And Don't Forget To Pray
Sunday August 26th, 2012
Rev, Kathryn Ransdell
Enjoy this sermon in audio format.
Sunday, 26 August 2012
Monday, 20 August 2012
Are We Asking the Right Questions? August 19, 2012
"Are We Asking the Right Questions"
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Rev. Kathryn Ransdell
Aug. 19, 2012
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
I want to begin my sermon today by acknowledging that in our presence this morning is the Moderator of The United Church of Canada, the Right Rev. Dr. Gary Paterson and his spouse, Rev. Tim Stevenson.
Moderator, to have you with us this morning is an honor. Rev. Gary, colleague, pastor and friend, we are crawling out of our skin with excitement for you and for the United Church. Gary, if it was intimidating to preach with you in the room before today, well, you've raised the bar once again.
The Old Testament lesson was assigned for today long before the Moderator election and long before our Rev. Gary went off to Israel and heard this crazy call of God to step out and do something outrageous. Why would a person put their name for Moderator when they have such a great church here in Vancouver, the 3rd most liveable city in the world? Why would you willingly apply for a job that moves you to Toronto? (I apologize to all Torontonians present today; I really hold nothing against a city I never visited it just fit the rhetoric.)
A lot of us here in this room today have a lot of questions. I'm guessing the Right Reverend Gary Paterson and his spouse Rev. Tim Stevenson have quite a few. But only 40 other people have walked the path they now walk so they don't have a large circle where they can ask questions and have them answered.
But those of us who will be left behind, so to speak, have questions. We have had moments of amazement, and quite honestly, moments of sadness the past 72 hours. When our Scripture text speaks of David sleeping with his ancestors (yes, one of those Scriptures that makes for great locker room humor), and when our Scripture speaks of Solomon taking the throne of his father, it implies that there were people who were in the kingdom, whose lives were affected by the changing of the guard.
Tim Scorer, who I often say to him that he has no idea who he is (because he walks alongside some of the greatest theologians and scholars of our day and translates their work for us common folk) worked with Walter Brueggemann for the publication of a study based on the work Embracing the Prophets. I like what Brueggemann has to say about today's text:
"We have some interpretive options with this text."
1. "-We can take the narrative at face value as is often done in the church, the story of a successful young king." If we take this story at face value, it is like a Hallmark made-for-tv movie starring Meredith Baxter Birney. And we can quickly draw out of this story a nice suggestion that goes something like this: May God bless the hearts of those who pray for money; aren't we grand that we pray for wisdom.
2. "We can take the whole as a belated fabrication that wants to legitimate a new mode of public power." If we understand this story as a redaction by the Deuteronomistic editors who went to work writing down Israel's story, then we can understand that they wanted to show a cause and effect...that IF you stay close to God and follow God's commandments and do what God says, then God will bless you, give you a long life, and make your evangelical, prosperity-gospel loving smile bright and shiny. Certainly, there is a sugar coating to today's story, in the same way that when someone dies the person automatically becomes a saint who never said or did one wrong thing by what you might hear at their funeral.
3. "We can read the text ironically so that the high sounds of modesty, steadfast love, wisdom, and discernment mock and contradict the actual performance of monarchy." And there's a bit of honesty to this interpretation. The lectionary actually calls for the extended text to be read: 1 Kings 2:10 - 3:14. The part that we left out today between the narration of David sleeping and Solomon asking for wisdom when he could have asked for the world, is a messy little story where Solomon kills no less than three people and banishes a fourth. And speaking of Solomon, history has given him the gift of being the one who was so wise. He is credited with writing a significant portion of the wisdom literature. The same evangelicals who would go for interpretation No. 1 will probably also gloss over the fact that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
Brueggemann summed his three interpretive options saying, "Either way, we now read the text in the midst of our own preoccupation with “our next leader." I had no idea that Walter Brueggemann considered himself a member of our congregation. Oh wait, he was speaking of the next leader as being either Obama or Romney.
We now read the text in the midst of our own preoccupation with questions like:
What will this church be like without Rev. Gary?
Will we survive the absence of this person for three years?
Will the person sitting next to me in the pew still like this church when the face up-front is different?
In response to Brueggemann's comments about reading this text while being preoccupied with who will be the next leader of the United States, another theologian (who also has no connection to our congregation but based on his words you would think he is pew 5, writes:
(Timothy F. Simpson, Political Theology, 2012.) "Thoughtfully presented, pastors can use this sermon to give their parishioners something bracing from this text that will help them, not to choose the right candidate, but to have the proper view of the one that they do choose, seeing him or her as a full person, in all dimensions, rather than with blinders, through the ever-present advertising filter."
What he is saying is that God works through any of us. Even those who don't get their act together, which is every single one of us. Every single person is in need of the grace of God and every single person receives that grace of God because we serve a God who gives grace first and asks questions later, questions like, "Do you know that you are a beloved child?" "Do you know that you have a call on your life that is more than you can imagine?" "Do you know that you are not alone, no matter how lonely this life might feel at this very moment?"
We will get some things wrong (hopefully not as wrong as killing 3 and banishing 1), and we will stray from the path. But that doesn't mean that at any single moment God is not there more willing to hear than we might be to pray. And at any moment, no matter who we are or where we've come from or what we've done or not done, God's ready to hear our prayer for wisdom and grant it.
It might be easy to ask the questions that lead to this idea of whether or not we can find the right person to replace Gary. Let's face it. You don't replace a Gary Paterson. If that were the case, God would have created two of him. We give thanks for who he has been to us and for us and with us the past years, who he will be for the United Church and still for us as he stays our Lead Minister, and who he will be with us in 3 years when his term concludes.
We pray for wisdom asking God to help us to ask the questions that lead to wisdom. We pray for the wisdom to ask the kinds of questions that will lead us to the kind of ministry the Moderator described the past 3 days.
May we ask questions that shape our identity to find the Christ within our walls.
May we ask questions that so shape us that we seek the Christ outside our walls.
May we ask questions that allow us to set aside our fears and open us to all that really exists, which is love. And if we can fill ourselves with that love, if we can practice that kind of love...you know that love....the kind that is patient, kind, gentle, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, the love that does not insist on its own way but rejoices in the truth....the kind of love that believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things endures all things...
If we focus on this love, our questions will assure our hearts and minds that Love never ends; that this church won't end--we may very well radically change, but that's because God is working amongst us friends, and not because Gary is gone.
And now, it is my great honor to introduce to you the Moderator of The United Church of Canada, the Right Reverend Dr. Gary Paterson.
Pastoral Prayer written and given by Caroline Penhale
Holy One,
We are so grateful for the work of the commissioners to the 41st General Council. We give thanks to You for all those who gathered and served so generously and well. We give thanks for their faithful public witness. in these next few weeks, we ask for moments of rest and renewal for each of them.
Gracious God: hear our prayer
We give thanks for the freedom to discern, debate in an effort to bring greater justice to the World. We pray that the decisions and statements made at General Council help contribute to Your peace and justice. As we live into the resolutions of this General Council, we pray for an extra measure of Grace in our relations with our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. Help us to contribute to the mending of the world.
Gracious God: hear our prayer
With give thanks for Gary, our pastor, and now the pastor to the national United Church. We are grateful, delighted and proud that he has faithfully answered your call and we ask for your blessing of wisdom, grace, and love to enfold Gary and his family as he lives out this call.
Gracious God: hear our prayer
Many, many people in this community prayed for Gary and his family, as he stood for election as Moderator. Gracious God, we give You thanks for answering our prayers. May this community continue to feel Your presence and turn to you in prayer as we discern the way forward and respond to your holy invitations.
Gracious God: hear our prayer
We give thanks for the way in which the entire staff of St. Andrew's Wesley have led and nurtured us through this process and will continue to lead and nurture this community in the days and months ahead. May the staff be held in your loving care and may we all know in our bones that all shall be well in Your abiding presence and love.
Gracious God: hear our prayer
We pray for those of us in need in some way this morning: either through mental of physical illness, through grief and loss or in facing some other challenge. We ask that you bring healing, comfort, and peace and resilience to each one. We thank you that you are always with us in times of sorrow and in time of joy and celebration. We are never alone.
Gracious God: hear our prayer
Please join me in a moment in silence to offer your own prayers of thanks and need.
and now will you pray with me the Lord's Prayer as printed in your bulletins.
Our Mother, Our Father…
Sunday, 12 August 2012
Nobody Has it All Together, August 12, 2012
Nobody has it all together
Rev. Kathryn Ransdell
August 12, 2012
St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church, Vancouver, BC
Phyllis Tickle and others in the emergent church movement suggest that if the church is to transform itself it we must go back to experience first, belief second. Even Karen Armstrong discussed this when she visited Vancouver in March on her Compassion Tour: the early Christians had an experience of Jesus, or Spirit, or whatever you might want to name it, and that experience was so profound that it literally changed their outlook on this life and the way they participated in this life.
Their experience changed what they believed about this world. And, their experience changed the way they related in this world. Because the experience and the belief and the ways of being are connected, on purpose, by God, who likes to mix it up just a little bit. God didn't create it to be this way then leave us to our own devices. -- Goodness knows that we are not creatures of change. -- God then poured out grace on this world that produces a real change in those who open their hearts.
As we wade into this text from Ephesians, we might find that we have categorized this passage prematurely, calling it good advice. It is more than good advice, though. It's almost like the creation story in Genesis...take a little dust, then have God sneeze on it, and voila, you have humans. In some ways, this text is just as mythical...take a few actions, add God's grace, and voila, you have the building blocks for Christian community, not the kind we already know, but the kind that we ache to be, the kind that keeps our souls restless wanting something more, something deeper, something whole.
That's why we can't too quickly dismiss what Paul commands the community to do as advice, proverbs or suggestions. We can't dismiss them as easy or quaint or possible to learn, practice and master by spending 1.5 hours each week in church. In fact, you could say that there is a difference between the movement of Jesus and the Christianity of Paul: While Jesus was here, the people followed one person and listened to that person and deified that person. In the Christianity of Paul, that person is no longer with them so it becomes their experience of one another and their ability to live the way he taught them to live that mattered.
And it mattered because the day-to-day living of the Christian life is the experience of a miracle.
The day-to-day living of the Christian life is the experience of a miracle. Don't believe me? Then think of it this way, with all the ways we argue amongst ourselves, and all the ways we pick fights with those beyond ourselves, and all the ways we refuse to adapt so that the outsider feels welcome among us, it's nothing but short of a miracle that the church is still here.
The day-to-day living of the Christian life is the experience of a miracle for another reasons. If it were not, then all our moral choices and all our pursuit of holiness would be done in our own strength; it would signify our own merit and it would be about us and our ego. This is the constant slinky game we are in...when we are relying on our own strengths and when we are relying on God's grace to shape our way of being in this world.
So there are immense things at stake in the ordinary issues of truth-telling, and anger, and stealing which Paul deals with. Let's take a look at a few of them:
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors,
for we are members of one another.
Be angry but do not sin;
do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and do not make room for the devil.
Paul tells us to speak the truth to our neighbors and then follows it with "Be angry but do not sin." I think we must be missing some punctuation from the original Greek as if Paul was a referee, "You, speak the truth," and, "you, be angry but do not sin."
Go deeper with me. To speak the truth to one another in love then we have to be with one another. We have to learn how to respect and care for one another. We have to love one another not just a little bit, but that we have so great of love that we are willing to lay down our lives for one another. If I'm coming to church and I don't even know your name, then that might be an indicator that the kind of community that Paul calls us to, the kind that speaks truth to one another, hasn't been built.
"Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil."
Paul is using two different Greek words, the first rightly translated: "Be angry." The second use, "do not let the sun go down on your wrath."
It may be stating the obvious, but I think it's worth saying that there are some basic teachings here:
1. There is a time to be angry. Christians aren't called to be nice all the time. We are called to be angry at systems of injustice and oppression. We are called to be angry when we see the symptoms of society's brokenness: hunger, poverty, homelessness. And there is a time to be angry as we live together as a community.
2. But be with your anger, don't put it on others. You can be angry, but don't cause brokenness in your anger, ie, write the letter but don't send it; scream at the wall, not in the phone; go for a long run and come home rather than running away.
3. The time to be angry is short. "Do not let the sun go down on your wrath." We have relegated this to proverb status dealing with relationships and making couples feel that they cannot go to bed angry with one another. And I've met people who have been married for 50+ years and they said, "The key to a happy marriage is not going to bed angry." There may be a day when I have enough maturity that this might be true, but some things don't get resolved in 3 hours. So for right now, I follow Psalm 4: " In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and trust in the LORD."
4. There is not a time to hold a grudge. -- do not make room for the devil. If there is anything that can be more destructive to building Christian community is the practice of holding things against one another and not allowing all of us to be on a process of maturing, changing, growing, learning, failing, and getting up and trying again. God help us if the best we will ever be is the first day we ever walk into a Christian community.
The very meaning of being in a Christian community is that we change, we put off our false selves that hold on to being insecure, fearful and small and instead embrace the self as God sees us--beautiful, whole, people.
And sometimes we just misunderstand that the person beside us, in front of us, behind us, is a beautiful creation of God. We misunderstand their action, their motive, their body language. We misunderstand their intent.
I'm reading a beautiful book called "Dancing with a Ghost." It is the story of a crown prosecutor who applied his own cultural standards to the actions of those within the First Nations community and in so doing, he now knows he drew wrong conclusions. As his awareness of traditional Native teachings few, he found that areas of miscommunication went beyond the courtroom into society and causes cross-cultural misunderstanding and too quickly leads to ill-informed condemnation.
Perhaps you saw the Globe and Mail article about the First Nations community and Enbridge. Enbridge interpreted a symbolism of peace as a hostile act, and recorded it to be that way in their minutes.
The Christian experience is all about practicing what it means to put away all bitternness, all wrath, all anger and wrangling and slander. It doesn't mean we get it right, but it means we learn how to do this. We learn how to give up our ego, our need to be right, we give up our arrogance, we give up our need to be seen as if we have it all together.
Because in simple terms, "Nobody has got it all together."
And that's okay. Welcome to the church, where we are not saints, but sinners who keep on trying.
Paul's directions for his community were meant to be more than nice phrases meant for needlepoint pillows. His directions are nothing short of the experience of a miracle.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
as God in Christ has forgiven you.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us,
a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
I must admit, I am hungry for this kind of community.
This past week, a person who I have admired, came through Vancouver. She is an ordained Methodist minister and she was in what we call that "first group." She was part of the first group of women that sought ordination and fought that very hard path of acceptance. She is right to say that my generation had it easy, and yet, there is still very real gender biases today. She rose up the ranks of ministry, pastoring a large church in Dallas, until she took a significant life shift, became a spiritual director, moved to Austin, TX, reconnected with her passions and now serves an accepting, reconciling, artsy church in one of the few "blue" oasis-es in Texas.
I made a comment about the op-ed in the Globe and Mail about the collapse of the liberal United Church. In the back and forth, she said, "History might bear out that any attempt at being church in the 20th century was not sustainable."
And she might be right. Because we created a church that was about following a pastor and keeping up the appearance that we have it all together, rather than wrestling with the challenge of community, admitting that we are still in process in this thing called humanity, and experiencing the miracle that is life together. We might look successful in the short-term with buildings, and staff and large budgets, but if we do not have love--love for one another, love for the other, love for the unloveable, then we have nothing.
The experience of the kind of life that Paul describes is a miracle. When we experience this miracle, then, and only then, will we believe.
Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires (James 1:19-20).
Friday, 10 August 2012
50 Shades of Grace, Aug 5, 2012
Ephesians 4:1-16
50 Shades of Grace
Rev. Kathryn Ransdell
Sunday August 5th, 2012
She lived most of her life sickly, until someone told
her about a man who could heal her.
After visiting him and finding herself healed of her ailments, she
became a believer in what he taught. It
came to be known as "New Thought" in the 1800s, and one of its basic
tenets is that illnesses could be caused by someone wishing ill on you,
literally. The sickly woman healed by
these teachings was named Mary Baker Eddy and she went on to found the
Christian Science movement, which in its 20th century rational thinking, has
tried its best to separate itself from those original writings.
New Thought taught a form of animal magnetism, which
has a deeper teaching that in essence, there is one energy, matter, substance,
that we are all apart of and unites us together....there is a connectivity
among us even when we don't name it.
I still get people who buy into some form of this
thinking, most likely because they have been brainwashed by a cult. I don't believe anyone has power over us...I
believe that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ Jesus, not height
nor depth nor angels nor principalities nor anything else can separate us from
the love of Christ.
Yet at different times in history Christians have
believed in a very strong inner power and external power. There is even a conspiracy theorist who is
Christian who believes that the ringing of the English bells to start the
Olympics was being used by Satan so that when the bell run, the powers of Satan
would be unleashed on this world. He
needed enough of his believers focusing together at the same time the bells
were ringing to create a spiritual wall to bind these forces. Seriously.
That's where I got the idea of asking all of us to
pray at 11 am for 31 days. Just
kidding.
There is nothing wacky or supernatural or abnormal
about asking this community to come together at a certain time to hold
spiritual space outside of the chronos of our day. Maybe it will call you into the present
moment; maybe it will call you into prayer for someone in our community; and
maybe it will be something that annoys you just enough to get an email each day
that you find your spirit opening despite yourself.
Pausing at the same time every day as an individual is
a personal spiritual discipline.
Pausing at the same time very day as a community is a
corporate spiritual discipline.
Both are a means of grace. Before we go there, let's take out and
examine what we mean by this 5-letter word "grace." It's a word thrown around by us insiders in
the church. Outside the church, most
people don't have a use for the word. So
what is our use for the word here on the inside?
Grace is more than a warm and fuzzy. Grace has to do with the connection between
us and God. God's grace is a living,
active force in this world and inside you and me. God's grace always starts with God
first. There is nothing that any of us
can do to either earn the love of God or lose the love of God. God constantly pours out grace upon grace,
and we meet God's presence through what we call the means of grace.
If grace doesn't feel deeper than a warm fuzzy, then
it's time to build your spiritual muscles.
The grace of God is also poured out when we are
focusing on other's needs, doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting the
imprisoned, feeding and clothing those in need, earning, saving and giving all
we can, seeking justice, focusing ourselves on society's needs.
Grace isn't just a generic catch-all kinda word. We are speaking about something specific what
we hold to be true. We are talking about a word that has power to
shape us, move us in new directions, change our hearts, and dare I say, change
our minds. Grace has the power to open
doors and unlock closets.
Grace starts with God but it doesn't happen without us
taking part, diving in, trusting, and opening ourselves.
So what exactly is the nature of grace?
1. Is grace imparted on our behalf or imputed
into us?
2. Does grace create a relative or real change?
The good news is: it's not an either/or. It's a both/and. Yes, grace is imparted on our behalf but it's
also imputed into us. It's in our
hearts. It's here. Grace is somehow mixed in with our cells, our
blood, our breath.
Grace creates a relative change. It might mean we go to church, who
knows. But grace also creates a very
real change in our lives. It's a very
real power that's quite different from mustering the energy to make it to
church for the start of worship.
As the remnant of liberal Protestant Christians, we
must constantly be asking ourselves where we have sanitized for the sake of
making it easier on us, privatized it for the sake of not offending or
ritualized because we just don't feel it in our hearts and souls anymore.
Which is why I totally understand Paul's plea in the
opening verses of chapter 4. Paul says,
"As someone who has given it all for this Jesus thing: my previous faith, my profession, my friends,
my family...I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have
been called."
I beg you. Not
just inquire as to whether it is comfortable for you to possibly consider
living the life God has given you, but beg you. To the church at Corinth, Paul said, "We
have this treasure in clay jars so that we may know that this power comes not
from us but from God."
This treasure is your life. You have been given your life in this clay
jar. And this life is to be marked by humility,
gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to
maintain the bond of unity.
Those words are so powerful that for some reason we
reigned them in and made them "nice
and polite" ways of being and put aside the radical notions of what it
means to live this way.
"For each of us is given grace according to the
measure of Christ's gift." I like
that I have this Scripture verse memorized.
I quote it quite often.
Especially in this unique time of life with the twins turning 2
tomorrow. Can you believe it? Those sweet little babies that once cooed
--they are still sweet, but let me tell you, they are monkeys. They are everywhere, into everything. So when I think I don't have enough in me, I
quote this verse. Now I'm probably
mis-applying it just a bit, but that's okay because it works for me. Remember, though, grace never stops with me,
the individual.
Our Christian belief is not supposed to stop with
making us feel good. Christian belief shapes
us from the inside out through the means of grace and makes us people who live
in this world as people defined by grace.
Each of us is given grace according to the measure of
Christ's gift. What does this mean? How do you measure Christ's gift?
Christ's
gift is unconditional and unlimited.
Unconditional and Unlimited and Accountable. We are to give grace as God has given to
us. Our souls need to give. We must
learn to love ourselves unconditionally so that we can love
unconditionally.
Let's go back to the Scripture: "The gifts he
gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some
pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for
building up the body of Christ. Paul
says these gifts have been given to us so that we are knit together as one body
until we reach maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
The full stature of Christ...I like to think of this
as conscious living, as being woken up from all that has put our souls to
sleep, of being healed of all the wounds that keep us guarded and of being so
grounded in ourselves, in intention and in love, that our very living changes
this world.
Speaking of things that are changing some people's
words, have you heard about the series of books called "50 Shades of
Gray." The 3 books in the series
are No. 1, 2, and 3 on the NY Times Bestseller list, and have been so for 22
weeks running. I think it's surpassed
the Harry Potter series in its printing.
The book is creating a sexual revolution. Apparently women are finding renewed romantic
interets in the bedroom after reading this book. I was telling my husband about how this book
is the must-read for the summer and how it is affecting women afterwards. To be
blunt, one mommy-blogger said, "After finishing this book, you will
want to have sex with your husband. A
lot of it." There is even
discussion how at the end of this year and into the first quarter of next year,
there will be a Shades of Gray baby-boom.
The very next day, in wanting to help me keep up with what's trendy, he
downloaded all 3 books onto our iPad.
It's interesting that this series of books has been
able to take something very old, that's been around for a long, long, long
time, and make it new, and spicy, and exciting ... and for a lot of partners
out there, it's changing lives.
The church is an old institution. It's been around for a long time. And some want to pronounce that the church's
time has passed. But I believe that God
has not abandoned this world, that when we stick with practicing our means of
grace, we are downloading shades of grace, not just on ourselves, but on every
person we come in contact with. That
which has been around for a very, very, very long time becomes new again. Our hearts soften and our eyes begin to see
possibilities and our lives shift course.
Our hearts evolve and our souls awaken.
We tap into the kind of oneness that Paul describes, a
oneness that is not about exclusivity but about inclusivity...there is one, and
if there is just one, then that means you and I are somehow both part of the
one. And even that knowing, for me, is
grace.
Saturday, 28 July 2012
When I Am Weak, Then I Am Strong, July 22, 2012
WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG
II Corinthians 12:2-10
Rev. Gary Paterson
July 22, 2012
This has been a difficult sermon to
write, and I’m not sure it’s fully come together. Difficult, at one level, because of a time
crunch. You see, my mother has had a
small stroke, and I have spent most of the week over in Victoria
So I have been pondering Paul’s
claim, wondering what he’s trying to say. I recalled some lines from Leonard Cohen,
Ring
the bells that still can ring,
Forget
your perfect offering;
There
is a crack in everything,
That’s
how the light gets in.
A crack in
everything… the place of weakness, when things fall apart; the pretence of
perfection goes by the wayside, and there is a moment of blessing. And I thought, “Yes, that’s true.” Then there’s Hemingway’s claim, “Life breaks
all of us; some grow stronger in the broken places.” And I agree… except I also know that some
people remain broken; they don’t get stronger.
But then I recalled a Hasidic one-liner, “A whole Jew is one with a
broken heart.” -- and that resonates.
But it sure goes against the
dominant values of our culture, where we are told over and over that we need to
be strong, successful winners, as we strive for the 3 “A’s” – affluence,
achievement and attractiveness. There
isn’t much space for losers; we admire survivors, superheroes, the top
dog. Weakness is usually held in
contempt. So what about, “When I am weak
I am strong?
Now, let’s be clear… this isn’t a
new problem, somehow unique to our culture.
Let me take you back a couple of thousand years, to the early church in
the city of Corinth
Well, when Paul got wind of what was
happening, he whipped off some fiery letters, determined to re-establish his
own credentials and authority. He didn’t
want to play the game, “I’m more spiritual than you are.” – but he did, in
fact, get caught up in it, even as he was mocking it. “You want mystical visions and ecstatic
spirituality?” he asked, … well, been there, done that… in spades! “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years
ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body
I do not know; God knows – was caught up into Paradise and heard things that
are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.”
Although Paul was writing in the third person, as if referring to
someone else, it’s pretty clear that he’s talking about himself. But just as he gets on a roll… he shifts
gears; almost laughs at himself; and begins instead to boast about… well, his
weaknesses. It’s not that he was disregarding
spiritual experiences -- obviously his own had been overwhelming and
amazing. But he was clear that getting
“spiritually high” wasn’t really what Christianity was all about. He was more interested in what was happening
“on the ground”, in the day to day, in how people were living together, how
they treated each other.
You might recall that his first
letter to the church in Corinth
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but
do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to
remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing; and if I give away all my
possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have
love, I gain nothing.
Paul knows in his
heart that this is true, and that all the fancy spiritual experiences of the
world don’t amount to anything if love is absent, that down-to-earth,
practical, willingness to suffer and forgive, the determination to care, to
sacrifice, to be compassionate… and to be weak; or at least, to look weak and
foolish in the eyes of the world.
But boy, Paul was still tempted to be the strong guy… ’twas his nature, I suspect. But he had a problem that seemed to impact
his public persona, a disability perhaps, certainly a deep pain, clearly… a
weakness. He called it a “thorn.” Nobody
knows what he’s actually talking about, what this thorn was, although that
hasn’t stopped volumes of speculation, with suggestions that range from
psychological troubles to sexual orientation to epilepsy to speech impediments. In truth, it doesn’t really matter; we don’t need
to know the details, and Paul isn’t about to tell us. What’s important is that this disability
becomes a gift; this weakness becomes the means by which Paul is humbled; he is
kept from thinking too much of himself, from walking around with a swelled
head, saying, “What a fine missionary am I!”
What he discovers is that this very thorn helps him become more
Christ-like.
Because… well, did
you catch the reference? -- to Paul’s praying three times that this thorn be
removed? It’s a phrase which carries all kinds of
echoes of another recent scene that involved a triple prayer, asking that a
hardship be removed… that would be Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
.
Perhaps this is a reminder not only to Paul, but to all of us, that
ultimately our life’s adventure isn’t really about us, it’s about God. The only way it makes sense to say, “When I
am weak then I am strong,” is to recognize that God is intimately involved at
the very heart of it all. It is God’s
power that is made apparent, evident and perfect in our weakness. It seems that the “thorn,” or any of the
troubles, hurts and weaknesses that all of us experience and carry, become
occasions when we can discover that our hopes of making it on our own, of self-sufficiency,
are simply illusory. We just don’t have
that kind of power… and our weaknesses drive that point home; and yet, at the
same time, reassure us that at precisely that moment, God’s power will be
manifest. I am reminded of the old story
about “moon gazing”—never to confuse the moon with the finger that is pointing
to it. Which is to day, it’s never about
the messenger, the apostle, the preacher, the sermon, the good deed, the
faithful attitude… these are all just ways of helping people focus on what is
truly important… God. Thus, when the
messenger is weak, it’s clear that it’s the moon, it’s God, that we need to pay
attention to.
Perhaps that’s how the cross
functions… an ultimate symbol of weakness that nevertheless points us to
God. We are often tempted to forget that
the Christian story at its heart is a story of weakness, pain and suffering; of
seeming defeat, of death. It becomes a
good news story only because of resurrection… that is to say, because of God’s
action, God’s involvement in the story.
Christianity never promises a life of ease, success, and triumph,
despite what prosperity preachers might claim… you know, just pray hard, send
in your money, be obedient, and you will get rich, or win the football game. Clearly
they have not being paying much attention to the life of Jesus, or the life of
Paul. In fact, did you know that,
according to tradition, all the disciples, with the exception it seems of John,
died a violent, untimely death in martyrdom.
That’s what happened to Paul as well – most likely executed in Rome
But do we really believe this? I suspect that I could preach away ’til I am
blue in the face, and I probably wouldn’t get much further. So let me tell you a few stories; let’s put
some flesh on this claim that “when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Several years ago, in another church
where I was serving, there was a young woman named Jennifer. She lived with a great many disabilities,
both mental and physical. But, my word,
she was spunky, courageous and cheerful, and was determined to participate in
life to the max, including the life of the church community. And she was determined to take her turn as a
Scripture reader during a Sunday service.
So her name was added to the roster, and eventually her moment
arrived. Now, she didn’t sit at the
front, like Shirley did [today’s Scripture reader, who, like all our readers,
sits beside the minister]; no, for some reason, she stayed in the pew, half way
back from the front, and so when the time came for her to read, she lurched out
of her pew, and with her hand braces and crutches began to move slowly to the
front. I was a bit impatient, I confess,
because once again we were behind schedule, and I was worried about finishing
the service on time. But Jennifer kept
on moving… slowly. Eventually she got to
the front, parked her crutches, and took a deep breath. And began to read… slowly, with her finger
tracking the words, line by line, word by word.
By fluke, by coincidence… oh, let’s just admit it, by the work of the
Spirit … the passage that she read came from Paul’s first letter to
Corinthians, from chapter twelve,
Now there are
varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services,
but the same Lord… to each [person] is given the manifestation of the Spirit
for the common good…. For just as the body is one and has many members… so it
is with Christ… The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a
hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of
the body… The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again
the head to the feet, “ I have no need of you…..”
Well, as Jennifer
read, you could feel a holy silence descend upon the entire congregation; we
recognized that the Scripture was being embodied, made real, in the flesh, in
that very moment, right there at the front of the church. No need for a sermon …or anything else. Jennifer in her weakness had become
incredibly strong; she was a part of the body… a gift, a wonder, filled with
Spirit. When she finished, and slowly
made her way back to her seat we all knew that God’s grace was sufficient and
God’s power had shone forth in weakness.
Another story…
from a member of this congregation… and yes, permission has been given to share
this with you. A few days ago I received
a lengthy email, a response to my friend’s having seen the Burrard sign, with
the sermon title, “When I am weak, than I am strong.” “Exactly,” said the writer, “that’s my
story!” He talked about how for so many
years of his life he had tried to be strong and successful – that’s what the
world saw. And it was true… he was very
gifted, an accomplished man. But there
was another side as well – because inside he carried all kinds of uncertainty,
insecurity, compulsions, and fears; inside there were secrets! It was an ongoing struggle to keep it all
together, not letting anyone see the turmoil inside. Then he discovered that drinking helped him
cope with this inner weakness, and before too long, he began to abuse alcohol –
which made everything worse! This whole
struggle was exacerbated by his determination to hide what he thought was a deep
dark secret – he was gay. Having grown up in a small town with no positive
examples of what it might mean to be gay, and being involved with a very
fundamentalist Christian community, he kept the secret to himself -- and
continued to drink. Eventually
everything fell apart… weakness broke through the surface strength. It could all have ended very badly. But then came a moment of grace… the
discovery that when he admitted his inner confusion, his pain, and his
sexuality, then suddenly he felt free; suddenly his true self emerged… a person
who was strong and capable, absolutely; but also someone who had struggles, who
was weak. He found that when he admitted
his powerlessness in the face of addictions he was able to discover a new
source of strength… God, his Higher Power.
He didn’t have to play the game anymore – he could be himself, in all
his frailty and in all his strength. He
discovered the gift of self-acceptance, and was no longer caught up in the
pretence of being someone he wasn’t; he was someone with many gifts, and
someone with many challenges… like all of us.
His willingness to be authentic
and vulnerable, and his acceptance of his weakness -- it was this that led to a rich and full life…
and to his conviction that when I am weak, I am strong.
Another story… again from a member
of our congregation; and again, shared with permission. This person is presently out of town, sitting
with her mother as she dies. She writes,
“It is difficult indeed to walk side by side with someone as death approaches,
but also a blessing to have that time to be with them undistractedly.” Her mother is living with dementia – which
sounds awful, but in a strange way has become a gift, for the dementia has
brought a softness of being, a vulnerability… a change. In past years this mother had never really
been able to say to her daughter “I love you!”, at least not in a way that
truly seemed to come from the heart – it always seemed to be a statement of
duty, of obligation, of will. But now,
for the first time… the words seemed to come from the heart – and the love was
felt. Suddenly weakness became an incredible
gift. How strange; how wonderful; how
grace-filled. When I am weak, then I am
strong.
Indeed, isn’t this our human reality, in a more general and
universal way – that we are creatures of weakness and strength? I mean, we spend so many of the early years of
our lives, being completely dependent on parents and care-givers -- humans
spend more time in childhood dependency than any other species on earth; it
goes on for some sixteen, seventeen years, despite what teenagers may say, as
they assert their initial independence.
And even when adulthood is achieved, illness, accident, bad luck… the
frailty of our human bodies … so many things can shift us back to weakness and
dependency. And if we are lucky to live
long enough, into old age… well, then once again our strength begins to
diminish and we find ourselves swallowed up in weakness, reliant on the
kindness and strength of others.
But this isn’t a bad thing; it’s
simply true, an accurate description of what it means to be human. It’s okay to be weak, as well as strong … it
really is. It’s not a question of
pretending to always be self-sufficient and strong – ultimately we’re only
fooling ourselves. What we need to be
clear about is on what, or in whom we find our ultimate source of strength; the
One we can trust to be there for us, no matter what – our Source, our Power – I
would say God, the God who is revealed in Christ. When our final illusions of self-sufficiency crumble;
when we know our frailty and vulnerability – be not afraid; in fact, be
reassured, and know that it’s okay. Know
that God is with us, always. Sometimes
that recognition only comes when we come face to face with our own weakness,
and discover that with God we remain strong.
When we are weak, with God we are strong. And that’s good news!
My Mum is weak. But she also is clear that she has lived a
good life; and that dying is not the worst thing that can happen. She is getting herself ready, I think, for
the next step in her journey, though God willing, and probably more for my sake
than for hers, I hope it’s not now. But
it’s so very clear that in some strange way, in the face of the all that is
happening, even though she is weak, she is strong. And that is the work of grace.
Saturday, 21 July 2012
The Fullness of Gods Heart, July 15, 2012
THE FULLNESS OF GOD’S HEART
II Samuel 1:17-27
Psalm 130
Mark 5:21-43
Rev. Gary Paterson
July 15, 2012
Had a great wedding
here, yesterday... eight bridesmaids, and seven groomsmen along with the
starring couple; a lot of happy energy at the front of the church. And to top it all off -- two Junior
Bridesmaids, sisters, almost bursting with pride and excitement! So, after everybody except the bride had
gathered at the front, the Junior Bridesmaids launched forth, carrying a
banner, “Here comes the bride!” Then, at
the end of the service, everybody marched down the aisle, pair by pair, with
the last groomsman smiling immensely as he escorted two bridesmaids down the
aisle; followed by those Junior Bridesmaids again, bringing up the rear; only
now they had reversed their banner, so that it read, “They lived happily ever
after.” And we all cheered.
Knowing it wasn’t
true, of course, although the day had a fairytale feel to it; this was a day
for romance and best wishes, not a reality check. But we all knew that nobody lives happily
ever after; there are ups and downs, struggles and hard times. That’s what life is all about; it’s joyous…
and it isn’t easy. Sometimes things end badly, with tears and sadness. That’s
what it means to be human.
Yesterday
afternoon… a birthday party for my grandson Ben, turning three! Who would have thought it! So, Ben opened his first present, a train
engine called Belle; he was so thrilled that he wasn’t interested in opening
anything else, oblivious to everything except Belle, the perfect present. Meanwhile, his five month old sister, Amy,
had fallen asleep on my chest; our hearts were beating together. A circle of family – and I wanted to yell
out, “And they lived happily ever after!”
Though I knew that the circle included two widows, one eighty, the other
thirty; and that most of the adults had buried their parents; and that Ben and
Amy would have their inevitable struggles in life… that’s what it means to be
human.
Now, one of the
many things I like about Scripture is its honesty. There is a willingness in the Biblical stories
to talk about what’s really happening in the world, what’s truly important in
human life. And in those stories I find
clues about how to live with the human condition; how to live into reality. For instance, today’s first reading… there’s
David, crying out his grief in the face of national disaster, in the aftermath
of war, young men slaughtered upon the hills.
And among the dead, David’s best friend Jonathan; heart ache and heart
break. “Jonathan lies slain upon the
high places. I am distressed for you, my
brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was
wonderful, passing the love of women.” We
know what’s he’s feeling – “We are the dead, short days ago we lived, felt
dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved and now we lie… in Flanders Fields,
on the hillsides of Mt. Gilboa in ancient Israel, in the cities of present day
Syria.
What we recognize
is David’s pain – he doesn’t hold back.
Not some stiff upper western lip, that keeps it all down; no, for David it’s
full on lamentation. And maybe that’s
the clue -- a first step in living into our human condition is to name our
reality, to honestly speak about what’s happening… and then, to weep. Perhaps
sometimes we think that God can’t handle our tears, that if we were truly
faithful, we would be able to live by such platitudes as “It’s God’s will,” or
“He’s in a better place.” None of this
pap for David; he laments; and cries. It’s like singing the blues --when the
bad times come, sometimes the only thing we can do is sing about them. Tears are not an unfaithful response. One of my favourite theologians, Frederick Buechner,
defined grace as “the taste of fresh raspberries and cream; a good night’s
sleep;” and finished by saying that “most tears are grace.” Perhaps David already knew that “most tears
are grace” – maybe that’s something we
need to hold on to.
The same thing is happening in today’s second reading,
in Psalm 130 -- another lamentation --
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice! Let your
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!” No specifics about what’s actually happening,
but anyone of us could create several scenarios; times when weeping and crying
out to God is all that we can do. But
this psalm goes a little farther, for the poet – and maybe it’s David himself,
who knows – is not just articulating his sorrow, but is actively expressing his
faith in God: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my
soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning, more than
those who watch for the morning.” So… waiting…
maybe that’s another clue. We wait, hoping that our cry will be heard; that
circumstances will change; that God will respond. The
Hebrew is interesting, because the words for “wait” and “hope” are so
intertwined as to appear as synonyms.
So… we lament; and we wait; and we hope.
Waiting… we humans do a lot of that.
Of course, (as the songwriter Jim Strathdee says)… “What you do while
you wait depends on what you’re waiting for… .” The psalmist is clear… he is
waiting for the God of steadfast love to show up and act: “O Israel, hope in
the Lord! For with the Lord is steadfast
love, and with the Lord is great power to redeem.” It’s God that we’re waiting for; the God of
steadfast love; the God who cares for us; the God who is present¸ no matter how
it appears to be otherwise. Here’s
another definition of faith – the act of remembering what God has done in the
past, trusting that God will do the same in the future, even though God doesn’t
seem to be doing much in the present moment;
not, at least, that we can see.
So let me list
those clues again: lamentation and expressing our grief; waiting and hoping in
God. And then… well, our next reading,
this time from the Gospel of Mark, gives us another clue. It’s the story of Jairus, whose daughter was
sick unto death. Jairus was a man of
standing in the community; a leader of the synagogue; someone close to God. But his daughter was dying; and there was
nothing he could do about it. I have
three daughters. There is nothing harder
than to watch your child suffer, and not be able to do anything about it. I can’t imagine … though I know some of you
can… what it feels like to lose a child.
Years ago, up at
Naramata Centre for a week long programme in the summer, I heard this gospel
story set to music. Fred Kaan wrote the
words; Ron Klusmeier composed the music; and Jim and Jean Strathdee sang the
song. No, don’t worry, I’m not going to
sing, but still…
The house was full of
sadness,
A little girl had died.
Her father ran to Jesus
And like a man he cried.
He pleaded for his
daughter
Before the Son of Man,
“O lay your hand upon
her
And she will live
again.”
The house was full of
mourners,
The street was dark with
gloom,
When Jesus came and
entered
The stillness of the
room.
He touched her with his
speaking,
He took her by the hand.
He gave the girl her
Easter
And helped her live and
stand.
I remember crying when I heard the song; I was thinking about my
daughters; I was thinking about everybody’s sons and daughters.
Now, this story
about Jairus and his twelve year old daughter is intertwined with another
story, in typical Markan fashion, where one story gets stuck right in the
middle of another. In this case, in the
middle of the story about Jairus and his daughter, Mark tells us about a woman
who has been hemorrhaging for twelve years; nothing has brought her any
relief. I suspect she’s tired of
lamenting; tired of waiting and hoping. I
can’t begin to imagine what she must have felt like, with her life’s blood
draining out of her, every day; blood, the source of energy, vitality, life. Hemorrhaging; but it could be any number of
illnesses -- depression; chronic fatigue, HIV/AIDS. And then, of course, two
thousand years ago, this woman lived in a patriarchal society that believed
that a woman’s bleeding, either menstrual or illness, rendered her “unclean,”
which meant that she lived on the edges of society, shunned, not accepted, on
her own, no community, no belonging.
So two stories
about people in desperate straits… out of the depths they cried out their lamentation;
waiting and hoping, endlessly. But here,
in this story, there is a further clue about how to live into this human
reality, for both father and woman come to Jesus asking for help; they reach
out and take action. It’s an embodiment
of Jesus’ own instructions to “Seek… ask… knock on the door” or of St. Augustine
It’s hard to keep
on hoping – indeed, as Jesus and Jairus are heading to the latter’s home, they
receive the news that they are too late – Jairus’ daughter is already
gone. And that’s when Jesus turns to
Jairus, and says the strangest thing, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” But believe what? That the messengers are wrong? That his
daughter isn’t dead; maybe she’s just in a deep sleep, or perhaps a coma? That with God anything is possible? Believe in Jesus? Believe in miracles? Believe that if you pray really hard and
faithfully, then you’ll be saved, cured, rescued? Except we know that in most cases that
doesn’t happen – children die and are not raised up to live again; and serious
illnesses don’t usually disappear, and exhaustion and desperation
continue.
So what does Jesus
mean? Is he, perhaps, pointing to something more basic… to an
ultimate trust in God’s goodness, despite evidence to the contrary? Is he inviting all of us to believe that the
power that sustains the universe, and each and every one of us, is benevolent
and beneficent? That God is best
understood as steadfast love – and that’s what we can count on; that’s what we
are invited to … not just believe, as if it were some rational concept… but to
trust; to trust our lives on. When the
chips are down, when we’re in the depths, when we’re crying out… this is when
we bank on God -- God’s love, God’s presence.
If we were to use psychological language, we might suggest that this is
what Erik Erikson was pointing to when he claimed that the first stage of human
development is the establishing of basic trust… trust in life, in the world, in
the possibility of love.
Some years ago, I
discovered that the Mayan people have a wonderful name for God; I can’t
pronounce it, but the translation sings: they call God “Heart of Heaven, Heart
of Earth.” I love that -- God as the
heart of all being, of the universe, of all life, of you and me; as if God is
the heart which pumps the lifeblood of the universe. This is a God you can count on, who is always
present. Now, let me push the metaphor
even further and suggest that Jesus is the heart of God… revealed to us, shared
with us, loving us. The Heart of Heaven,
the Heart of Earth is revealed in the life and person of Jesus, who says to
each one of us, “Don’t be afraid; only have trust.”
Fear or faith… those are our choices. Lately I have been
trying to breathe this reality, the dance of fear and faith. With all the uncertainty about my future,
with the possibility of being chosen as Moderator, I have found myself dealing
with some anxiety. And so I breathe…
breathe in faith, and breathe out my fear.
In… out. God’s presence and love
is what I breathe in; and all my worries and fears, this is what I surrender, I
breathe it out, I let it go. Breathe in;
breathe out. I invite you now to do this
with me… just for a minute or so… breathe in… and breathe out… will you do this
with me? In… and then out; faith… and
let go of the fear; God with us… worries released….
And as you continue
in this breathing, listen to these words from Leonard Cohen. Many of you know my passion for his poetry…
one of the frustrating things about not knowing what will happen after General
Council in August is that I can’t buy a ticket to hear Cohen when he comes to
Vancouver in the fall… November 18th to be exact. “Old Ideas” is the name of his new album… and
I think to myself… there’s a man who has discovered how to trust, and let go of
fear. Listen to “Come Healing”…
O gather up the
brokenness
And bring it to me [God]
now
The fragrance of the promises
You never dared to vow,
The splinters that you
carry
The cross you left
behind
Come healing of the
body,
Come healing of the
mind.
O let the heavens hear
it
the penitential hymn,
come healing of the
Spirit,
come healing of the
limb.
Behold the gates of
mercy
An arbitrary space,
And none of us deserving
Of cruelty or the grace;
O solitude of longing
Where love has been confined,
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the
mind.
O see the darkness
yielding
That tore the light
apart,
Come healing of the
reason
Come healing of the
heart.
O troubledness
concealing
An underlying love,
The heart beneath is teaching
to
The broken heart above.
Let the heavens utter
And let the earth
proclaim,
The healing of the
altar,
The healing of the name.
The longing of the
branches
To lift the tiny bud,
The longing of the
arteries
To
purify the blood.
O
let the heavens hear it,
The penitential hymn,
Come healing of the
Spirit,
Come healing of the
limb.
The fullness of God’s heart… in the midst of our human
condition. And so we lament; we sing the
blues; we cry out, “Come healing of the body, come healing of the mind.” We wait; we wait with hope; we experience
God’s “underlying love” and we discover that the “heart beneath” is healing the
“broken heart above”. We take action; we
wait for the Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth to act; we trust that the dawn
will come, when we will know the healing of the Spirit and the healing of the
limb. May it be so. Amen.
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