sermon by Torin Eikler
"Hymns that Shape Us" series:
Early Church Heritage Hymns
Luke 14:25-33 Psalm 1
Today we are beginning a series on Hymns that Shape Us. That might seem like a fairly tame subject, but hymns are powerful things. Last week, when I visited Alice in Sundale, the words I said and the touch of my hand holding hers seemed to go unnoticed. She remained unresponsive, and her face showed the lines of discomfort. But when I began to sing some of her favorite hymns, she opened her eyes a fraction and her face relaxed. There were even times when I felt sure that she was trying to join in. Those hymns provided comfort for her and encouragement, and they reminded her that she belonged to something greater than herself – that she was not alone. Somehow, setting the words to music helped them reach her in a way that they didn’t or couldn’t alone.
That may seem surprising, but it’s not really a new concept. Advertisers, activists, and church leaders alike have understood for years what some of us haven’t really thought about: music has the power to carry messages deep down within us. And if you have ever found yourself humming a tune as you wend your way through the day, you know how they can stick with you. Often, just listening to a few seconds of a hymn can take us into memories of the times and places we have heard them before.
Take “Amazing Grace”…. Whenever I hear the opening strains of the hymn, I am reminded of my time with the Orangeburg AME church where they sang it as a call and response … “Amazing grace, (said amazing grace,) how sweet the sound, (how sweet the sound,) that saved a wretch, (that saved a wretch,) like me, (that saved a wretch like me.)” And a fondness for a whole different style of worship filled with “bother-ation” and random input from the congregation.
But if you hear: (sing in traditional manner) “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” you will undoubtedly think of church services or funerals or both, and all the comfort of the Spirit’s healing presence will come to mind.
And if you hear: (sing to Gilligan’s Island) “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” you will have an entirely different experience.
But hymns don’t just comfort and encourage us. They don’t just remind us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves or recall to us moments from our past. They also challenge and shape us, molding our beliefs and our worldview in powerful ways that we may not even recognize. That makes them a powerful tool, and hymn writers, church leaders, and theologians throughout the centuries have used them with more or less care to influence and undergird the faith of the Christian community.
Three hundred and three years ago, Alexander Mack and his small group of Anabaptist Brethren did just that. Inspired by the scriptural accounts of Jesus’ challenging words, they defied the authorities in Germany to be re-baptized, singing (as legend has it) the hymn that we have just sung – “Count well the cost.” Knowing what they were risking, the words rang with the strength of their decision to risk “self, wealth, and reputation,” and that moment in the church’s memory, recalled whenever this hymn makes an appearance, has come to shape generations of believers… though not always as they would have expected.
Take a moment now and remember about what you thought when you read the bulletin and discovered that “Count well the cost” was part of the service. Or think back just a few minutes to what you felt when we were actually singing.
Somewhere in the midst of all the memories that came back to me, I found a bit of guilt and relief that run through them all. Guilt that I don’t really pay much of a cost for my faith. Relief that I do not face the persecution of those early Anabaptists who often lost everything or were imprisoned or even burned at the stake. And so the hymn takes on a sense of admonition for me, a mild rebuke for the life I live when I should be selling everything or challenging the Powers-That-Be in a more diligent way.
That’s not surprising given the story that goes with the hymn and the scripture that has so been often read just before I sing it. There we hear Jesus reprimanding the Pharisees for their pride. Specifically, he is responding to one man who proclaimed, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” with all the assurance of one who is sure of receiving the blessing himself.
Be careful, he says, of assuming that you will be at that table because you must concern yourself with the things of God if you wish to be welcomed. You must be willing to give up all your possessions … and even the family, friends, and reputation that you hold so dear if you are to receive that blessing. There is a heavy price to pay. If you are not willing to lay the foundation without assurance that the tower will be built … if you are not willing to step into the fray knowing that you are outnumbered two to one, then you will not find the way into the Kingdom.
And that’s the way that I hear it because I have always been taught to identify with the Pharisees … because I am really more of a Pharisee than I like to admit. I worry about having enough money to feel secure. I shy away from starting projects that I can’t finish or that I am pretty sure won’t work out. And I set more store than I should on having the respect of others. More often than I realize, I’m sure, I compromise or rationalize my way off the path to the Kingdom table for the sake of securing that respect or in the name of respecting the call of my family’s security.
Sound familiar?
Then again … I’m not sure that was all that Jesus was about with this speech. Corey introduced the scripture by telling us that Jesus was speaking to the crowd that had gathered, uninvited, in the courtyard of the Pharisee’s home to listen to the conversation and watch the drama. That was not uncommon at the time, and many of those watching may have been waiting for the left-overs that were sometimes shared out after a banquet. What was uncommon was for a guest of honor to speak with the crowd, and while I’m sure Jesus meant his words as a warning to those gathered at the table, I wonder how they would have been received by the people he spoke to directly.
Those people could not have been so very worried about their status among the social elites or they would never have come into the courtyard. There was simply too much stigma that came with being associated with that crowd. They may or may not have had very much money, but probably not. Most of Jesus’ followers, it seems, came from the lower classes of society who had to work in order to make ends meet. They were used to taking risks without knowing what the future would bring because their daily lives involved exactly that kind of risk.
Honestly, I have no idea how the words that Jesus spoke would have sounded to them, but I think that they would not have found them to hold rebuke … or at least not much. Instead, I think they might well of sounded … well … encouraging. They didn’t have money or stature. They weren’t able to maintain the purity that society held to be the only way to righteousness under the law. And yet, they could become disciples if they were only willing to accept the risk. They could find their way to the banquet table of the Kingdom is they were willing to face … what? … failure, ridicule, perhaps death (though a king going to war rarely risked death – only defeat). That was no so much to ask of people without so much to lose. It would certainly have been easier for them than for the Pharisees.
I think it was much the same for the early Anabaptists. They were not the wealthy or the powerful of their time. Scriptures like this one were not just warnings offering judgment; they were a source of hope and promise. There was a new creation that they could be part of – a community of peace and love that was ready to welcome them into a warm embrace if they were willing to risk
So where does that leave us. Most of us are not at the lower levels of society with nothing to lose. We do not have to risk our lives for our faith, and I don’t think any of us would want to. But we are not wholly lost either. We have made the commitment to follow Christ. We struggle with the habits of pride and consumption and our tendencies to feel holier-than-thou. And we have accepted the costs that come with choosing a faith community that still pushes the boundaries of society’s expectations.
We reluctant martyrs … we regretful Pharisees … we are somewhere in the middle. And so the words of our hymns and the words of scripture are a two-fold blessing. Standing as we do between the table and the crowd, we hear the soft reminder that the path laid out by Jesus is not an easy one, and we experience the resounding declaration of the promise of peace and love and that comes to those who take it. We hear and affirm the proclamation that costly discipleship brings hope and life to all who follow Christ.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Enflamed Weakness
Sermon by Carrie Eikler
Pentecost – June 12, 2011
Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
A couple months ago I spoke about the concept of “don’t think about pink elephants” the joke being once someone tells you that, that’s exactly what you think of. Here’s another elephant allusion: the elephant in the room. This refers to a topic that is so big, so laden with anxiety, that no one wants to talk about it.
So I’m going to call out the elephant in the room when it comes to 1 Corinthians 12. The scripture about gifts. In service to God. In building up the community. You think I’m going to go on for 15 minutes about how you each have a gift and you just need to find that gift and then sign up for the appropriate ministry team, and by the way, would you like to be Leadership Team chair next year (Cindy’s smiling at that one)?
Whew! I named it. Now that’s out of the way, I’ve done my obligatory speech to the standard interpretation of the text. Now, elephant-be gone!
But even if I’m not going to guilt you into signing up for a ministry team ([whisper]which you should…you really should), this scripture has a common effect on most of its hearers. It gets us thinking about our gifts, and by gifts we mean talents, and by talents we mean what we’re good at.
Maybe this hit the Jesus people of Corinth in a powerful way, but really, our culture isn’t bereft of opportunities to explore and discover our talents. High School students often take tests to magically reveal to them their strongest attributes. Churches, like ours, do “gift inventories” to help us see what God has given us to work with. Even colleges and universities base their conversation in this light: major in what you’re good at so you can get the type of job you love (and will hopefully make you some money…at least to pay back your college debts).
We are a culture that loves to identify, compartmentalize, and capitalize on what we “can do.” Our talents-- our gifts--have just become one more commodity in an economy of trade. I’ll give you my gift, if you give me a paycheck. Wherever else I put these abilities to use are either “hobbies” or “diversions” or “extracurricular activities”, and usually they are the first things to go when stress goes up and time gets crunched.
I even think the church has been co-opted by such a consumer mentality of “gifts.” Too often I feel like when we talk about finding one’s vocation we are essentially asking “how will you use God’s gifts to help you make a living, and be a productive consumer in our economy?”
So no, as a culture, I don’t think we’re overly anxious about finding what we’re good at--which doesn’t mean we’re satisfied with our lives. Far from it.
(pause)
But this understanding of gifts isn’t what’s happening in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, by the way. It wasn’t even figuring out which one of those rowdy Corinthians should be on the “speaking in tongues commission” or the “wash the feet of the guests” ministry team.
And let me say before I go further, what I have learned about the church in Corinth…I have to say I’d really like to have met these people. Corinth was a city about 40 minutes south/south-west of Athens. And as cities sometimes do, they get a…reputation. You know, you associate a certain ethos with a city. Think: Las Vegas, Portland, New Orleans. Corinth also had a personality.
The reputation of Corinth was one of wealth without culture. Think: Nuevo-riche. Think: Beverly Hillbillies. They had the cash without the class. These seem to be things that should go together, like manicured hand in white glove. But not in Corinth.
Yet most of the people in the Corinth church were believed to be poor, with probably a few of these Beverly Hillbilly type folks thrown in—you can imagine the tension that could cause. They were banded together by Paul primarily based on his word and charisma. These were people who lived a generation before any of the gospels were written: no Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Just imagine that for a moment, trying to fashion a church in the way of Jesus before they had the gospels that we feel are so indespinsable. These people, if they made any money, were simply doing what they could, or what the trade that was passed down to them. They didn’t need to hear about gifts so they could find job satisfaction.
They were hearing about gifts because they wanted to build the church. And certain people thought some gifts were better than others. And Paul says no. If you are building a church, it’s about God. All about God. All from God. All for the glory of God. This ain’t about you. What you do, you do for God.
Paul’s letter was to relieve anxiety. To tell those who didn’t speak in tongues that that’s OK. And to ask those who did speak in tongues, “why are you doing this?”
When it comes to gifts, we still have a lot of anxiety, and not, as I said, necessarily identifying what they are. What I experience and see around me is an anxiety born from unrealistic perfectionism of our gifts--preconceived notions that say what success means, what some who has true talents at X,Y, or Z should look like.
And if you think you’ve never felt this before, ask yourself:
Have you ever been jealous about the accomplishments of a colleague in the same field as you?
Have you ever thought a woman was a better mother than you, a man a better father?
Did you ever have a sports or school-nemesis (as Torin admitted to in a sermon recently) who’s focus for your rivalry was simply based on who could be better?
I’ll admit it. I have those. All three of those. And then some. And I would guess you have them to.
I think one part of struggling with gifts is facing the parts that don’t quite shine the brightest. Those parts that aren’t ablaze with the spirit. And it’s wrestling with those qualities we feel we need in order to be the best —whatever we are: parent, professor, musician, pastor, friend, spouse. It’s wrestling with the feeling that no matter how hard we try, we’ll just never be good enough.
[pause]
This year, Americans have been more exposed to British Royal life than we have been in a few decades. With the wedding of Prince William to Princess Kate we have gleefully immersed ourselves in the pageantry and the gossip, the splendor and decadency of a royal wedding.
This was a far cry from the humility and fear and anguish we were presented with earlier in the year. In the Academy Awared winning film, The King’s Speech, unaware generations (myself included) witnessed the vivid portrayal of King George the 6th in his unwilling rise to the British throne
Prince Albert, later to be crowned with the name King George the 6th, was Britain’s King during the turbulent years leading up to and during WWII. Albert’s brother, David, was the rightful heir, but because David wished to marry a divorced woman he stepped down from the throne, leaving it to his brother, Albert, or Bertie, as his family called him.
Bertie was a painfully shy man, with a dramatic stammer. He was deathly afraid of public speaking and on the occasion his father, King George V had him speak publicly, he was a dismal failure. The movie casts the coming of World War II as a confrontation involving public speaking: Hitler’s polished elocution is a dramatic contrast to the king’s quavering, high-pitched voice.
Bertie’s wife, Elizabeth, “slyly sets up a visit with Lionel Logue, the oddball, self-trained Australian speech therapist. With humor and wisdom [during the countless voice lessons in in Lionel’s dingy office--a place no respectable king would be caught dead in--Lionel] goads, cajoles, threatens and berates the king, gradually finding a way to intrude into [Bertie’s] personal life, enticing him to relive the pain of growing up with a blowhard father and a taunting brother. He put the king through a series of vocal calisthenics; he teaches him to curse and sing [even dance] in order to overcome his stammering.”
[pause]
One night, portrayed in the film, King George looks at his engagements for public speaking, something a King should be able to do, something that Kings have always been able to do—but on this night, King George breaks down crying in the arms of his wife under the mere stress, sobbing “I’m not a king. I’m not a king!”
On the eve of King George the 6th’s coronation, Lionel reflects with the anxious king about how he started helping people. Lionel recalls Australian soldiers coming home from WW1, shellshocked by what they had seen and experienced. They stammered. They couldn’t speak. Lionel reflected “My job was to give them faith in their own voice, and let them know that a friend was listening.”
[pause]
The two were a pair for the rest of King George’s life. Whenever the King made a public appearance or a radio broadcast Lionel was there. Lionel edited the King’s speeches in ways that would help a stammerer overcome the tripups, he would direct the King as if he was conducting an orchestra because a musical flow helped move him through the difficult parts. He knew what his friend needed in order to live into his weakness, so he could do the job before him. So he could live in the confidence in his other strengths.
The relationship between Logue and King George isn’t one of transcending difficulties in order to reach perfection. After years and years of training, no one would say King George was a magnificent orator.
No, I think this lesson by this master teacher, Paul included, is about boldly showing our non-gifts. This voice lesson is about opening our awareness up to what we do well, and, with a large measure of care and grace, to what we don’t do well. Because, as Paul points out, it’s all part of the work of God—not just the strengths, but all of who we are.
[pause]
The spirit will help you find your voice. Not by dramatic tongues of fire falling on you. But by guiding you, marking your scripts, moving you through the difficult dance steps—something we don’t rely on much when we’re working out of those places that come naturally, do we? Where we know we’re doing what we’re really good at. Spirit urges you to know that even in those things you are called to, joyfully or reluctantly, you won’t be perfect. Because it’s an economy like no other, a realm unlike any earthly kingdom.
But it requires the first step,
out of our high palaces of perfection
into the dingy room of a master teacher.
Pentecost – June 12, 2011
Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
A couple months ago I spoke about the concept of “don’t think about pink elephants” the joke being once someone tells you that, that’s exactly what you think of. Here’s another elephant allusion: the elephant in the room. This refers to a topic that is so big, so laden with anxiety, that no one wants to talk about it.
So I’m going to call out the elephant in the room when it comes to 1 Corinthians 12. The scripture about gifts. In service to God. In building up the community. You think I’m going to go on for 15 minutes about how you each have a gift and you just need to find that gift and then sign up for the appropriate ministry team, and by the way, would you like to be Leadership Team chair next year (Cindy’s smiling at that one)?
Whew! I named it. Now that’s out of the way, I’ve done my obligatory speech to the standard interpretation of the text. Now, elephant-be gone!
But even if I’m not going to guilt you into signing up for a ministry team ([whisper]which you should…you really should), this scripture has a common effect on most of its hearers. It gets us thinking about our gifts, and by gifts we mean talents, and by talents we mean what we’re good at.
Maybe this hit the Jesus people of Corinth in a powerful way, but really, our culture isn’t bereft of opportunities to explore and discover our talents. High School students often take tests to magically reveal to them their strongest attributes. Churches, like ours, do “gift inventories” to help us see what God has given us to work with. Even colleges and universities base their conversation in this light: major in what you’re good at so you can get the type of job you love (and will hopefully make you some money…at least to pay back your college debts).
We are a culture that loves to identify, compartmentalize, and capitalize on what we “can do.” Our talents-- our gifts--have just become one more commodity in an economy of trade. I’ll give you my gift, if you give me a paycheck. Wherever else I put these abilities to use are either “hobbies” or “diversions” or “extracurricular activities”, and usually they are the first things to go when stress goes up and time gets crunched.
I even think the church has been co-opted by such a consumer mentality of “gifts.” Too often I feel like when we talk about finding one’s vocation we are essentially asking “how will you use God’s gifts to help you make a living, and be a productive consumer in our economy?”
So no, as a culture, I don’t think we’re overly anxious about finding what we’re good at--which doesn’t mean we’re satisfied with our lives. Far from it.
(pause)
But this understanding of gifts isn’t what’s happening in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, by the way. It wasn’t even figuring out which one of those rowdy Corinthians should be on the “speaking in tongues commission” or the “wash the feet of the guests” ministry team.
And let me say before I go further, what I have learned about the church in Corinth…I have to say I’d really like to have met these people. Corinth was a city about 40 minutes south/south-west of Athens. And as cities sometimes do, they get a…reputation. You know, you associate a certain ethos with a city. Think: Las Vegas, Portland, New Orleans. Corinth also had a personality.
The reputation of Corinth was one of wealth without culture. Think: Nuevo-riche. Think: Beverly Hillbillies. They had the cash without the class. These seem to be things that should go together, like manicured hand in white glove. But not in Corinth.
Yet most of the people in the Corinth church were believed to be poor, with probably a few of these Beverly Hillbilly type folks thrown in—you can imagine the tension that could cause. They were banded together by Paul primarily based on his word and charisma. These were people who lived a generation before any of the gospels were written: no Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Just imagine that for a moment, trying to fashion a church in the way of Jesus before they had the gospels that we feel are so indespinsable. These people, if they made any money, were simply doing what they could, or what the trade that was passed down to them. They didn’t need to hear about gifts so they could find job satisfaction.
They were hearing about gifts because they wanted to build the church. And certain people thought some gifts were better than others. And Paul says no. If you are building a church, it’s about God. All about God. All from God. All for the glory of God. This ain’t about you. What you do, you do for God.
Paul’s letter was to relieve anxiety. To tell those who didn’t speak in tongues that that’s OK. And to ask those who did speak in tongues, “why are you doing this?”
When it comes to gifts, we still have a lot of anxiety, and not, as I said, necessarily identifying what they are. What I experience and see around me is an anxiety born from unrealistic perfectionism of our gifts--preconceived notions that say what success means, what some who has true talents at X,Y, or Z should look like.
And if you think you’ve never felt this before, ask yourself:
Have you ever been jealous about the accomplishments of a colleague in the same field as you?
Have you ever thought a woman was a better mother than you, a man a better father?
Did you ever have a sports or school-nemesis (as Torin admitted to in a sermon recently) who’s focus for your rivalry was simply based on who could be better?
I’ll admit it. I have those. All three of those. And then some. And I would guess you have them to.
I think one part of struggling with gifts is facing the parts that don’t quite shine the brightest. Those parts that aren’t ablaze with the spirit. And it’s wrestling with those qualities we feel we need in order to be the best —whatever we are: parent, professor, musician, pastor, friend, spouse. It’s wrestling with the feeling that no matter how hard we try, we’ll just never be good enough.
[pause]
This year, Americans have been more exposed to British Royal life than we have been in a few decades. With the wedding of Prince William to Princess Kate we have gleefully immersed ourselves in the pageantry and the gossip, the splendor and decadency of a royal wedding.
This was a far cry from the humility and fear and anguish we were presented with earlier in the year. In the Academy Awared winning film, The King’s Speech, unaware generations (myself included) witnessed the vivid portrayal of King George the 6th in his unwilling rise to the British throne
Prince Albert, later to be crowned with the name King George the 6th, was Britain’s King during the turbulent years leading up to and during WWII. Albert’s brother, David, was the rightful heir, but because David wished to marry a divorced woman he stepped down from the throne, leaving it to his brother, Albert, or Bertie, as his family called him.
Bertie was a painfully shy man, with a dramatic stammer. He was deathly afraid of public speaking and on the occasion his father, King George V had him speak publicly, he was a dismal failure. The movie casts the coming of World War II as a confrontation involving public speaking: Hitler’s polished elocution is a dramatic contrast to the king’s quavering, high-pitched voice.
Bertie’s wife, Elizabeth, “slyly sets up a visit with Lionel Logue, the oddball, self-trained Australian speech therapist. With humor and wisdom [during the countless voice lessons in in Lionel’s dingy office--a place no respectable king would be caught dead in--Lionel] goads, cajoles, threatens and berates the king, gradually finding a way to intrude into [Bertie’s] personal life, enticing him to relive the pain of growing up with a blowhard father and a taunting brother. He put the king through a series of vocal calisthenics; he teaches him to curse and sing [even dance] in order to overcome his stammering.”
[pause]
One night, portrayed in the film, King George looks at his engagements for public speaking, something a King should be able to do, something that Kings have always been able to do—but on this night, King George breaks down crying in the arms of his wife under the mere stress, sobbing “I’m not a king. I’m not a king!”
On the eve of King George the 6th’s coronation, Lionel reflects with the anxious king about how he started helping people. Lionel recalls Australian soldiers coming home from WW1, shellshocked by what they had seen and experienced. They stammered. They couldn’t speak. Lionel reflected “My job was to give them faith in their own voice, and let them know that a friend was listening.”
[pause]
The two were a pair for the rest of King George’s life. Whenever the King made a public appearance or a radio broadcast Lionel was there. Lionel edited the King’s speeches in ways that would help a stammerer overcome the tripups, he would direct the King as if he was conducting an orchestra because a musical flow helped move him through the difficult parts. He knew what his friend needed in order to live into his weakness, so he could do the job before him. So he could live in the confidence in his other strengths.
The relationship between Logue and King George isn’t one of transcending difficulties in order to reach perfection. After years and years of training, no one would say King George was a magnificent orator.
No, I think this lesson by this master teacher, Paul included, is about boldly showing our non-gifts. This voice lesson is about opening our awareness up to what we do well, and, with a large measure of care and grace, to what we don’t do well. Because, as Paul points out, it’s all part of the work of God—not just the strengths, but all of who we are.
[pause]
The spirit will help you find your voice. Not by dramatic tongues of fire falling on you. But by guiding you, marking your scripts, moving you through the difficult dance steps—something we don’t rely on much when we’re working out of those places that come naturally, do we? Where we know we’re doing what we’re really good at. Spirit urges you to know that even in those things you are called to, joyfully or reluctantly, you won’t be perfect. Because it’s an economy like no other, a realm unlike any earthly kingdom.
But it requires the first step,
out of our high palaces of perfection
into the dingy room of a master teacher.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Mission Possible
sermon by Torin Eikler
John 17:1-11 Acts 1:1-14
Summer is almost here. Just two weeks, one day, 13 hours, and ___ minutes left before the season officially turns over into the three months of light and heat. But with school out and the thermometer in the 90s this past week, I have resigned myself to sunscreen and sweat a few weeks early. For all practical purposes, summer is already here. And while it is not my favorite season, there is one thing that I always look forward to, one guilty pleasure that comes around each year at this time … the Summer Blockbuster Movies.
Some of you will remember when people attended summer movies, if they could, not so much because of what was showing but simply to escape the heat for a time. Before air conditioning was so common, that movie theatre was one of the only refuges from the sun, and for a reasonably affordable amount, one could enter the cool darkness from time to time and sit. Just sit in a comfortable chair and enjoy the distraction of whatever story happened to be playing out on the big screen in front of you.
Those days are largely gone. Most of us have turned our homes into that place of refuge. We have air conditioning. We have televisions with movies on demand, or if we haven’t gone that far (or maybe have skipped over that) we have VCRs or DVD players that can link directly to the internet and stream movies directly into our living rooms. This is becoming so common, in fact, that Roger Ebert recently acknowledged with more than a little sadness that cinemas themselves may be on the path to extinction. For many of us, it is just too much money and too much hassle to get everyone into the theatre when we can watch the same thing at home.
But, in my experience there are some movies that you just can’t watch on the TV if you want to get the full effect. To truly appreciate these “blockbusters,” we need the huge screen, the large space, and the echoing surround sound to pull us fully into the action and effects, and it’s strange and scary what that kind of technology can do. There are many movies, I’ll admit, that had sucked me in when I watched them in the theatre whether or not they had redeeming value, or good acting, or a strong story line. In fact, the “bad” ones were sometimes the ones that I enjoyed the most – sitting there for the adrenaline rush without having to think or feel anything. That is what I secretly love about them, and this summer promises several excellent examples.
One that I am particularly looking forward to is Mission Impossible 4 where rogue agent Ethan Hawke promises to get stuck in some inescapable situation only to worm his way out with the help of a few friends, a bit of luck, and innumerable techno-gadgets that will, of course, require quite elaborate stunts and special effects if they are to work at all. It’s brain candy, I know, but there’s something about beating impossible odds to pull off incredible heists that I just love.
I suppose a big part of my fascination comes from wishing that I could do all those things … at least in a smaller, less death-defying way. The thing is, I often feel like my life is full of impossible missions. Chief among them and most immediate is the challenge of raising two intelligent, sensitive, well-behaved, respectful, loving, good-hearted boys. If there is anything that I don’t feel prepared for it navigating that responsibility without inadvertently doing irreparable damage to them along the way. If anyone has a map or a guaranteed methodology to help me out, please let me know.
Beyond that, though, there are myriad others tasks that I feel more or less responsible for. Two big ones given everything in the news are working to protect the environment and struggling against the militarism that seems to have gotten a dose of steroids lately. Then there’s taking care of those less fortunate than I: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and housing the homeless…. You know, all the things we preach about because we really do think they’re important.
Some of those things are beyond me because I don’t have the tools or the power or the wisdom or courage I would need to get the job done. They may not be action-packed or life-threatening (though I suppose they might be if I really committed to them), but they are in the same realm as the adventures of Ethan Hawke. Put me his position and there is no way I would be able to do what needed to be done let alone survive long enough to try.
Others seem impossible simply because they are so big or take so long. If you chip away at them you make some headway, but it’s hard to keep at it without becoming discourage no matter how important the ultimate goal. There are people, I know, who are passionate about such work … who get excited by the prospect of taking the first step down one of those proverbial thousand-mile journeys and have the perseverance to move mountains one stone at a time. I’m just not one of them … and I’m not alone in that. If I were, there would be an army of people hard at work on solving the problems of the global community instead of a few pockets of resistance here and there.
And, I suspect that my feelings of inadequacy are nothing compared to the way the first group of disciples felt when Jesus left them there on that mountain. As they turned and walked back down to Jerusalem, I think they probably came down off a once-in-a-lifetime high with each step they took. They had been there, after all, when Jesus reappeared. They had seen the prophesies fulfilled. Unbelievable though it was, they had talked to, eaten with, and learned from their Messiah even after he had died, and after a month of living in that new reality, I expect they had come to take for granted that Jesus would be with them forever – always there to show them the way.
Instead, he had left them, rising into the heavens in a blaze of glorious light … left them with a vague promise of help to come … and the all too real, all too impossible mission of continuing his work, of making disciples of all the nations.
A few weeks ago, I made a passing reference to what that phrase, “continuing Jesus’ work” really means for us – to what it means to make disciples of the nations, and I think this might be the time to explore that in more depth. The Great Commission, as we call it, is often thought to mean saving people for Christ – that is, proclaiming the good news that Jesus was and is the Messiah and that all who believe and are baptized will be saved from eternal suffering and ushered into eternal life through the gift of grace. But, I’m not sure we’ve gotten that entirely right. That’s definitely part of it – that inviting people to share in the redeeming grace of Christ, but if it true, as Gail O’Day claims, that “When Jesus commissioned the [community of his followers] to continue [his work, he meant that they were to make] God in Jesus known in the world.” And God as made known to us in Jesus was all about sharing the reality that the Kingdom was already present among humanity.
That means more than just baptizing people. It means proclaiming the new reality, describing it as clearly as possible, inviting people to step into the mystery of all that it might mean to be living in a world ruled by the one whose love led him to give his life for all of us. And it means more than that, too. It means modeling what a life lived in the midst of that reality looks like, being people of the Kingdom who act out of love and compassion so that everyone receives what she or he needs and no one is left alone. It means seeking healing – healing of bodies, healing of spirits, healing of the brokenness all around us.
That - all of that - is the task that Jesus left to the disciples. And I’m sure those men and women who were given that work were at a loss because if Jesus – if the Messiah himself with all his power and all his understanding was not able to do it, how on earth would they be able to? Even though they were a good sized community of people, I’m sure they felt lost and overwhelmed by the challenges that lay ahead.
I think we are in the same position. I feel like our congregation is on the brink of something, like potential and power and passion and energy are building toward some moment in the future – a moment when we will find ourselves in the midst of an explosion of new growth and a profound deepening of our spiritual life together as a community. But right now, in this moment, as I talk with you all and we look ahead at the challenges we face they often seems insurmountable.
Here we are with the very same mission received by those long-ago followers and handed down through the ages: continuing the work started by Jesus. Two thousand years later, the world’s need to hear and see and feel the presence of the Kingdom around them and the love of Christ within them still cries out to us. And we struggle with low attendance. We have trouble meeting our budget. Our ceiling leaks. And it is hard to get everything done because we all have such busy lives. Simply caring for our faith community is hard enough, picking up the mission left to by Christ ….
We are shy people – especially when it comes to sharing our faith. Our whole society is more than a little squeamish about it. We look at those who do share with distrust and distaste. That part of our lives, we have been taught, is personal, and the evangelists out there often wear the face of intolerance or carry the sword of judgment, and that doesn’t feel very Christ-like. We do not want to be like them. We don’t want to risk even the slightest chance that anyone might see us in that light, and so we go out of our way to avoid it.
I’m not singling any of you out here. I avoid it too … maybe even more than you do. It is hard to keep from being lumped in with “those people” when you are a pastor. We are all in the same boat here, and while we do a pretty good job of modeling and working for healing and reconciliation as a congregation, it seems like it might just take a miracle to get us out there describing the Kingdom, proclaiming the good news that it is here, or even sharing our own joy at having experience it here in this community of faith.
It took a miracle for the first Christians too. It took the coming of the Spirit to get them going, to remind them of Jesus’ promise that they were protected and unified by the power and the truth that he had shared with them. They had to wait for that miracle. Commissioned by Christ himself with their own mission impossible, they had to sit and hope that they would, somehow, be able to do what had been asked of them. They went and prayed that they would find a way to take even just the first step on that journey.
But, we don’t have to wait…. The miracle has happened. The promised presence of the Spirit has been fulfilled for us already, and the Sustainer lives within us offering us strength and encouragement … empowering us for the work that is ours to do as a community that has tasted the new reality of God’s Reign among us … giving us “shy people the strength and courage to do what needs to be done.”
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is no more and no less than continuing the work of making God in Jesus known to the world. It is to go out into the world and living out the love and compassion that marks the Children of God. It is working to heal pain and brokenness, relieve suffering, and offer hope in the midst of despair. It is proclaiming in a sure and confident voice the truth that, whatever it may look like out there, the Kingdom of God is here, and it offers new hope and new life to any who wish to enter.
It’s a big task, but it is possible.
John 17:1-11 Acts 1:1-14
Summer is almost here. Just two weeks, one day, 13 hours, and ___ minutes left before the season officially turns over into the three months of light and heat. But with school out and the thermometer in the 90s this past week, I have resigned myself to sunscreen and sweat a few weeks early. For all practical purposes, summer is already here. And while it is not my favorite season, there is one thing that I always look forward to, one guilty pleasure that comes around each year at this time … the Summer Blockbuster Movies.
Some of you will remember when people attended summer movies, if they could, not so much because of what was showing but simply to escape the heat for a time. Before air conditioning was so common, that movie theatre was one of the only refuges from the sun, and for a reasonably affordable amount, one could enter the cool darkness from time to time and sit. Just sit in a comfortable chair and enjoy the distraction of whatever story happened to be playing out on the big screen in front of you.
Those days are largely gone. Most of us have turned our homes into that place of refuge. We have air conditioning. We have televisions with movies on demand, or if we haven’t gone that far (or maybe have skipped over that) we have VCRs or DVD players that can link directly to the internet and stream movies directly into our living rooms. This is becoming so common, in fact, that Roger Ebert recently acknowledged with more than a little sadness that cinemas themselves may be on the path to extinction. For many of us, it is just too much money and too much hassle to get everyone into the theatre when we can watch the same thing at home.
But, in my experience there are some movies that you just can’t watch on the TV if you want to get the full effect. To truly appreciate these “blockbusters,” we need the huge screen, the large space, and the echoing surround sound to pull us fully into the action and effects, and it’s strange and scary what that kind of technology can do. There are many movies, I’ll admit, that had sucked me in when I watched them in the theatre whether or not they had redeeming value, or good acting, or a strong story line. In fact, the “bad” ones were sometimes the ones that I enjoyed the most – sitting there for the adrenaline rush without having to think or feel anything. That is what I secretly love about them, and this summer promises several excellent examples.
One that I am particularly looking forward to is Mission Impossible 4 where rogue agent Ethan Hawke promises to get stuck in some inescapable situation only to worm his way out with the help of a few friends, a bit of luck, and innumerable techno-gadgets that will, of course, require quite elaborate stunts and special effects if they are to work at all. It’s brain candy, I know, but there’s something about beating impossible odds to pull off incredible heists that I just love.
I suppose a big part of my fascination comes from wishing that I could do all those things … at least in a smaller, less death-defying way. The thing is, I often feel like my life is full of impossible missions. Chief among them and most immediate is the challenge of raising two intelligent, sensitive, well-behaved, respectful, loving, good-hearted boys. If there is anything that I don’t feel prepared for it navigating that responsibility without inadvertently doing irreparable damage to them along the way. If anyone has a map or a guaranteed methodology to help me out, please let me know.
Beyond that, though, there are myriad others tasks that I feel more or less responsible for. Two big ones given everything in the news are working to protect the environment and struggling against the militarism that seems to have gotten a dose of steroids lately. Then there’s taking care of those less fortunate than I: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, and housing the homeless…. You know, all the things we preach about because we really do think they’re important.
Some of those things are beyond me because I don’t have the tools or the power or the wisdom or courage I would need to get the job done. They may not be action-packed or life-threatening (though I suppose they might be if I really committed to them), but they are in the same realm as the adventures of Ethan Hawke. Put me his position and there is no way I would be able to do what needed to be done let alone survive long enough to try.
Others seem impossible simply because they are so big or take so long. If you chip away at them you make some headway, but it’s hard to keep at it without becoming discourage no matter how important the ultimate goal. There are people, I know, who are passionate about such work … who get excited by the prospect of taking the first step down one of those proverbial thousand-mile journeys and have the perseverance to move mountains one stone at a time. I’m just not one of them … and I’m not alone in that. If I were, there would be an army of people hard at work on solving the problems of the global community instead of a few pockets of resistance here and there.
And, I suspect that my feelings of inadequacy are nothing compared to the way the first group of disciples felt when Jesus left them there on that mountain. As they turned and walked back down to Jerusalem, I think they probably came down off a once-in-a-lifetime high with each step they took. They had been there, after all, when Jesus reappeared. They had seen the prophesies fulfilled. Unbelievable though it was, they had talked to, eaten with, and learned from their Messiah even after he had died, and after a month of living in that new reality, I expect they had come to take for granted that Jesus would be with them forever – always there to show them the way.
Instead, he had left them, rising into the heavens in a blaze of glorious light … left them with a vague promise of help to come … and the all too real, all too impossible mission of continuing his work, of making disciples of all the nations.
A few weeks ago, I made a passing reference to what that phrase, “continuing Jesus’ work” really means for us – to what it means to make disciples of the nations, and I think this might be the time to explore that in more depth. The Great Commission, as we call it, is often thought to mean saving people for Christ – that is, proclaiming the good news that Jesus was and is the Messiah and that all who believe and are baptized will be saved from eternal suffering and ushered into eternal life through the gift of grace. But, I’m not sure we’ve gotten that entirely right. That’s definitely part of it – that inviting people to share in the redeeming grace of Christ, but if it true, as Gail O’Day claims, that “When Jesus commissioned the [community of his followers] to continue [his work, he meant that they were to make] God in Jesus known in the world.” And God as made known to us in Jesus was all about sharing the reality that the Kingdom was already present among humanity.
That means more than just baptizing people. It means proclaiming the new reality, describing it as clearly as possible, inviting people to step into the mystery of all that it might mean to be living in a world ruled by the one whose love led him to give his life for all of us. And it means more than that, too. It means modeling what a life lived in the midst of that reality looks like, being people of the Kingdom who act out of love and compassion so that everyone receives what she or he needs and no one is left alone. It means seeking healing – healing of bodies, healing of spirits, healing of the brokenness all around us.
That - all of that - is the task that Jesus left to the disciples. And I’m sure those men and women who were given that work were at a loss because if Jesus – if the Messiah himself with all his power and all his understanding was not able to do it, how on earth would they be able to? Even though they were a good sized community of people, I’m sure they felt lost and overwhelmed by the challenges that lay ahead.
I think we are in the same position. I feel like our congregation is on the brink of something, like potential and power and passion and energy are building toward some moment in the future – a moment when we will find ourselves in the midst of an explosion of new growth and a profound deepening of our spiritual life together as a community. But right now, in this moment, as I talk with you all and we look ahead at the challenges we face they often seems insurmountable.
Here we are with the very same mission received by those long-ago followers and handed down through the ages: continuing the work started by Jesus. Two thousand years later, the world’s need to hear and see and feel the presence of the Kingdom around them and the love of Christ within them still cries out to us. And we struggle with low attendance. We have trouble meeting our budget. Our ceiling leaks. And it is hard to get everything done because we all have such busy lives. Simply caring for our faith community is hard enough, picking up the mission left to by Christ ….
We are shy people – especially when it comes to sharing our faith. Our whole society is more than a little squeamish about it. We look at those who do share with distrust and distaste. That part of our lives, we have been taught, is personal, and the evangelists out there often wear the face of intolerance or carry the sword of judgment, and that doesn’t feel very Christ-like. We do not want to be like them. We don’t want to risk even the slightest chance that anyone might see us in that light, and so we go out of our way to avoid it.
I’m not singling any of you out here. I avoid it too … maybe even more than you do. It is hard to keep from being lumped in with “those people” when you are a pastor. We are all in the same boat here, and while we do a pretty good job of modeling and working for healing and reconciliation as a congregation, it seems like it might just take a miracle to get us out there describing the Kingdom, proclaiming the good news that it is here, or even sharing our own joy at having experience it here in this community of faith.
It took a miracle for the first Christians too. It took the coming of the Spirit to get them going, to remind them of Jesus’ promise that they were protected and unified by the power and the truth that he had shared with them. They had to wait for that miracle. Commissioned by Christ himself with their own mission impossible, they had to sit and hope that they would, somehow, be able to do what had been asked of them. They went and prayed that they would find a way to take even just the first step on that journey.
But, we don’t have to wait…. The miracle has happened. The promised presence of the Spirit has been fulfilled for us already, and the Sustainer lives within us offering us strength and encouragement … empowering us for the work that is ours to do as a community that has tasted the new reality of God’s Reign among us … giving us “shy people the strength and courage to do what needs to be done.”
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is no more and no less than continuing the work of making God in Jesus known to the world. It is to go out into the world and living out the love and compassion that marks the Children of God. It is working to heal pain and brokenness, relieve suffering, and offer hope in the midst of despair. It is proclaiming in a sure and confident voice the truth that, whatever it may look like out there, the Kingdom of God is here, and it offers new hope and new life to any who wish to enter.
It’s a big task, but it is possible.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Lost in the Dark?
sermon by Torin Eikler
John 15:15-21 Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:8-20
When I was just nine years old, I learned the truth about what “darkness” means. That year, my family went on vacation in Kentucky which may not seem like a very exciting trip, but any trip was fun for my brothers and me at that point. And we got to camp out for nearly a week right near a field that we covered in grasshoppers – really big ones! That was great in and of itself, but the highlight of the trip for me was a visit to Mammoth Caves.
That system is one of the biggest known, easily accessible caves in the country, and it is something to see. There are rooms filled with sparkling stalactites and columns that seem to glow pink in the light of the lamps. There were ceilings filled with sleeping bats and the messy white floors that accompany them. There was a stone waterfall, and there was even a real waterfall when we visited, though I seem to remember that it sometimes disappears during dry spells. (I suspect it’s quite a torrent right now.) Yet, the most memorable part of our journey into the bowels of the earth was the two minutes that we spent in darkness – the two longest minutes of my life.
For those of you who have never had the experience of standing without lamps in a cave, the darkness there is not like the darkness we usually think of. It is absolute. … There is no starlight. There is no soft glow from reflected city lights. There is no light whatsoever, and as you stand there with your eyes wide open and the afterglow fades from your retinas, you do not feel like you have your eyes closed. You feel like you have lost the ability to see and even to remember what seeing was like.
There is no question that those moments in the cave were scary. I’m pretty sure I would have been lost to absolute terror if I wasn’t old enough to know that I wasn’t alone and that the lights would come on soon, old enough to have that knowing be a comfort to me. My younger brothers were not so lucky, but they were safely held in my parents’ arms. So, their crying didn’t start immediately, and it never took on the panicked tone of an abandoned child. And, even with the sure knowledge that the world was not actually gone, the feel of the stone under my feet, and the sounds of rustling and whispered conversations around me, I still felt lost and alone – isolated in the darkness with no sense of where I should or could go for help.
I was forcibly reminded of that childhood brush with terror last year when I heard the news that 33 Chilean miners had survived the Copiopo mine cave-in. The men, it seemed, were in reasonably good health and were gathered together in a survival pod some 2,300 feet underground. The news anchors assured us that the men had food and light and would probably be able to survive until rescuers got to them. But they also said that it would be at least two months until an exit shaft would reach them. The thought of that actually kept me awake that night and images of being trapped in the darkness haunted my dreams.
Over the course of the next sixty-some days, we got regular updates on the situation. Exploratory shafts made it down to the emergency shelter. Food and water were lowered down. A telephone line was put in so that the men could talk with their families. Movie equipment and books were sent in to fight cabin fever. And, as the rescue shaft approached completion, several sessions on media management and public relations sought to help the men prepare for their reentry into society and instant fame.
As a result of those sessions, there has not been a deluge of story-telling or competing interview tours as different miners vied for the spot light. There were a few sensational stories in the news in the first flush of excitement, and a few miners gave rather cursory interviews. By and large, though, the story has been saved for the “official” account that will be published on behalf of the whole group sometime in the next couple of years. But there was one rather extensive and unique conversation that I remember. I haven’t been able to find a record of it. So, I’ll have to share what I remember with apologies to all.
It was one of the older miners who, I think, had lost a son in an earlier accident at the mine. When he was asked about his memory of the cave-in, he responded by telling his story:
‘When I was down there in the dark and everything was shaking all around me, I took shelter under the nearest archway and waited there for the mountain to fall on me. Rocks started to fall around me, and the lights went out. When it stopped and I was still alive, I called out to see if anyone else was there, and nobody answered me. After a while I stopped yelling because I knew I was alone. That was the most afraid that I have ever been until now.
At first, I sat there … I just sat there. I was so scared that I wasn’t even thinking about anything. But then I began to feel around me to see how much space there was, and I started groping my way through the darkness in the direction I thought would take me back out. And as I began to move, I got less scared. I thought, “I must have survived for a reason,” and I had a sense of peace then because I knew I would see my family again. It was the closest I have ever been to God when I was down there in the darkness.’
Darkness has a way of doing that, of opening us up to sense the presence of God with us. We are such visual creatures, so attuned and accustomed to sorting and interacting with our world through what we see, that when we can’t see, we find ourselves lost, confused, afraid. First, we sit. Then we begin, slowly, to reach out with our other senses in the hope of finding something we know … something that comforts us – be it the touch of a loved one, or if we are alone, the hand of God reaching out to enfold our own groping fingers.
There are times, though, when the comforting presence of other people can actually blind us to the darkness around us and we wander about lost without knowing it. Sometimes it seems like most of the suffering in the world comes from those blind wanderings. Millions die of hunger and malnutrition that could be prevented if we woke up to the greed that clouds our vision. More suffer from diseases that could easily be cured if we focused our vision on the right path. Still others live with violence because we are lost in the illusion that our self-interests are not linked to the wellbeing of others. Every once in a while, we wake up to these realities and have the chance to take a new path, one that may lead us out of the darkness.
September 11th, 2001 was one such moment – a time when the whole world stopped and looked up to find that the way we had been doing things wasn’t working. For about a week, there were many voices calling for a change – many people groping for a new path that might lead us to a world with less violence, less hatred, less suffering. But it was not to be. Fear and anger stormed in to shroud our vision once more, and we have had ten years of violent conflict which started as a hunt for one man and has grown into a global war.
Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1st and yet the violence seems to be far from over. The War on Terror will never be over because violent force relies on the power of terror itself to succeed, and we end up in the same situation though we may be on the other side of the equation. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it his book, Strength to Love, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,” Despite his words of wisdom and hope, despite the infinite possibilities for creative new ideas provided by a global community, it seems that we are still lost in the same darkness he tried to dispel nearly 50 years ago.
There are other kinds of darkness, too. Times when we wander into our very own caves and find that our feet have lost the path back to light and laughter, warmth and friendship. Grief, depression, addiction, or illness … all of them can steal into our lives and drive us deep into those unknowable places where we feel isolated and alone no matter how many people there happen to be around us. They take us to a place that is “The opposite of human vitality,” a place where we feel “ripped from what felt like [our lives.]” And we are “cast into the darkness.”
In those times, the words of Paul spoke to encourage the Athenians seem anything but a comfort. “From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live so that they would search for God and grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”
To someone who find themselves feeling lost and alone in darkness, looking for someone or something to hold on to, there is no consolation the assurance that it is all part of some grand plan. There is little sense of relief in words that proclaim that God has put us exactly where we are and intends us to experience the pain we are feeling so that we will turn to seek him, groping through our suffering despair toward the port of our last resort. What little hope we may feel comes only from the hope that when we reach out toward God we will find that “he is not far from … us.” But that little hope and the truth it grows from are greater, truer, and more certain than we may think.
Back in that cave of my childhood, back in the bowels of the earth surrounded by the unknown, the thing that kept me quiet and calm toward the end had nothing to do with reason or courage. I reached out. When I could no longer stand it on my own, I reached out, groping with my hand toward the last place I had seen my father. And I found him there, not far from me. And as he took my hand in his and I sidled up to him, I was no longer alone or afraid. I felt safe and secure.
That’s the promise that God gives us – he will always be there. “[He] will not leave us orphaned, [but] will come to [us].” When we find ourselves lost and searching, whether it be all of us together or any one of us alone, Christ will come to us so that we can know without doubt that our lives are held in the hands of one who cares deeply for us, one who has promised us that he is not just near us, but within us … always … just as we live always within his love.
Comfort … grace … relief ... hope … is there just waiting for us. Whenever we wake up in the deep, lightless darkness and find ourselves groping for any little thing that will bring us back to ourselves,
back to light,
back to warmth we will find God there …
not far from us …
waiting to take our hands
and comfort us
and lead us into life.
John 15:15-21 Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:8-20
When I was just nine years old, I learned the truth about what “darkness” means. That year, my family went on vacation in Kentucky which may not seem like a very exciting trip, but any trip was fun for my brothers and me at that point. And we got to camp out for nearly a week right near a field that we covered in grasshoppers – really big ones! That was great in and of itself, but the highlight of the trip for me was a visit to Mammoth Caves.
That system is one of the biggest known, easily accessible caves in the country, and it is something to see. There are rooms filled with sparkling stalactites and columns that seem to glow pink in the light of the lamps. There were ceilings filled with sleeping bats and the messy white floors that accompany them. There was a stone waterfall, and there was even a real waterfall when we visited, though I seem to remember that it sometimes disappears during dry spells. (I suspect it’s quite a torrent right now.) Yet, the most memorable part of our journey into the bowels of the earth was the two minutes that we spent in darkness – the two longest minutes of my life.
For those of you who have never had the experience of standing without lamps in a cave, the darkness there is not like the darkness we usually think of. It is absolute. … There is no starlight. There is no soft glow from reflected city lights. There is no light whatsoever, and as you stand there with your eyes wide open and the afterglow fades from your retinas, you do not feel like you have your eyes closed. You feel like you have lost the ability to see and even to remember what seeing was like.
There is no question that those moments in the cave were scary. I’m pretty sure I would have been lost to absolute terror if I wasn’t old enough to know that I wasn’t alone and that the lights would come on soon, old enough to have that knowing be a comfort to me. My younger brothers were not so lucky, but they were safely held in my parents’ arms. So, their crying didn’t start immediately, and it never took on the panicked tone of an abandoned child. And, even with the sure knowledge that the world was not actually gone, the feel of the stone under my feet, and the sounds of rustling and whispered conversations around me, I still felt lost and alone – isolated in the darkness with no sense of where I should or could go for help.
I was forcibly reminded of that childhood brush with terror last year when I heard the news that 33 Chilean miners had survived the Copiopo mine cave-in. The men, it seemed, were in reasonably good health and were gathered together in a survival pod some 2,300 feet underground. The news anchors assured us that the men had food and light and would probably be able to survive until rescuers got to them. But they also said that it would be at least two months until an exit shaft would reach them. The thought of that actually kept me awake that night and images of being trapped in the darkness haunted my dreams.
Over the course of the next sixty-some days, we got regular updates on the situation. Exploratory shafts made it down to the emergency shelter. Food and water were lowered down. A telephone line was put in so that the men could talk with their families. Movie equipment and books were sent in to fight cabin fever. And, as the rescue shaft approached completion, several sessions on media management and public relations sought to help the men prepare for their reentry into society and instant fame.
As a result of those sessions, there has not been a deluge of story-telling or competing interview tours as different miners vied for the spot light. There were a few sensational stories in the news in the first flush of excitement, and a few miners gave rather cursory interviews. By and large, though, the story has been saved for the “official” account that will be published on behalf of the whole group sometime in the next couple of years. But there was one rather extensive and unique conversation that I remember. I haven’t been able to find a record of it. So, I’ll have to share what I remember with apologies to all.
It was one of the older miners who, I think, had lost a son in an earlier accident at the mine. When he was asked about his memory of the cave-in, he responded by telling his story:
‘When I was down there in the dark and everything was shaking all around me, I took shelter under the nearest archway and waited there for the mountain to fall on me. Rocks started to fall around me, and the lights went out. When it stopped and I was still alive, I called out to see if anyone else was there, and nobody answered me. After a while I stopped yelling because I knew I was alone. That was the most afraid that I have ever been until now.
At first, I sat there … I just sat there. I was so scared that I wasn’t even thinking about anything. But then I began to feel around me to see how much space there was, and I started groping my way through the darkness in the direction I thought would take me back out. And as I began to move, I got less scared. I thought, “I must have survived for a reason,” and I had a sense of peace then because I knew I would see my family again. It was the closest I have ever been to God when I was down there in the darkness.’
Darkness has a way of doing that, of opening us up to sense the presence of God with us. We are such visual creatures, so attuned and accustomed to sorting and interacting with our world through what we see, that when we can’t see, we find ourselves lost, confused, afraid. First, we sit. Then we begin, slowly, to reach out with our other senses in the hope of finding something we know … something that comforts us – be it the touch of a loved one, or if we are alone, the hand of God reaching out to enfold our own groping fingers.
There are times, though, when the comforting presence of other people can actually blind us to the darkness around us and we wander about lost without knowing it. Sometimes it seems like most of the suffering in the world comes from those blind wanderings. Millions die of hunger and malnutrition that could be prevented if we woke up to the greed that clouds our vision. More suffer from diseases that could easily be cured if we focused our vision on the right path. Still others live with violence because we are lost in the illusion that our self-interests are not linked to the wellbeing of others. Every once in a while, we wake up to these realities and have the chance to take a new path, one that may lead us out of the darkness.
September 11th, 2001 was one such moment – a time when the whole world stopped and looked up to find that the way we had been doing things wasn’t working. For about a week, there were many voices calling for a change – many people groping for a new path that might lead us to a world with less violence, less hatred, less suffering. But it was not to be. Fear and anger stormed in to shroud our vision once more, and we have had ten years of violent conflict which started as a hunt for one man and has grown into a global war.
Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1st and yet the violence seems to be far from over. The War on Terror will never be over because violent force relies on the power of terror itself to succeed, and we end up in the same situation though we may be on the other side of the equation. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it his book, Strength to Love, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,” Despite his words of wisdom and hope, despite the infinite possibilities for creative new ideas provided by a global community, it seems that we are still lost in the same darkness he tried to dispel nearly 50 years ago.
There are other kinds of darkness, too. Times when we wander into our very own caves and find that our feet have lost the path back to light and laughter, warmth and friendship. Grief, depression, addiction, or illness … all of them can steal into our lives and drive us deep into those unknowable places where we feel isolated and alone no matter how many people there happen to be around us. They take us to a place that is “The opposite of human vitality,” a place where we feel “ripped from what felt like [our lives.]” And we are “cast into the darkness.”
In those times, the words of Paul spoke to encourage the Athenians seem anything but a comfort. “From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live so that they would search for God and grope for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us.”
To someone who find themselves feeling lost and alone in darkness, looking for someone or something to hold on to, there is no consolation the assurance that it is all part of some grand plan. There is little sense of relief in words that proclaim that God has put us exactly where we are and intends us to experience the pain we are feeling so that we will turn to seek him, groping through our suffering despair toward the port of our last resort. What little hope we may feel comes only from the hope that when we reach out toward God we will find that “he is not far from … us.” But that little hope and the truth it grows from are greater, truer, and more certain than we may think.
Back in that cave of my childhood, back in the bowels of the earth surrounded by the unknown, the thing that kept me quiet and calm toward the end had nothing to do with reason or courage. I reached out. When I could no longer stand it on my own, I reached out, groping with my hand toward the last place I had seen my father. And I found him there, not far from me. And as he took my hand in his and I sidled up to him, I was no longer alone or afraid. I felt safe and secure.
That’s the promise that God gives us – he will always be there. “[He] will not leave us orphaned, [but] will come to [us].” When we find ourselves lost and searching, whether it be all of us together or any one of us alone, Christ will come to us so that we can know without doubt that our lives are held in the hands of one who cares deeply for us, one who has promised us that he is not just near us, but within us … always … just as we live always within his love.
Comfort … grace … relief ... hope … is there just waiting for us. Whenever we wake up in the deep, lightless darkness and find ourselves groping for any little thing that will bring us back to ourselves,
back to light,
back to warmth we will find God there …
not far from us …
waiting to take our hands
and comfort us
and lead us into life.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Riddle Me This ....
sermon by Torin Eikler
John 10:1-18 Acts 2:42-47 Psalm 23
“Riddle me this: what is it that is always coming, but never arrives?! … Tomorrow. For when it arrives, it is today.” That’s the earliest line that I remember from a television show. It’s the Riddler speaking to his henchmen in an episode of Batman that aired in 1978 when I was five years old, and it began my childhood fascination with riddles.
“What is black and white and red all over?” A newspaper … or a sunburned penguin.
“What belongs to you but is most used by others?” Your name.
“What can run but never walks,
has a mouth but never talks,
has a bed but never sleeps,
has a head but never weeps?” A river.
And my mother’s favorite: “What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?” …
Any idea? ….
A towel.
Riddles like these challenge the wits of young and old alike, and the harder ones have been fodder for legends and myths throughout history. Remember the riddle of the Sphinx that guarded Thebes:
“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?”
Or for those who weren’t forced to study Greek mythology in Jr. High, the riddle of the Sphinx blocking Harry Potter’s path to the Tri-Wizard cup:
First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?
The first answer is: a human. We crawl as babies, walk upright as adults, and use canes as we grow old. The second, a spider, is made up of three other answers: a spy, the letter “d,” and the sound, “eeerrr.”
It’s fun, isn’t it, teasing out the clues in the text to solve the riddles. At least it’s fun when we aren’t facing the Sphinx ourselves. It feels different when we think about the riddles that affect our lives yet remain a mystery despite our best efforts to unravel them. How is it, for example, that US special forces were able to get into Pakistan, carry out pitched battle near the capital, and then leave with captives in tow all without being detected by the nearby military base? (Or to put it in a more traditional form - riddle me this: when is a secret raid not a secret?) (pause) Or how is it that the United States continues to have 50 million people going hungry while we throw away 31 million tons of perfectly good food each year?
Those riddles can take us deep into feelings of fear and uncertainty, shame and guilt and compassion. If governments (ours included) are willing to actively deceive their people in order accomplish their own purposes, how can we trust anything they say or put our faith in their promises? How can we feel good about ourselves when we waste enough food to feed much of the world - not to mention the exorbitant amounts we eat?
Still, whether they are just for fun or they are truly troubling, riddles fascinate us? There’s just something about the mystery that lives at the core of their mis-directions that intrigues and engages us. It’s almost as if we are being compelled to wrestle with them.
Jesus knew that about people. That’s one reason he taught in parables – in riddles that beg to be explored. And today’s lesson is a perfect example … one that gives us hope in the midst of our struggles with the disturbing enigmas of our time. Riddle me this, he said, when is a gate not a gate? When it is a devoted shepherd.
Shepherds at the time brought the flocks into a common, guarded enclosure for the night on a typical day. But sometimes they had to go far afield to find enough food for their sheep, and they were forced to camp out in the wilderness. It was a common enough situation that shepherds built rock enclosures out in the countryside so that anyone caught out after dark would have a relatively safe place to put their flock for the night.
Those paddocks were nothing fancy. They didn’t even have gates. But they afforded some protection from predators and poachers, and they kept the animals from wandering off as long as the entrance was closed off. So, many shepherds would herd the sheep into the pen and then lie down in the gap, making themselves the gate and providing protection.
In a very real way, this represented a willingness of a good shepherd not only to lead his flock to food and water but even to risk his or her life for the safety of the sheep they tended. In the same way, Jesus said, he was not only the one who guided those who followed him to all that they needed for abundant life, he was the one who would lay down his life to save theirs.
It’s a comforting image – this metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and it’s not surprising that it’s a favorite among Christians everywhere – even where we no longer have shepherds in our midst. If Christ is our shepherd, than we need not worry about much. We listen to his voice, follow where he leads us, and we have all of our deepest needs met. We find ourselves in tranquil meadows filled with food, and we lay down to rest in safety beside the waters of life. Even when we walk in threatening shadows or stand in the presence of those who would do us harm, we have no cause for fear because there is someone who stands between us and them – who lay himself down in the gap for our protection.
It’s a wonderful way to portray the love of a caring God, and it provides immense comfort in a spiritual sense. It probably provided comfort in a more immediate way to those whose illnesses were healed or who received bread and fish on the mountain or who saw the storm’s rage subside, … but it doesn’t always feel so clear cut to us when we are in danger and there is no body to stand between us and the threat. Perhaps that’s why we continue to embrace violence and save our wealth against some unforeseen need.
So, what do we do – what should we do when we stand in need or when we see someone else lacking basic human needs? How do we bring comfort and a sense of security to those among us who are suffering or grieving or living with threat of violence and death? What are the sheep to do while the shepherd is gone?
The gathering of followers in Jerusalem had one answer in their time and for their situation. Many of them had walked the roads and the countryside with Jesus. Some of them had seen the risen Christ. All of them trusted the power of the Spirit to guide and sustain them through the easy times and in the valleys of the shadow. And they took Jesus’ final commission to Peter literally and metaphorically and continued the work of feeding Christ’s sheep in body and spirit.
They took hold of their own strength and ingenuity and set about meeting the needs of everyone in their community, sharing a common table and gathering daily to worship in the Temple. Each person gave what they had, not out of a legalistic sense of duty but out of a deep desire to care for each other, and in that way, they solved the challenge of Jesus’ physical absence with a riddle of their own: when are sheep no longer sheep? …. When they become the shepherds.
It is true, as Marion Soards says, that “[Acts] presents us with an idealized moment in early Christian history.” Even then it was not a perfect system. There were constantly new needs to be met and resources – both in terms of skills and money – were limited. (Sound a little familiar?) But people shared willingly out of a generous compassion for one another, and their common faith led them “to focus on what they had in common rather than what distinguished them from one another.”
Even though things changed in short order as the community grew and spread and wealthier people began to try and hold something back, the story is clear that the members of that first community accomplished great things. They met the needs of thousands of people and lived together with a level of harmony that brought awe to the whole of Jerusalem.
We are the sheep of the Good Shepherd, and we are called to be more than just sheep. In his last conversation with his followers, Jesus told them that he thought of them as friends - friends that would carry on his work of sharing the good news of the kingdom and of caring for those in need. The early church lived up to that trust admirably in their own way, and we can learn a lot from their example and their experience. We can learn from their faith in the Spirit and from their determination to step up and do some things themselves. It’s not so much the exact model of their life together that can guide us to the place that restores us, body and soul. It’s the way they lived it into reality.
So riddle me this: How do we solve the troubling problems of today? How do we meet the needs of those who desperately need the day to day care of a good and faithful shepherd? …
Or in words that echo down from one of our forbearers: are we our brothers’ keepers?
John 10:1-18 Acts 2:42-47 Psalm 23
“Riddle me this: what is it that is always coming, but never arrives?! … Tomorrow. For when it arrives, it is today.” That’s the earliest line that I remember from a television show. It’s the Riddler speaking to his henchmen in an episode of Batman that aired in 1978 when I was five years old, and it began my childhood fascination with riddles.
“What is black and white and red all over?” A newspaper … or a sunburned penguin.
“What belongs to you but is most used by others?” Your name.
“What can run but never walks,
has a mouth but never talks,
has a bed but never sleeps,
has a head but never weeps?” A river.
And my mother’s favorite: “What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?” …
Any idea? ….
A towel.
Riddles like these challenge the wits of young and old alike, and the harder ones have been fodder for legends and myths throughout history. Remember the riddle of the Sphinx that guarded Thebes:
“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?”
Or for those who weren’t forced to study Greek mythology in Jr. High, the riddle of the Sphinx blocking Harry Potter’s path to the Tri-Wizard cup:
First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?
The first answer is: a human. We crawl as babies, walk upright as adults, and use canes as we grow old. The second, a spider, is made up of three other answers: a spy, the letter “d,” and the sound, “eeerrr.”
It’s fun, isn’t it, teasing out the clues in the text to solve the riddles. At least it’s fun when we aren’t facing the Sphinx ourselves. It feels different when we think about the riddles that affect our lives yet remain a mystery despite our best efforts to unravel them. How is it, for example, that US special forces were able to get into Pakistan, carry out pitched battle near the capital, and then leave with captives in tow all without being detected by the nearby military base? (Or to put it in a more traditional form - riddle me this: when is a secret raid not a secret?) (pause) Or how is it that the United States continues to have 50 million people going hungry while we throw away 31 million tons of perfectly good food each year?
Those riddles can take us deep into feelings of fear and uncertainty, shame and guilt and compassion. If governments (ours included) are willing to actively deceive their people in order accomplish their own purposes, how can we trust anything they say or put our faith in their promises? How can we feel good about ourselves when we waste enough food to feed much of the world - not to mention the exorbitant amounts we eat?
Still, whether they are just for fun or they are truly troubling, riddles fascinate us? There’s just something about the mystery that lives at the core of their mis-directions that intrigues and engages us. It’s almost as if we are being compelled to wrestle with them.
Jesus knew that about people. That’s one reason he taught in parables – in riddles that beg to be explored. And today’s lesson is a perfect example … one that gives us hope in the midst of our struggles with the disturbing enigmas of our time. Riddle me this, he said, when is a gate not a gate? When it is a devoted shepherd.
Shepherds at the time brought the flocks into a common, guarded enclosure for the night on a typical day. But sometimes they had to go far afield to find enough food for their sheep, and they were forced to camp out in the wilderness. It was a common enough situation that shepherds built rock enclosures out in the countryside so that anyone caught out after dark would have a relatively safe place to put their flock for the night.
Those paddocks were nothing fancy. They didn’t even have gates. But they afforded some protection from predators and poachers, and they kept the animals from wandering off as long as the entrance was closed off. So, many shepherds would herd the sheep into the pen and then lie down in the gap, making themselves the gate and providing protection.
In a very real way, this represented a willingness of a good shepherd not only to lead his flock to food and water but even to risk his or her life for the safety of the sheep they tended. In the same way, Jesus said, he was not only the one who guided those who followed him to all that they needed for abundant life, he was the one who would lay down his life to save theirs.
It’s a comforting image – this metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and it’s not surprising that it’s a favorite among Christians everywhere – even where we no longer have shepherds in our midst. If Christ is our shepherd, than we need not worry about much. We listen to his voice, follow where he leads us, and we have all of our deepest needs met. We find ourselves in tranquil meadows filled with food, and we lay down to rest in safety beside the waters of life. Even when we walk in threatening shadows or stand in the presence of those who would do us harm, we have no cause for fear because there is someone who stands between us and them – who lay himself down in the gap for our protection.
It’s a wonderful way to portray the love of a caring God, and it provides immense comfort in a spiritual sense. It probably provided comfort in a more immediate way to those whose illnesses were healed or who received bread and fish on the mountain or who saw the storm’s rage subside, … but it doesn’t always feel so clear cut to us when we are in danger and there is no body to stand between us and the threat. Perhaps that’s why we continue to embrace violence and save our wealth against some unforeseen need.
So, what do we do – what should we do when we stand in need or when we see someone else lacking basic human needs? How do we bring comfort and a sense of security to those among us who are suffering or grieving or living with threat of violence and death? What are the sheep to do while the shepherd is gone?
The gathering of followers in Jerusalem had one answer in their time and for their situation. Many of them had walked the roads and the countryside with Jesus. Some of them had seen the risen Christ. All of them trusted the power of the Spirit to guide and sustain them through the easy times and in the valleys of the shadow. And they took Jesus’ final commission to Peter literally and metaphorically and continued the work of feeding Christ’s sheep in body and spirit.
They took hold of their own strength and ingenuity and set about meeting the needs of everyone in their community, sharing a common table and gathering daily to worship in the Temple. Each person gave what they had, not out of a legalistic sense of duty but out of a deep desire to care for each other, and in that way, they solved the challenge of Jesus’ physical absence with a riddle of their own: when are sheep no longer sheep? …. When they become the shepherds.
It is true, as Marion Soards says, that “[Acts] presents us with an idealized moment in early Christian history.” Even then it was not a perfect system. There were constantly new needs to be met and resources – both in terms of skills and money – were limited. (Sound a little familiar?) But people shared willingly out of a generous compassion for one another, and their common faith led them “to focus on what they had in common rather than what distinguished them from one another.”
Even though things changed in short order as the community grew and spread and wealthier people began to try and hold something back, the story is clear that the members of that first community accomplished great things. They met the needs of thousands of people and lived together with a level of harmony that brought awe to the whole of Jerusalem.
We are the sheep of the Good Shepherd, and we are called to be more than just sheep. In his last conversation with his followers, Jesus told them that he thought of them as friends - friends that would carry on his work of sharing the good news of the kingdom and of caring for those in need. The early church lived up to that trust admirably in their own way, and we can learn a lot from their example and their experience. We can learn from their faith in the Spirit and from their determination to step up and do some things themselves. It’s not so much the exact model of their life together that can guide us to the place that restores us, body and soul. It’s the way they lived it into reality.
So riddle me this: How do we solve the troubling problems of today? How do we meet the needs of those who desperately need the day to day care of a good and faithful shepherd? …
Or in words that echo down from one of our forbearers: are we our brothers’ keepers?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Look Me in the Eyes
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Luke 24:13-35
Easter 3
Who here hasn’t ever wondered about the secret to happiness?
Is it income? Education? Upbringing?
A team of National Geographic researchers recently took on this question.
Where are the happiest people in the world, and how can we be like them?
Basing their research on the three most well respected studies of overall well-being, a group led by Dan Buettner set off to explore what he has called The Blue
Zones,
the places in the world where people live the longest—
and in a follow up study, he went to learn from the people who are considered the happiest.
In his book Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way he highlights four of the world’s happiest areas, Denmark, Singapore, Mexico, and…San Luis Obispo, California.
Now, I have to say…when I hear these four places, it is somewhat shocking to think about them as being overly happy (aside from California, which I guess I would assume is pretty happy).
When I think of Denmark, Singapore, and Mexico I think of, respectively, cold long dark nights, the caning of Michael Fay for vandalism in 1994, and drug cartels and political corruption.
But apparently regardless of weather, corporal punishment, rampant violence and poverty…people still have the ability to be pretty happy. Even be the happiest people on the planet.
The National Geographic team revealed their hypothesis that if we can make permanent changes in six areas of life, we are well on our way to being happier people. Here is a recap of these six areas, taken from a brief report on their findings.
1.Community: Surveys from 146 countries, representing most of the world’s population, show that the top factors promoting happiness are: economic freedom, low unemployment rate, tolerance, and quality of government. That is, the biggest determinant of our personal happiness is where we live.
2. Workplace: Most of us spend more than half our waking hours at work. Having a short commute, a job that engages our talents and a best friend at work are three of the biggest determinants of a happy work-life.
3. Social Life: The happiest Americans report 7-8 hours of social interaction a day–real-face time, not Facebook time. Joining a club that meets just once per month can have an effect on your happiness equivalent to doubling your salary.
4. Financial Life: You don’t have to keep telling people in Brethren and Mennonite congregations that money can’t buy happiness. We know it. Now whether or not we really believe it that’s another story. We need food, shelter, education, mobility and healthcare. But the happiest people, after they attain those things, spend their money on experiences, not material things, and on financial security.
5. Home: Setting up science-backed nudges can subtly lead us to behaviors that favor happiness. Adopting a dog, for example, will dependably lower stress hormones daily. The happiest people only watch a half hour of TV a day, and reducing the number of screens in your home will help you to watch less TV.
And finally
6. [The area of the] Self: People who can articulate their life purpose in one sentence are 20% happier than those who can’t. Taking time to know your values, strengths, talents, passions –and how to share those gifts – can raise your well-being.
These broad categories probably don’t surprise you. We certainly know that if we don’t like our job, if we don’t have a job, if our family relationships are stressed we will be unhappy. But isn’t it interesting how small some of the factors can be. Reduce the number of electronic screens in your house. Adopt a dog. Take time to put your life purpose in one sentence. Join a club.
And in the midst of all of this, as you probably can expect—though it doesn’t have its own category—happiness is part of the food we eat.
So sure, he had suggestions like, you’ll be happier if you eat oatmeal and walnuts for breakfast rather than greasy eggs and bacon. You’ll be happier if incorporate more beans in your diet. A glass of wine--and yes, in moderation-- has heart healthy effects.
But he said something about food that I think is not so familiar to most Americans. It’s not all about what you eat. But it’s about who you eat with. And to take that a bit further, it is also about how you eat when you’re with those people.
Denmark-- that very cold, very dark place-- is considered the happiest country on earth. People interact about seven hours a day. But they don’t get up to schedule seven hours of interaction, this connection is not primarily in meetings, or on Facebook or in Tweets. Rather, it happens around food and the rituals around eating.
Because of the long dark days, many people in Denmark intentionally gather with others, and not just their nuclear family.
A couple times a week—not just Sunday dinner, but two or three times a week—they meet with extended family…neighbors… friends, for a gathering called hougie.
At hougie, they gather around a small table with candlelight, have open-faced sandwiches called smorbrood, a plate of herring, pate, and cheese. There is an interactive nature to this meal as people are gathering, reaching, passing, filling their plates with a little of this and a little of that…
They also have a glass of wine, as you might expect. But the thing about wine at hougie, is that it’s not just a drink. Before they drink they don’t just clink their wine glasses, reflects National Geographic researcher Dan Buettner.
Before they drink, they look each other in the eye through and around the candlelight.
They connect with one another.
They make sure to see one another.
In the long, dark cold days of winter, people have discovered what is necessary to keep them from the abyss of spiritual darkness and coldness.
They look each other in the eye.
Can you look someone in the eye? How about looking someone in the eye in the darkest, coldest times in your life?
I doubt that road leading to and from Emmaus was a highway in the midst of a Blue Zone, even as close as it was to Jerusalem, that spiritually holy city. Happiness would not be the word of the day, and American’s obsession with the “pursuit of it” would certainly be a cultural oddity.
Three days after the crucifixion of Jesus had some people hiding, some people weeping, some people cheering, some people walking…just walking.
It was an especially electric time, you can imagine, with the news that his body had gone missing…some say resurrected.
Probably many, like we heard about Thomas last week, probably many weren’t sure if they could believe the talk, the stories.
But these two, on the road to Emmaus, were telling their own stories.
About the things that happened. About Jesus. And then Jesus sidles up to them, just another traveler on the road--being a bit nosy, really-- asking what they’re talking about.
And they give him the recap—who Jesus was, how he was convicted, how he died, and now,
“moreover” they say, as if it is the icing on the cake,
Moreover, as if all that other stuff wasn’t enough… some women of the group astounded them. Saying they saw angels who said Jesus was alive.
Some from the group went back to see if it was true—if Jesus was dead or alive—but they saw nothing.
Eventually… these two travelers did see him. Recognition. Eyes opened. They were now on the inside of the story. You can imagine the jealously of the others who weren’t so lucky…How did they see him?
Was it that he seemed so interested in their experience?
Was it in the familiar way he told the stories about the prophets and about Moses? Was it the way he lovingly chastised them for being a bit slow on the uptake to believe in what their own texts and stories have told them.
Are these the things that helped them recognize Jesus?
Maybe. Probably.
But apparently, no amount of reminding, or correction, or teaching were enough in and of themselves for recognition
It got their hearts burning, as they said.
But it didn’t get their eyes, or their hearts, seeing.
It was all just an experience that could have been left on the road…
Until they invited him in. Until…they stopped him from passing by.
Until they lit the candles, sat around a small table, broke bread, took wine, looked at each other in the eye and then...they recognize him.
And then…[poof]…he’s gone.
Mennonite pastor Ron Adams speaks to the simplicity of this moment, “A spoken word. A bit of bread. A sip of wine. Our texts insist there is a power here [in these simple things] that draws people to God and reveals the presence of Christ”.
[pause]
A spoken word. A bit of bread. A sip of wine. Looking in the eyes of another.
[pause]
In days like these when we’re lured into false confidence that we are safe because the death of one man—when there are celebrations, parties, couches burning in the streets—we know that we still need more light, more clarity, more of God’s word burning in our hearts.
And maybe we need more breaking of bread together and blessing of wine together. Looking one another in the eye.
And I think we know, deep down, that it’s not just symbolic.
Not just in the taking of communion on Sunday morning or even at Love Feast. Not even with those we see everyday when we wake up, who know us so well.
But with those who are vaguely familiar, but really strangers.
With neighbors who care about our community.
With church family who care about a spiritual journey.
Moreover…it is with the Christ that is hidden in each one of us, ready to be revealed those desperately seeking, but not seeing…as Gunilla Norris implies in her poem called Plenty…
Having shared our bread
We know that we are
No longer hungry. It is enough
That you see me for myself
That I see you for yourself
That we bless what we see
And do not borrow, do not use
One another. This is how we know
We are no longer hungry…
That the world is full of terror, full of beauty
And yet we are not afraid to find solace here.
To be bread for each other. To live.
Open your home, open your heart, sit down, eat together, look one another in the eye.
Granted, we won’t know if we will be any happier or not. I don’t even know how we can quantify that.
But if we try, I bet we will feel a bit more human.
More connected.
More burning knowledge with us and more
...simply more recognition of Christ in the world.
And we will be seen…
And we will see Christ.
Amen.
Luke 24:13-35
Easter 3
Who here hasn’t ever wondered about the secret to happiness?
Is it income? Education? Upbringing?
A team of National Geographic researchers recently took on this question.
Where are the happiest people in the world, and how can we be like them?
Basing their research on the three most well respected studies of overall well-being, a group led by Dan Buettner set off to explore what he has called The Blue
Zones,
the places in the world where people live the longest—
and in a follow up study, he went to learn from the people who are considered the happiest.
In his book Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way he highlights four of the world’s happiest areas, Denmark, Singapore, Mexico, and…San Luis Obispo, California.
Now, I have to say…when I hear these four places, it is somewhat shocking to think about them as being overly happy (aside from California, which I guess I would assume is pretty happy).
When I think of Denmark, Singapore, and Mexico I think of, respectively, cold long dark nights, the caning of Michael Fay for vandalism in 1994, and drug cartels and political corruption.
But apparently regardless of weather, corporal punishment, rampant violence and poverty…people still have the ability to be pretty happy. Even be the happiest people on the planet.
The National Geographic team revealed their hypothesis that if we can make permanent changes in six areas of life, we are well on our way to being happier people. Here is a recap of these six areas, taken from a brief report on their findings.
1.Community: Surveys from 146 countries, representing most of the world’s population, show that the top factors promoting happiness are: economic freedom, low unemployment rate, tolerance, and quality of government. That is, the biggest determinant of our personal happiness is where we live.
2. Workplace: Most of us spend more than half our waking hours at work. Having a short commute, a job that engages our talents and a best friend at work are three of the biggest determinants of a happy work-life.
3. Social Life: The happiest Americans report 7-8 hours of social interaction a day–real-face time, not Facebook time. Joining a club that meets just once per month can have an effect on your happiness equivalent to doubling your salary.
4. Financial Life: You don’t have to keep telling people in Brethren and Mennonite congregations that money can’t buy happiness. We know it. Now whether or not we really believe it that’s another story. We need food, shelter, education, mobility and healthcare. But the happiest people, after they attain those things, spend their money on experiences, not material things, and on financial security.
5. Home: Setting up science-backed nudges can subtly lead us to behaviors that favor happiness. Adopting a dog, for example, will dependably lower stress hormones daily. The happiest people only watch a half hour of TV a day, and reducing the number of screens in your home will help you to watch less TV.
And finally
6. [The area of the] Self: People who can articulate their life purpose in one sentence are 20% happier than those who can’t. Taking time to know your values, strengths, talents, passions –and how to share those gifts – can raise your well-being.
These broad categories probably don’t surprise you. We certainly know that if we don’t like our job, if we don’t have a job, if our family relationships are stressed we will be unhappy. But isn’t it interesting how small some of the factors can be. Reduce the number of electronic screens in your house. Adopt a dog. Take time to put your life purpose in one sentence. Join a club.
And in the midst of all of this, as you probably can expect—though it doesn’t have its own category—happiness is part of the food we eat.
So sure, he had suggestions like, you’ll be happier if you eat oatmeal and walnuts for breakfast rather than greasy eggs and bacon. You’ll be happier if incorporate more beans in your diet. A glass of wine--and yes, in moderation-- has heart healthy effects.
But he said something about food that I think is not so familiar to most Americans. It’s not all about what you eat. But it’s about who you eat with. And to take that a bit further, it is also about how you eat when you’re with those people.
Denmark-- that very cold, very dark place-- is considered the happiest country on earth. People interact about seven hours a day. But they don’t get up to schedule seven hours of interaction, this connection is not primarily in meetings, or on Facebook or in Tweets. Rather, it happens around food and the rituals around eating.
Because of the long dark days, many people in Denmark intentionally gather with others, and not just their nuclear family.
A couple times a week—not just Sunday dinner, but two or three times a week—they meet with extended family…neighbors… friends, for a gathering called hougie.
At hougie, they gather around a small table with candlelight, have open-faced sandwiches called smorbrood, a plate of herring, pate, and cheese. There is an interactive nature to this meal as people are gathering, reaching, passing, filling their plates with a little of this and a little of that…
They also have a glass of wine, as you might expect. But the thing about wine at hougie, is that it’s not just a drink. Before they drink they don’t just clink their wine glasses, reflects National Geographic researcher Dan Buettner.
Before they drink, they look each other in the eye through and around the candlelight.
They connect with one another.
They make sure to see one another.
In the long, dark cold days of winter, people have discovered what is necessary to keep them from the abyss of spiritual darkness and coldness.
They look each other in the eye.
Can you look someone in the eye? How about looking someone in the eye in the darkest, coldest times in your life?
I doubt that road leading to and from Emmaus was a highway in the midst of a Blue Zone, even as close as it was to Jerusalem, that spiritually holy city. Happiness would not be the word of the day, and American’s obsession with the “pursuit of it” would certainly be a cultural oddity.
Three days after the crucifixion of Jesus had some people hiding, some people weeping, some people cheering, some people walking…just walking.
It was an especially electric time, you can imagine, with the news that his body had gone missing…some say resurrected.
Probably many, like we heard about Thomas last week, probably many weren’t sure if they could believe the talk, the stories.
But these two, on the road to Emmaus, were telling their own stories.
About the things that happened. About Jesus. And then Jesus sidles up to them, just another traveler on the road--being a bit nosy, really-- asking what they’re talking about.
And they give him the recap—who Jesus was, how he was convicted, how he died, and now,
“moreover” they say, as if it is the icing on the cake,
Moreover, as if all that other stuff wasn’t enough… some women of the group astounded them. Saying they saw angels who said Jesus was alive.
Some from the group went back to see if it was true—if Jesus was dead or alive—but they saw nothing.
Eventually… these two travelers did see him. Recognition. Eyes opened. They were now on the inside of the story. You can imagine the jealously of the others who weren’t so lucky…How did they see him?
Was it that he seemed so interested in their experience?
Was it in the familiar way he told the stories about the prophets and about Moses? Was it the way he lovingly chastised them for being a bit slow on the uptake to believe in what their own texts and stories have told them.
Are these the things that helped them recognize Jesus?
Maybe. Probably.
But apparently, no amount of reminding, or correction, or teaching were enough in and of themselves for recognition
It got their hearts burning, as they said.
But it didn’t get their eyes, or their hearts, seeing.
It was all just an experience that could have been left on the road…
Until they invited him in. Until…they stopped him from passing by.
Until they lit the candles, sat around a small table, broke bread, took wine, looked at each other in the eye and then...they recognize him.
And then…[poof]…he’s gone.
Mennonite pastor Ron Adams speaks to the simplicity of this moment, “A spoken word. A bit of bread. A sip of wine. Our texts insist there is a power here [in these simple things] that draws people to God and reveals the presence of Christ”.
[pause]
A spoken word. A bit of bread. A sip of wine. Looking in the eyes of another.
[pause]
In days like these when we’re lured into false confidence that we are safe because the death of one man—when there are celebrations, parties, couches burning in the streets—we know that we still need more light, more clarity, more of God’s word burning in our hearts.
And maybe we need more breaking of bread together and blessing of wine together. Looking one another in the eye.
And I think we know, deep down, that it’s not just symbolic.
Not just in the taking of communion on Sunday morning or even at Love Feast. Not even with those we see everyday when we wake up, who know us so well.
But with those who are vaguely familiar, but really strangers.
With neighbors who care about our community.
With church family who care about a spiritual journey.
Moreover…it is with the Christ that is hidden in each one of us, ready to be revealed those desperately seeking, but not seeing…as Gunilla Norris implies in her poem called Plenty…
Having shared our bread
We know that we are
No longer hungry. It is enough
That you see me for myself
That I see you for yourself
That we bless what we see
And do not borrow, do not use
One another. This is how we know
We are no longer hungry…
That the world is full of terror, full of beauty
And yet we are not afraid to find solace here.
To be bread for each other. To live.
Open your home, open your heart, sit down, eat together, look one another in the eye.
Granted, we won’t know if we will be any happier or not. I don’t even know how we can quantify that.
But if we try, I bet we will feel a bit more human.
More connected.
More burning knowledge with us and more
...simply more recognition of Christ in the world.
And we will be seen…
And we will see Christ.
Amen.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Believing is Seeing?
sermon by Torin Eikler
John 20:19-31 Psalm 16
Well it has finally happened – we have reached the end of candy season. Easter brings the end a six month sugar rush that started way back on October 31st – with an appropriate break for Lent of course – and I can’t say how pleased I am that after a half dozen more chocolate eggs and several gummy candies we will honestly be able to tell our boys that there is no more artificially sweetened, tooth decay causing energy bombs in the house. After a few days of sugar withdrawal, our household will finally be back to normal (if there is such a thing).
But “candy season” – or the Holidays as we usually like to call it – is a nice time of year. Lights and decorations and laughter and gifts do make for a festive mood and, we generally have a lot of fun visiting with friends and relatives and just playing together. It is also a wonderful time for teaching children. They tend to be more open to sitting as we read stories or talk about the meaning of Christmas and Easter when their interest is peaked by the cultural obsessions all around them. The only draw back is that those same obsessions get in the way of what we are trying to teach, and it is not easy to brush them aside to get to the truth hidden under all the hype.
How do you get kids to think about the wonder of the incarnation, the amazing love that it took for Jesus to go to the cross, or the miraculous grace that is proven by the resurrection when Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are sitting in front of the manger and the open grave? It would be hard enough to deal with those slippery concepts on their own, but when you add the concrete, tangible Santa in the Mall it seems like an impossible challenge. Add to that the instant gratification of gifts, stockings, and plastic eggs filled with candy, and it is nigh unto impossible to convince kids that Easter and Christmas are really about an otherworldly, selfless God coming to meet us where we are and not about the fulfillment of very concrete, self-centered pleasure.
But that struggle is nothing new to Christianity, and if you look farther back into the history of Judaism, you find it there as well. It has always been a struggle to convince people of the existence and the power of a God that cannot be seen and whose gifts do not come wrapped in aluminum foil or fancy paper with a bow. It was - and is - much easier for people to believe in a deity whose face was presented to them in stone … easier to understand a god who gave you an oracle or healing or whatever else you wanted (or thought you wanted) as long as you went through the proper steps to gain his or her favor. It seems to be an integral part of human nature to want proof … to trust only what our senses can present to us as true. “Seeing IS believing” after all … Right?
That’s the question that is at the heart of what has become one of our family’s favorite holiday films, “The Polar Express.” In that movie a boy of 8 years old struggles with his belief in Santa Claus. At first he finds his suspicions confirmed as he pretends to sleep and overhears his parents sneaking about the house to fill stockings and put presents under the tree, but after he falls asleep, the boy – you know we never learn his name … maybe that’s so that we can all see ourselves in him. Anyway, the boy wakes up to find a mystical train running through his front yard. He gets on board, and after several adventures he finds himself in the town square of North Pole City as Santa comes out to start his deliveries.
As he stands there, waiting for definitive proof that Santa exists, he finds that he can’t see because of the crowd of elves thronging the plaza. Even more puzzling, he can’t seem to hear the sound of the sleigh bells on the reindeer harnesses. One of those bells falls off and rolls to his feet where he picks it up and, shaking it by his ear, confirms that it makes no sound – at least not that he can hear.
At this point, I should give you all a spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen “The Polar Express,” and you want to experience the ending un-spoiled, put your fingers in your ears for the next minute or so.
(wait)
As the boy stands there (and we stand there with him), he remembers what the conductor on the train told him: “Seems to me you’ve got it backwards…. Believing is seeing.” He closes his eyes and repeats to himself over and over, “I believe. I believe. I believe,” as he continues to shake the bell. Finally, the sound of the bell ringing comes to him, drowning out everything else, and when he opens his eyes in wonder, he sees the reflection of Santa peering over his shoulder. The whole experience, it seems, was just what he needed to find his way to belief even without having seen.
(fingers out of ears gesture)
John, too, knew the value of vicarious experience. Faced with a new generation of people who never had the chance to meet Jesus, hear him teaching, or experience the power of his presence, he wrote a gospel unlike those written by the other evangelists. As Gail O’Day says in her commentary, his purpose was not really about informing people about the life of Jesus, though the facts are important. It was to tell a story … a really good story that drew the readers in so that they stood next to Mary at the entrance to the tomb, gathered in fear with the disciples in the locked room, and demanded, with Thomas, additional proof of the resurrection. He gave them … and us … exactly what we need to believe even without seeing.
And what does he want us to understand – to see through the power of the experience? It is more than just the fact that Jesus died or rose from the tomb. Those realities are just signs. The resurrection stories, as powerful and amazing as they are, are just markers pointing the direction to something even more profound. “The empty tomb [reveals that] Jesus’ victory over death and the ruler of this world [is absolute…. The appearance to Mary points to] Jesus’ continuing presence as the good shepherd, [caring for his sheep as their journey continues.] Jesus’ [first] appearance to the disciples points to the gift of the Spirit and the truth of [the promises he made in the upper room.] [And, when Jesus appears, providing Thomas with all that he asks,] Thomas saw through the physical miracle [and recognizes the deeper truth to which it points:] the full revelation of God in Jesus.”
In Thomas’ declaration, “My Lord and my God,” we hear the most profound affirmation of Jesus’ relationship with God that can be found in any of the gospels. And, brought to that room by John’s narrative, we experience the moment for ourselves. Standing there in front of the risen Christ, gazing at the wounds through Thomas’ eyes and feeling his wonder at the way Jesus offered himself up to meet our need for proof, we are summoned to believe not only in the resurrection but in all that it means: that Jesus is one with God, that all of Jesus promises to us were true, and that the Spirit Advocate has come to live with us.
What a gift that is. What a challenge. A blessing that is full of power, hope, forgiveness … and purpose, for the Spirit summons us … compels us to more than simply reveling in its presence. We understand that already … somewhere deep in our beings. Jesus told the disciples that he was sending them … sending us … as God had sent him – to forgive or retain sin, and he gave us the Spirit to empower that mission. Unfortunately, we have come to understand that through the lens of the Reformation and an understanding of sin as a moral or behavioral misstep that has led to a lot of grief and abuse at the hands of the church.
The way John uses “sin” here is much different. This sin is a blindness of sorts, an inability or unwillingness to see the revelation of God in Jesus. “When Jesus commissions the [community of his followers] to continue [his work, he means that we are to make] God in Jesus known in the world.” That’s the purpose of the Spirit - to guide, direct, and empower the work of making the graceful presence of God at work in the world through Christ, revealing the truth of what it means to be children of God living in God’s world.
What that looks like we can’t know, can’t see except as we watch for it. The call unfolds before us moment by moment. We believe and we watch. And our eyes are open to see the moments when we can become the voice and touch of the Spirit drawing others to the path of Life.
We have received everything we need – will be given everything we need – not only to believe but to fulfill our purpose: a story to guide us, the Spirit breathed out to encourage and empower, and the peace of Christ to make us fearless. This is the true gift of the holidays, sweeter than all the candy and more fulfilling than anything you might find under the tree. Jesus meets us in the midst of our fear and our doubt, offers himself as the path of new life, and passes on the joyous task of sharing the good news with the world.
John 20:19-31 Psalm 16
Well it has finally happened – we have reached the end of candy season. Easter brings the end a six month sugar rush that started way back on October 31st – with an appropriate break for Lent of course – and I can’t say how pleased I am that after a half dozen more chocolate eggs and several gummy candies we will honestly be able to tell our boys that there is no more artificially sweetened, tooth decay causing energy bombs in the house. After a few days of sugar withdrawal, our household will finally be back to normal (if there is such a thing).
But “candy season” – or the Holidays as we usually like to call it – is a nice time of year. Lights and decorations and laughter and gifts do make for a festive mood and, we generally have a lot of fun visiting with friends and relatives and just playing together. It is also a wonderful time for teaching children. They tend to be more open to sitting as we read stories or talk about the meaning of Christmas and Easter when their interest is peaked by the cultural obsessions all around them. The only draw back is that those same obsessions get in the way of what we are trying to teach, and it is not easy to brush them aside to get to the truth hidden under all the hype.
How do you get kids to think about the wonder of the incarnation, the amazing love that it took for Jesus to go to the cross, or the miraculous grace that is proven by the resurrection when Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are sitting in front of the manger and the open grave? It would be hard enough to deal with those slippery concepts on their own, but when you add the concrete, tangible Santa in the Mall it seems like an impossible challenge. Add to that the instant gratification of gifts, stockings, and plastic eggs filled with candy, and it is nigh unto impossible to convince kids that Easter and Christmas are really about an otherworldly, selfless God coming to meet us where we are and not about the fulfillment of very concrete, self-centered pleasure.
But that struggle is nothing new to Christianity, and if you look farther back into the history of Judaism, you find it there as well. It has always been a struggle to convince people of the existence and the power of a God that cannot be seen and whose gifts do not come wrapped in aluminum foil or fancy paper with a bow. It was - and is - much easier for people to believe in a deity whose face was presented to them in stone … easier to understand a god who gave you an oracle or healing or whatever else you wanted (or thought you wanted) as long as you went through the proper steps to gain his or her favor. It seems to be an integral part of human nature to want proof … to trust only what our senses can present to us as true. “Seeing IS believing” after all … Right?
That’s the question that is at the heart of what has become one of our family’s favorite holiday films, “The Polar Express.” In that movie a boy of 8 years old struggles with his belief in Santa Claus. At first he finds his suspicions confirmed as he pretends to sleep and overhears his parents sneaking about the house to fill stockings and put presents under the tree, but after he falls asleep, the boy – you know we never learn his name … maybe that’s so that we can all see ourselves in him. Anyway, the boy wakes up to find a mystical train running through his front yard. He gets on board, and after several adventures he finds himself in the town square of North Pole City as Santa comes out to start his deliveries.
As he stands there, waiting for definitive proof that Santa exists, he finds that he can’t see because of the crowd of elves thronging the plaza. Even more puzzling, he can’t seem to hear the sound of the sleigh bells on the reindeer harnesses. One of those bells falls off and rolls to his feet where he picks it up and, shaking it by his ear, confirms that it makes no sound – at least not that he can hear.
At this point, I should give you all a spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen “The Polar Express,” and you want to experience the ending un-spoiled, put your fingers in your ears for the next minute or so.
(wait)
As the boy stands there (and we stand there with him), he remembers what the conductor on the train told him: “Seems to me you’ve got it backwards…. Believing is seeing.” He closes his eyes and repeats to himself over and over, “I believe. I believe. I believe,” as he continues to shake the bell. Finally, the sound of the bell ringing comes to him, drowning out everything else, and when he opens his eyes in wonder, he sees the reflection of Santa peering over his shoulder. The whole experience, it seems, was just what he needed to find his way to belief even without having seen.
(fingers out of ears gesture)
John, too, knew the value of vicarious experience. Faced with a new generation of people who never had the chance to meet Jesus, hear him teaching, or experience the power of his presence, he wrote a gospel unlike those written by the other evangelists. As Gail O’Day says in her commentary, his purpose was not really about informing people about the life of Jesus, though the facts are important. It was to tell a story … a really good story that drew the readers in so that they stood next to Mary at the entrance to the tomb, gathered in fear with the disciples in the locked room, and demanded, with Thomas, additional proof of the resurrection. He gave them … and us … exactly what we need to believe even without seeing.
And what does he want us to understand – to see through the power of the experience? It is more than just the fact that Jesus died or rose from the tomb. Those realities are just signs. The resurrection stories, as powerful and amazing as they are, are just markers pointing the direction to something even more profound. “The empty tomb [reveals that] Jesus’ victory over death and the ruler of this world [is absolute…. The appearance to Mary points to] Jesus’ continuing presence as the good shepherd, [caring for his sheep as their journey continues.] Jesus’ [first] appearance to the disciples points to the gift of the Spirit and the truth of [the promises he made in the upper room.] [And, when Jesus appears, providing Thomas with all that he asks,] Thomas saw through the physical miracle [and recognizes the deeper truth to which it points:] the full revelation of God in Jesus.”
In Thomas’ declaration, “My Lord and my God,” we hear the most profound affirmation of Jesus’ relationship with God that can be found in any of the gospels. And, brought to that room by John’s narrative, we experience the moment for ourselves. Standing there in front of the risen Christ, gazing at the wounds through Thomas’ eyes and feeling his wonder at the way Jesus offered himself up to meet our need for proof, we are summoned to believe not only in the resurrection but in all that it means: that Jesus is one with God, that all of Jesus promises to us were true, and that the Spirit Advocate has come to live with us.
What a gift that is. What a challenge. A blessing that is full of power, hope, forgiveness … and purpose, for the Spirit summons us … compels us to more than simply reveling in its presence. We understand that already … somewhere deep in our beings. Jesus told the disciples that he was sending them … sending us … as God had sent him – to forgive or retain sin, and he gave us the Spirit to empower that mission. Unfortunately, we have come to understand that through the lens of the Reformation and an understanding of sin as a moral or behavioral misstep that has led to a lot of grief and abuse at the hands of the church.
The way John uses “sin” here is much different. This sin is a blindness of sorts, an inability or unwillingness to see the revelation of God in Jesus. “When Jesus commissions the [community of his followers] to continue [his work, he means that we are to make] God in Jesus known in the world.” That’s the purpose of the Spirit - to guide, direct, and empower the work of making the graceful presence of God at work in the world through Christ, revealing the truth of what it means to be children of God living in God’s world.
What that looks like we can’t know, can’t see except as we watch for it. The call unfolds before us moment by moment. We believe and we watch. And our eyes are open to see the moments when we can become the voice and touch of the Spirit drawing others to the path of Life.
We have received everything we need – will be given everything we need – not only to believe but to fulfill our purpose: a story to guide us, the Spirit breathed out to encourage and empower, and the peace of Christ to make us fearless. This is the true gift of the holidays, sweeter than all the candy and more fulfilling than anything you might find under the tree. Jesus meets us in the midst of our fear and our doubt, offers himself as the path of new life, and passes on the joyous task of sharing the good news with the world.
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