magi story is likely an old one to us, sort of the way the Jesus story can start to feel old and stale. Sort of the way our faith lives start to feel old and stale. Reliving the story of the Magi can seem more like Christmas pageantry, just retelling a story that has been solidified through the centuries.
Rick Gardner, a former biblical studies professor of mine writes in a commentary on Matthew regarding the way this story can move from bland to relevant. He writes: “In the church today, the magi play leading roles in the typical annual Christmas pageant. It is debatable, however, whether those pageants let us perceive the full significance of the visit of the magi. What we usually miss is the powerful impact of the contrasting reactions to Jesus’ birth which Matthew portrays. A more faithful script might include a scene focusing on the anxiety of the authorities over the birth of a new leader who would upset the current establishment. Herod would be cast as present day ruler, surrounded by advisers in three-piece suits and clerical garb. The magi in turn might consist of persons today who come from the “outside” and who are looking for a new order—perhaps an ardent feminist, a human rights advocate, maybe even a new age mystic. In such a pageant, the cutting edge of Matthew’s story would again become evident” (Believers Church Bible Commentary: Matthew. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991)
Perhaps our first epiphanies we have experienced in our faith life border on the sublime, the excitement of finding a child who can save us and the world. Many people talk about their early faith being a “child-like” faith that doesn’t satisfy after a while, a Christmas pageant story of the Magi perhaps. Getting stuck in the initial satisfaction can grow stale and if we dwell with how it grows stale we likely get cynical about our faith. Or, if we are satisfied with simply being happy with what was revealed to us at the beginning of our journey with no commitment to growing in faith, we likely will become terrified like Herod—anything that challenges us will be suspect.
The story of the Magi doesn’t just stop with finding the Christ and with being illuminated. It calls us to return to the world, likely by a different path than we first journeyed. It calls us to remember, like the father in the Christmas Day story, what it was like when we first encountered that experience, and let it move us into deepening faith, and re-illumination.
So we are invited to move out of the pageantry and move into real journey.
As we prepare to move into this new year, perhaps we might look back and ask ourselves some questions about our journey, so it might help guide us into re-illuminating our faith walk in the coming year. If you feel comfortable, I invite you to close your eyes and meditate on these questions that the spirit of Epiphany calls us to ponder
How have you felt distant from God in the past year? Or, how has your faith life felt stale?
How have you felt close to God recently? Or, has your faith life been vibrant at any time this past year?
What is it that needs illuminated in your life at this moment? How can you invite Christ’s light into your life?
Now, hear these words of the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, as a blessing for you, words that spoke of the coming light that would shine into the world, and continues to illuminate our lives: “Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.” AMEN
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas Eve Reflection and Monologues
a service by Carrie Eikler
with Hannah Kalend, Sarah Kalend, and Jensen Scott
Throughout Advent we have talked about preparing for the Christ child by exploring the many faces of God that come alive in Jesus: the hidden face of God, the comforting face of God, the restoring face of God, and the indwelling face of God. Tonight, as we prepare to see the face of God in the Christmas story, the human face of God, we cannot take ourselves out of the equation. The young girl Mary was given a message that she should bear all of this into the world. And we might wonder, as she prepared to bring the Christ child into the world,
what are all the faces Mary wore?
Mary is not a flat character in the Christmas story. She is not simply a willing recipient of God’s command. At times she does simply accept, but at times she is terrified…and at times she claims that what could be a horrible situation, she will use to show how God loves those just like her, those who society would reject.
These are not different than the many responses we may have when called to bear Christ in the world. We may acquiesce, we may be terrified, we may be joyful! Likely, throughout our walk of discipleship, we will feel all of these: joy, embarrassment, ambivalence, fear, confusion. We can find solace with Mary, that while we might not carry the Christ within us as a baby, we join her in someway, bringing Christ into the world.
I invite you to hear the stories of Mary, the range of her emotions. This night in your life of discipleship, how do you relate to the different faces of Mary? What pain and fear, or joy and thanksgiving accompany you, as you bear Christ into the world? Our God invites you to join Mary, and bring these to the manger tonight.
(*Monologues written by Peter Slofstra, Reformed Worship, September 2001)
Matthew 1:18-25
FEARFULLY PREGNANT
Right now I am very alone.
At first I felt a little skeptical, like Sarah when the angel told Abraham she would have a baby. Wondered what on earth was going on. [Chuckles]
A girl of thirteen should answer back to an angel? I have to admit I was a bit proud of having been chosen by God for such a special task . . . for all of, maybe, five minutes.
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it happen to me just as you say.”
Then I told my mother, “I have seen an angel! He had a message for me.”
Mother was more concerned with preparing dinner for the men. “Mary,” she said, “bring me some oil. Bring the flour.” She was too busy then to hear about an angel’s message.
She did stop to listen when I told her about the baby.
“Mother, it is not going to be Joseph’s baby.” [Realizes what she is saying, breaks off]
And that’s when I began to realize that while I might be blessed among women, it was a very mixed blessing.My mother lives in disgrace. My father wants to know who the father is. “I’ll beat him within an inch of his life,” he screams.
Luke 1:26-37
GREATLY TROUBLED
Joseph came to talk to me today. Now I am very much alone.
He looked so sad, not angry as I thought he might be. Sad. For himself. For me. For the baby. We were betrothed.
He was struggling. Wanting not to believe the voices in the marketplace. Wanting to believe me. Oh, how I need him to believe me!
But he said that he could only believe his own eyes.
I feel utterly abandoned. Even by God. I cannot understand why God has supposedly chosen me for the highest honor ever bestowed on a woman but has allowed my family and friends to totally reject me. If it were not for the evidence growing daily inside me, I would doubt the whole thing. The baby and I are in grave danger.
My father sold some of our animals recently, and the rumor is spreading that the money was used to buy Joseph’s silence.
When I mentioned that my cousin Elizabeth is also having a baby, my father thought it would be wise—and safer—for me to visit her. I can assist her during her own preparations—after all, she is not exactly young.
The angel himself told me that Elizabeth was pregnant! I hope she will believe me.
Luke 1:38-45
DEEPLY TRUSTING
She looked at me and said, “Mary! What a blessing to see you, my dear!”
How ready I was to hear those words.
I had traveled with a caravan down to Judea. My father supplied me with a donkey. You can imagine Elizabeth’s surprise when I arrived.
[Reflects] She called me a blessing. What a change from what the people back home were saying!
“And you, also, Elizabeth. Adonai sar shalom. Blessing be yours, and God’s peace within your walls.”
Elizabeth couldn’t wait to tell me her news. A woman at her age, barren for years, now pregnant in her sixth month.
She was surprised to hear that I already knew. Who would have thought that an angel would have spread such wonderful gossip!
I was surprised to hear that Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, had met Gabriel too.
I told her, “Gabriel came to tell me that I am also to be a mother. Elizabeth, I am to bear the Messiah.”
Then Elizabeth winced. I quickly came close to support her. She said she’d just felt the strongest kick ever.
And then something amazing happened. Elizabeth became filled with the Spirit of God. She said, “Mary, my dear, you are blessed among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! How fortunate I am to have the mother of my Lord come to me. The babe that kicks within me is leaping for joy to hear your voice.”
First, the angel called me blessed, and now Elizabeth. Even her unborn baby knew!
Looking at the beautiful smile on her face, I remembered Gabriel’s words, “For nothing is impossible with God.”
Luke 1:46-56
VERY JOYFUL
I’m bursting with God-news;I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.God took one good look at me, and look what happened—I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
He remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
beginning with Abraham and right up to now!
with Hannah Kalend, Sarah Kalend, and Jensen Scott
Throughout Advent we have talked about preparing for the Christ child by exploring the many faces of God that come alive in Jesus: the hidden face of God, the comforting face of God, the restoring face of God, and the indwelling face of God. Tonight, as we prepare to see the face of God in the Christmas story, the human face of God, we cannot take ourselves out of the equation. The young girl Mary was given a message that she should bear all of this into the world. And we might wonder, as she prepared to bring the Christ child into the world,
what are all the faces Mary wore?
Mary is not a flat character in the Christmas story. She is not simply a willing recipient of God’s command. At times she does simply accept, but at times she is terrified…and at times she claims that what could be a horrible situation, she will use to show how God loves those just like her, those who society would reject.
These are not different than the many responses we may have when called to bear Christ in the world. We may acquiesce, we may be terrified, we may be joyful! Likely, throughout our walk of discipleship, we will feel all of these: joy, embarrassment, ambivalence, fear, confusion. We can find solace with Mary, that while we might not carry the Christ within us as a baby, we join her in someway, bringing Christ into the world.
I invite you to hear the stories of Mary, the range of her emotions. This night in your life of discipleship, how do you relate to the different faces of Mary? What pain and fear, or joy and thanksgiving accompany you, as you bear Christ into the world? Our God invites you to join Mary, and bring these to the manger tonight.
(*Monologues written by Peter Slofstra, Reformed Worship, September 2001)
Matthew 1:18-25
FEARFULLY PREGNANT
Right now I am very alone.
At first I felt a little skeptical, like Sarah when the angel told Abraham she would have a baby. Wondered what on earth was going on. [Chuckles]
A girl of thirteen should answer back to an angel? I have to admit I was a bit proud of having been chosen by God for such a special task . . . for all of, maybe, five minutes.
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it happen to me just as you say.”
Then I told my mother, “I have seen an angel! He had a message for me.”
Mother was more concerned with preparing dinner for the men. “Mary,” she said, “bring me some oil. Bring the flour.” She was too busy then to hear about an angel’s message.
She did stop to listen when I told her about the baby.
“Mother, it is not going to be Joseph’s baby.” [Realizes what she is saying, breaks off]
And that’s when I began to realize that while I might be blessed among women, it was a very mixed blessing.My mother lives in disgrace. My father wants to know who the father is. “I’ll beat him within an inch of his life,” he screams.
Luke 1:26-37
GREATLY TROUBLED
Joseph came to talk to me today. Now I am very much alone.
He looked so sad, not angry as I thought he might be. Sad. For himself. For me. For the baby. We were betrothed.
He was struggling. Wanting not to believe the voices in the marketplace. Wanting to believe me. Oh, how I need him to believe me!
But he said that he could only believe his own eyes.
I feel utterly abandoned. Even by God. I cannot understand why God has supposedly chosen me for the highest honor ever bestowed on a woman but has allowed my family and friends to totally reject me. If it were not for the evidence growing daily inside me, I would doubt the whole thing. The baby and I are in grave danger.
My father sold some of our animals recently, and the rumor is spreading that the money was used to buy Joseph’s silence.
When I mentioned that my cousin Elizabeth is also having a baby, my father thought it would be wise—and safer—for me to visit her. I can assist her during her own preparations—after all, she is not exactly young.
The angel himself told me that Elizabeth was pregnant! I hope she will believe me.
Luke 1:38-45
DEEPLY TRUSTING
She looked at me and said, “Mary! What a blessing to see you, my dear!”
How ready I was to hear those words.
I had traveled with a caravan down to Judea. My father supplied me with a donkey. You can imagine Elizabeth’s surprise when I arrived.
[Reflects] She called me a blessing. What a change from what the people back home were saying!
“And you, also, Elizabeth. Adonai sar shalom. Blessing be yours, and God’s peace within your walls.”
Elizabeth couldn’t wait to tell me her news. A woman at her age, barren for years, now pregnant in her sixth month.
She was surprised to hear that I already knew. Who would have thought that an angel would have spread such wonderful gossip!
I was surprised to hear that Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, had met Gabriel too.
I told her, “Gabriel came to tell me that I am also to be a mother. Elizabeth, I am to bear the Messiah.”
Then Elizabeth winced. I quickly came close to support her. She said she’d just felt the strongest kick ever.
And then something amazing happened. Elizabeth became filled with the Spirit of God. She said, “Mary, my dear, you are blessed among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! How fortunate I am to have the mother of my Lord come to me. The babe that kicks within me is leaping for joy to hear your voice.”
First, the angel called me blessed, and now Elizabeth. Even her unborn baby knew!
Looking at the beautiful smile on her face, I remembered Gabriel’s words, “For nothing is impossible with God.”
Luke 1:46-56
VERY JOYFUL
I’m bursting with God-news;I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.God took one good look at me, and look what happened—I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
He remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
beginning with Abraham and right up to now!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Preparation
sermon by Carrie Eikler
with solos by Jacob Lewellen
Luke 1:47-662 Samuel 7:1-11
People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
In 1928, Eleanor Farjeorn wrote the text and tune to one of my favorite Advent hymns, People Look East. Bringing together the festive preparations of one's home with the faithful preparation of one's heart for Christ, the guest, she somehow ties up all the tricky feelings I have around Christmas. Like-- love the decorations, the smells, the bells, the parties, what many would call "the trappings" of the season.
And as I think about preparing my home for Christmastime, it leads me to wonder, how am I preparing myself to again receive the meaning of the Christ-child into my life? At our Simplicity Circle last Saturday night, we were discussing rituals handed down to us, or ones we have created in order to reclaim some of the perspective during the Christmas season. Sue Overman shared a story: when her children will little, they found an old manger--or something to work as a manger--and a bale of straw from the Yoder’s. All throughout Advent, when the children did something kind, or helpful, or good they were able to take some straw from the straw bale and lay it in the manger. By the kind and generous acts of the children, they were in a way, helping prepare a place for the baby Jesus, not just in the manger, but in their hearts and lives as well.
But preparation is a complicated thing. As much as we may talk about Advent being a time of preparing, we know that Christmas comes anyway whether or not we are prepared. But what if we took it seriously? What if we thought of Jesus as in the hymn, as Love, a guest who is coming to dwell with us? There are things we would want to do to make ourselves ready, not because our guest won't come if the cobwebs of our soul aren't swept away, or the dust of our spirits brushed aside. But, because we know that when we've prepared, we enjoy the grace of the company of our guest, and we are more comfortable dwelling with one another. People look east and sing today; Love the guest is on the way.
Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.
In talking about houses we are presented with a minor conflict in our reading from 2nd Samuel today, a conflict of interest between King David and God. At this point in Israel’s history, David has secured his kingdom as well as a palace for himself. Up to this point, the Israelites have been carrying the Ark of the Covenant wherever they went on their nomadic journeys. This ark was believed to house the spirit of the Lord. When they were stable for a while, the ark resided not in a permanent temple, but in a tent, or tabernacle, that could be raised and lowered as the need presented itself.
But now that David feels secure in his kingship, he would like to build a temple for the Lord, which was not an unwise political move. Ancient Near Eastern kings would often engage in temple building to legitimize their rule and ensure favor from their gods. But it would be David’s son, Solomon, who would build this grand temple in Jerusalem, not David. In fact, God lovingly chastised David, through the prophet Nathan, essentially saying, “I haven’t had a house up till now, what makes you think I need one?”
In fact, the LORD seems to prefer the movable system, saying it allowed him to be among the people. This divine freedom appears threatened by the idea of a permanent residence, and as commentator Bruce Birch explores the idea of building a temple is treated as an “attempt to domesticate and control the presence of God.” (NIB, 1257). So to David’s lofty ambitions, God responds with a proposal of a different house.
It is through David that God proposes to build not a house of worship, but a house of descendents. It is through David’s line that God will multiply and build a people who will worship and house God in their very beings, almost as if it is in their blood. God’s desire to be among the people may just in fact translate into God being within the people. And for the early Christians, who look at the life of Jesus, this promise becomes clear in a new way. The seed that will be nourished with God’s presence will flourish not in the bricks and mortar building, but the flesh and blood people, and most intimately, and most clearly in the life and love of one person. People look east and sing today, love the rose is on the way.
Stars keep the watch. When night is dim,
one more light the bowl shall brim,
shining beyond the frosty weather,
bright as sun and moon together.
People look east and sing today;
Love, the Star, is on the way.
So I wonder what Mary thinks about all this. What does it mean to her that her betrothed, Joseph, is in David’s line, that an angel has just told her she would bear a child without regard that she is a virgin, and that she is in all senses housing the messiah in her womb? Her people have been occupied for generations, the glory days of David’s kingdom is in the distant past! Who is she to give birth to the one who would save her people?
The author of Luke acknowledges the social humiliation of what it would mean for Mary to be an unwed mother. He purposefully transforms the shameful situation into a story of exaltation, in the words we heard today…Mary’s Magnificat. In accepting the bitterness of her situation, she realizes that even lines of kings and wealthy men have nothing on the God who loves the poor and sets the captives free, who looks on the lowly with thanksgiving. And if we needed more proof, just take a look at Jesus’ genealogy as recorded in Matthew.
Now if you have ever read the first chapter of Matthew you will know it begins as a rambling account of fathers begetting sons, 14 verses of generally meaningless names to many of us. There are names of men who we read found favor with God, and men who were less than idyllic forebears to the chosen one. But interestingly, in what is generally a male-dominated account of proving Jesus’ ties to the royal David dynasty, there are four women mentioned, aside from Mary. I don’t blame you if you missed it, because generally we like to skip over the boring genealogy to get to the good stuff.
But in the genealogy there is Tamar, a woman whose used sexual power against her father-in-law in order to assure the rights coming to her as a widow; Rahab, who is a prostitute; Ruth, who is an foreigner and is devoted to her mother-in-law even in the face of new marriage; and the wife of Uriah who is known to us as Bathsheba, another sexually promiscuous woman whose illicit affair with King David bore a son.
This is the house that God has chosen to dwell in. These are men and women that were not embarrassing enough to sweep under the rug, but human enough to nail down in writing!
We are the house that God has chosen to dwell in! So even if we think we’re not where we should be, or where we want to be, or the perfect vessels to do ministry, or to do justice, or to do mercy, we are reminded that preparation and perfection are not the same thing.
So maybe it’s not a matter of being 100% prepared to be a house for God, but the act of preparing that is the real transformative work. Mary prepares: in the midst of social stigma and without seeing her child, she prophetically proclaims her love for God and willingness to be used by God…she prepares. Tamar, and Rahab, and Bathsheba and Ruth prepare: when they accept God working through them to teach us something in spite of desperate decisions or by simply being an outsider…they prepare. Even King David prepares: when he steps back from plans that may only serve his desire to show political strength…he prepares to begin the message that God dwells brightly with the people. People look east and sing today, Love, the Star, is on the way
Angels announce with shouts of mirth
him who brings new life to earth.
Set ev’ry peak and valley humming
with the word, the Lord is coming.
People look east and sing today;
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
And we? It’s not a question about if we are prepared to receive Christ, but how we are preparing to receive him. How do we make room for Christ in our daily living? How do we acknowledge our bodies as vessels of the Christ? How do we treat our world as the home where God dwells, on earth as it is in heaven? It’s one thing to think about receiving a tiny baby Jesus, with the warm feelings of Christmas cards and lyrics that paint a silent night. But it’s another to think, how we are preparing to be houses for the man who will challenge us, startle us, move us towards discipleship, and live and die with us as all human beings live and die. How do we prepare ourselves for receiving that Jesus?
It’s all in the preparation, and the assurance that in spite of our flaws, our cobwebs and dust bunnies, our skeletons in the closet, God already made the decision to come to us and dwell within us.
As we prepare to move into a time of waiting worship, hear these words from poet Ann Weems—(Kneeling in Bethlehem, 13)
Our God is the One who comes to us
in a burning bush,
in an angel's song,
in a newborn child.
Our God is the One who comes cannot be found
locked in the church,
not even in the sanctuary.
Our God will be where God will be
with no constraints,
no predictability.
Our God lives where our God lives,
and destruction has no power
and even death cannot stop
the living.
Our God will be born where God will be born,
but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us.
When God is ready
God will come
even to a godforsaken place
like a stable in Bethlehem.
Watch...
for you know not when God comes.
Watch, that you might be found
whenever
wherever
God comes.
with solos by Jacob Lewellen
Luke 1:47-662 Samuel 7:1-11
People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
In 1928, Eleanor Farjeorn wrote the text and tune to one of my favorite Advent hymns, People Look East. Bringing together the festive preparations of one's home with the faithful preparation of one's heart for Christ, the guest, she somehow ties up all the tricky feelings I have around Christmas. Like-- love the decorations, the smells, the bells, the parties, what many would call "the trappings" of the season.
And as I think about preparing my home for Christmastime, it leads me to wonder, how am I preparing myself to again receive the meaning of the Christ-child into my life? At our Simplicity Circle last Saturday night, we were discussing rituals handed down to us, or ones we have created in order to reclaim some of the perspective during the Christmas season. Sue Overman shared a story: when her children will little, they found an old manger--or something to work as a manger--and a bale of straw from the Yoder’s. All throughout Advent, when the children did something kind, or helpful, or good they were able to take some straw from the straw bale and lay it in the manger. By the kind and generous acts of the children, they were in a way, helping prepare a place for the baby Jesus, not just in the manger, but in their hearts and lives as well.
But preparation is a complicated thing. As much as we may talk about Advent being a time of preparing, we know that Christmas comes anyway whether or not we are prepared. But what if we took it seriously? What if we thought of Jesus as in the hymn, as Love, a guest who is coming to dwell with us? There are things we would want to do to make ourselves ready, not because our guest won't come if the cobwebs of our soul aren't swept away, or the dust of our spirits brushed aside. But, because we know that when we've prepared, we enjoy the grace of the company of our guest, and we are more comfortable dwelling with one another. People look east and sing today; Love the guest is on the way.
Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.
In talking about houses we are presented with a minor conflict in our reading from 2nd Samuel today, a conflict of interest between King David and God. At this point in Israel’s history, David has secured his kingdom as well as a palace for himself. Up to this point, the Israelites have been carrying the Ark of the Covenant wherever they went on their nomadic journeys. This ark was believed to house the spirit of the Lord. When they were stable for a while, the ark resided not in a permanent temple, but in a tent, or tabernacle, that could be raised and lowered as the need presented itself.
But now that David feels secure in his kingship, he would like to build a temple for the Lord, which was not an unwise political move. Ancient Near Eastern kings would often engage in temple building to legitimize their rule and ensure favor from their gods. But it would be David’s son, Solomon, who would build this grand temple in Jerusalem, not David. In fact, God lovingly chastised David, through the prophet Nathan, essentially saying, “I haven’t had a house up till now, what makes you think I need one?”
In fact, the LORD seems to prefer the movable system, saying it allowed him to be among the people. This divine freedom appears threatened by the idea of a permanent residence, and as commentator Bruce Birch explores the idea of building a temple is treated as an “attempt to domesticate and control the presence of God.” (NIB, 1257). So to David’s lofty ambitions, God responds with a proposal of a different house.
It is through David that God proposes to build not a house of worship, but a house of descendents. It is through David’s line that God will multiply and build a people who will worship and house God in their very beings, almost as if it is in their blood. God’s desire to be among the people may just in fact translate into God being within the people. And for the early Christians, who look at the life of Jesus, this promise becomes clear in a new way. The seed that will be nourished with God’s presence will flourish not in the bricks and mortar building, but the flesh and blood people, and most intimately, and most clearly in the life and love of one person. People look east and sing today, love the rose is on the way.
Stars keep the watch. When night is dim,
one more light the bowl shall brim,
shining beyond the frosty weather,
bright as sun and moon together.
People look east and sing today;
Love, the Star, is on the way.
So I wonder what Mary thinks about all this. What does it mean to her that her betrothed, Joseph, is in David’s line, that an angel has just told her she would bear a child without regard that she is a virgin, and that she is in all senses housing the messiah in her womb? Her people have been occupied for generations, the glory days of David’s kingdom is in the distant past! Who is she to give birth to the one who would save her people?
The author of Luke acknowledges the social humiliation of what it would mean for Mary to be an unwed mother. He purposefully transforms the shameful situation into a story of exaltation, in the words we heard today…Mary’s Magnificat. In accepting the bitterness of her situation, she realizes that even lines of kings and wealthy men have nothing on the God who loves the poor and sets the captives free, who looks on the lowly with thanksgiving. And if we needed more proof, just take a look at Jesus’ genealogy as recorded in Matthew.
Now if you have ever read the first chapter of Matthew you will know it begins as a rambling account of fathers begetting sons, 14 verses of generally meaningless names to many of us. There are names of men who we read found favor with God, and men who were less than idyllic forebears to the chosen one. But interestingly, in what is generally a male-dominated account of proving Jesus’ ties to the royal David dynasty, there are four women mentioned, aside from Mary. I don’t blame you if you missed it, because generally we like to skip over the boring genealogy to get to the good stuff.
But in the genealogy there is Tamar, a woman whose used sexual power against her father-in-law in order to assure the rights coming to her as a widow; Rahab, who is a prostitute; Ruth, who is an foreigner and is devoted to her mother-in-law even in the face of new marriage; and the wife of Uriah who is known to us as Bathsheba, another sexually promiscuous woman whose illicit affair with King David bore a son.
This is the house that God has chosen to dwell in. These are men and women that were not embarrassing enough to sweep under the rug, but human enough to nail down in writing!
We are the house that God has chosen to dwell in! So even if we think we’re not where we should be, or where we want to be, or the perfect vessels to do ministry, or to do justice, or to do mercy, we are reminded that preparation and perfection are not the same thing.
So maybe it’s not a matter of being 100% prepared to be a house for God, but the act of preparing that is the real transformative work. Mary prepares: in the midst of social stigma and without seeing her child, she prophetically proclaims her love for God and willingness to be used by God…she prepares. Tamar, and Rahab, and Bathsheba and Ruth prepare: when they accept God working through them to teach us something in spite of desperate decisions or by simply being an outsider…they prepare. Even King David prepares: when he steps back from plans that may only serve his desire to show political strength…he prepares to begin the message that God dwells brightly with the people. People look east and sing today, Love, the Star, is on the way
Angels announce with shouts of mirth
him who brings new life to earth.
Set ev’ry peak and valley humming
with the word, the Lord is coming.
People look east and sing today;
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
And we? It’s not a question about if we are prepared to receive Christ, but how we are preparing to receive him. How do we make room for Christ in our daily living? How do we acknowledge our bodies as vessels of the Christ? How do we treat our world as the home where God dwells, on earth as it is in heaven? It’s one thing to think about receiving a tiny baby Jesus, with the warm feelings of Christmas cards and lyrics that paint a silent night. But it’s another to think, how we are preparing to be houses for the man who will challenge us, startle us, move us towards discipleship, and live and die with us as all human beings live and die. How do we prepare ourselves for receiving that Jesus?
It’s all in the preparation, and the assurance that in spite of our flaws, our cobwebs and dust bunnies, our skeletons in the closet, God already made the decision to come to us and dwell within us.
As we prepare to move into a time of waiting worship, hear these words from poet Ann Weems—(Kneeling in Bethlehem, 13)
Our God is the One who comes to us
in a burning bush,
in an angel's song,
in a newborn child.
Our God is the One who comes cannot be found
locked in the church,
not even in the sanctuary.
Our God will be where God will be
with no constraints,
no predictability.
Our God lives where our God lives,
and destruction has no power
and even death cannot stop
the living.
Our God will be born where God will be born,
but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us.
When God is ready
God will come
even to a godforsaken place
like a stable in Bethlehem.
Watch...
for you know not when God comes.
Watch, that you might be found
whenever
wherever
God comes.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Making Things New
sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 John 1:6-8, 19-28
In 1996 and ’97 there was a rash of church burnings in this country. Most of the churches that were targeted were African American churches though a few were the home of predominately white congregations. Burnings like those are nothing new. There have been at least three black churches burned every year since before the Civil War with the occasional white church thrown in the mix. And, if talking about it this way seems a little crass or uncaring, the reality in the United States is that most people don’t know about this disturbing incarnation of bigotry and those who do tend to take it for granted as just another reality of life in this culture. The big difference this time was all in the numbers – and, of course, the media coverage. Over the course of those two years, over 180 churches were the victims of intentional arson and most cases included obvious evidence of racial motivation. A few churches a year spread across the south don’t make nearly as good a story as a wave of attacks reaching from Florida to Texas to Oregon to New York.
As sad as this truth is, there was good that came out of the increased news coverage. Not only did the National Council of Churches begin an ecumenical effort to link churches in a push to rebuild, industrial suppliers donated millions of dollars worth of materials to the effort. And, even more surprising, the response of pastors and congregants who were interviewed all across the nation did not, for the most part, express anger or a desire for vengeance. Their response was sadness and regret for the conditions that produced so much hate between Christians from different backgrounds. Many times pastors reflected that they would prefer that the arsonists were not punished according to the laws involved but that they were asked – not forced, just asked – to attend worship services with the congregations they had wounded for a year in the faith that they would come to appreciate the power of a diverse unity in the body of Christ. Those words of compassion and hope were small, important steps away from division and toward restoration in the community of faith.
I had the privilege of working with a congregation as they continued down that path in search of renewal. Their pastor was one of those who expressed compassion instead of fury, but when I arrived to help with the reconstruction of their church they were still confused, a bit angry, and depressed. They were hurt in deep ways that take a lot of time and care to heal. Yet, over the course of the year that I spent with them, I watched their wounded spirits heal and their shaken faith strengthen as they witnessed an outpouring of care and support from sisters and brothers they had never known before. Where they had been broken and despairing, they found themselves filled with a renewed sense of hope and purpose born of knowing the power of God’s restoring care first hand.
A few years later while living in Elgin, Illinois, I met a woman who was in the midst of a crisis – a life crisis and a crisis of faith. Lori had lived a hard life without much comfort. She left home early as a way of escaping all sorts of different problems. As is sometimes the case, the problems she fled were not linked to her family, her home, or her surroundings, and she found them bearing down on her no matter where she went. She did not graduate from high school, and as a result, she had problems finding work that paid well enough to support her. Soon, she found that alcohol, drugs, and sex provided an easy way to forget her worries if only for a time. Eventually, she found herself alone and homeless for a time. Slowly, with the help of her family, she got herself off the street and made her way out of the drugs and alcohol. Her relationships, though, did not improve much, and when I met her at church, she was living alone with a four-year-old son. All through these times, her family was close by and helped as they could, but they were not in a position to support her, and she was not of a disposition to return home to live. She got along with a manufacturing job and a grandmother who could help with child care.
Lori’s situation was not unique, and she was not an unintelligent woman. When she lost her job because of layoffs, she managed to avoid a return to her old habits of escapism – partly thanks to her devotion to her son. But, she did begin to slip into depression and despair. Her hope for a way out – cosmetology school – was either too expensive or required a high school diploma. And, while she began the process of getting her GED, she was dispirited by the amount of work it required.
As you may have guessed, Lori was not one to ask for help. Her pride and stubbornness was what had kept her going in many situations, and her time on the street had conditioned her to hide and vulnerability from others. But, she did have some friends at the church – some of whom had known her for most of her life. Together, these people raised enough money to get her started in the school she had been accepted to and to support her family for a while. Knowing her nature, they went to talk with her as a group and explained that they could help if she was willing to do cleaning and secretarial work at the church each week as well as studying until she was able to earn a GED.
Lori accepted the offer. She began to focus her attention on her studies in preparation for the next GED exam in four months. She finished the application and enrollment process with the cosmetology school. She worked faithfully at the church getting the building and printed materials ready for worship each Sunday. In the process, the cloud of her depression slowly evaporated. She began to smile, and when I talked with her she talked about her hopes and dreams rather than everything that was going wrong. Where she had been one more person about to give up and settle into despair, she flowered into an active, lively part of her congregation and her circle of friends. Eventually, she requested a rebaptism saying that she felt that she felt her life and her spirit had been renewed by the Holy Spirit and the care of brothers and sisters in faith – the restoring power of God.
Just two stories of the transforming touch of our God in the midst of everyday life – two stories among the millions we would hear and even see around us if we were looking – two stories of the promise of restoration that has been spoken by the prophets for generations, a promise we know through the Christ we prepare to receive anew each year.
Isaiah spoke the words of this promise to the people of Israel who had lived in exile for generations (words that the youth learned this summer in bible school):
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me… he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn in Zion – to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord…. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
That is the promise we have – a new heaven and a new earth. The old shall pass away. Yet, there is no reason to think, as many do, that this means an entirely new creation. The image of the New Jerusalem coming to earth in Revelation seems to point toward a different reality – a renewal, a restoration of what is to what it was meant to be. And, who among us knows what that is? None of us can know what God has in mind. That is the nature of the enigmatic One we serve. We do not really know God. We do not know really know Christ. We do not really know the Holy Spirit. And we cannot know what the restoring power of God will bring when it comes in all its terrible wonder. Still, we wait for the time to come as God plans in God’s time.
Yet, we cannot simply wait passively for the things that shall be. The promise asks more of us than that. Isaiah told us this in the reading we heard last week – prepare the way of the Lord, make straight a highway for our God. John the Baptist echoes the thought in our reading for today. Pulling his audience away from their ideas of who he was, he said, simply, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’” We are not simply a people waiting for restoration and redemption, for we have received the gift of redemption already. And, we are called to prepare for the coming of the Day of the Lord in which all things will be restored.
When we reach out to sisters and brothers to help rebuild and repair homes and churches that have been destroyed, we answer that call. When we offer our caring hands and hearts to support those who are lost in despair and remind them of hope, we answer that call. And, it’s the stories we tell about those times when we meet with unexpected restoration that move us. Whenever we hear about people bringing healing or comfort or building others up or speaking words of freedom and compassion, we find ourselves lost in tears or laughter or renewed commitment to serve as best we can. When we share our own stories – stories of the times we have seen or experienced renewal and restoration in surprising times and unusual places, then we proclaim hope and promise to those lost in pain and depression. We make the way a little straighter for the Lord to bring restoration in the lives of people here and now, and we prepare a way within ourselves for the Lord to come to us as well.
Brothers and Sisters, let us prepare for the coming of the One we know – and don’t know. We have felt the touch of his power in our own lives, and that is just the beginning of what may be. The Christ is coming into the world again – making all things new. We do not know how his promise will be fulfilled, nor do we know when that time will come. Yet, we know that he comes to bring salvation – to restore righteousness and justice with mercy and compassion. As we wait for that time – for the advent of the restoring light of our God, let us work to make straight a way for its coming in the wilderness and desolation of our world and in the wild and desolate places of our hearts and souls. Let us prepare to welcome Christ’s coming with joy and praise.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 John 1:6-8, 19-28
In 1996 and ’97 there was a rash of church burnings in this country. Most of the churches that were targeted were African American churches though a few were the home of predominately white congregations. Burnings like those are nothing new. There have been at least three black churches burned every year since before the Civil War with the occasional white church thrown in the mix. And, if talking about it this way seems a little crass or uncaring, the reality in the United States is that most people don’t know about this disturbing incarnation of bigotry and those who do tend to take it for granted as just another reality of life in this culture. The big difference this time was all in the numbers – and, of course, the media coverage. Over the course of those two years, over 180 churches were the victims of intentional arson and most cases included obvious evidence of racial motivation. A few churches a year spread across the south don’t make nearly as good a story as a wave of attacks reaching from Florida to Texas to Oregon to New York.
As sad as this truth is, there was good that came out of the increased news coverage. Not only did the National Council of Churches begin an ecumenical effort to link churches in a push to rebuild, industrial suppliers donated millions of dollars worth of materials to the effort. And, even more surprising, the response of pastors and congregants who were interviewed all across the nation did not, for the most part, express anger or a desire for vengeance. Their response was sadness and regret for the conditions that produced so much hate between Christians from different backgrounds. Many times pastors reflected that they would prefer that the arsonists were not punished according to the laws involved but that they were asked – not forced, just asked – to attend worship services with the congregations they had wounded for a year in the faith that they would come to appreciate the power of a diverse unity in the body of Christ. Those words of compassion and hope were small, important steps away from division and toward restoration in the community of faith.
I had the privilege of working with a congregation as they continued down that path in search of renewal. Their pastor was one of those who expressed compassion instead of fury, but when I arrived to help with the reconstruction of their church they were still confused, a bit angry, and depressed. They were hurt in deep ways that take a lot of time and care to heal. Yet, over the course of the year that I spent with them, I watched their wounded spirits heal and their shaken faith strengthen as they witnessed an outpouring of care and support from sisters and brothers they had never known before. Where they had been broken and despairing, they found themselves filled with a renewed sense of hope and purpose born of knowing the power of God’s restoring care first hand.
A few years later while living in Elgin, Illinois, I met a woman who was in the midst of a crisis – a life crisis and a crisis of faith. Lori had lived a hard life without much comfort. She left home early as a way of escaping all sorts of different problems. As is sometimes the case, the problems she fled were not linked to her family, her home, or her surroundings, and she found them bearing down on her no matter where she went. She did not graduate from high school, and as a result, she had problems finding work that paid well enough to support her. Soon, she found that alcohol, drugs, and sex provided an easy way to forget her worries if only for a time. Eventually, she found herself alone and homeless for a time. Slowly, with the help of her family, she got herself off the street and made her way out of the drugs and alcohol. Her relationships, though, did not improve much, and when I met her at church, she was living alone with a four-year-old son. All through these times, her family was close by and helped as they could, but they were not in a position to support her, and she was not of a disposition to return home to live. She got along with a manufacturing job and a grandmother who could help with child care.
Lori’s situation was not unique, and she was not an unintelligent woman. When she lost her job because of layoffs, she managed to avoid a return to her old habits of escapism – partly thanks to her devotion to her son. But, she did begin to slip into depression and despair. Her hope for a way out – cosmetology school – was either too expensive or required a high school diploma. And, while she began the process of getting her GED, she was dispirited by the amount of work it required.
As you may have guessed, Lori was not one to ask for help. Her pride and stubbornness was what had kept her going in many situations, and her time on the street had conditioned her to hide and vulnerability from others. But, she did have some friends at the church – some of whom had known her for most of her life. Together, these people raised enough money to get her started in the school she had been accepted to and to support her family for a while. Knowing her nature, they went to talk with her as a group and explained that they could help if she was willing to do cleaning and secretarial work at the church each week as well as studying until she was able to earn a GED.
Lori accepted the offer. She began to focus her attention on her studies in preparation for the next GED exam in four months. She finished the application and enrollment process with the cosmetology school. She worked faithfully at the church getting the building and printed materials ready for worship each Sunday. In the process, the cloud of her depression slowly evaporated. She began to smile, and when I talked with her she talked about her hopes and dreams rather than everything that was going wrong. Where she had been one more person about to give up and settle into despair, she flowered into an active, lively part of her congregation and her circle of friends. Eventually, she requested a rebaptism saying that she felt that she felt her life and her spirit had been renewed by the Holy Spirit and the care of brothers and sisters in faith – the restoring power of God.
Just two stories of the transforming touch of our God in the midst of everyday life – two stories among the millions we would hear and even see around us if we were looking – two stories of the promise of restoration that has been spoken by the prophets for generations, a promise we know through the Christ we prepare to receive anew each year.
Isaiah spoke the words of this promise to the people of Israel who had lived in exile for generations (words that the youth learned this summer in bible school):
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me… he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn in Zion – to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord…. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
That is the promise we have – a new heaven and a new earth. The old shall pass away. Yet, there is no reason to think, as many do, that this means an entirely new creation. The image of the New Jerusalem coming to earth in Revelation seems to point toward a different reality – a renewal, a restoration of what is to what it was meant to be. And, who among us knows what that is? None of us can know what God has in mind. That is the nature of the enigmatic One we serve. We do not really know God. We do not know really know Christ. We do not really know the Holy Spirit. And we cannot know what the restoring power of God will bring when it comes in all its terrible wonder. Still, we wait for the time to come as God plans in God’s time.
Yet, we cannot simply wait passively for the things that shall be. The promise asks more of us than that. Isaiah told us this in the reading we heard last week – prepare the way of the Lord, make straight a highway for our God. John the Baptist echoes the thought in our reading for today. Pulling his audience away from their ideas of who he was, he said, simply, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’” We are not simply a people waiting for restoration and redemption, for we have received the gift of redemption already. And, we are called to prepare for the coming of the Day of the Lord in which all things will be restored.
When we reach out to sisters and brothers to help rebuild and repair homes and churches that have been destroyed, we answer that call. When we offer our caring hands and hearts to support those who are lost in despair and remind them of hope, we answer that call. And, it’s the stories we tell about those times when we meet with unexpected restoration that move us. Whenever we hear about people bringing healing or comfort or building others up or speaking words of freedom and compassion, we find ourselves lost in tears or laughter or renewed commitment to serve as best we can. When we share our own stories – stories of the times we have seen or experienced renewal and restoration in surprising times and unusual places, then we proclaim hope and promise to those lost in pain and depression. We make the way a little straighter for the Lord to bring restoration in the lives of people here and now, and we prepare a way within ourselves for the Lord to come to us as well.
Brothers and Sisters, let us prepare for the coming of the One we know – and don’t know. We have felt the touch of his power in our own lives, and that is just the beginning of what may be. The Christ is coming into the world again – making all things new. We do not know how his promise will be fulfilled, nor do we know when that time will come. Yet, we know that he comes to bring salvation – to restore righteousness and justice with mercy and compassion. As we wait for that time – for the advent of the restoring light of our God, let us work to make straight a way for its coming in the wilderness and desolation of our world and in the wild and desolate places of our hearts and souls. Let us prepare to welcome Christ’s coming with joy and praise.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The Uncomfortable Comforter
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Psalm 85:1-3, Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2
Last week we entered into the season of Advent by exploring the hidden face of God, the places where God seems absent and yet somehow, strangely present. I've thought a lot about that image as we enter into the season of expectant waiting for the Christ-child. I myself am waiting, at times quite anxiously, for the birth of my own child that is strangely hidden from me, yet actually--physically--a part of me. You can't get much closer than the little boy in my womb, but I still must wait for his hidden features to be revealed.
This week we encounter God who is calls to comfort the people. After some of the prophet Isaiah's words in the past few weeks, we certainly need a bit of comforting. Let me recall some of these words - "you were angry and we sinned"…"There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity." Not so cheery.
Today, however, we are greeted with the words "Comfort, comfort o my people!" and we likely want to sigh and say "yes! This is the God I want during the holiday season. Tidings of comfort and joy and all that." But as is often the case with prophets who speak God's words, even with Jesus who is the Great Comforter among us, words of comfort aren't necessarily…comfortable.
It is true, our text today bookends nicely with comforting images. "Comfort, comfort oh my people" rings nicely with the final verse of today's reading, "He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep."
But who can really feel warm and fuzzy with the words in-between? "Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain…A voice says, "Cry out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass."
Granted, there is no smiting, or vengeance, or fire, thank goodness. But what is here that may make some us uncomfortable with this comforting God?
What images of God bring you comfort?
It may be the white bearded male figure that dominates Western Christianity. And that's OK. But it doesn't have to be that. It might be more like a source of light that surrounds you, no human characteristic at all, and that's OK, too. As I was thinking about the God of comfort that seems to be present in Isaiah's text today, I pictured God the comforter like an African American woman bellowing out civil rights songs. In particular, I pictured the singer Odetta who died on Tuesday at the age of 75.
Born in Alabama, Odetta moved to LA when she was 3. She was classically trained and was preparing to be an opera singer when she found herself drawn to the San Francisco bohemian life of a coffeehouse performer. After that she fell in love with folk songs, and brought a powerful voice to the civil rights movement that melded African American spirituals with blues with folk with gospel with the politics of the day.
And if you have ever heard Odetta, you know that God is in her voice. It can make you weep without knowing if you're sad or happy. It can make you stand up for a cause and then knock you back down again if you start to get to cocky. It can draw you into her embrace singing "we will overcome" and then release you into the throws of police dogs singing "the times they are a-changing" as you are forced to encounter the question "which side are you on?"
This week, in this text as portrayed by Isaiah, the God of comfort for me is like Odetta. She's not like the comforting grandma on the porch you go to when you skin your knee, hoping she'll give you a kiss and some apple pie to make it all better. She's the grandma who will sit you on the edge of the bathtub, pour the alcohol on the wound, bandage it, give you a hug and pat your rump as she says, "now, try to climb that tree again…and be careful this time. They'll be pie later". Because she knows that's what needs to be done for your body, and your spirit.
So maybe the uncomfortable comfort that Odetta shared with the God in Isaiah, and especially that uncomfortable comfort that Jesus Christ brings, is that it is genuine comfort.
False comfort that tries to cover everything up and make it alright. Genuine comfort lives in the reality of what is and seeks to make a path through.
False comfort says that pain can all go away. Genuine comfort recognizes that pain will never go away in this imperfect world, because there's always more that can come our way.
False comfort says close your eyes to what is going on and forget about it. Genuine comfort says open your eyes and live in the hope that even in the midst of difficulties, we will overcome .
But what I feel most exemplifies this genuine comfort is that it always begins in truth. Isaiah spoke the truth about the corruption of his people and God responded. Odetta spoke truth about social evils and the people woke up. Jesus speaks truth about our shattered souls and we can find healing. It's the truth that hurts, as the saying goes. But it is truth while it may sting like alcohol on a wound, that is necessary to heal and for us to be whole. And it is the promise that we can be whole beings, not just patched over wounds, in God's sight that is the real comfort. Comfort, comfort O my people.
O my people. There's another rub of this uncomfortable comforter, and maybe why we read these comforting word with a skeptical ear. It doesn't sound like the personal comfort we want to encounter…that comfort that is all about me, my distress, my dis-ease. Isaiah is not speaking of a comfort that is hand picked for each of our woes. Isaiah speaks to the people, not to individual circumstances.
It’s a reminder that while God is present to comfort each of us, at times the comforting God gives words that a community that needs to find comfort together. And this involves the very uncomfortable task of putting aside each of their personal discomforts and frustrations and focusing on the truth that needs to come to them as a people.
Today as we prepare to welcome new individuals into our community through membership we commit to being God's face of comfort to them. As they commit to being faithful partners with us , they bring to us new and fresh words from their journey that may challenge us as a people. As we join together in the community of faith, new members and old members, we recognize that God's word of comfort and challenge is still alive and well, as it always should be.
Comfort, comfort o my people. It can sting like a wound when we recognize there is more to God's comfort than just what we want out of it. When we are first faced with the truth that in God's eyes we are more than just individuals, but part of God's people, it may seem strangely lonely. But it is because we come to God as a people, together, that God blesses us with genuine comfort--comfort that comes from God, through the hands and hearts of one another.
Psalm 85:1-3, Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2
Last week we entered into the season of Advent by exploring the hidden face of God, the places where God seems absent and yet somehow, strangely present. I've thought a lot about that image as we enter into the season of expectant waiting for the Christ-child. I myself am waiting, at times quite anxiously, for the birth of my own child that is strangely hidden from me, yet actually--physically--a part of me. You can't get much closer than the little boy in my womb, but I still must wait for his hidden features to be revealed.
This week we encounter God who is calls to comfort the people. After some of the prophet Isaiah's words in the past few weeks, we certainly need a bit of comforting. Let me recall some of these words - "you were angry and we sinned"…"There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity." Not so cheery.
Today, however, we are greeted with the words "Comfort, comfort o my people!" and we likely want to sigh and say "yes! This is the God I want during the holiday season. Tidings of comfort and joy and all that." But as is often the case with prophets who speak God's words, even with Jesus who is the Great Comforter among us, words of comfort aren't necessarily…comfortable.
It is true, our text today bookends nicely with comforting images. "Comfort, comfort oh my people" rings nicely with the final verse of today's reading, "He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep."
But who can really feel warm and fuzzy with the words in-between? "Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain…A voice says, "Cry out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass."
Granted, there is no smiting, or vengeance, or fire, thank goodness. But what is here that may make some us uncomfortable with this comforting God?
What images of God bring you comfort?
It may be the white bearded male figure that dominates Western Christianity. And that's OK. But it doesn't have to be that. It might be more like a source of light that surrounds you, no human characteristic at all, and that's OK, too. As I was thinking about the God of comfort that seems to be present in Isaiah's text today, I pictured God the comforter like an African American woman bellowing out civil rights songs. In particular, I pictured the singer Odetta who died on Tuesday at the age of 75.
Born in Alabama, Odetta moved to LA when she was 3. She was classically trained and was preparing to be an opera singer when she found herself drawn to the San Francisco bohemian life of a coffeehouse performer. After that she fell in love with folk songs, and brought a powerful voice to the civil rights movement that melded African American spirituals with blues with folk with gospel with the politics of the day.
And if you have ever heard Odetta, you know that God is in her voice. It can make you weep without knowing if you're sad or happy. It can make you stand up for a cause and then knock you back down again if you start to get to cocky. It can draw you into her embrace singing "we will overcome" and then release you into the throws of police dogs singing "the times they are a-changing" as you are forced to encounter the question "which side are you on?"
This week, in this text as portrayed by Isaiah, the God of comfort for me is like Odetta. She's not like the comforting grandma on the porch you go to when you skin your knee, hoping she'll give you a kiss and some apple pie to make it all better. She's the grandma who will sit you on the edge of the bathtub, pour the alcohol on the wound, bandage it, give you a hug and pat your rump as she says, "now, try to climb that tree again…and be careful this time. They'll be pie later". Because she knows that's what needs to be done for your body, and your spirit.
So maybe the uncomfortable comfort that Odetta shared with the God in Isaiah, and especially that uncomfortable comfort that Jesus Christ brings, is that it is genuine comfort.
False comfort that tries to cover everything up and make it alright. Genuine comfort lives in the reality of what is and seeks to make a path through.
False comfort says that pain can all go away. Genuine comfort recognizes that pain will never go away in this imperfect world, because there's always more that can come our way.
False comfort says close your eyes to what is going on and forget about it. Genuine comfort says open your eyes and live in the hope that even in the midst of difficulties, we will overcome .
But what I feel most exemplifies this genuine comfort is that it always begins in truth. Isaiah spoke the truth about the corruption of his people and God responded. Odetta spoke truth about social evils and the people woke up. Jesus speaks truth about our shattered souls and we can find healing. It's the truth that hurts, as the saying goes. But it is truth while it may sting like alcohol on a wound, that is necessary to heal and for us to be whole. And it is the promise that we can be whole beings, not just patched over wounds, in God's sight that is the real comfort. Comfort, comfort O my people.
O my people. There's another rub of this uncomfortable comforter, and maybe why we read these comforting word with a skeptical ear. It doesn't sound like the personal comfort we want to encounter…that comfort that is all about me, my distress, my dis-ease. Isaiah is not speaking of a comfort that is hand picked for each of our woes. Isaiah speaks to the people, not to individual circumstances.
It’s a reminder that while God is present to comfort each of us, at times the comforting God gives words that a community that needs to find comfort together. And this involves the very uncomfortable task of putting aside each of their personal discomforts and frustrations and focusing on the truth that needs to come to them as a people.
Today as we prepare to welcome new individuals into our community through membership we commit to being God's face of comfort to them. As they commit to being faithful partners with us , they bring to us new and fresh words from their journey that may challenge us as a people. As we join together in the community of faith, new members and old members, we recognize that God's word of comfort and challenge is still alive and well, as it always should be.
Comfort, comfort o my people. It can sting like a wound when we recognize there is more to God's comfort than just what we want out of it. When we are first faced with the truth that in God's eyes we are more than just individuals, but part of God's people, it may seem strangely lonely. But it is because we come to God as a people, together, that God blesses us with genuine comfort--comfort that comes from God, through the hands and hearts of one another.
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