sermon by Torin Eikler
1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Mark 1:21-28
At first glance, this passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is all about food and eating. It seems that there was some confusion among the believers there as to whether or not it was okay to eat the remnants from sacrificial ceremonies in the many temples that dominated the center of the city. Some felt that the meat was tainted and that eating it would defile a person. Others scoffed at that idea and happily scarfed down the left-overs from the Olympian feast.
Paul’s response was to seize the chance to do a little theological education. There’s really only one God, he says. Not everyone believes in or even knows about that God, but the “idols” they worship are nothing more than their own fantasies. So, there’s really no need to worry about spiritually contaminated food, he says, because every part of creation was made by God and was declared to be good.
But you can never take Paul at face value…. Or, rather, you can never leave Paul without looking deeper. The food issue is not his greatest worry, and after giving his thoughts on that particular issue – which are a relief to those of us who like to eat the rest of the communion bread after Love Feast – he goes on to a deeper concern: how the believers of Corinth have gone about having their disagreement.
As I implied earlier, those who had the “right” view on the food issue seem to have been more than a little insensitive to the newer members of their congregation. They were people who had just come out of a life of worshiping other gods, and they were understandably concerned that it would be wrong to continue the religious practices of their earlier lives. Paul is clear to say that “the ‘weak ones’ were not to be considered inadequate or inferior. They were merely at an earlier stage along the spiritual growth continuum that runs from more limited moral consciousness to a fuller awareness.” And the more “mature” believers who are ignoring the effects of their behavior are also ignoring their responsibility to care for, nurture, and build their brothers and sisters up in love.
Believers, he says, are not only responsible for themselves and their own actions. They are responsible for each other and the way their actions set examples for others. In other words … they are their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, and they don’t seem to be doing a very good job caring for them. Instead of giving encouragement and nurture, they are offering judgment and contempt, and that, according to Paul, is the equivalent of sinning not only against weaker brothers and sisters, but also against the Christ who cherishes each one of them.
“All fine and good,” we think. “The Corinthians clearly needed to do a better job of caring for each other.” And it’s tempting to leave it at that – a study in historical scripture analysis. But Paul – at least the Paul we see in his letters - was nothing if not an insightful pastor, and I am sure that the deeper issues that he was addressing with the Corinthians are just as likely to crop up in congregations today. They may even be part of our lives together. They probably are, and we can feel bad about that. But Paul doesn’t seem to want to crush the Corinthian church with guilt. He wants them to change. He wants them to care for one another – to build each other up … with love.
I want to share with you a powerful story of how we can do that. It comes courtesy of John Sumwalt….
There was once a deeply troubled church that could not keep any pastor for more than a year or two. Eight pastors had come and gone in eleven years, all of them at the request of the congregation after controversy with one of the long-time leaders. The church blamed the Bishop for sending them inept pastors. The pastors blamed the congregation, saying that ministry was impossible with a people so intent on self-destruction. Many members left, and, in time, no pastor could be found who was willing to serve what everyone was calling "that difficult charge."
Finally, in exasperation, the Bishop called a special meeting which included several key leaders from the troubled congregation and forty lay and clergy members of her Annual Conference, chosen randomly. Leaders of the congregation described the difficulties they had experienced over the past several years. Then the District Superintendent was given an opportunity to tell the story from his point of view. When everyone had had a say, the Bishop addressed the whole gathering in her best preacher's voice, saying, "Brothers and sisters, what are we going to do? Whom shall we send to this tormented congregation to share with them the healing power of Jesus the Christ?"
Then the Bishop invited everyone to pray silently with her. The silence lasted for a long time and continued even after the Bishop concluded the prayer with a resolute "amen." At last one of the older pastors spoke out from the back of the room. "I'll go," she said.
There was a collective gasp, and then a sustained buzzing of voices that grew until it filled the room. Everyone knew that she had been on leave of absence for several years and that she had left her last church in the wake of a scandalous divorce. She had become an alcoholic, been twice convicted of drunk driving, had spent six months in prison and a month in a chemical dependency treatment center. The Bishop and the superintendents had hoped to place her with some small, quiet, caring congregation where she could serve her remaining years without stress.
"Are you sure, Deborah?" the Bishop asked. "This is a very difficult assignment."
"This is a congregation in pain," Deborah said. "I know something about pain. I think I should be the one to go." Heads could be seen nodding all around the room.
"There is one condition to my going, however," Deborah said to the Bishop. "You must give me a free hand to do whatever is necessary to bring about healing. I must know that I have your full support to do what is needed." The Bishop looked back at Deborah, and, without blinking an eye, said, "You have my full support to do whatever is needed."
Deborah and the District Superintendent met with the leaders of the troubled congregation after the meeting. They agreed to accept her as their pastor, although they expressed some surprise that a woman her age would want to take on such a difficult task. Near the end of the meeting, Deborah asked for the same unconditional support she had requested of the Bishop. They agreed to give her free reign to do whatever was needed to help heal the congregation, and, at Deborah's insistence, they solemnly promised to pray for her every day. Then she told them what she planned to do to begin the healing process. She said, "It is my intention to visit with every member of this congregation before I perform any other pastoral duties, including preaching. I will not lead worship or attend any meetings until that task is finished. The chairperson said, "I'll make the arrangements."
Deborah began her visitation the following day. She went from house to house, apartment to apartment, hospital bed to nursing home bed, introducing herself as the new pastor and asking each one, as she went, to respond to two questions: How did you come to love Jesus, and why have you chosen to serve him in this congregation? She visited morning, afternoon and evening for four-and-a-half weeks and was warmly received by every member of the congregation but one. Then she went home, called the lay leader, and told him she would be prepared to preach the following Sunday.
The sanctuary was packed that day. Almost every able member was present. They waited eagerly for the sermon to hear what Deborah would have to say. Her text was Mark 1:16-20, the calling of the disciples. She said, "I want to share two things with you today: How I came to love Jesus, and why I believe God has called me to serve him with you in this congregation." It was a stirring sermon. Many in the congregation were moved to tears. Then, just as Deborah was about to ask them to join with her in prayer, a man stood up in the back of the sanctuary and shouted out at her. It was Harry Wiersem, the man who had refused to see her when she called at his home. He was the long-time leader who had bedeviled so many pastors before her. Some had told Deborah that he had never recovered from the death of his wife many years before.
"Who do you think you are, sister?" he yelled. "We know all about you. You couldn't keep your husband and you are a drunk. You're the last thing we need in this church. We've got enough problems as it is!"
He stood glaring at her, his face red and his knuckles bulging white as his hands gripped the pew in front of him. Deborah looked back at him with sad eyes. She didn't speak for several seconds. It seemed like an eternity to the congregation. It was absolutely silent in the sanctuary. No one moved or seemed to breathe.
"I am a sinner, Harry," Deborah said in a soft, firm voice, still looking into his angry, red face. "A forgiven sinner. And I've come to serve with sinners: forgiven sinners." Then she stepped down from the pulpit and walked up the long center aisle to where Harry was still hanging on to the back of his pew. She put her arm around his shoulder, looked him in the eye and said, "I am sorry about Mildred. She must have been very dear to you." Harry let go of the pew, fell into her arms and began to sob like a baby. When he was finished, Deborah bid everyone to gather round. They joined hands and she led them in prayer. When she said "Amen," Deborah was aware of something around her that felt like a collective sigh of relief. The demons were gone. The congregation would be whole again.
Demons, idols, addictions … they aren’t really that different from each other when it comes down to it. They push a wedge between us and our brothers and sisters. They divide us from God. And they bedevil us all in some way or another. Sometimes they are personal – deeply personal things that we struggle with … too often by ourselves. Other times they take center stage in the midst of our communities and hurt those we love. At their worst, they suck others into storms of our own making, drawing us all farther from the wholeness that is our salvation.
When I read that story, I wrote back to the author and asked if it was a true story. He responded, “All my stories are true, and some of them really happened.” I took that to mean that it’s not so much the details that matter as it is the message. And it’s not the details of each person’s struggle that really matters – though they do make a difference. How we respond is what’s important because we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers … just as they are ours.
Do we ignore the pain and brokenness of our brothers and sisters, turning them away so that we don’t embarrass them?
Do we avoid the brokenness within ourselves, hoping that it will just go away somehow?
Or do we reach out our arms to share ourselves with one another, opening the floodgates of the healing love of God?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
I say Jonah, you say…
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Jonah 1-4
January 22, 2012
I love doing word association exercises. You know, where one person says a word and you say the first thing that comes to your mind? Like for example, if I say… “snow” the first thing you think is ____ (cold? white?).
How about, “good?”
soft?
Adam?
Jonah?
It’s pretty assured that if you mention Jonah to even the youngest of church or synagogue-goers they will say “whale,” or “big fish” as it is actually referred to in scripture. Same probably goes for…
Daniel? Lions!
Noah? Flood!
But Jonah and that big fish. Ask any child what happened to Jonah and I imagine the conversation would like something like this
So, tell me about Jonah
“well, he got swallowed by a fish”.
Yes, that’s right! Why did he get swallowed by a fish?
uh…cause he was in the ocean?
yes, that’s right, he was in the ocean. Why was he in the ocean?
uh…beeecause…
OK, OK, well what happened after he was in the belly of the fish?
ooo!!me!!
yes?
the fish puked him up!
Right, and then what?
uhh…
So children, what then is the moral of the Jonah story?
uhh…you better…learn to swim.
I’ll admit, before I went to seminary and spent three rather hilarious weeks looking at Jonah, I was that child. Whales, and fish puke. That’s what the Jonah story was to me. Maybe it’s like that to you, and be assured, you are in good company.
Whales and lions and floods have great sticking power. We remember the stories have those things in them. But we do tend to forget what they really were about, or how they are anything but spectacular stories.
Jonah is known as one of the “minor” prophets. There are the “major” prophets, the big wigs, the ones we know about and are pretty likely to stumble upon if we choose to open our bible somewhere in the middle-Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel…those guys.
And then there are the “minor prophets”, the prophets whose stories are much shorter. The ones you can spend five minutes leafing through the middle part of the bible searching for and if only 2 pages stick together you probably missed them, so you have to turn to the table of contents.
Jonah is considered “minor.” There are only four chapters. But what four chapters they are. Hopefully this morning you got the essence of the entire Jonah story, because we pretty much covered it: with the children we looked at the events leading up to the belly of the whale part…
God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and give them the divine word that something’s really gonna go down if they don’t change their ways. To which, you can almost hear Jonah snorting, “I don’t think so” and thinking he can outwit God, he gets on a boat headed… anywhere else.
Now first, let me say, Jonah is different than most prophetic books. This was written as an ancient form of satire. We don’t usually think of biblical writings like this, do we? But this was written to entertain the readers, while also delivering a message. It’s not biblical history, it’s like a comic book. So whatever struggles you may have about what God is doing in this story (and I know I certainly have some issues), we aren’t meant to ask the question “did this actually happen?” but more ask the question, after we stop laughing, “Does this sort of thing, in our own lives, perhaps less dramatically, actually happen? Do we turn away from God?
So he’s on the boat and God, the great trickster in this satire, throws a storm, the sailors freak out, crying to their own God, they throw everything overboard and realize the only thing left to throw out is the human cargo, and as humans are apt to do, they look for the scapegoat. And there’s Jonah, sleeping through the whole thing and they interrogate him like hardened immigration officials: who are you? where are you from? your papers? your God?
And Jonah says, throw me over and the sea will calm down.
Wow. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. And then it happens.
The part we all know and love. The big fish. And isn’t it interesting to note that it was God who provided the fish for Jonah. The fish was safety for Jonah. As a child I didn’t remember that. I just thought Jonah was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Jonah knows it’s for his safety because he sings a beautiful song of thanksgiving:
I called to the Lord out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows passed over me.
Then I said, “I am driven away from your sight;
how shall I look again
upon your holy temple?...
As my life was ebbing away
I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple…
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”
[pause]
…and then the fish pukes him up.
And then we pick up with the two chapters Linda read, a rather comic unfolding of Jonah going to Nineveh to proclaim God’s wrath, the Ninevites surprisingly listening and repenting, Jonah pouting like a four year old told he has to eat his brussel sprouts, saying I don’t like you God because you are too nice, too merciful, you made me look like a fool and a false prophet, and you care more about those sinners than you do about me who did what you asked [after I ran away and got stuck in the belly of a fish].
And then he’s covered by bush, and he’s happy. Then God causes the bush to die, and he’s petulant again. And we’re left with an abrupt ending and God gets the last word, “should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city…where there are [thousands of ignorant people] and also many animals?” End. of. story.
Whew. What a story. A bit of a big fish story if you ask me. And don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you “the moral” of the story. In fact, I think when we do that, we imply that there is one thing you should take away from the biblical stories and then they don’t become living anymore. They loose their power to speak new messages, make us laugh and cry because we see ourselves anew in it now, much differently than when we were children.
We just remember… it’s about a whale.
And even after today when I say Jonah, you still might say “whale”, but instead of that, let me continue with a question that seems to rise out of this story, this time, for me.
Who would you like to see fail?
Who would you, like Jonah, like to see God “smite” down?
Now, I know as good Christians, and especially as peace loving Anabaptists, we feel there is no one that we should like to see fail or to get punished. I think many of us here can say that there is no one, or group, we believe should be smoked out and killed, no matter what they have done.
But you know, if I’m honest, there are certain people who I wished were forcibly humbled, perhaps, humiliated-- just a bit. Or at least, as they say I wish they’d “get their come-uppance. To get put in their place. There are people who I roll my eyes at and believe they are so below me because of what they think.
No, we’re not declaring judgment on these people, but we do secretly wish them ill in some way. And if you have a hard time finding your Ninevites, think of who it is—either an individual or a group of people—who brings a sneer to your mouth, or a sigh to your breath, or causes you to roll your eyes, or who you find some smart aleck remark to demean them, (when you’re all by yourself).
Who are your Ninevites?
Are they Muslims? Evangelical Christians? Democrats? Tea Partiers? pro-life activists? gay rights activists? Latinos? The Chinese? The French?
Is it Congress? Wall Street? Your neighbor who disgusts you in some way? Your friend what can’t seem to get her priorities straight? Your in-laws who…well, no matter, whatever they do is going to annoy you?
Is it your spouse? Your child ? Is it yourself?
Get that person in your mind
Now call forth the feeling you get when you come across them on the street, or hear about them in the news, or see them in the grocery store…
Now, here’s is God’s question posed to Jonah… “Is it right for you to be angry?”
[pause]
Is it right for you to have such negative feelings towards these people?
[pause]
No, we know it’s not “right” of us. We know we shouldn’t feel this way. But, let me tell you God, it is justified.
And that’s the sticky point isn’t it? The people of Nineveh were Assyrians and Assyrians had attacked and destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel around 700BCE. These are Israel’s enemies and you better believe he was justified in wanting God’s vengeance on these people.
You bet we are justified in drawing those who have backward ideas as closed-minded bigots, or those who threaten the moral fabric of our nation as sinful heathens
I feel justified because I think I know how things are supposed to be. How people are supposed to be. Is it right of me to? Probably not. But it sure makes me feel better about myself.
But then, I find, that I really… don’t… feel better about myself. I just feel… bitter. I start to become a sulky, petulant Jonah, whining under my withered bush, sunburned, and somewhat…alone.
…
Oftentimes, the biggest barrier to showing the world God’s grace and mercy, is ourselves. Jonah is a story about repentance and redemption. Certainly about the Ninevites, but the way it ends, in it’s awkward abrupt question from God.
It turns the story towards the potential for Jonah’s repentance…and our redemption.
Jonah is left sulking and bitter. We don’t know how he will respond to God’s mercy and the truth…
…that God’s love has no boundaries, no matter how much we wish it did. It is not only for the righteous, it is not only for ourselves.
This story leaves us asking…what will happen to Jonah?
What will happen to Jonah, if he accepts that God will not keep LOVE from others, no matter how hard he…or we, try to.
What will happen to Jonah if he lets God’s boundless love turn his heart?
So take note this week. When a person, a group…your Ninevites, present themselves to you, note your reaction. And ask, no matter how justified I feel in my anger, or disgust, or righteousness, am I sitting alone…under my dead bush?
And if it seems you are, then take a step out from under it, proclaim a prophecy to yourself—not one of judgment—but a prophecy of God’s love. Proclaim a prophecy to yourself…and ask for mercy.
Because God’s eager to for you to receive it.
Jonah 1-4
January 22, 2012
I love doing word association exercises. You know, where one person says a word and you say the first thing that comes to your mind? Like for example, if I say… “snow” the first thing you think is ____ (cold? white?).
How about, “good?”
soft?
Adam?
Jonah?
It’s pretty assured that if you mention Jonah to even the youngest of church or synagogue-goers they will say “whale,” or “big fish” as it is actually referred to in scripture. Same probably goes for…
Daniel? Lions!
Noah? Flood!
But Jonah and that big fish. Ask any child what happened to Jonah and I imagine the conversation would like something like this
So, tell me about Jonah
“well, he got swallowed by a fish”.
Yes, that’s right! Why did he get swallowed by a fish?
uh…cause he was in the ocean?
yes, that’s right, he was in the ocean. Why was he in the ocean?
uh…beeecause…
OK, OK, well what happened after he was in the belly of the fish?
ooo!!me!!
yes?
the fish puked him up!
Right, and then what?
uhh…
So children, what then is the moral of the Jonah story?
uhh…you better…learn to swim.
I’ll admit, before I went to seminary and spent three rather hilarious weeks looking at Jonah, I was that child. Whales, and fish puke. That’s what the Jonah story was to me. Maybe it’s like that to you, and be assured, you are in good company.
Whales and lions and floods have great sticking power. We remember the stories have those things in them. But we do tend to forget what they really were about, or how they are anything but spectacular stories.
Jonah is known as one of the “minor” prophets. There are the “major” prophets, the big wigs, the ones we know about and are pretty likely to stumble upon if we choose to open our bible somewhere in the middle-Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel…those guys.
And then there are the “minor prophets”, the prophets whose stories are much shorter. The ones you can spend five minutes leafing through the middle part of the bible searching for and if only 2 pages stick together you probably missed them, so you have to turn to the table of contents.
Jonah is considered “minor.” There are only four chapters. But what four chapters they are. Hopefully this morning you got the essence of the entire Jonah story, because we pretty much covered it: with the children we looked at the events leading up to the belly of the whale part…
God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and give them the divine word that something’s really gonna go down if they don’t change their ways. To which, you can almost hear Jonah snorting, “I don’t think so” and thinking he can outwit God, he gets on a boat headed… anywhere else.
Now first, let me say, Jonah is different than most prophetic books. This was written as an ancient form of satire. We don’t usually think of biblical writings like this, do we? But this was written to entertain the readers, while also delivering a message. It’s not biblical history, it’s like a comic book. So whatever struggles you may have about what God is doing in this story (and I know I certainly have some issues), we aren’t meant to ask the question “did this actually happen?” but more ask the question, after we stop laughing, “Does this sort of thing, in our own lives, perhaps less dramatically, actually happen? Do we turn away from God?
So he’s on the boat and God, the great trickster in this satire, throws a storm, the sailors freak out, crying to their own God, they throw everything overboard and realize the only thing left to throw out is the human cargo, and as humans are apt to do, they look for the scapegoat. And there’s Jonah, sleeping through the whole thing and they interrogate him like hardened immigration officials: who are you? where are you from? your papers? your God?
And Jonah says, throw me over and the sea will calm down.
Wow. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. And then it happens.
The part we all know and love. The big fish. And isn’t it interesting to note that it was God who provided the fish for Jonah. The fish was safety for Jonah. As a child I didn’t remember that. I just thought Jonah was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Jonah knows it’s for his safety because he sings a beautiful song of thanksgiving:
I called to the Lord out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
You cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows passed over me.
Then I said, “I am driven away from your sight;
how shall I look again
upon your holy temple?...
As my life was ebbing away
I remembered the Lord;
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple…
Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”
[pause]
…and then the fish pukes him up.
And then we pick up with the two chapters Linda read, a rather comic unfolding of Jonah going to Nineveh to proclaim God’s wrath, the Ninevites surprisingly listening and repenting, Jonah pouting like a four year old told he has to eat his brussel sprouts, saying I don’t like you God because you are too nice, too merciful, you made me look like a fool and a false prophet, and you care more about those sinners than you do about me who did what you asked [after I ran away and got stuck in the belly of a fish].
And then he’s covered by bush, and he’s happy. Then God causes the bush to die, and he’s petulant again. And we’re left with an abrupt ending and God gets the last word, “should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city…where there are [thousands of ignorant people] and also many animals?” End. of. story.
Whew. What a story. A bit of a big fish story if you ask me. And don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you “the moral” of the story. In fact, I think when we do that, we imply that there is one thing you should take away from the biblical stories and then they don’t become living anymore. They loose their power to speak new messages, make us laugh and cry because we see ourselves anew in it now, much differently than when we were children.
We just remember… it’s about a whale.
And even after today when I say Jonah, you still might say “whale”, but instead of that, let me continue with a question that seems to rise out of this story, this time, for me.
Who would you like to see fail?
Who would you, like Jonah, like to see God “smite” down?
Now, I know as good Christians, and especially as peace loving Anabaptists, we feel there is no one that we should like to see fail or to get punished. I think many of us here can say that there is no one, or group, we believe should be smoked out and killed, no matter what they have done.
But you know, if I’m honest, there are certain people who I wished were forcibly humbled, perhaps, humiliated-- just a bit. Or at least, as they say I wish they’d “get their come-uppance. To get put in their place. There are people who I roll my eyes at and believe they are so below me because of what they think.
No, we’re not declaring judgment on these people, but we do secretly wish them ill in some way. And if you have a hard time finding your Ninevites, think of who it is—either an individual or a group of people—who brings a sneer to your mouth, or a sigh to your breath, or causes you to roll your eyes, or who you find some smart aleck remark to demean them, (when you’re all by yourself).
Who are your Ninevites?
Are they Muslims? Evangelical Christians? Democrats? Tea Partiers? pro-life activists? gay rights activists? Latinos? The Chinese? The French?
Is it Congress? Wall Street? Your neighbor who disgusts you in some way? Your friend what can’t seem to get her priorities straight? Your in-laws who…well, no matter, whatever they do is going to annoy you?
Is it your spouse? Your child ? Is it yourself?
Get that person in your mind
Now call forth the feeling you get when you come across them on the street, or hear about them in the news, or see them in the grocery store…
Now, here’s is God’s question posed to Jonah… “Is it right for you to be angry?”
[pause]
Is it right for you to have such negative feelings towards these people?
[pause]
No, we know it’s not “right” of us. We know we shouldn’t feel this way. But, let me tell you God, it is justified.
And that’s the sticky point isn’t it? The people of Nineveh were Assyrians and Assyrians had attacked and destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel around 700BCE. These are Israel’s enemies and you better believe he was justified in wanting God’s vengeance on these people.
You bet we are justified in drawing those who have backward ideas as closed-minded bigots, or those who threaten the moral fabric of our nation as sinful heathens
I feel justified because I think I know how things are supposed to be. How people are supposed to be. Is it right of me to? Probably not. But it sure makes me feel better about myself.
But then, I find, that I really… don’t… feel better about myself. I just feel… bitter. I start to become a sulky, petulant Jonah, whining under my withered bush, sunburned, and somewhat…alone.
…
Oftentimes, the biggest barrier to showing the world God’s grace and mercy, is ourselves. Jonah is a story about repentance and redemption. Certainly about the Ninevites, but the way it ends, in it’s awkward abrupt question from God.
It turns the story towards the potential for Jonah’s repentance…and our redemption.
Jonah is left sulking and bitter. We don’t know how he will respond to God’s mercy and the truth…
…that God’s love has no boundaries, no matter how much we wish it did. It is not only for the righteous, it is not only for ourselves.
This story leaves us asking…what will happen to Jonah?
What will happen to Jonah, if he accepts that God will not keep LOVE from others, no matter how hard he…or we, try to.
What will happen to Jonah if he lets God’s boundless love turn his heart?
So take note this week. When a person, a group…your Ninevites, present themselves to you, note your reaction. And ask, no matter how justified I feel in my anger, or disgust, or righteousness, am I sitting alone…under my dead bush?
And if it seems you are, then take a step out from under it, proclaim a prophecy to yourself—not one of judgment—but a prophecy of God’s love. Proclaim a prophecy to yourself…and ask for mercy.
Because God’s eager to for you to receive it.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
God With Us
sermon by Torin Eikler
I Samuel 3:1-11, 19-21 Psalm 139:1-18 John 1:45-51
Let me start by saying “thank you” to you all for the freedom that you have provided us to take extended vacations. Not all pastors can do that, and we know that we are fortunate to be part of a congregation that not only allows us do so but that also has strong leadership so that we don’t need to worry while we are gone. Our times away do a lot to refresh and inspire us, and we’d love to talk with you more about the amazing things that we got to see and do while we were gone.
One wonderful thing about traveling, particularly traveling abroad, is that we get a break from our daily lives and everything that goes along with them. It is amazing, though, how quickly we fall back into our schedules when we get back home, and part of that, for me, is listening to the radio. It’s my connection with the world beyond my neighborhood and the people I see each day, and as I have been listening this week, I was surprised to find how completely I had been disconnected from the goings on here … and how little things had changed.
The big news, it seems, is still politics. The Republican primary race tops the list as people speculate about whether Mitt Romney will take out the rest of the competition by winning South Carolina. The struggle between the president and the congress is a close second. And the twists and turns of global struggles for power fill in most of the rest. There is, of course, still a little room for mentioning the ten records set during the Orange Bowl and a few other tidbits and human interest stories, but the bulk of the radio chatter is the really the same conversations I left behind three weeks ago.
But there is one interesting twist that I discovered listening to an interview with Ralph Nader the other day. The questions he was fielding had very little to do with policies or issues. Instead, the host was asking about the value of compromise in politics and, more pointedly, about whether anyone could succeed in that arena without “selling out.” Nader claimed that he would not compromise his own beliefs and that was why he had never been very successful in gaining office … the implication being that career politicians survive precisely because they do.
No real surprise there, but over the next couple of days I heard other interviews in the same vein with Tea Party advocates, Evangelical conservatives, progressive politicians, and Occupy Wall Street participants. Though some of them supported the idea of compromise, all of them seemed to stress the same theme – everyone else is “selling out” and that’s why we are in the mess we are in. One evangelical even lamented the lack of respect for God’s Word on the part of national leaders and the moral mess that we’re in because of it.
It sounded a lot like the situation Israel was in at the end of the age when judges led the people. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” Eli was the high priest, and he and his sons had strayed from the righteous path. They had begun to take the best parts of the offerings for themselves instead of burning them on the alter, and they were enriching themselves by taking money from the temples coffers. They had also given up on their role of calling the rich and powerful to task for abusing the poor and helpless. In short, they had “sold out,” and Israel was suffering because of it.
And then Samuel came on the scene.
Usually when we read this passage, we think about the way God calls each one of us. We reflect on how even the most unassuming person can do great things if she or he follows where God leads as both Samuel and the shepherd, David, who he anointed to be the first king of Israel illustrate. But the calling of Samuel is not just about one individual’s invitation to serve a higher purpose.
It hadn’t been all that long since the chosen people had entered the Promised Land and established their own country. Since then the Israelites had resisted several invasions thanks to inspired leadership and divine assistance. It had been an era when the people knew who they were and whose they were, and they had witnessed the fulfillment of God’s promise to protect and guide them often.
But that sense of God’s presence had faded, and the people were despairing. The religious leaders had become corrupt. The spiritual life of the people had grown anemic. More and more people were suffering because fewer and fewer people were following the law. And the country was on the verge of being conquered by the Philistines. Where was the pillar of fire? Where was the cloud full of angels to defeat the enemy? Where was the Voice demanding justice and mercy? Where was the God who had promised never to leave the people?
And God responds, “Here I am.” I have never left you though you haven’t heard me. I know your suffering. I know your fears and your despair. I hear your cries for justice and relief. Here I am, speaking with the mouth of this man. Listen to me and be comforted.
The abuses of the leaders among you shall come to an end. The injustice you endure will cease. Mercy will comfort your suffering, and my blessings will ease your worries and fears. The wolf at your doorstep shall be chased away with its tail between its legs. This… all this that you see around you will come to an end, for I am with you still and “I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.”
That’s what Samuel was to the people of Israel. He was the reassurance they needed. He was the voice of God comforting them. He was the reminder that God is always present with us. Present in the suffering. Present in the rejoicing. Present in the bright beginnings and in the shadowed endings. Present and shining a light of hope for what the future can still hold.
And he was more than that too.
The Israelites were not entirely innocent of all that Israel had become. They were a part of it just as we are a part of the injustice and suffering that we see in our own time. They stood by and watched it all happen … maybe even took part in it. Perhaps not everyone, but most of them must have stayed quiet or things couldn’t have gotten as bad as they did. So, the assurance of God’s presence that Samuel brought was an affirmation that despite everything God still loved them.
I can imagine the author of the Psalm we heard today living in the time of Samuel. Hearing the words of the prophet and seeing the covenant promise fulfilled once again. Writing the verses of that hymn of praise in awe and gratitude for an unwavering love.
Usually when I hear those words about God hemming us in I feel trapped. I don’t like to think about God knowing everything about me and how I live. But, there are times when it is comforting to know that I am known … and loved. And I think that is exactly what Israel needed to hear.
It must have felt wonderful to know that God was still there. To know that the One who knew everything about you … had always known everything about you … had been watching you from before you were born … to know that that God still loved you. To know that in spite of all the mistakes you had made, in spite of your sins and the way that people around you were selling out … God still saw the good in you and cared enough to speak to you, offering guidance and hope, wisdom and mercy. That was exactly the message that Israel needed to hear.
It’s a message that we need to hear too.
We Anabaptists tend focus a lot on what we need to do better, how we need to live better in order to answer our call as disciples. Especially at the beginning of each new year, we reflect on what has been, on who we have been, and we make resolutions about what we want to do differently. And that’s good. We should be striving to live more in keeping with God’s hopes for us. But … but we miss that mark so often that it seems a little bit like an exercise in futility.
God knows all of that. God is there each time we make mistakes and each time we get it right. God sees us casting our nets or sitting under our fig trees or turning away from others in need or yelling at the people we love. God watches us … not like a political pundit or an adversary waiting to pounce on every weakness or inconsistency in order to tear us down, but as a loving parent watches her children, hoping to see them succeed, waiting to guide and protect them, ready to pick them up when they stumble, prepared to become whatever they need to grow and learn and become something wonderful.
You are known.
Your strengths and the goodness within you are known.
Your struggles and weaknesses are known.
God understands you and what you need … perhaps better than you do yourselves. And no matter what you do or how many oceans you cross , God is waiting … calling … ready to be sacrifice and rabbi, savior and friend … ready to meet you where you are and be what you need because you are something wonderful –
a beloved child of God.
I Samuel 3:1-11, 19-21 Psalm 139:1-18 John 1:45-51
Let me start by saying “thank you” to you all for the freedom that you have provided us to take extended vacations. Not all pastors can do that, and we know that we are fortunate to be part of a congregation that not only allows us do so but that also has strong leadership so that we don’t need to worry while we are gone. Our times away do a lot to refresh and inspire us, and we’d love to talk with you more about the amazing things that we got to see and do while we were gone.
One wonderful thing about traveling, particularly traveling abroad, is that we get a break from our daily lives and everything that goes along with them. It is amazing, though, how quickly we fall back into our schedules when we get back home, and part of that, for me, is listening to the radio. It’s my connection with the world beyond my neighborhood and the people I see each day, and as I have been listening this week, I was surprised to find how completely I had been disconnected from the goings on here … and how little things had changed.
The big news, it seems, is still politics. The Republican primary race tops the list as people speculate about whether Mitt Romney will take out the rest of the competition by winning South Carolina. The struggle between the president and the congress is a close second. And the twists and turns of global struggles for power fill in most of the rest. There is, of course, still a little room for mentioning the ten records set during the Orange Bowl and a few other tidbits and human interest stories, but the bulk of the radio chatter is the really the same conversations I left behind three weeks ago.
But there is one interesting twist that I discovered listening to an interview with Ralph Nader the other day. The questions he was fielding had very little to do with policies or issues. Instead, the host was asking about the value of compromise in politics and, more pointedly, about whether anyone could succeed in that arena without “selling out.” Nader claimed that he would not compromise his own beliefs and that was why he had never been very successful in gaining office … the implication being that career politicians survive precisely because they do.
No real surprise there, but over the next couple of days I heard other interviews in the same vein with Tea Party advocates, Evangelical conservatives, progressive politicians, and Occupy Wall Street participants. Though some of them supported the idea of compromise, all of them seemed to stress the same theme – everyone else is “selling out” and that’s why we are in the mess we are in. One evangelical even lamented the lack of respect for God’s Word on the part of national leaders and the moral mess that we’re in because of it.
It sounded a lot like the situation Israel was in at the end of the age when judges led the people. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” Eli was the high priest, and he and his sons had strayed from the righteous path. They had begun to take the best parts of the offerings for themselves instead of burning them on the alter, and they were enriching themselves by taking money from the temples coffers. They had also given up on their role of calling the rich and powerful to task for abusing the poor and helpless. In short, they had “sold out,” and Israel was suffering because of it.
And then Samuel came on the scene.
Usually when we read this passage, we think about the way God calls each one of us. We reflect on how even the most unassuming person can do great things if she or he follows where God leads as both Samuel and the shepherd, David, who he anointed to be the first king of Israel illustrate. But the calling of Samuel is not just about one individual’s invitation to serve a higher purpose.
It hadn’t been all that long since the chosen people had entered the Promised Land and established their own country. Since then the Israelites had resisted several invasions thanks to inspired leadership and divine assistance. It had been an era when the people knew who they were and whose they were, and they had witnessed the fulfillment of God’s promise to protect and guide them often.
But that sense of God’s presence had faded, and the people were despairing. The religious leaders had become corrupt. The spiritual life of the people had grown anemic. More and more people were suffering because fewer and fewer people were following the law. And the country was on the verge of being conquered by the Philistines. Where was the pillar of fire? Where was the cloud full of angels to defeat the enemy? Where was the Voice demanding justice and mercy? Where was the God who had promised never to leave the people?
And God responds, “Here I am.” I have never left you though you haven’t heard me. I know your suffering. I know your fears and your despair. I hear your cries for justice and relief. Here I am, speaking with the mouth of this man. Listen to me and be comforted.
The abuses of the leaders among you shall come to an end. The injustice you endure will cease. Mercy will comfort your suffering, and my blessings will ease your worries and fears. The wolf at your doorstep shall be chased away with its tail between its legs. This… all this that you see around you will come to an end, for I am with you still and “I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.”
That’s what Samuel was to the people of Israel. He was the reassurance they needed. He was the voice of God comforting them. He was the reminder that God is always present with us. Present in the suffering. Present in the rejoicing. Present in the bright beginnings and in the shadowed endings. Present and shining a light of hope for what the future can still hold.
And he was more than that too.
The Israelites were not entirely innocent of all that Israel had become. They were a part of it just as we are a part of the injustice and suffering that we see in our own time. They stood by and watched it all happen … maybe even took part in it. Perhaps not everyone, but most of them must have stayed quiet or things couldn’t have gotten as bad as they did. So, the assurance of God’s presence that Samuel brought was an affirmation that despite everything God still loved them.
I can imagine the author of the Psalm we heard today living in the time of Samuel. Hearing the words of the prophet and seeing the covenant promise fulfilled once again. Writing the verses of that hymn of praise in awe and gratitude for an unwavering love.
Usually when I hear those words about God hemming us in I feel trapped. I don’t like to think about God knowing everything about me and how I live. But, there are times when it is comforting to know that I am known … and loved. And I think that is exactly what Israel needed to hear.
It must have felt wonderful to know that God was still there. To know that the One who knew everything about you … had always known everything about you … had been watching you from before you were born … to know that that God still loved you. To know that in spite of all the mistakes you had made, in spite of your sins and the way that people around you were selling out … God still saw the good in you and cared enough to speak to you, offering guidance and hope, wisdom and mercy. That was exactly the message that Israel needed to hear.
It’s a message that we need to hear too.
We Anabaptists tend focus a lot on what we need to do better, how we need to live better in order to answer our call as disciples. Especially at the beginning of each new year, we reflect on what has been, on who we have been, and we make resolutions about what we want to do differently. And that’s good. We should be striving to live more in keeping with God’s hopes for us. But … but we miss that mark so often that it seems a little bit like an exercise in futility.
God knows all of that. God is there each time we make mistakes and each time we get it right. God sees us casting our nets or sitting under our fig trees or turning away from others in need or yelling at the people we love. God watches us … not like a political pundit or an adversary waiting to pounce on every weakness or inconsistency in order to tear us down, but as a loving parent watches her children, hoping to see them succeed, waiting to guide and protect them, ready to pick them up when they stumble, prepared to become whatever they need to grow and learn and become something wonderful.
You are known.
Your strengths and the goodness within you are known.
Your struggles and weaknesses are known.
God understands you and what you need … perhaps better than you do yourselves. And no matter what you do or how many oceans you cross , God is waiting … calling … ready to be sacrifice and rabbi, savior and friend … ready to meet you where you are and be what you need because you are something wonderful –
a beloved child of God.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Meditations on Surprise
Meditations by Torin Eikler
“Surprising Hope”
Isaiah 11:1-9
Ever since these words were spoken they have brought hope to those who heard them. And why not? Isaiah describes the perfect king. One who will come into power and make everything the way it should be. All injustice will be ended. The wicked – powerful and weak alike – will be punished. The righteous – both meek and bold – will be rewarded. And every person will have exactly what they need … no indecent wealth … no grinding poverty. No one will fall through the cracks.
It was good news to the people of Israel. From the golden age of David and Solomon, the country had fallen onto hard times. Conflict and infighting among the leaders had split the country into a northern and southern kingdom that had been to war more than once, calling into question the identity of the chosen people. The wealthy elite were not much concerned with injustices or the suffering of the rest of people, seeking instead to increase their own wealth and power in any way they could. On top of all that, the Assyrian Empire was at their doorstep.
And in the midst of all the turmoil, the fear, and the distress, Isaiah prophesied a surprisingly bright future. Despite all the evidence to the contrary – and there was very little chance that either kingdom could stand against the Assyrians … despite the sense of doom, God’s promise still held true. There would be a new king in Jerusalem – a king of David’s line, and not only would that king bring justice and wisdom to the throne, he would bring peace to the whole world. Surprising words that brought hope to a troubled people threatened with destruction.
Are things really so different for us today? There are still a very few people whose wealth and power are increasing while most of us are working very hard just to keep our heads above water. There are still many, many people who are suffering injustice and struggling to find a place to live or food to east.
And into our turmoil, our fear, and our distress, Jesus comes, bringing hope of a bright future. Despite what our eyes, our pocketbooks, and our newspapers tell us, God’s promise comes to us again. When true justice is done. When someone reaches out to help another in need or to encourage someone lost in despair. When people work together to build a better life for all of us instead of tearing things down to raise themselves up. In those moments, we can see the coming of the day when wickedness and injustice will cease to be, when the wolves of suffering and vipers of fear will no longer threaten us, when everyone will have what she or he needs and no one will hurt or destroy anywhere on the earth that God has made holy.
Each year, at Christmas, we look for perfect king that was born in Bethlehem, lived with us for a time, and died for our sakes. But Jesus comes to us – to the world – every day, speaking over and over Isaiah’s promise … a surprising future is coming. A future that comes tomorrow. A future that comes the next day … and the next … and the next. A future that comes, little by little, whenever the Christ enters our hearts and leads us, step by step, into hope.
“Surprising Peace”
Isaiah 52:7-9
Peace…. Peace …. What is peace?
Is it the lack of war … or of violence? Is it the quiet that falls deep in the woods or in the living room with the children are finally asleep? Is it the sense of freedom and calm that comes from accepting the world as it is?
It seems to me that peace is all of those things … and more.
The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom.” It was the word used to greet people and to bid them farewell. It still is in some places because it expresses a wish for the well-being of someone…. Shalom is much more … much deeper than a simple lack of violence. It is wholeness. It points to a world where all of society is in harmony … where every person is healthy, safe, and fulfilled.
As Bible scholar Cornelius Plantinga describes it, it is:
The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight…. [It] means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.
It’s a wonderful and inspiring vision. It’s a peace that’s almost beyond understanding and seems entirely beyond our reach. And yet God chose to make it ours … not by reaching out an all-powerful hand and changing the world, but by coming among us in the weakest and most helpless form we can imagine. A baby … with tiny, beautiful feet to carry the good news of peace to all who will listen.
“Surprising Joy”
Luke 1:26-35 Matthew 1:18-24
There is a simple joy in watching children play. As they discover their own bodies and the world around them … as they delight in the new and explore the smallest details, they take us with them. They take us back to our own childhood, and as we see things through their eyes, hear things through their ears, and learn through their experiences, we rediscover wonder and awe.
That sense of wonder and joy is multiplied many times over when we watch a child being born. If you haven’t had the experience yourself, just ask someone who has and watch as their face changes. The cares and worries of their lives melt away and are replaced by smiles that reach all the way down to their toes and transform their entire being. Each birth is different, of course, and sometimes memories are colored by worries or sorrows that came later, but the moment of watching new life born into the world has a power that cannot be denied.
I imagine that the experience was multiplied even beyond our experiences for Mary and Joseph. For nine months … nine long months … from the moment when the angel came to them and announced the coming of Jesus, they would have been filled with tension and anxiety. It’s not an easy time … even for people who have a lot of support, and to be young and pregnant before marrying would have added the pressure of society’s disapproval to the mix.
Then they were forced to travel far from the comforts of home just when it was time for the baby to come. And to top it all off, they couldn’t even find a comfortable room to stay in. A stable… a stable and a pile of hay surrounded by the noise and the smells of animals was the only space left.
I imagine that when the birth started, they were more than a little scared. No clean cloths. No hot water. No midwife to offer support and wisdom. No way to know what was normal or that everything was okay. No family to hold their hands or give them support as they struggled through it all for the first time.
And then Jesus arrived. On the tide of one final push, he found his way into Joseph’s arms, and Joseph watched him … heard his first cries … looked into his eyes as they opened for the first time. And I imagine that he was lost in the moment … at least until Mary’s anxious voice brought him back, asking if everything was alright, begging without words to see the baby. And Joseph carried Jesus to her and set him in her arms, and they both reveled in the wonder of the moment. Their first child … their son … later their Messiah … right now their son – a tiny new life with wrinkled fingers and toes. And as they cleaned him up and wrapped him cloths to keep him warm … JOY.
God offers us … invites us … to enter into that joy. Look inside yourself. Set aside your own fears and worries. Set aside your own feelings of frustration and your need to make everything just right for tomorrow morning. Look into your mind, into your heart and watch the baby Jesus being born. Cradle him in your arms and wonder, again, at the miracle of Immanuel – of God come to be with us. Wonder and joy.
“Surprising Love”
Luke 2:8-20
And God so loved the world that he sent an only son….
They expected a King who would come and change the world. Wrapped in majesty and power, he would overthrow the Roman Empire and free the chosen people. He would rule with wisdom and understanding and justice and mercy would govern the lives of a people who lived in peace. But that’s not what happened.
The shepherds sitting on the hill that night got to see it. They were no different from any of the others. They expected a Mighty Messiah to come … if any came at all. It would be someone who would make their lives better, but they would probably never get to see him since they were on the edge of what society found acceptable. They certainly wouldn’t get to see him up close.
And then the world changed.
As they sat around their little fire, watching their sheep and talking as the stars followed their familiar patterns across the sky, that sky seemed to split open. Something … an angel maybe … stood before them and told them of the birth of the Messiah. Told them. Not some powerful or holy person. Not a prophet or a priest or a leader of the people. But simple, poor, everyday shepherds.
It was so amazing that they left their sheep behind to go and see if it was true. And they found the baby just as the angel said they would. And they left the manger to share the news. The Messiah had come.
Not a king resplendent in find clothing with an army and heralds to announce his coming. Only a baby lying in a stable with dirty clothes to wrap him, with livestock as a court, and with shepherd to announce his coming.
Only a baby came. Only God born in a stable … only love become flesh …
and the world would never, could never be the same.
Hallelujah! “Glory to God in the highest heaven!”
“Surprising Hope”
Isaiah 11:1-9
Ever since these words were spoken they have brought hope to those who heard them. And why not? Isaiah describes the perfect king. One who will come into power and make everything the way it should be. All injustice will be ended. The wicked – powerful and weak alike – will be punished. The righteous – both meek and bold – will be rewarded. And every person will have exactly what they need … no indecent wealth … no grinding poverty. No one will fall through the cracks.
It was good news to the people of Israel. From the golden age of David and Solomon, the country had fallen onto hard times. Conflict and infighting among the leaders had split the country into a northern and southern kingdom that had been to war more than once, calling into question the identity of the chosen people. The wealthy elite were not much concerned with injustices or the suffering of the rest of people, seeking instead to increase their own wealth and power in any way they could. On top of all that, the Assyrian Empire was at their doorstep.
And in the midst of all the turmoil, the fear, and the distress, Isaiah prophesied a surprisingly bright future. Despite all the evidence to the contrary – and there was very little chance that either kingdom could stand against the Assyrians … despite the sense of doom, God’s promise still held true. There would be a new king in Jerusalem – a king of David’s line, and not only would that king bring justice and wisdom to the throne, he would bring peace to the whole world. Surprising words that brought hope to a troubled people threatened with destruction.
Are things really so different for us today? There are still a very few people whose wealth and power are increasing while most of us are working very hard just to keep our heads above water. There are still many, many people who are suffering injustice and struggling to find a place to live or food to east.
And into our turmoil, our fear, and our distress, Jesus comes, bringing hope of a bright future. Despite what our eyes, our pocketbooks, and our newspapers tell us, God’s promise comes to us again. When true justice is done. When someone reaches out to help another in need or to encourage someone lost in despair. When people work together to build a better life for all of us instead of tearing things down to raise themselves up. In those moments, we can see the coming of the day when wickedness and injustice will cease to be, when the wolves of suffering and vipers of fear will no longer threaten us, when everyone will have what she or he needs and no one will hurt or destroy anywhere on the earth that God has made holy.
Each year, at Christmas, we look for perfect king that was born in Bethlehem, lived with us for a time, and died for our sakes. But Jesus comes to us – to the world – every day, speaking over and over Isaiah’s promise … a surprising future is coming. A future that comes tomorrow. A future that comes the next day … and the next … and the next. A future that comes, little by little, whenever the Christ enters our hearts and leads us, step by step, into hope.
“Surprising Peace”
Isaiah 52:7-9
Peace…. Peace …. What is peace?
Is it the lack of war … or of violence? Is it the quiet that falls deep in the woods or in the living room with the children are finally asleep? Is it the sense of freedom and calm that comes from accepting the world as it is?
It seems to me that peace is all of those things … and more.
The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom.” It was the word used to greet people and to bid them farewell. It still is in some places because it expresses a wish for the well-being of someone…. Shalom is much more … much deeper than a simple lack of violence. It is wholeness. It points to a world where all of society is in harmony … where every person is healthy, safe, and fulfilled.
As Bible scholar Cornelius Plantinga describes it, it is:
The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight…. [It] means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.
It’s a wonderful and inspiring vision. It’s a peace that’s almost beyond understanding and seems entirely beyond our reach. And yet God chose to make it ours … not by reaching out an all-powerful hand and changing the world, but by coming among us in the weakest and most helpless form we can imagine. A baby … with tiny, beautiful feet to carry the good news of peace to all who will listen.
“Surprising Joy”
Luke 1:26-35 Matthew 1:18-24
There is a simple joy in watching children play. As they discover their own bodies and the world around them … as they delight in the new and explore the smallest details, they take us with them. They take us back to our own childhood, and as we see things through their eyes, hear things through their ears, and learn through their experiences, we rediscover wonder and awe.
That sense of wonder and joy is multiplied many times over when we watch a child being born. If you haven’t had the experience yourself, just ask someone who has and watch as their face changes. The cares and worries of their lives melt away and are replaced by smiles that reach all the way down to their toes and transform their entire being. Each birth is different, of course, and sometimes memories are colored by worries or sorrows that came later, but the moment of watching new life born into the world has a power that cannot be denied.
I imagine that the experience was multiplied even beyond our experiences for Mary and Joseph. For nine months … nine long months … from the moment when the angel came to them and announced the coming of Jesus, they would have been filled with tension and anxiety. It’s not an easy time … even for people who have a lot of support, and to be young and pregnant before marrying would have added the pressure of society’s disapproval to the mix.
Then they were forced to travel far from the comforts of home just when it was time for the baby to come. And to top it all off, they couldn’t even find a comfortable room to stay in. A stable… a stable and a pile of hay surrounded by the noise and the smells of animals was the only space left.
I imagine that when the birth started, they were more than a little scared. No clean cloths. No hot water. No midwife to offer support and wisdom. No way to know what was normal or that everything was okay. No family to hold their hands or give them support as they struggled through it all for the first time.
And then Jesus arrived. On the tide of one final push, he found his way into Joseph’s arms, and Joseph watched him … heard his first cries … looked into his eyes as they opened for the first time. And I imagine that he was lost in the moment … at least until Mary’s anxious voice brought him back, asking if everything was alright, begging without words to see the baby. And Joseph carried Jesus to her and set him in her arms, and they both reveled in the wonder of the moment. Their first child … their son … later their Messiah … right now their son – a tiny new life with wrinkled fingers and toes. And as they cleaned him up and wrapped him cloths to keep him warm … JOY.
God offers us … invites us … to enter into that joy. Look inside yourself. Set aside your own fears and worries. Set aside your own feelings of frustration and your need to make everything just right for tomorrow morning. Look into your mind, into your heart and watch the baby Jesus being born. Cradle him in your arms and wonder, again, at the miracle of Immanuel – of God come to be with us. Wonder and joy.
“Surprising Love”
Luke 2:8-20
And God so loved the world that he sent an only son….
They expected a King who would come and change the world. Wrapped in majesty and power, he would overthrow the Roman Empire and free the chosen people. He would rule with wisdom and understanding and justice and mercy would govern the lives of a people who lived in peace. But that’s not what happened.
The shepherds sitting on the hill that night got to see it. They were no different from any of the others. They expected a Mighty Messiah to come … if any came at all. It would be someone who would make their lives better, but they would probably never get to see him since they were on the edge of what society found acceptable. They certainly wouldn’t get to see him up close.
And then the world changed.
As they sat around their little fire, watching their sheep and talking as the stars followed their familiar patterns across the sky, that sky seemed to split open. Something … an angel maybe … stood before them and told them of the birth of the Messiah. Told them. Not some powerful or holy person. Not a prophet or a priest or a leader of the people. But simple, poor, everyday shepherds.
It was so amazing that they left their sheep behind to go and see if it was true. And they found the baby just as the angel said they would. And they left the manger to share the news. The Messiah had come.
Not a king resplendent in find clothing with an army and heralds to announce his coming. Only a baby lying in a stable with dirty clothes to wrap him, with livestock as a court, and with shepherd to announce his coming.
Only a baby came. Only God born in a stable … only love become flesh …
and the world would never, could never be the same.
Hallelujah! “Glory to God in the highest heaven!”
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Reality Check”
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55
Advent 4
December 18, 2011
Last month I referenced a CBS reality show called Undercover Boss. Now I’m not a huge fan of reality shows, but there is one yet to air that has captured my attention, and you should be curious about it too. “Buck Wild,” which will air in a few months, was filmed here in West Virginia. An MTV press release says the program will “follow the colorful antics of a group of friends just out of high school in rural West Virginia.” And while West Virginia welcomed the production to come to the state and film it, they weren’t so accommodating when it came to giving the production a break on the taxes they had to pay to the state.
Apparently, WV can award up to $10 million in tax credits annually to film and TV productions that apply on a first come first serve basis. But there is a list of criteria that crews have to adhere to such as, they have to spend a minimum of $25,000 in the state, it can’t be a game show, and other things.
But apparently Buck Wild didn’t meet the criteria. Specifics haven’t been given why the tax credits weren’t awarded, but there are three criteria that automatically disqualify it: pornography, sexual situations involving minors, and the portrayal of West Virginia in a derogatory manner. Which if I was a bettin’ woman as they say, that last one—about portraying WV in a derogatory manner—was probably high up on the list.
Former Marshall University football player Ashley McNeely was one of the people the show followed. And he isn’t convinced of how good this show will make WV look. He said “They showed me as the most hickish, redneck they could. How they edited the show made me the dumbest…person there was. All these reality shows are about drama, getting drunk and partying. I don’t see how in any way shape or form [this] could have a good spin on West Virginia.”
The “reality” in “reality TV” is a funny adjective if you ask me. The “reality” they create is, as McNeely said, what is edited out and what is kept in. Just ask the Italian American communities in New Jersey how they feel about the reality show “Jersey Shore” and how it really portrays the lives of Italian Americans. Fighting Italians and redneck West Virginians aren’t reality. They’re stereotypes.
The truth can’t be captured in highly edited 30-minutes. The reality of West Virginia’s story is complex. It’s a story of great natural beauty and great devastation. It’s a story of highly educated persons as well as one of the top most illiterate states. It’s a story of rich resources and grinding poverty. In such a “reality” the truth behind the edited reality show is much more complex.
Mary would probably agree. The reality behind who she was as a woman, a mother, a wife can’t be captured in the six short snapshots we have of her in scripture. Did you know she’s only mentioned six times?: in the birth and infancy story, of course; then at the temple for Jesus’ circumcision; again at the temple in Jerusalem when Jesus runs away from their Passover plans to sit with the rabbis, much to her chagrin; the ultimate party planner at the wedding of Cana; a mother worried about her son being ostracized by a crowd; and then, a place no mother or father pray they will never see, at the feet of her dying child, when Jesus turns her over into the care of John, the disciple Jesus loved.
She’s seen six times. In only less than half of these she speaks. And in today’s scripture is the most she speaks at one time, and probably has had the greatest affect in defining who she is as a woman than any other act or words than scripture gives us. The truth of her feelings about the severe inconvenience a pre-marital pregnancy brings can’t be captured in the poetic and beautiful words of her song of praise, known as Mary’s Magnificat. The reality behind the reality poem was probably much more complex.
There are lots of holes in the Mary reality show. Which makes those of us who grew up Anabaptist or Protestant a bit curious about how other traditions such as Catholics could have created such a theology around Mary. (Here’s your brief Church History moment). Well, we know there are many early writings about Jesus that did not get into the Bible as we have it today. Humans, people, men (to be specific) chose which writings should go into the Bible and which should be left out. Which were valid and which weren’t. To be fair, I do believe that the movement of the Holy Spirit was among them to guide them, but I can’t dismiss that a lot of other “realities” were part of it as well. Wouldn’t that be an interesting reality show? “The Council of Treat: What makes the Cut, and what gets left out”
Among those that were left out we now call the “Infancy Gospels” which give more information about Jesus’ childhood than the final book of scripture contains. Some of the information about Mary that we see other traditions revering probably came from these infancy gospels, as well as other lesser known sources, and these were not chosen to go into the canon, or the finished work. Traditions about Mary spring up after the creation of our canon as well, so…
For a variety of reasons, there's not much information about Mary in our Bible, and Protestants have tended not to trust non-canonical texts and church traditions that sought to fill in the gaps. Needless to say, we have not had much of Mary in our church life, except, of course, at Advent…when we marvel at what sort of woman would willingly accept this tremendous, terrible, honor. (OK church history moment over.)
Elizabeth Soto Albrecht is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church in Colombia and also the moderator-elect of Mennonite Church USA. Elizabeth grew up Catholic in her home country of Colombia. In the most recent edition of The Mennonite she reflected on how Mary has been, and continues to be, important in her spiritual journey. She observes that there is little room for appreciating Mary in the Mennonite church today (and to be fair, we should say the Church of the Brethren).
“We have thrown out the basin with the bathwater,” she says. “We have kept Jesus, but not the womb that bore him, the woman who created with God.”
I like to imagine Mary talking to an interviewer about the Mary Reality Show. Would she say “They portrayed me as the meekest, most mild mannered mother that ever was. Don’t they know I could have been executed for being pregnant and not married? Didn’t they see me hyperventilating on my way to Elizabeth’s, or weeping to Joseph? Hives! Look at these hives! ”
We have the impression of Mary as a demure receptacle of the holy. When she says “let it be with me as according to your word” we picture a submissive vessel, willing to be impregnated by the divine. But let’s not forget, the power of the Magnificat: the powers that be falling, the economic realities turned its head, beauty replacing devastation, a culture of peace replacing a culture of exploitation—this doesn’t sound meek. This sounds like anarchy to any power loving Roman that read it and this. …this will be the one who bears the Messiah? Not so demure, perhaps, after all.
When Ashley McNeely reflected on the negative impression Buck Wild painted him in, he said “Even after it all, I’m still glad I did it.” No doubt a nice check helped him feel ok about it. But I’d like to think—I hope—that Mary would say the same thing. No matter how the story shaped her into a holy mother, or a despised icon, even though she saw her son die, even if she felt rejected by him (which I’m sure all mother’s do)…I hope she would say the same thing: I’m still glad I did it.
So you might be wondering why all this talk about Mary. Shouldn’t we be talking about Jesus, after all, Christmas is about his birth?
Well, how about for one week, as we approach the birth with tired feet, aching limbs, groaning breaths, and exhausted bodies…how about for one week we don’t throw out the basin with the bathwater.
Because here’s this week’s reality check…it’s not just Mary birthing Jesus.
You are the basin. You hold the Christ waiting to be born.
“Every day Christians are invited to live into Mary’s paradox of being the small place where the maker of all places can dwell,” says Henry J. Langknect. “ As members of the church of Jesus Christ, we have opened our lives up so that we can be the dwelling place for Jesus.”
So let’s hold onto that basin, if only for a week, and :
Every time you are hit with fear, make it a home for Christ.
Every time you overcome your fear, fill that home with a song.
Every time you create with God, by sewing acts of love, you open the door of your home to Christ.
Every time you stop and say “I am your servant,” you embrace Christ at the door
Every time you make someone jump for joy or hold them in their hives and fear, deck your home out for Christ.
Every time you labor, and groan under the pain of bringing to birth something new—something tremendous and terrible--welcome Christ into the messy reality of your life.
Because messy reality is what Jesus was born into, God knows.
And so does his mother.
Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55
Advent 4
December 18, 2011
Last month I referenced a CBS reality show called Undercover Boss. Now I’m not a huge fan of reality shows, but there is one yet to air that has captured my attention, and you should be curious about it too. “Buck Wild,” which will air in a few months, was filmed here in West Virginia. An MTV press release says the program will “follow the colorful antics of a group of friends just out of high school in rural West Virginia.” And while West Virginia welcomed the production to come to the state and film it, they weren’t so accommodating when it came to giving the production a break on the taxes they had to pay to the state.
Apparently, WV can award up to $10 million in tax credits annually to film and TV productions that apply on a first come first serve basis. But there is a list of criteria that crews have to adhere to such as, they have to spend a minimum of $25,000 in the state, it can’t be a game show, and other things.
But apparently Buck Wild didn’t meet the criteria. Specifics haven’t been given why the tax credits weren’t awarded, but there are three criteria that automatically disqualify it: pornography, sexual situations involving minors, and the portrayal of West Virginia in a derogatory manner. Which if I was a bettin’ woman as they say, that last one—about portraying WV in a derogatory manner—was probably high up on the list.
Former Marshall University football player Ashley McNeely was one of the people the show followed. And he isn’t convinced of how good this show will make WV look. He said “They showed me as the most hickish, redneck they could. How they edited the show made me the dumbest…person there was. All these reality shows are about drama, getting drunk and partying. I don’t see how in any way shape or form [this] could have a good spin on West Virginia.”
The “reality” in “reality TV” is a funny adjective if you ask me. The “reality” they create is, as McNeely said, what is edited out and what is kept in. Just ask the Italian American communities in New Jersey how they feel about the reality show “Jersey Shore” and how it really portrays the lives of Italian Americans. Fighting Italians and redneck West Virginians aren’t reality. They’re stereotypes.
The truth can’t be captured in highly edited 30-minutes. The reality of West Virginia’s story is complex. It’s a story of great natural beauty and great devastation. It’s a story of highly educated persons as well as one of the top most illiterate states. It’s a story of rich resources and grinding poverty. In such a “reality” the truth behind the edited reality show is much more complex.
Mary would probably agree. The reality behind who she was as a woman, a mother, a wife can’t be captured in the six short snapshots we have of her in scripture. Did you know she’s only mentioned six times?: in the birth and infancy story, of course; then at the temple for Jesus’ circumcision; again at the temple in Jerusalem when Jesus runs away from their Passover plans to sit with the rabbis, much to her chagrin; the ultimate party planner at the wedding of Cana; a mother worried about her son being ostracized by a crowd; and then, a place no mother or father pray they will never see, at the feet of her dying child, when Jesus turns her over into the care of John, the disciple Jesus loved.
She’s seen six times. In only less than half of these she speaks. And in today’s scripture is the most she speaks at one time, and probably has had the greatest affect in defining who she is as a woman than any other act or words than scripture gives us. The truth of her feelings about the severe inconvenience a pre-marital pregnancy brings can’t be captured in the poetic and beautiful words of her song of praise, known as Mary’s Magnificat. The reality behind the reality poem was probably much more complex.
There are lots of holes in the Mary reality show. Which makes those of us who grew up Anabaptist or Protestant a bit curious about how other traditions such as Catholics could have created such a theology around Mary. (Here’s your brief Church History moment). Well, we know there are many early writings about Jesus that did not get into the Bible as we have it today. Humans, people, men (to be specific) chose which writings should go into the Bible and which should be left out. Which were valid and which weren’t. To be fair, I do believe that the movement of the Holy Spirit was among them to guide them, but I can’t dismiss that a lot of other “realities” were part of it as well. Wouldn’t that be an interesting reality show? “The Council of Treat: What makes the Cut, and what gets left out”
Among those that were left out we now call the “Infancy Gospels” which give more information about Jesus’ childhood than the final book of scripture contains. Some of the information about Mary that we see other traditions revering probably came from these infancy gospels, as well as other lesser known sources, and these were not chosen to go into the canon, or the finished work. Traditions about Mary spring up after the creation of our canon as well, so…
For a variety of reasons, there's not much information about Mary in our Bible, and Protestants have tended not to trust non-canonical texts and church traditions that sought to fill in the gaps. Needless to say, we have not had much of Mary in our church life, except, of course, at Advent…when we marvel at what sort of woman would willingly accept this tremendous, terrible, honor. (OK church history moment over.)
Elizabeth Soto Albrecht is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church in Colombia and also the moderator-elect of Mennonite Church USA. Elizabeth grew up Catholic in her home country of Colombia. In the most recent edition of The Mennonite she reflected on how Mary has been, and continues to be, important in her spiritual journey. She observes that there is little room for appreciating Mary in the Mennonite church today (and to be fair, we should say the Church of the Brethren).
“We have thrown out the basin with the bathwater,” she says. “We have kept Jesus, but not the womb that bore him, the woman who created with God.”
I like to imagine Mary talking to an interviewer about the Mary Reality Show. Would she say “They portrayed me as the meekest, most mild mannered mother that ever was. Don’t they know I could have been executed for being pregnant and not married? Didn’t they see me hyperventilating on my way to Elizabeth’s, or weeping to Joseph? Hives! Look at these hives! ”
We have the impression of Mary as a demure receptacle of the holy. When she says “let it be with me as according to your word” we picture a submissive vessel, willing to be impregnated by the divine. But let’s not forget, the power of the Magnificat: the powers that be falling, the economic realities turned its head, beauty replacing devastation, a culture of peace replacing a culture of exploitation—this doesn’t sound meek. This sounds like anarchy to any power loving Roman that read it and this. …this will be the one who bears the Messiah? Not so demure, perhaps, after all.
When Ashley McNeely reflected on the negative impression Buck Wild painted him in, he said “Even after it all, I’m still glad I did it.” No doubt a nice check helped him feel ok about it. But I’d like to think—I hope—that Mary would say the same thing. No matter how the story shaped her into a holy mother, or a despised icon, even though she saw her son die, even if she felt rejected by him (which I’m sure all mother’s do)…I hope she would say the same thing: I’m still glad I did it.
So you might be wondering why all this talk about Mary. Shouldn’t we be talking about Jesus, after all, Christmas is about his birth?
Well, how about for one week, as we approach the birth with tired feet, aching limbs, groaning breaths, and exhausted bodies…how about for one week we don’t throw out the basin with the bathwater.
Because here’s this week’s reality check…it’s not just Mary birthing Jesus.
You are the basin. You hold the Christ waiting to be born.
“Every day Christians are invited to live into Mary’s paradox of being the small place where the maker of all places can dwell,” says Henry J. Langknect. “ As members of the church of Jesus Christ, we have opened our lives up so that we can be the dwelling place for Jesus.”
So let’s hold onto that basin, if only for a week, and :
Every time you are hit with fear, make it a home for Christ.
Every time you overcome your fear, fill that home with a song.
Every time you create with God, by sewing acts of love, you open the door of your home to Christ.
Every time you stop and say “I am your servant,” you embrace Christ at the door
Every time you make someone jump for joy or hold them in their hives and fear, deck your home out for Christ.
Every time you labor, and groan under the pain of bringing to birth something new—something tremendous and terrible--welcome Christ into the messy reality of your life.
Because messy reality is what Jesus was born into, God knows.
And so does his mother.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Rejoice
sermon by Torin Eikler
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 John 1:6-9, 19-28
When I first heard that Carrie and I were expecting a child (the first time around), I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. I was giddy with excitement … so giddy that I skipped part of the way down the street to the Co-op where we worked to meet Carrie and rejoice together. (A few moments later, I got myself under control. People were watching after all.)
That feeling of joy continued for weeks – weeks in which I would find myself smiling foolishly or walking with an extra bounce in my step or humming one of the many lullabies that my mother had sung to me as a child. But as time wore on and the enormity of the change and the responsibility that was headed my way took on more and more immediacy, I was overtaken by a growing sense of worry, and I began sleeping poorly and eating more than I needed and bighting my nails … more than usual.
About six months into the pregnancy, my sense of anxiety had gotten so intense that I began to break out in hives. It started with a couple of little, itchy bumps along my waistline, and I made sure to check our cat for fleas. But there were none to be found. And over the course of a couple of weeks, I was getting them all over my legs, my belly, and my face. On one memorable day, Carrie called me from work, and after I had spoken the first words of greeting, she asked if I the hives had come back. Apparently, my lips were swollen enough to distort my voice.
(pause)
It still happens to me sometimes. Not the hives (thankfully), but getting so caught up in the worry and the responsibility that I lose touch with the joy of having young children … miss out on the surprise of new experiences and the wonder of living. So, I try to remind myself to slow down from time to time – to … slow … down … and revel in my children.
And it’s the same, for me, with the holiday season. I start out with a sense of joy and anticipation as I get together with family over Thanksgiving. Then we move into Advent, and I’m bouncing around, humming carols as we get out decorations and imagine what Christmas day will look like. And the closer we get, the more I begin to worry about the details: how will we manage the scheduling, what are we going to do for the Christmas Eve worship (and this year there’s Christmas Day to think about too), is it even possible to keep our boys from obsessing about gifts….
On top of that, we hear Isaiah and Mark and John the Baptist calling us to repentance and reminding us that the rough places must be made smooth, the valleys lifted up, and the mountains made low before the glory of the Lord is revealed. There is still so much inequity and injustice that we – that I – should be working to change, and I feel guilty as I pass people with worn clothing and weathered faces on my way to and from buying gifts or getting treats to fill stockings.
I need the reminder to slow down and pay attention to the coming of Christ as much as anyone else.
Slow down, we seem to say every year. Advent and Christmas are not about the hype and the parties. They are really not even about the time spent with family. They are about the amazing truth that God came among us – a reminder that the holy, the sacred, the sublime are not found in some far away place but in the mundane stables of our lives.
This week, I read a story by Kathleen Hirsch. She talked about this same struggle to slow down and simplify in order to make the Christmas season more “spirit-centered….”
“A few years ago,” she said, “I decided that our family Christmas season would be simple, insofar as that was possible with a toddler....” I reduced my to-do list by half and … turned off the television. There would be no Arthur or video versions of Winnie-the-Pooh this Advent.
Every morning…, we opened a door on the calendar and then, over our Cheerios, talked about whatever came up: the wise men on their trek, the guidance of stars, a mother on a donkey. After I picked up my son from a morning at day care, we’d share a quiet lunch and spend afternoons reading Christmas picture books, baking gingerbread men inside and making snowmen outdoors. Nothing was rushed….
Each afternoon was more peaceful than the one before. Surprisingly, the work of the season seemed to take care of itself…. On the Sunday before Christmas we put up the tree and added new paper chains. After dinner we would set up the crèche and arrange the stable animals in their places of honor, ready for the arrival of the baby Jesus.
I was potting the last of the jam when my son disappeared from the kitchen. I heard rummaging in the living room, then the metallic tinkle of ornaments on the lower boughs. Minutes later he was standing beside me, a solemn three-year-old holding a stuffed red heart that he’d taken from the tree.
“Mommy,” he announced. “Pretend that I am Gabriel.”
“Kneel down, Mommy,” he instructed me.
I obliged. Gabriel and I were face to face, inches apart, in front of the stove.
“Mary,” he addressed me. “You shall have a son. And this,” he extended the plush red heart toward my face. “This is your holy.”
“You must carry your holy with you always, Mommy – even around your neck – so that Jesus will know that he is holy too.”
Then, perhaps overcome by the force of his own inspiration, my Gabriel turned and fled back to the crèche to distribute more of the “holy” to the creatures assembled there.
Slowly I got to my feet. For a moment my son had seen heaven and had offered me a glimpse…. Without the holy, life – even simplified, even with terrific gingerbread and jam – is dust….
I looked at the heart again. My world doesn’t involve a lot of angel sightings, but as I reflected on what had just transpired, I realized that my world didn’t leave much room for wonder either. My son was far better attuned to the ways in which the sacred speaks. I comes to us on the wing; it grazed the heart. Only after long contemplation does it coalesce inot something that we can put words to.
We are a dedicated and caring people in this congregation, and we struggle with ourselves and with the world all the time. We work to make straight a way for the Lord’s coming. But whether we are focused on filling the pits of injustice in the world or smoothing out our own internal, spiritual disorder, or just trying to find a way through the wilderness of holiday preparations … we can easily get so absorbed in what we are doing that we miss out on the wonder of God’s presence. There is always something more to do, some new spiritual practice to try, and even when we are just trying to slow down and simplify things, we are often blinded to rejoicing by our sense of responsibility or guilt or worry.
(pause)
The good news is... it doesn’t have to be that way. We are not the Messiah. We are not even the Voice calling in the wilderness. The mountains and valleys of the wilderness have already been made straight and level. The glory of the Lord has already come… is coming … is here … in the power and presence of a baby who brings salvation to the world.
There is still good work that needs to be done. There are still hungry people to feed; despairing friends who need hope; lonely, homeless, suffering neighbors who would benefit from our care. There is still our own struggle to make a manger of our souls. And in the midst of it all – what we most need … what we most need to “do” … is to find peace - that special kind of peace that opens our eyes and hearts to the holy around us, within us, … within everyone.
After a few weeks of suffering those hives, I had a helpful conversation with a couple of friends – fathers that I respected. Both of them laughed a little when I shared my predicament, but then they began to talk. And as is the way with advice, it poured out with stories to illustrate. I can’t remember it all, but the gist of it was … it’s important to remember, they said, that what children really need the most is love and adults who are there for them whenever they need it. You can’t do everything, … and you don’t need to. Most of it just happens. So relax. Trust yourself and trust God. Just go with the flow, and try to connect with the wonder and the joy your children find in the world. Even if that’s all you can do, you’ll give them exactly what they need most, … and you’ll give yourself a gift too.
It was good advice – good enough to relieve my tension and send those annoying, itchy bumps packing. And so I offer it to you today. During this season of excitement and expectation relax. Don’t try to make yourself relax. Don’t schedule it into your life among shopping and cooking and everything else. Just relax. Trust yourself. Trust the God who brings good news to the oppressed and binds up the brokenhearted.
You are invited to witness the coming of God into the world – a gift of wonder and glory … of hope and promise. Rejoice.
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 John 1:6-9, 19-28
When I first heard that Carrie and I were expecting a child (the first time around), I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. I was giddy with excitement … so giddy that I skipped part of the way down the street to the Co-op where we worked to meet Carrie and rejoice together. (A few moments later, I got myself under control. People were watching after all.)
That feeling of joy continued for weeks – weeks in which I would find myself smiling foolishly or walking with an extra bounce in my step or humming one of the many lullabies that my mother had sung to me as a child. But as time wore on and the enormity of the change and the responsibility that was headed my way took on more and more immediacy, I was overtaken by a growing sense of worry, and I began sleeping poorly and eating more than I needed and bighting my nails … more than usual.
About six months into the pregnancy, my sense of anxiety had gotten so intense that I began to break out in hives. It started with a couple of little, itchy bumps along my waistline, and I made sure to check our cat for fleas. But there were none to be found. And over the course of a couple of weeks, I was getting them all over my legs, my belly, and my face. On one memorable day, Carrie called me from work, and after I had spoken the first words of greeting, she asked if I the hives had come back. Apparently, my lips were swollen enough to distort my voice.
(pause)
It still happens to me sometimes. Not the hives (thankfully), but getting so caught up in the worry and the responsibility that I lose touch with the joy of having young children … miss out on the surprise of new experiences and the wonder of living. So, I try to remind myself to slow down from time to time – to … slow … down … and revel in my children.
And it’s the same, for me, with the holiday season. I start out with a sense of joy and anticipation as I get together with family over Thanksgiving. Then we move into Advent, and I’m bouncing around, humming carols as we get out decorations and imagine what Christmas day will look like. And the closer we get, the more I begin to worry about the details: how will we manage the scheduling, what are we going to do for the Christmas Eve worship (and this year there’s Christmas Day to think about too), is it even possible to keep our boys from obsessing about gifts….
On top of that, we hear Isaiah and Mark and John the Baptist calling us to repentance and reminding us that the rough places must be made smooth, the valleys lifted up, and the mountains made low before the glory of the Lord is revealed. There is still so much inequity and injustice that we – that I – should be working to change, and I feel guilty as I pass people with worn clothing and weathered faces on my way to and from buying gifts or getting treats to fill stockings.
I need the reminder to slow down and pay attention to the coming of Christ as much as anyone else.
Slow down, we seem to say every year. Advent and Christmas are not about the hype and the parties. They are really not even about the time spent with family. They are about the amazing truth that God came among us – a reminder that the holy, the sacred, the sublime are not found in some far away place but in the mundane stables of our lives.
This week, I read a story by Kathleen Hirsch. She talked about this same struggle to slow down and simplify in order to make the Christmas season more “spirit-centered….”
“A few years ago,” she said, “I decided that our family Christmas season would be simple, insofar as that was possible with a toddler....” I reduced my to-do list by half and … turned off the television. There would be no Arthur or video versions of Winnie-the-Pooh this Advent.
Every morning…, we opened a door on the calendar and then, over our Cheerios, talked about whatever came up: the wise men on their trek, the guidance of stars, a mother on a donkey. After I picked up my son from a morning at day care, we’d share a quiet lunch and spend afternoons reading Christmas picture books, baking gingerbread men inside and making snowmen outdoors. Nothing was rushed….
Each afternoon was more peaceful than the one before. Surprisingly, the work of the season seemed to take care of itself…. On the Sunday before Christmas we put up the tree and added new paper chains. After dinner we would set up the crèche and arrange the stable animals in their places of honor, ready for the arrival of the baby Jesus.
I was potting the last of the jam when my son disappeared from the kitchen. I heard rummaging in the living room, then the metallic tinkle of ornaments on the lower boughs. Minutes later he was standing beside me, a solemn three-year-old holding a stuffed red heart that he’d taken from the tree.
“Mommy,” he announced. “Pretend that I am Gabriel.”
“Kneel down, Mommy,” he instructed me.
I obliged. Gabriel and I were face to face, inches apart, in front of the stove.
“Mary,” he addressed me. “You shall have a son. And this,” he extended the plush red heart toward my face. “This is your holy.”
“You must carry your holy with you always, Mommy – even around your neck – so that Jesus will know that he is holy too.”
Then, perhaps overcome by the force of his own inspiration, my Gabriel turned and fled back to the crèche to distribute more of the “holy” to the creatures assembled there.
Slowly I got to my feet. For a moment my son had seen heaven and had offered me a glimpse…. Without the holy, life – even simplified, even with terrific gingerbread and jam – is dust….
I looked at the heart again. My world doesn’t involve a lot of angel sightings, but as I reflected on what had just transpired, I realized that my world didn’t leave much room for wonder either. My son was far better attuned to the ways in which the sacred speaks. I comes to us on the wing; it grazed the heart. Only after long contemplation does it coalesce inot something that we can put words to.
We are a dedicated and caring people in this congregation, and we struggle with ourselves and with the world all the time. We work to make straight a way for the Lord’s coming. But whether we are focused on filling the pits of injustice in the world or smoothing out our own internal, spiritual disorder, or just trying to find a way through the wilderness of holiday preparations … we can easily get so absorbed in what we are doing that we miss out on the wonder of God’s presence. There is always something more to do, some new spiritual practice to try, and even when we are just trying to slow down and simplify things, we are often blinded to rejoicing by our sense of responsibility or guilt or worry.
(pause)
The good news is... it doesn’t have to be that way. We are not the Messiah. We are not even the Voice calling in the wilderness. The mountains and valleys of the wilderness have already been made straight and level. The glory of the Lord has already come… is coming … is here … in the power and presence of a baby who brings salvation to the world.
There is still good work that needs to be done. There are still hungry people to feed; despairing friends who need hope; lonely, homeless, suffering neighbors who would benefit from our care. There is still our own struggle to make a manger of our souls. And in the midst of it all – what we most need … what we most need to “do” … is to find peace - that special kind of peace that opens our eyes and hearts to the holy around us, within us, … within everyone.
After a few weeks of suffering those hives, I had a helpful conversation with a couple of friends – fathers that I respected. Both of them laughed a little when I shared my predicament, but then they began to talk. And as is the way with advice, it poured out with stories to illustrate. I can’t remember it all, but the gist of it was … it’s important to remember, they said, that what children really need the most is love and adults who are there for them whenever they need it. You can’t do everything, … and you don’t need to. Most of it just happens. So relax. Trust yourself and trust God. Just go with the flow, and try to connect with the wonder and the joy your children find in the world. Even if that’s all you can do, you’ll give them exactly what they need most, … and you’ll give yourself a gift too.
It was good advice – good enough to relieve my tension and send those annoying, itchy bumps packing. And so I offer it to you today. During this season of excitement and expectation relax. Don’t try to make yourself relax. Don’t schedule it into your life among shopping and cooking and everything else. Just relax. Trust yourself. Trust the God who brings good news to the oppressed and binds up the brokenhearted.
You are invited to witness the coming of God into the world – a gift of wonder and glory … of hope and promise. Rejoice.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
An Unexpected Time
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Advent 2
Isaiah 64:1-9, 2 Peter 3:8-15
I want you to think about time. Mainly, I want you to think about the word time. Now, think of a song that you know that has time in the title, or in the lyrics. What are some? Just call them out…[As Time Goes By, Time in a Bottle, etc. etc…]
When I thought of this, the first song that came to mind didn’t have time in the title, but is in the lyrics. It’s a Simon and Garfunkel song called Hazy Shade of Winter: “Time, time, time, look what’s become of me/ as I look around for my possibility/ I was so hard to please...” I asked Torin and he immediately said the line, “a simple prop to occupy my time” from the song This One Goes Out to the One I Love by REM. And then of course, since we were talking about REM, our mind went to the classic of our generation, “It’s the end of the world as we know it” which we realize didn’t have the word “ time” in it, but was certainly about time…then end of time.
Aside from love, it seems like time is the focus of many songs. It doesn’t need to have the word “time” in it, but there is something about time in most songs. That experience of getting through a specific time, waiting for some time when we will get what we want, often love. Not wanting to waste time, generally…with the one we love. Remembering a different time. Wishing for another time. Waiting for time to pass...
It might not be expressed explicitly, but the topic of time seems implicit when we sing, or speak about our lives. Unfortunately, it often seems like time is a faceless adversary, doesn’t it? Our invisible nemesis, something we have to contend with, to manage, to patiently deal with, to make the most out of it, to kill it yet somehow, not waste it. To get somewhere in the nick of it. As the sculptor and poet Henry Van Dyke explains: Time is/ Too slow for those who Wait/Too swift for those who Fear/ Too long for those who grieve/ Too short for those who Rejoice.”
Time is kind of like air, if you think about it. It surrounds us and yet we can’t see it. We can only see the movement of its passing: through greying hair, growing children, falling leaves, birthing, and dying.
That time was passing was a problem for Christians who were receiving this letter of Peter, our scripture for today. It wasn’t simply bemoaning how joints were aching, or how there was too few hours in a day, or how quickly it all passes. You see, many early Christians were just a bit peeved that, essentially, they were still here…on earth. Too much time had passed because they were believing, as the scripture we read last week Mark 13 vv. 24-37, implied “…this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” And you will remember, these things they were talking about: the sun darkening, the stars falling, the Son of Man coming in clouds with glory and power. The end of the world as they knew it.
All of this was supposed to happen. Christ was supposed to have returned by now. That generation Mark spoke of had probably been dead for a decade or two and these early Christians were starting to lose hope. Think…May 22, 2011. The day after Harold Camping said Christ would return. Think…the people who dissolved their 401(Ks), quit their jobs, withdrew from their families, prepared to be raptured. That kind of May 22nd disappointment…expect ongoing, day in and day out. Each sunset, another day Christ didn’t return.
The person writing this letter in the name of Peter—likely not the Simon Peter the disciple of Christ, as originally thought—is writing a letter of encouragement. We can assume these people were convicted of their righteousness in the face of judgment, because they seem to want it so badly—which honestly, is why I feel I would not be so eager of this to come, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for these folks. It’s the end of the world as they know it and they feel fine. At least…if it ever comes.
And the author of the letter says,don’t fear, it will happen. Maybe not in our time, but in God’s time. God works in a different time than we experience-- so when it doesn’t happen according to our clock and understanding, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Rest assured.
Which, if I’m honest, initially seems like a huge cop out to me. Like Harold Camping backpedaling and saying his calculations were wrong and that it will be another time, later in October. But unlike Harold Camping, the author of 2 Peter doesn’t give a solid date or time, or even predictions for what will pass before it comes. And in fact, he kind of takes away the focus on time, of the end of it all. He says it will happen when it will happen. What is important now is that you live as if it will happen any moment…
As most of you know, for close to a year now I have been running a small business: Mountain Baby Diapers, a cloth diaper service. Most people don’t understand why I would want to not only wash my own children’s diapers, but other people’s, and that’s a conversation for another time [not over a meal, where it always seems to come up]. But one thing I love about it is that it easily fits into my schedule, and is fairly flexible.
I pick up diapers from my clients homes on Wednesdays. Most Wednesdays I have the alarm on our cell phone set for 5:15 so I can be out the door by 5:30, cup of coffee in my hand, car filled with clean diapers, BBC on the radio. I see those early mornings as “my time.” I’m in a comfy little bubble as I drive around town, as far out as unpaved roads off Snake Hill Road on lanes that evoke prayer from me every time I take our little Focus wagon on them. I remember the morning by what news report is on at each client’s house. It’s a joyful, meaningful time for me, as the sun starts to rise on the new day and I’m home in time for our 7:30 breakfast of eggs and toast, kiss Sebastian off to the school bus and begin my day of washing, drying, parenting, and pastoring.
And while I’m usually up and out by 5:30, my clients know there is a 12 hour window when I might come: 5am-5pm. I did this so if—as they say—“life happens”, and I’m not there when I normally try to be-- a kids is sick, weather is bad--I can make it up later in the day. It gives me flexibility.
Which is what happened this Wednesday. On Tuesday night I was looking for the cord for our cell phone because it was low on batteries. I like to use the cell phone because it has a less jarring alarm that our digital alarm clock, but because we couldn’t find the cord to charge it—did we leave it at my parent’s? Did we leave it at the Olive Garden in Columbus?—I decided to set the alarm on our digital clock, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. AND I decided to go to bed listening to classical music, setting the clock to the sleep mode, so the radio would turn off after an hour.
We’ll I’m convinced the more I finagle with things, the less likely it is that it’s all going to work, so as you can guess, the next morning I wake up at it’s 6:30. An hour later than I hope. This is not how it is supposed to happen. Bounding out of bed I told Torin the alarm didn’t go off (as if it was the alarm’s fault), push on the coffeemaker, throw on my clothes, pour the coffee before it’s done, making a mess, worrying if I will get home in time for Sebastian to get to the bus and as I pull onto Willowdale Road the other unexpected complication—traffic. Traffic just started. There was no way my routine was going to happen like normal.
So I made the decision to alter my route. I would do some of the pickups before 7:30, go home and finish after breakfast. That way I could see Sebastian off to school, because as I realized in that moment, what seemed to be most distressing to me was that I might miss kissing him goodbye, and that I wouldn’t see him until he returned in the afternoon.
And as often happens, eating started grounding me back into clearer perspective. With the first bite of toast I was still fuming in my head: this all happened because my organized plan was disrupted. Someone lost the cord to the cell phone which meant I had to trust something else to wake me up, something other than what has always worked for me. When it comes down to it, when I’m in control, it all goes fine.
And after the first forkful of eggs I was working it out with Torin that what was really irking me was now my schedule was disrupted. I’d have to go out to Snake Hill Road—out in the boonies—when I wanted to spend the morning reading and studying in preparation for this sermon—and now my whole plan was all out of whack.
And during the first sip of coffee, Torin says “Well, I’m glad you give yourself a window of time so you don’t have to stress about when you pick up the diapers.” --I don’t know if he intended it or not, but I heard the irony in his comment. And the hard truth.
Because by the time I had finished my breakfast, and I was hugging Sebastian at the door, I realized I wasn’t freaking out about my schedule being messed up, or that I’d have to make a ten mile drive. I was angry that my attempt to control time had been thwarted.
I had been thinking that if everything went according to my plan, if I had been in charge of that phone cord, if I didn’t have to rely on an alarm clock to get me up, if things just happened the way I wanted and , let’s face it, knew best, things would be fine.
But isn’t that one of the ultimate illusions. Not that we have control over time—the first Christian communities, as we see today, were becoming painfully aware of that fact. But really, that we have control at all of anything in life. In her book Learning to Let Go Melanie Beattie reassures us that when we trade in a life that we try to control “we receive in return something better—a life that is manageable.”
Manageable, and yet more. In Greek there are at least two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners. Chronos is where the word chonology comes from which gives the illusion of an ordered progression of time. Chronos is ticking of the clock, counting of shopping days until Christmas, wondering why Christ hasn’t come yet because time has passed on the calendar…at least, by the living and dying of a generation. Chronos makes us angry at our bodies when they don’t heal as fast as we think they should. Chronos makes us anxious about our self worth when our hopes and dreams haven’t been accomplished by the age we thought they would.
And then there is the other word for time: kairos. Kairos is the time when you are lost in the beauty of a piece of music or the reverie of poetry. Kairos is the moment you hold someone in their pain and when you’ve laughed so hard for so long your side hurts. Kairos comes in moments of meditation of watching sleeping children, of falling in love. Kairos means “opportune moment” and is used when referring to a different type of time, a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. …a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. A time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled with Spirit
Kairos… gives the soul a space to deepen when the body slowly heals. [pause]
When our minds were set on certain lists of accomplishments that we thought we could control,
Kairos presents us space to explore new possibilities . [pause]
Kairos replaces counting down till Christmas with the patient waiting of Advent. [pause]
And we can’t control it.
No alarm clock will alert us to it, even when we end up finding the cord for the cell phone in our purses…like I did.
And in the midst of today’s scripture of end time hopes that we can’t quite seem to connect with, the author of Peter is calling us out of chronos and into Kairos. Out of the world’s time and into God’s time. Where living is not about what is to come on the clock and what we can control, but what is at work in our hearts and what we leave to the movement of Spirit.
--
And that’s probably what a lot of the songs about time have to say, too. While we want to control time, the painful reality is that we can’t. And if the author of 2 Peter was a country singer, he’d probably couldn’t say it better than Emmylou Harris who sings: “When we’re gone, long gone…the only thing that will have mattered, is the love that we shared, and the way that we cared. When we’re gone. Long gone.”
An
Advent 2
Isaiah 64:1-9, 2 Peter 3:8-15
I want you to think about time. Mainly, I want you to think about the word time. Now, think of a song that you know that has time in the title, or in the lyrics. What are some? Just call them out…[As Time Goes By, Time in a Bottle, etc. etc…]
When I thought of this, the first song that came to mind didn’t have time in the title, but is in the lyrics. It’s a Simon and Garfunkel song called Hazy Shade of Winter: “Time, time, time, look what’s become of me/ as I look around for my possibility/ I was so hard to please...” I asked Torin and he immediately said the line, “a simple prop to occupy my time” from the song This One Goes Out to the One I Love by REM. And then of course, since we were talking about REM, our mind went to the classic of our generation, “It’s the end of the world as we know it” which we realize didn’t have the word “ time” in it, but was certainly about time…then end of time.
Aside from love, it seems like time is the focus of many songs. It doesn’t need to have the word “time” in it, but there is something about time in most songs. That experience of getting through a specific time, waiting for some time when we will get what we want, often love. Not wanting to waste time, generally…with the one we love. Remembering a different time. Wishing for another time. Waiting for time to pass...
It might not be expressed explicitly, but the topic of time seems implicit when we sing, or speak about our lives. Unfortunately, it often seems like time is a faceless adversary, doesn’t it? Our invisible nemesis, something we have to contend with, to manage, to patiently deal with, to make the most out of it, to kill it yet somehow, not waste it. To get somewhere in the nick of it. As the sculptor and poet Henry Van Dyke explains: Time is/ Too slow for those who Wait/Too swift for those who Fear/ Too long for those who grieve/ Too short for those who Rejoice.”
Time is kind of like air, if you think about it. It surrounds us and yet we can’t see it. We can only see the movement of its passing: through greying hair, growing children, falling leaves, birthing, and dying.
That time was passing was a problem for Christians who were receiving this letter of Peter, our scripture for today. It wasn’t simply bemoaning how joints were aching, or how there was too few hours in a day, or how quickly it all passes. You see, many early Christians were just a bit peeved that, essentially, they were still here…on earth. Too much time had passed because they were believing, as the scripture we read last week Mark 13 vv. 24-37, implied “…this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.” And you will remember, these things they were talking about: the sun darkening, the stars falling, the Son of Man coming in clouds with glory and power. The end of the world as they knew it.
All of this was supposed to happen. Christ was supposed to have returned by now. That generation Mark spoke of had probably been dead for a decade or two and these early Christians were starting to lose hope. Think…May 22, 2011. The day after Harold Camping said Christ would return. Think…the people who dissolved their 401(Ks), quit their jobs, withdrew from their families, prepared to be raptured. That kind of May 22nd disappointment…expect ongoing, day in and day out. Each sunset, another day Christ didn’t return.
The person writing this letter in the name of Peter—likely not the Simon Peter the disciple of Christ, as originally thought—is writing a letter of encouragement. We can assume these people were convicted of their righteousness in the face of judgment, because they seem to want it so badly—which honestly, is why I feel I would not be so eager of this to come, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for these folks. It’s the end of the world as they know it and they feel fine. At least…if it ever comes.
And the author of the letter says,don’t fear, it will happen. Maybe not in our time, but in God’s time. God works in a different time than we experience-- so when it doesn’t happen according to our clock and understanding, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Rest assured.
Which, if I’m honest, initially seems like a huge cop out to me. Like Harold Camping backpedaling and saying his calculations were wrong and that it will be another time, later in October. But unlike Harold Camping, the author of 2 Peter doesn’t give a solid date or time, or even predictions for what will pass before it comes. And in fact, he kind of takes away the focus on time, of the end of it all. He says it will happen when it will happen. What is important now is that you live as if it will happen any moment…
As most of you know, for close to a year now I have been running a small business: Mountain Baby Diapers, a cloth diaper service. Most people don’t understand why I would want to not only wash my own children’s diapers, but other people’s, and that’s a conversation for another time [not over a meal, where it always seems to come up]. But one thing I love about it is that it easily fits into my schedule, and is fairly flexible.
I pick up diapers from my clients homes on Wednesdays. Most Wednesdays I have the alarm on our cell phone set for 5:15 so I can be out the door by 5:30, cup of coffee in my hand, car filled with clean diapers, BBC on the radio. I see those early mornings as “my time.” I’m in a comfy little bubble as I drive around town, as far out as unpaved roads off Snake Hill Road on lanes that evoke prayer from me every time I take our little Focus wagon on them. I remember the morning by what news report is on at each client’s house. It’s a joyful, meaningful time for me, as the sun starts to rise on the new day and I’m home in time for our 7:30 breakfast of eggs and toast, kiss Sebastian off to the school bus and begin my day of washing, drying, parenting, and pastoring.
And while I’m usually up and out by 5:30, my clients know there is a 12 hour window when I might come: 5am-5pm. I did this so if—as they say—“life happens”, and I’m not there when I normally try to be-- a kids is sick, weather is bad--I can make it up later in the day. It gives me flexibility.
Which is what happened this Wednesday. On Tuesday night I was looking for the cord for our cell phone because it was low on batteries. I like to use the cell phone because it has a less jarring alarm that our digital alarm clock, but because we couldn’t find the cord to charge it—did we leave it at my parent’s? Did we leave it at the Olive Garden in Columbus?—I decided to set the alarm on our digital clock, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. AND I decided to go to bed listening to classical music, setting the clock to the sleep mode, so the radio would turn off after an hour.
We’ll I’m convinced the more I finagle with things, the less likely it is that it’s all going to work, so as you can guess, the next morning I wake up at it’s 6:30. An hour later than I hope. This is not how it is supposed to happen. Bounding out of bed I told Torin the alarm didn’t go off (as if it was the alarm’s fault), push on the coffeemaker, throw on my clothes, pour the coffee before it’s done, making a mess, worrying if I will get home in time for Sebastian to get to the bus and as I pull onto Willowdale Road the other unexpected complication—traffic. Traffic just started. There was no way my routine was going to happen like normal.
So I made the decision to alter my route. I would do some of the pickups before 7:30, go home and finish after breakfast. That way I could see Sebastian off to school, because as I realized in that moment, what seemed to be most distressing to me was that I might miss kissing him goodbye, and that I wouldn’t see him until he returned in the afternoon.
And as often happens, eating started grounding me back into clearer perspective. With the first bite of toast I was still fuming in my head: this all happened because my organized plan was disrupted. Someone lost the cord to the cell phone which meant I had to trust something else to wake me up, something other than what has always worked for me. When it comes down to it, when I’m in control, it all goes fine.
And after the first forkful of eggs I was working it out with Torin that what was really irking me was now my schedule was disrupted. I’d have to go out to Snake Hill Road—out in the boonies—when I wanted to spend the morning reading and studying in preparation for this sermon—and now my whole plan was all out of whack.
And during the first sip of coffee, Torin says “Well, I’m glad you give yourself a window of time so you don’t have to stress about when you pick up the diapers.” --I don’t know if he intended it or not, but I heard the irony in his comment. And the hard truth.
Because by the time I had finished my breakfast, and I was hugging Sebastian at the door, I realized I wasn’t freaking out about my schedule being messed up, or that I’d have to make a ten mile drive. I was angry that my attempt to control time had been thwarted.
I had been thinking that if everything went according to my plan, if I had been in charge of that phone cord, if I didn’t have to rely on an alarm clock to get me up, if things just happened the way I wanted and , let’s face it, knew best, things would be fine.
But isn’t that one of the ultimate illusions. Not that we have control over time—the first Christian communities, as we see today, were becoming painfully aware of that fact. But really, that we have control at all of anything in life. In her book Learning to Let Go Melanie Beattie reassures us that when we trade in a life that we try to control “we receive in return something better—a life that is manageable.”
Manageable, and yet more. In Greek there are at least two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners. Chronos is where the word chonology comes from which gives the illusion of an ordered progression of time. Chronos is ticking of the clock, counting of shopping days until Christmas, wondering why Christ hasn’t come yet because time has passed on the calendar…at least, by the living and dying of a generation. Chronos makes us angry at our bodies when they don’t heal as fast as we think they should. Chronos makes us anxious about our self worth when our hopes and dreams haven’t been accomplished by the age we thought they would.
And then there is the other word for time: kairos. Kairos is the time when you are lost in the beauty of a piece of music or the reverie of poetry. Kairos is the moment you hold someone in their pain and when you’ve laughed so hard for so long your side hurts. Kairos comes in moments of meditation of watching sleeping children, of falling in love. Kairos means “opportune moment” and is used when referring to a different type of time, a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. …a time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled. A time that doesn’t pass, but a time that is filled with Spirit
Kairos… gives the soul a space to deepen when the body slowly heals. [pause]
When our minds were set on certain lists of accomplishments that we thought we could control,
Kairos presents us space to explore new possibilities . [pause]
Kairos replaces counting down till Christmas with the patient waiting of Advent. [pause]
And we can’t control it.
No alarm clock will alert us to it, even when we end up finding the cord for the cell phone in our purses…like I did.
And in the midst of today’s scripture of end time hopes that we can’t quite seem to connect with, the author of Peter is calling us out of chronos and into Kairos. Out of the world’s time and into God’s time. Where living is not about what is to come on the clock and what we can control, but what is at work in our hearts and what we leave to the movement of Spirit.
--
And that’s probably what a lot of the songs about time have to say, too. While we want to control time, the painful reality is that we can’t. And if the author of 2 Peter was a country singer, he’d probably couldn’t say it better than Emmylou Harris who sings: “When we’re gone, long gone…the only thing that will have mattered, is the love that we shared, and the way that we cared. When we’re gone. Long gone.”
An
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