The Bubble

This was my sermon on June 17th, 2012 on 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13. Here is a link to the text: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=207750408.
 

The Bubble

Hannah and I like a TV show called 30 Rock. It’s about a woman named Liz Lemon who is the head writer on a show a lot like Saturday Night Live. And in one of the episodes, she starts dating a new guy who is absolutely gorgeous (He’s played by Jon Hamm, the man who stars as the dapper advertising executive in Mad Men). So much so, in fact, that every where he goes people bend over backwards to be nice to him. Police officers rip up his parking tickets when they see his face. He never waits for a table at a restaurant. He gave tennis lessons for years without ever learning to play because women wanted to look at him so much they didn’t care. 

            After a few dates Liz realizes that he lives in a bubble. He has no idea how bad he is at tennis, no experience at waiting in lines, no clue that everyone without as pretty of a face has to pay their own parking tickets. He even thinks he speaks French because no one has ever corrected him. 

And while it’s a bit of an exaggeration, the bubble exists in the real world too. A beautiful face can sometimes get you out of a speeding ticket, or into a club that would otherwise be closed off. Tall men with deep voices are listened too more quickly than the rest of us. Young married men have a much easier time finding jobs as pastors than their single or older friends. We’re all quick to judge people by the way they look, whether it’s assuming that someone with tattoos and a strange haircut is dangerous, or that someone wearing a suit is trustworthy. We base many of our decisions on factors of appearance, sometimes without even realizing it. I doubt anyone would say that they choose who they vote for based on height, but since 1904 more than 70% of our commanders and chief were taller than the opposing candidate. And though height probably doesn’t affect business acumen, a disproportionate amount of CEOs of major companies are over 6 feet tall. 

Leaders were judged by their stature and appearance in Biblical times too. According to that standard, Saul was judged a great king. The book of Samuel says that Saul was “a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.” (1 Samuel 9:2) People saw him and were inspired to follow. He had great success on the battlefield, and because of it and the regard that people had for him, he tried to get away with things he shouldn’t do. Like Liz Lemon’s boyfriend, Saul sort of lived in a bubble. In one particular episode, Saul demonstrates that he’s not accustomed to waiting on others. Rather than waiting until Samuel arrives he gives a burnt offering himself. God is displeased that Saul puts his own interests first, seeking to please his restless populace instead of his Lord. When Samuel arrives he tells him that he has blown his chance. The Lord would have established a line of kings of Israel under Saul, but because of his disobedience, the Lord is taking new applications, seeking “a man after God’s own heart.”

Even after this, Saul continues to live in his bubble, doing what he wants because he is king, instead of what God wants. Though God commanded him to destroy the livestock of the Amalekites, he destroys only the weak and worthless, saving the choicest and the fattest of the flocks, relenting to pressure from his army. When Samuel confronts him, he says that he saved them to sacrifice to the Lord. For his disobedience, God rejects Saul as King over Israel, and God even regrets that God made him king in the first place. 

So in our story for today, the Lord sends Samuel to anoint for him a new King. “I have seen a king for myself among the sons of Jesse,” God tells Samuel, and tells him to go to Bethlehem. Samuel hesitates, for the feud between him and Saul was likely well-known, and he is afraid that Saul might kill him should he find out. In a bitterly ironic response, God gives Samuel the same lie that Saul told him, that he has is going there to sacrifice to the Lord. 

While some of the Bible can seem formulaic and dry, or difficult to understand, the Samuel Saga is remarkably well written and well-told. The story of Noah uses the word cubits far too many times to qualify as good drama, but the fall of Saul and the rise of David are such a great story that just a couple of years ago NBC turned it into a prime time drama. And the little details like Samuel telling the same lie that Saul told him are marks of a well-crafted story. In our story for today, not only does God (through Samuel) spit back the lie that Saul had told him, but everything is carefully told in terms of vision and with a focus on outward appearances, emphasizing the contrast between the way God sees and the way humans see.  

 Samuel has gone to Bethlehem, for the Lord has seen for Godself a king among the sons of Jesse. Samuel invites Jesse and his sons to the sacrifice that provides the pretense for his visit. When they arrive, Jesse shows each of his sons to Samuel, and Samuel looks at each one. We see them through Samuel’s human eyes, he is impressed by the what he sees.  

Jesse’s first son comes before Samuel. Samuel sees him and sees a great leader. He is tall, and handsome. Samuel reaches for his horn of oil, but the Lord stills his hand. “Do not look at his appearance or his height, because I have rejected him. The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Abinadab comes forward, and again Samuel sees a beautiful and tall young man. The kind of man that armies would follow, constituents would listen to, and elders would obey. Samuel’s hand is stilled again. The author draws this out as long as possible. A third son, Shammah passes by. Again, God tells Samuel that this is not the chosen one. Four more sons pass in front of Samuel this way, and none of them are the Lord’s chosen. When all of the sons have passed by and none of them have passed muster, Samuel must ask if there is another son, and Jesse must send to the farm to bring David. David had been shepherding the sheep, and when he arrives Samuel anoints him as king, shepherd of all Israel. 

The moral of the story is clear. Perhaps as clear as any story in the Bible. “The Lord does not see as mortal sees, but the Lord looks on the heart.” The emphasis on vision makes this particularly hard to miss. Even David is described by his outward appearance, as one who is “good to look at” with blue eyes and a ruddy complexion. But even though he’s good to look at, he is not exactly king material. He still sits at the kid’s table! He’s both young and small, not exactly the type to inspire fear in the heart of the enemy, or loyalty in his soldiers. But the Lord has chosen him among all the people to be the chosen king, to deliver the people of Israel. The spirit of the Lord gripped him mightily from that day forward. 

And from that day forward, David lives in a bubble. David has ten times the success on the battlefield Saul experienced. They used to sing, Saul has slain thousands, and David tens of thousands. David unites Israel and Judah into one kingdom, and turns it from a loose confederation of tribes into a nation. It is to David that Israel traces its roots. Saul is a foil through which we can see how David, and Israel, and their special relationship with God, are what matters. 

But David’s bubble is a different bubble from the one Saul inhabited. Saul was protected from disagreement by his strength and his stature. David, on the other hand, is protected by the Spirit of God.  David’s bubble is his relationship with God. David puts God at the center of his life. He is truly, as Samuel prophesied, “a man after God’s own heart” When David experiences tragedy, he turns to God. When David experiences joy, he turns to God. When David sins, he turns to God. When David mourns, he turns to God. 

David doesn’t worry about his enemies, even though from the moment he is anointed he has many. He faces Goliath armed with little but absolute trust in God. He doesn’t care about what people think, only what God thinks.  When he dances before the Lord in victory and accidentally flashes a bunch of people, his wife rebukes him, but he replies that his dance was for the Lord. He lives in the bubble of being after God’s heart, of being in relationship with God. Now the bubble does not protect David from all harm, indeed the anointing that David receives often feels more like a target on his back than a blessing, but David never forsakes the Lord, even as the Lord punishes him. 

This is what I love about David. He is a particularly human individual. He has unprecedented success, he makes terrible mistakes, he experiences the height of joy and the depth of despair, and through it all he worries about nothing but what God thinks. I dream of having a faith like David’s. I think his faith, in spite of his personal flaws, blind spots and problems, is one that we should look to as an example. Put yourself in the bubble of relationship with God. Let God be the only judge through which you see your actions.  

A few years ago my friend and I were teaching Vacation Bible School in Washington Heights in New York, and our lesson for the day was on the Gospel text for today, the parable of the mustard seed. And so to show the students how this tiny little thing could grow up into something great I started looking up pictures of mustard trees. To show how big that they grow, and how birds and animals shelter beneath their branches. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any pictures, because mustard does not grow on trees (again I expose my urban bias. I tell you things that anybody with any sense already knows). And that the mustard seed that we eat is not the mustard that Jesus was talking about. 

The mustard that grew in the Holy Land was the same mustard that grows out here in the fields. Yes, it’s THAT mustard. The mustard that chokes out other vegetation, seems to grow anywhere and everywhere, and just generally causes trouble. And don’t think that in Jesus time it was any less of a problem. And so when Jesus tells us of this tiny seed that grows enough to shelter animals and birds, he is radically reenvisioning what it means to be the shoot that springs forth from the root of Jesse. He is proclaiming a new reality, on in which God does not take the strongest or the most stately, but stubborn, trouble causing problem people, and uses them for mighty works. 

This is what living in God’s Bubble is about. It’s about not seeing as mortals see, but as God sees. It’s about believing that a weed can grow so large that it will shelter animals beneath its branches. It’s about trusting that a few stones will slay a giant. It’s knowing that God takes sinful, weed-like, trouble causing folks and destines them for great things. All we have to do is live in relationship with God. Put our trust in God above all else. Seek God’s approval instead of the approval of our colleagues. Seek the Holy Spirit instead of seeking to impress people. Refuse to be ashamed when you do something to please God. 

If you put yourself in God’s Bubble, you will find that you can slay giants. If you put yourself in God’s bubble, you will live a more full life. If you put yourself in God’s bubble, you will grow such that you can shelter others beneath your branches. If you put yourself in God’s bubble, you will find yourself gripped by the Holy Spirit, empowered by the might and will of God, able to accomplish things that you had not yet dreamed of. 

            It won’t be easy, and it won’t be perfect. God knows that David never was, and his life was full of trouble, intrigue, and heartbreak. But if you put yourself into a real relationship with God, forsaking the opinions of others for the presence of the Almighty, you will find that you are able to accomplish things you didn’t think possible, and see things you never imagined. And like David, you will proclaim to all who will listen, that Easter confession, “The Lord lives! Blessed by my rock, and exalted by my God, the rock of my salvation.

Letting Ourselves Be Bound

This was my sermon a few weeks ago on Jesus' parable about Binding the Strong Man. I've been reading the book Binding the Strong Man, by Ched Myers, and I worked to catch myself up to the point of this parable, only to be a little bit disappointed that Myers' interpretation didn't provide as much sermon fodder as I'd hoped (It's still a great book, though very dense on the hermeneutic theory). As for the story, I learned about Semmelweiss through the Freakonomics Podcast. If you want to learn more about that story, here's a link to the podcast:Freakonomics Podcast - Handwashing and Financial Literacy. And here's a link to Mark 3:20-35, the text for the sermon: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=207749696.

 Letting Ourselves Be Bound

 

Ignaz Semmelweiss was an obstetrician in Vienna in 1800s. Now there were two maternity clinics in Vienna at that time open to poor women, created to help reduce the rates of infant mortality and infanticide at the time.  One was staffed by medical students, and the other by midwives in training. And the clinic staffed by medical students had a mortality rate that was triple the midwive’s clinic. Semmelweis studied the problem, and found that the two clinics were nearly identical in skill, technique, and clientele.  The only difference he could find was that the medical students would spend their mornings in class, dissecting cadavers before going over to perform their shift at the clinic. 

This was long before anyone knew what germs were, but Semmelweis theorized that some “cadaverous particles” were traveling on the hands of the medical students, and that was causing the unusually high death rate. He proposed that the obstetricians wash their hands before going to deliver babies in the maternity clinic. It worked. The mortality rates dropped by more than 90%. And he was fired. Yes, fired. You see in spite of his success, nobody wanted to make the changes that Semmelweis suggested. His theories challenged the way that they looked at the world, and demanded that they change. They thought his theories about cadaverous particles were crazy, and they said so.

He was ridiculed. He couldn’t find a job, so he had to move. It continued to affect his life, and he was eventually committed to an insane asylum, all for suggesting that doctors ought to wash their hands after they’ve had them in a dead body. This kind of a thing is common. Frequently when people come up with an idea that challenges the status quo, they are branded wingnuts or crazies for their boldness. Relatively benign change faces a steep uphill battle, but change that challenges the powers that be rejected even more quickly.

Now if Semmelweis was crazy for proposing that doctors wash their hands before they deliver babies, what Jesus is proposing in the book of Mark is out of this world wack-o. It’s tinfoil hat, convinced that Elvis is living in your guest room, talking to martians in your head, off the wall bonkers. See, up to this point in his ministry (and in chapter 3, it’s really just beginning), Jesus has challenged all of the powerful institutions of authority in first century Palestine. He made a leper clean with his touch, challenging the monopoly the local priests held on cleanliness and uncleanliness, for which priests charged fees that weighed heavily on lepers and other second-class citizens. He ate with taxpayers and sinners, rejecting the Pharisaic rules of table fellowship that demanded that only “respectable” people be given access to power and status, and any who were different should be shunned. He declared to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, challenging the scribes who kept records of people’s debts, who insisted that only through the Temple which they controlled could one find forgiveness.

Now when word got around that Jesus was doing these things, rumors began to fly. People began to say that he was out of his mind, off his rocker, a few crayons short of a box, a few fries short of a Happy Meal. And who was it who was saying such things?  It was those people whose control of the system he challenged. Scribes were sent up from Jerusalem to fan the flames, and they went even further than crazy, they said he was the devil. They declare that he has been casting out demons in the name of Beelzebul, ruler of demons. The fact that Mark uses Beelzebul in this passage is significant. It means “Lord of the dwelling,” or “Lord of the house.”

Jesus responds to this accusation with two parables about houses, challenging once again the world of the elites. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” Jesus asks. “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”  Simply put, their accusations don’t make sense. If Jesus was, in fact, a demon, why would he want to cast out other demons? 

But the parable goes deeper than just a rejection of the scribal arguments. Mark chooses to use the metaphor of a house for a reason. Throughout Scripture the Temple is referred to as the house of God. And God’s dwelling place should be where God’s justice, mercy, and peace reside. And when the people of God allow that justice to be perverted, allow that mercy to be forsaken, allow that peace to be overturned, God sent prophets to proclaim his displeasure. The prophet Jeremiah talks about this, the Lord commands him to stand in the gates of his house and condemn the people for their oppression of the orphan, the alien, and the widow, “Has this house,” the Lord says, “which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?”

It is these same words Jesus will say when he also stands at the gates of the Lord’s house, for it was, at that time, in fact divided against itself. The place where God’s justice was supposed to reign was a place of power, wealth, and politics, and where wealth was created and influence peddled among the wealthy and well-connected. The scribal and priestly authorities who were supposed to provide for the needy, widows, and orphans were creating new ones by the day. The temple authorities who were supposed to enforce the Sabbath or Jubilee year that prevented farmers from being crushed by debt and losing their land was carefully circumvented, and people in Galilee were being forced to give up the land that their parents and grandparents had worked and owned, and move to cities to find jobs, or return to the same place as tenants, and be charged nearly their entire crop for the privilege.

               

            Jesus was challenging the laws and interpretations that perverted God’s justice and mercy, he was rejecting the idea that a few powerful families could set the bar for righteousness so high that only they could achieve it, and then charge others for their sinfulness.

We need to be careful here, because historically, Christians have read these Scriptures and others and proclaimed that these things are Jewish things. But this reading is dangerous and scandalous in two ways. The first is that it leads down a dangerous path, for if we equate modern Judaism with the sinfulness of the wealthy absentee landlord classes, we declare that Judaism is a faith of legalism and oppression superceded by the law of grace, and we declare that God has broken God’s promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and that Jewish people are forsaken and evil. We have been down that path before, and we know where it leads.

The second way in which seeing this as a Jewish problem is dangerous is that it lets us off the hook. It lets us claim that this injustice which Jesus rejected was a Jewish problem, and not what it really is, a human problem. In our selfishness, in our me-first approach to life, we seek to create the best world for ourselves, and we fight to protect our own interests, even when they come at the expense of another. In our desire for control, we create rules for what it is to be an acceptable member of our society, and we deny the benefits of society to anyone who does not fit in. And yet, in our minds we are always the good guys, and we never consider that it might be us that have divided God’s house against itself. We never think that we might be the scribes and the Pharisees that Jesus so decisively rejects.

             

            But truly we also live in a house which is divided against itself, one in which God’s justice is rarely found. We proclaim ourselves to be forgiven sinners, but even in church forgiveness is rarely to be found. Anyone who’s been through a conflict in a church or been on the wrong side of a grudge knows that our past sins are never so easily forgotten. We hear reports of abuse at factories that make our products, yet we only pay lip service to doing something about the abuses that keep our prices low. Even more injustice, we just pretend not to see. We are a nation filled with Christians, yet forgiveness is rarely to be found. We proclaim ourselves recipients of God’s grace, blessed with Christ not because we deserve it but because God’s love is that powerful, but we deny that grace to others. Yes, if we say that we are different from the scribes and the Pharisees we testify against ourselves, for we see the same injustice in our world, and we do nothing to stop it.

             

             Jesus told a parable about a man who, having received forgiveness from the king of ten thousand talents immediately has someone thrown into prison for a debt of one hundred denarii, and is called again before the king and locked away for his cruelty. Yet we stand idle as banks who were forgiven debts in the billions foreclose on people for a few thousand. We proclaim that we are called to share the love of Christ given to us even though we do not deserve it with everyone in the world. But we surround ourselves with exclusive institutions, and work to narrow the paths to success to those who we feel deserve it.

           Jesus concludes our story with another parable, one that makes his intentions clear as it regards the house of God. “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.” Jesus intent is nothing short of revolutionary. The house is divided against itself. It is controlled by “the strong man” the “Lord of the dwelling” who hoards its goods and controls its wealth. And Jesus intends to plunder it.  By denying the authority of the Temple to withhold the forgiveness of sins, Jesus binds the strong men who controlled the population by controlling accounts of their debt, by eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus rejected the strong men who hoarded their status and influence and extended his peace and fellowship that all might have hope of success, in cleansing a leper he plundered the priestly power to control people’s access to God and charge them for it.  Jesus sought to bind the strong man, to shatter the earthly, sinful powers that sought conquest and control, influence and access. 

           What does this mean, for us strong men, who have succeeded in this world, who have found ourselves with financial security, with power and influence in our community, with the ability to make our future more just, more merciful, more grace-filled? What does it mean for us who have hoarded status to ourselves and our friends, who have withheld healing from those in need, who have denied fellowship with sinners and social outcasts? I struggle with this every day. When we are so deeply ensconced in systems that oppress, in dividing the house against itself, how do we get out?

           And while I don’t think there is an answer, no one-off solution that will bring justice to an unjust world, salvation to all who need saving grace, hope for all who despair, I do think that it will begin with those of us strong men realizing that the house needs to be plundered, that the bounty and blessings of God must be shared, and letting ourselves be bound.

            Letting ourselves be bound by a desire to be the body of Christ in the world, bound as faithful ministers of God’s grace to extend healing hands, listening ears, and helpful hearts to those in need. Letting ourselves be bound by those blessed ties which bind our hearts in Christian love. Letting ourselves be bound by our conviction that God’s grace comes not only to those who are righteous and good, but to those who are flawed, broken, and sinful.

Worthy and Redeemed

Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, over Bear Lake in Alaska. via

This is my sermon from last Sunday, the third of June. The text is Isaiah's call, and it can be found in all its NRSV glory here: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=206352410. The sermon is about the doctrine of total depravity (but read it anyway).
 

Have y’all ever heard of the Northern Lights? They only happen that I know of, along the northern edge of the United States and in Canada. Supposed to be one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see.  I had heard of it before, also known as the Northern Lights, but I’d never seen it, nor had my roommate Stacey. When we heard, we went out from our room onto the fire escape of our building, and looked out and could see something faintly, but the light from the building was too bright to see clearly. So we went down the fire escape and down the road from school into the cornfield next door. Everywhere you looked, people were stopped, on their way back to the dorms or the library or wherever, just staring up at the night sky. 

            When we finally got far enough away from the lights to see it clearly we were amazed. I had always heard of the Northern Lights as streaks of white light, but on truly good nights for it, the lights show up in different colors, as if someone streaked glitter highlighters all over the night sky. We stood outside in awe, staring at the majesty of creation, suddenly aware of our own size relative to the world we live in, the universe around us. 

            It is moments like these that we suddenly find ourselves confronted with the majesty of God.  I’ve experienced it most often outside and alone, whether watching a sunset from the patio or wandering around on a hike, but I’ve often been struck by this feeling of awe, at the wondrous work of creation that God wrought. 

            Rudolf Otto talks about this feeling. He refers to it as the creature feeling, when we are seized with fear and trembling, suddenly aware of our own mortality in reference to the immortal. It is in a moment like this that we find Isaiah today. Isaiah sees a vision of the powerful presence of the Almighty. The hem of God’s robe fills the temple, smoke fills the house, and the voices of the seraphs in attendances praise the Lord so powerfully that it shakes the very foundations of the building. 

            And Isaiah’s response is purely natural. He is suddenly filled with awareness of his own sinfulness, his own shamefulness, his own overwhelming creature-ness, standing before one who is supreme over all creatures. It is as if, like Adam and Eve, suddenly he is aware of his own nakedness, his own weakness, his own enfleshedness. He finds himself in want of a fig leaf. And he declares, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” 

            He’s like Peter, who sees Jesus’ miracle that filled his fishing boat with fish beyond number, and declares, “depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Or Like Abraham, who says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. The presence of such greatness makes us realize how little we are in comparison. As Otto explains it, “It is the emotion of a creature, abased and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme over all creatures.”[1]

            This is the root of a classic Presbyterian doctrine that has obtained a bit of a bad reputation over the years. It is the doctrine of total depravity (it’s the T in the Reformed acronym TULIP). It’s received a bad reputation because people who don’t understand it in relationship to God think it’s a little harsh. They accuse reformed believers of telling people that they are worthless, and in a world where self-esteem is prized over logic, this seems a great sin. But what these people don’t realize is that the doctrine of total depravity can only be understood in the greater reality of the greatness of God. We are not worthless and alone, as people who misinterpret this doctrine would say, but all of our worth is given to us by the Almighty.  

Now this can be taken too far. The critics do have some ammunition. There have been, and probably still are pastors who preach our sinfulness so much they never have time to get to the grace part, or they have us believing that we are worthless. But the idea of total depravity must always be balanced with the Scriptural proclamation that we were made in the image of God. We have worth, our lives are not empty, our spirits not crushed, because God, in God’s infinite goodness, has seen fit to give it to us. 

            How radical an idea this is, in a world where we are constantly seeking the approval of others. We want someone to tell us we’re beautiful, we want to be recognized as good leaders, as important people in society, as good parents, good teachers. We spend our lives hoping that someone will declare us worthy, obsessing over what other people think of us, and God’s grace comes to us and tells us that we are already worthy, we have been made worthy by our Creator, and we need not worry. What an incredible thought!

            And so it happens with Isaiah, standing in the presence of God, feeling all too creaturely, all too unworthy to be in this great presence. Just as he is brought to confess, as we are, that we are insignificant compared to the power of God, one of the seraphs brings to him a live coal, touches it to his lips, and declares to him that his guilt has departed and that his sins have been blotted out. In spite of his unworthiness, his overwhelming smallness in the face of the Infinite, the Almighty, God cleanses him, counting him as righteous, erasing his sinfulness and making him worthy to stand before the Lord. 

            This is the greatness of God. God’s love is so great, God’s mercy so infinite, that God can come down even to us, lowly and insignificant though we are, and make us worthy of his love. God’s love for us runs so deep that God took on flesh, and all of the creaturely limitations there in, that everyone might experience God’s grace, that all of us might have our sins forgiven, our wounds healed, our hearts uplifted. 

            As Jesus explains to Nicodemus, in our Gospel message for today, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Friends we stand before God as sinners, unclean and unworthy, like Isaiah, lost and alone. But the good news for today is this: God does not condemn sinners. God welcomes us. God redeems us. And God calls us to lives worthy of the grace which we have been given, that we might stand in the presence of the Almighty, as sinners redeemed, and say, “Here I am, Lord. Send me”

---

[1] Otto, Rudolf, “The Idea of the Holy” Trans. John Harvey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. p. 10.

Follow Where God Leads - A Sermon for Pentecost (A few weeks late)

I'm still a few weeks behind on putting up sermons, and I have no excuse (it's not like I'm not just copying and pasting these into the blog). I just returned from Presbytery this evening, and in spite of all the bureaucratic wranglings, I still return excited about all the ways the Spirit is moving among Presbyterians across Mission Presbytery. The sermon illustration comes from a sermon by Tom Long, called "What's the Gift" that you can check out if you click on the footnote. He's a much better preacher than I am, so you may want to just skip to the bottom and go for it. Hopefully it will help remind everyone that God is here in the midst of our bureaucratic wranglings, and that we should be prepared for God to fill us, inspire us, and upend us, as we seek to listen for what the Spirit is doing, and try to keep up.

Follow Where God Leads

When Reverend Tom Long was first beginning his ministry as a young minister at a small church, he started a pastor’s Sunday School class on the basics of Christian faith. He invited anyone who was new to the faith or would like a refresher course to come.

            When the class began, he entered the room expecting it to be filled with people. Instead, he found three elementary school children, little girls, waiting on him to begin the class. Over the next several weeks, he tried to hide his disappointment, and teach these young girls about what it is to be a Christian. The week before Pentecost Sunday, he asked, “Do you know what Pentecost is?” None of them did.

            “Well,” he said, Pentecost was when the church was seated in a circle and tongues of fire came down from heaven and landed on their heads and the spoke the gospel in all the languages of the world.”

            Two of the girls took this new information with nonchalance, but the third’s eyes grew wide and jaw dropped all the way too the floor. When she finally pulled herself together enough to speak, she said, “Reverend Long, we must have been absent that Sunday!”

            The beautiful thing, Long says, is not that the girl misunderstood. The beautiful thing is that she thought it could have happened there, in that little church, that God’s Spirit could have come down and given them a word to speak that the world so desperately need to hear.[1]

            It is easy to get cynical about the church, especially in this day and age. It’s easy to wonder if God’s Spirit is still alive in the church. Church, for many people, has become one more activity in a schedule that is already too full. One more committee meeting to go to, one more batch of cookies to bake, set of phone calls to make.  It’s easy for us to no longer believe that the Spirit could be alive in the midst of budget cuts and volunteer burnout, of never-ending committee meetings and never enough relaxation. The Spirit of God can be hard to find. And often we don’t realize it, but we’ve stopped looking for it. We’ve gotten so tangled up in all the work that we have to do that we’ve begun to think that it’s all about us doing it. 

            Now some people might tell you that this has not always been the case. That bureaucracy has not always entangled us, or that the Presbyterian desire for decency and order has not always conflicted with the need to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-led. But I offer up today’s text as an example. We have, today, a beautiful and familiar story of God’s Spirit entering the people like a mighty rushing wind, and alighting on them as tongues of flame, filling them with the Holy Spirit that gave them words to speak and new ways to speak them so that everyone was able to hear. It declares that the Holy Spirit was alive and well during those times.

            What we often forget, is that this story is situated between two dry, very orderly stories of church bureaucracy. The story that immediately precedes the story of Pentecost is the election of new officers, in which the community gathers together to select a representative, just as we do in our church in electing session members. They elect Matthias as the new 12^th disciple, and likely immediately commission him to chair several committees. After the story of Pentecost come more stories of the inner workings of church.  In Acts 6, a task force is created to provide for the widows of the community, in response to a complaint by the Hellenists that the food was not being distributed equally by other factions. The entire chapter of Acts 15 is given over to a deeply divided council meeting regarding that standards of membership in the community. Does any of this sound familiar?  The reality we experience in the book of Acts is that God is not only present even in the inner workings, the seeming endless tedium of what is involved in real ministry, but God is working in and through each of us towards the manifestation of God’s kingdom here on earth.

             The book of Acts tells of incredible miracles of the Spirit that we hardly believe could happen anymore. But it does so in the midst of telling us stories of the church working out what it is to follow the Spirit in committee meetings, task forces and general assemblies. And the underlying theme within that is that God’s spirit is alive wherever its people are gathered, and even in places where God’s people have not yet gathered. It is found in the midst of working together, negotiating the conflicting visions of where we think the church is going, praying and listening for the Spirit in our lives, going to meetings, making phone calls, and looking over financials. God’s Spirit is present among us, . God is present among us.

            This is incredible news for us. Not only because it declares that God will be with us even in the tedium of our ministry, but because it proclaims once again that God will be at work in the world whether we are or not. As Jesus told us in the gospel of Luke, if we were to stop proclaiming God, even the rocks and the trees would rise up to give glory to the Lord.

            What a relief it is to know this! What a relief it is for us who often feel the weight of the whole church on our shoulders, who take on the burdens of worrying about the church’s future, who take on the responsibility for the church’s successes and failures. To know that the church’s future does not depend on us! 

            The story of Pentecost is the story of God’s Spirit coming down amidst the day to day practicalities of working together as a community of faith. The people gathered together in that place did not bring the Holy Spirit with them. They did not call it up with just the right words or hand motions or any act of their own. They were waiting, as Jesus had told them, in Jerusalem. And when the Spirit of God came to them, with the sound of wind and as a vision of flames upon their heads, they welcomed it.

            This is our call. Not to build the future of our church, or shape where we will go over the next few years, for these will be done by God as God sees fit whether we want them or not. Our task is to listen for the Holy Spirit, to hear where it is calling, to follow where it is leading us, and to welcome it, and try to keep up.

            As you go out this week, into the world and all of the obligations therein, I encourage you to ask yourself. “Where do I see the Holy Spirit moving in my life?” What sort of a future does God have planned for me?” “How do I get myself in line with what the Spirit is doing?”

            That perhaps some day, when we hear someone telling us a story of the day that the Holy Spirit came among the people of the church, and filled them all with the words which they needed to say, the courage they needed to go out into the world as vessels of God’s grace, our eyes can go wide and a smile will cross our faces as we say, “Yes, I remember that Sunday.”

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[1] Long, Thomas G. “What’s the Gift” Day1.org, May 27, 2012. http://day1.org/3822-whats_the_gift