Sermon: Faith for what?

 I have not written in some time, having "reported" on daily life with Tal and me via photographs on flickr rather than writing regular blog entries.  With a growing urge to begin writing again and having worked hard on a sermon for yesterday, I'm signed back in at least for today.  Making no promises ...

The folks of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection sent me home with the flowers, which had added some wecome fall color to our not-often used dining room.

 

Sermon for 6 October 2013

Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, Greenwood SC (@ Wesley Commons)
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 22, Luke 17:5-10

            Six weeks ago today I turned 60.  The actual event wasn’t near the trauma I had anticipated as the day made its relentless approach all summer.  In fact, it turned out to be something of a non-event.  Lots of well wishes; but no official celebration.  No cake, no ice cream; no champagne, no toasts.  I turned 60.  And, the day it happened was a lovely enough late summer’s Sunday.

The days since then, however, have made up for it.  While the significance of the milestone didn’t reveal itself on “the day,” its magnitude wormed its way in in short order.  Here’s the gist of it:  During Lent several years ago I heard a talk by Tony Campolo, a popular Christian speaker.[1]  He relayed a pithy anecdote.  Telling someone he was middle aged while within earshot of his wife, resulted in this instant and irreverent response from her:  “Middle-aged!?  Dear, how many 120-year-olds do you know?”  Thank you, Mrs Campolo.

I know in my head all the stuff about life on this earth being a fleeting thing.  I thought I’d faced my own mortality long ago.  So, I hate to admit to a visceral, deep down psychic fear and how completely it took me by surprise.  The clock is ticking; I have lived more days than I will live.  And, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  All of us wonder if we’ll leave a lasting mark on this world, if our lives will have mattered after they’re over and done.  I’ve been forced by a birthday to face – like I’ve never faced before – one of those elemental parts of being human: the question of meaning.  I wish there were an easy answer.  That’s another elemental part of being human, isn’t it?  The simple solution.  “Make it clear – and make it now.”

Enter the disciples in today’s gospel reading.[2]  “Increase our faith.”  An urgent plea?  A defiant demand?  A little of both, probably.  But, make it clear and make it now.  We don’t know the precise context of this passage from Luke.  It’s part of a collection of sayings, coming right after Jesus has criticized the Pharisees for their choices, for their behavior, for their commitments:  failing to welcome children, denying compassion to the poor, striving for recognition and position.  Jesus’ message to the disciples is something along the lines of “Don’t be like the Pharisees.”  That Jesus has to warn the disciples in this way suggests that they are in need of further formation.  They weren’t getting it.  That Jesus has to tell them not to be like the Pharisees lets us know that they were – like the Pharisees.

The disciples aren’t malicious, of course, in their behavior or in the request we’ve heard this morning.  I think they’re just having trouble understanding what it is Jesus is talking about.  Remember, they’d never encountered anyone like him before.  They can’t seem to get a handle on what Jesus expects of them.  Their situation is much like my angst over the meaning of life – who and how I’m supposed to be.

And, they’re probably thinking matter of factly:  more faith is better than less faith, right?  While they’re genuine in wanting to follow Jesus more faithfully, they’re human, they’re confused, they’re frustrated.  “Enough of this formation stuff.  Just increase our faith and be done with it.”  I have to wonder, though, just what they thought they would get with more faith.  Where did they think they would they be with more faith?

A couple weeks ago I stumbled on an article entitled “Confessions of a Late Bloomer” – an entry in one of those online daily posts intended to inspire.[3]  Confessions of a Late Bloomer.  I perked right up at the title.  Originally published in Psychology Today, it was fine, an interesting piece of writing.  It didn’t give me any pat answers (as much as I wanted them), but it did offer insight. 

·         The author, Scott Kaufman, cited the usual late bloomers, the ones we all know about:  Grandma Moses, Charles Darwin, Sir Alex Fleming.

·         He questioned our society’s time course for success, those defining benchmarks that started for lots of us with an IQ test.

·         Most helpful to me was his suggestion that the apparent over-night success is rare.  Unseen sacrifice and dedicated hard work generally lead to that sort of achievement – which can “happen” in any decade.  Our lives are cumulative, our past experiences informing all that follows.  We cannot know how and when our lives will come together (or if they will).  Living life is the point.  Worrying about the legacy can be a waste.

Mr Kaufman did, however, surprise me.  With a three-word question, he set me on a new course.  “Especially in light of our extended life span, it's worth confronting the very notion of late blooming to ask: late for what?”  It’s worth confronting the very notion of late blooming to ask: late for what?  Late bloomer that I am, what is it I’m late for at 60?  Who defines late? 

Jesus could have asked his disciples, “Faith for what?” couldn’t he?  Who defines faith? 

“Faith.  For what?”  Not to be like the Pharisees?  To have the courage to follow Jesus?  To get, to grasp what he’s talking about?  To be no longer working class, but part of the ruling elite?  To find approval in Jesus’ eyes?  For what were they asking?  “Increase our faith.”  Did they know?

Jesus sees that.  He knows the disciples are not at all certain what they’re asking him to grant them – with their plea, with their demand.  So, he talks about mustard seeds again.  “If you have the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”  (I wonder how much that helped.)  From our vantage point perhaps it’s more clear.  It doesn’t take more faith; it takes a better understanding of the seed of faith we already have.  Just the littlest of  bits …  In response to the disciples’ request to increase their faith, Jesus tells them they already have enough.  They’re not using what they do have to its fullest potential.  They are confusing having faith with being faithful.

There are two guys in a rowboat who somehow run into a muddy bank along a stream.  Instead of reversing course, trying to back up and ease their way out of their predicament, the one in the back keeps encouraging his partner in the front by yelling, “Row harder.”  And, of course they get deeper and deeper into the muck. [4]  At some point all of us, the disciples included, get headed in the wrong direction with our faith, in our lives, but continue plunging ahead.  “Row harder!”  “Increase our faith!” 

Jesus is suggesting, I think, that rowing harder, that clamoring for more faith – or for meaning, for that matter – is the wrong approach.   It keeps us in constant motion, ever looking for more – searching, grasping, worrying, fretting.  It’s one thing to demand more faith, and another thing to give ourselves over to being faithful.  Faith isn’t something we don’t have one day and do have the next.  It’s not a commodity, not a possession.  Faith is something we demonstrate – encounter by encounter, conversation by conservation, decision by decision, even mistake by mistake.  Living a life of faith is a cumulative proposition.  And no matter how late you start, it takes a lifetime. 

---

[1][1] “Wrestling with Angels” (video series), Zondervan, 1993.

[2] Thoughts about the disciples drawn from a sermon by The Rev’d Timothy E Schenck, 3 Oct 04.  Seen online in “Sermons that Work.”

[3] “Daily Good” for 24 Sep 13.

[4] Story from Schenick.

Oh no, not a prophet

I served as supply priest at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Greenwood SC this morning.  What follows is the sermon -- and the wrenching process of composing it --  I wrote about in yesterday's post.
          It would be hard to escape the theme of the scripture readings this morning.  To use a carpenter’s imagery, the unifying idea is, “hammered home” – again and again and again.  The only reprieve from it came in the psalm, a sweet plea for mercy.  And, given how much the “P” word scares us 21^st-century-Christians, looking to God for reassurance and aid and courage seems just the right thing.

          So.  Prophets.  Prophecy.  If I were to tell you the absolute truth, I probably don’t want to preach a sermon on prophets any more than you want to hear a sermon on prophets.  We’ve all experienced some pretty crazy stuff from people claiming to have prophetic power, enough that we simply don’t spend much time thinking about the topic at all.  We don’t know how to sort out what’s really prophecy and what’s not.  The last thing we want to do is believe the wrong thing or to follow the wrong lead.  I’m with you.

          That said, however (there’s always an “however”), prophecy is a component of our tradition.  We avoid it or we don’t come to terms with it or we refuse to get at its essence, we fail to clear away all the static and the half-truth and false claims to our peril.  Having an idea what is prophetic and what is not prophetic can enrich us, can even empower us.

          What do we know about prophets?  Let’s start there.  We know some names from Sunday school and major religious holidays:

·         Isaiah – For many of us Christmas isn’t complete without “for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”[1]

·         John the Baptist – Remember that wonderful line?  John saw Jesus “heading toward him through the tall grass along the river-bank” and his “heart skipped a beat when he heard himself say,”[2] “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”[3]

·         And, Amos, whose most famous line might be this:  “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”[4]

Good!  We know some names and recognize some of the words.  What else do we know?

·         Let’s start with the most obvious.  Prophets seem a little bit odd, maybe crazy.  John the Baptist was a sort of survivalist loner who ate bugs.  Ezekiel, just before this morning’s reading, saw “these gleaming wheels with spokes and rims and things that looked like eyes built into the rims” and “creatures who flew around with the wheels and made a noise like thunder or a sonic boom.”[5]  It’s no wonder we steer clear.

·         Prophets were human.  Let me rephrase that.  Prophets ARE human.  Every one of them.  In the past and in the present.

·         “No prophet is on record as having asked for the job.” [6]  Ever.  Isaiah wanted to know, “How long, O Lord?”[7]  Jeremiah told God he was much too young for such duty.[8]  Moses, full of but-what-ifs, didn’t see himself as much of a public speaker.[9]  Reluctant, all of them.  Full of excuses.

·         The word “prophet means spokesman [or spokesperson, but it does not mean] fortune-teller.”  In their unfathomable audacity the one for whom the prophets claim to speak is God.  They speak at God’s behest.[10]  They are not clairvoyant; they do not proclaim themselves.

·         Prophets can seem angry with the world, railing against what they see as being wrong.  But … one writer I really admire says this.  “A prophet’s quarrel with the world is deep-down a lover’s quarrel.  If they didn’t love the world, they probably wouldn’t bother to tell it that it’s going to Hell.  They’d just let it go.  Their quarrel is God’s quarrel.”[11]A prophet, when all is said and done, wants the best for the people whom he – or she – is addressing.  If the words are bitter and the demeanor is vengeful, it’s likely not prophecy.

·         Finally, prophets are not generally treated very well.  “They are ignored, forgotten, berated, mistreated, tortured, killed.  And nobody listens to them.”[12]

During the time Jesus lived on this earth most of the people he encountered saw him as just another prophet.  In a lot of ways he experienced what other prophets did.  Take this morning’s reading.  Having returned to his hometown, he’s teaching in the synagogue, speaking to people he grew up with, to people who know both him and his family.  And, no one seems particularly happy with what he has to say.  They are scandalized; they take offence.  “What does he know?  Just who does he think he is, preaching to us that way?”

     Who do you think you are?  What a universal and enduring line.  It’s used to put people down, to put them back in their places.  It’s used to rein people in when they seem to be developing delusions of grandeur, when they seem to be getting too big for their britches, as it were.  To think that Jesus himself got that reaction …

     Human nature being what it is we don’t care much for people who think they have a corner on the truth or who act as though they know “God’s will.”  In many cases our suspicion and skepticism is valuable.  There are just too many instances of people being led astray by self-proclaimed experts, usually with bad results.  We’re right to be careful, to remain unconvinced.  Most assuredly, it can be dangerous not to be. 

     But, how can we tell a real prophet from a fake?  Who is telling us what we want to hear?  Who is telling us what they want us to hear?  How do we tell who is telling us the truth? 

     Paul points out one way in this morning’s reading.  He says he will not boast of what he has seen and heard.  He’s not going to promote himself or his experience.  So, if the words seem to be aimed at increasing the speaker’s own power, to be a way for him or her to get attention, for promoting personal beliefs, it is best to be skeptical.

     And yet … it’s important for us to remember that oftentimes the truth comes from sources we might never anticipate.  We expect people to fit a certain mold, to look and sound a certain way, to be of certain social status.  Who among us wants a hometown boy or girl, one one hand, or some undesirable misfit, on the other, offering observations about that we’re doing, how we’re acting, the choices we’re making?  We don’t.

And, very often it seems to me, the truth is inconvenient.  In our culture, the truth has become less important than what sells, less important than the sound bites and twisted rhetoric that push a particular point of view.  The truth, the real truth, the truth God will inspire someone to speak, generally disrupts our carefully crafted view of the world, our carefully guarded opinions.  A prophecy that is real will challenge our convenient, comfortable belief systems, will challenge the way we’ve ordered our personal little worlds.  No wonder we harrumph and cross our arms and mutter, “Who does she think she is?”

     We are here because we believe in Jesus, because we believe Jesus had it right.  We’re here because we believe that Jesus spoke – and was – the truth.  And, we are here because we don’t believe we can sit back and assume that everything we do day in and day out is right or pleasing to God.  We know ourselves to be people of self-examination and confession.  We know ourselves to be people who are granted forgiveness and who can be changed.

Now, I cannot tell you how to determine who is speaking the truth to you – or to us, to our country, our world.  I have a hard enough time of that myself.  But, I will tell you what I think.

I think that really and deeply hearing the truth – from among all the opposing voices and out of the endless din that comes at us, that hearing the truth starts with our telling the truth to ourselves.  When and what do we hear or refuse to hear?  When and what do we speak or refuse to speak?  Who gets our backs up, every time?  What are our pet peeves?  When do we catch ourselves judging and finger pointing.  What ideas do we strive most passionately to protect?  Take a good, long look.  Tell yourself the truth.

In our deep inviting quiet that still, small voice that dwells in the depths of our own hearts may venture a word with us.  God does speak.  It will take trust and courage to begin examining – and in some cases even dismantling – the carefully built walls of convenient assumption and half-truth that govern our lives.  Once we begin to tell the truth to ourselves, maybe we will be better able to hear the word of God all around us.  Once we begin to tell the truth to ourselves, maybe, just maybe, we will find ourselves inspired by God to speak a prophetic word from our own lips.

We can always hope …

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[1] Isaiah 9:6

[2] Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who (HarperSanFrancisco, 1979) 71.

[3] John 1:29

[4] Amos 5:24

[5] Buechner, Peculiar 36.

[6] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (HarperSanFrancisco), 1973/1993) 90.

[7] Isaiah 6:11

[8] Jeremiah 1:6

[9] Exodus 4:10

[10] Buechner, Wishful 88-89.

[11] Buechner, Wishful 91.

[12] For this quote and several other points that follow I am indebted to Kathleen L Wakefield, sermon for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9(B) – July 9, 2006, “Sermons that Work,” http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work.htm.

Fifty tons of sermon

The sermon is printed, folded in half long ways, tucked in my prayerbook.  Six days in the making, its finished state is pleasurably unusual.  All it took was a schedule.  Research Monday and Tuesday.  Three hours a day for writing, Thursday through today.  Hard work.  Labor.  Like pushing something, awkwardly, uphill.   I'm not struggling with it tonight.  Blessedly.

That sermon intention this week wasn’t the only going.  Visiting with family for the Independence Day holiday, getting the camera out every day, meals, walks, our wonderful dogs, a needlepoint project I really dislike and a book I’m determined to finish all went into the mix.  The book is Walter Havighurst’s “The Long Ships Passing: The Story of the Great Lakes.”  It was suggested reading before our May/June historic waterways trip from Warren RI to Chicago IL, which – no surprise – I didn’t get done. 

The chapter I read on Thursday, “The Fleet that Sailed on Land,” was about ships moving between Lakes Huron and Superior before the rapids of the St Mary’s River were bypassed by the locks at Sault Ste Marie in 1855.  The first one was the Algonquin in 1838.  Here’s Havighurst’s description:

The portaging of the fifty-ton schooner was done by Achille Cadotte who went to work as though he was moving a house.  With a set of rollers, a horse and a capstan he hauled the Algonquin out of the water, cribbed her up in timbers and started her on her slow voyage over what is now Sault Ste Marie’s Water Street.  The vessel moved five lengths a day, crawling along in snowstorms and bitter weather past the houses, shops and taverns of the little town.  She took three and a half months to make that mile-long portage.  But with the break-up of ice in April the Algonquin dipped her hull in the cold blue waters of Lake Superior and began her historic voyages. (163)

Between that 1838 accomplishment and 1855 when the locks were completed fifteen vessels, totaling 3000 tons, had been portaged that mile along Water Street. 

Dragging 50 tons of schooner a rocky mile through town.  Funny, I'd liken that to what Monday through Saturday with a sermon in tow feels like to me.

Almost there

I preached today at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Greenwood SC.  Since I've not written here in such a long time, I'm posting the sermon as a way to restart (on a less than regular basis -- that I already promise) the discipline of writing.  Enjoy.

Almost there, we’re almost there …

That is the first line of a love song.[1]  In fact, it was the title song of the 1964 movie “I’d Rather Be Rich.”[2]  I was eleven in 1964, far too young to see that movie at the Rivoli, the only movie theatre in Myrtle Beach way back in those days.  But, my age didn’t prevent me from getting all dreamy over the song or over Andy Williams, who not only did the singing but starred in the movie as well.  I suppose that memory should have come as no surprise when I realized the significance of this particular Sunday. 

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent, is special.  It marks, more or less, the mid-point of our season of penitence.  It’s set apart from the rest and it has been almost from the beginning.  I’m not going to give you a liturgical history lesson, but among our friends in the Roman Catholic church today is known as Laetare (lā-‘tär-ē) Sunday, Laetare being Latin for rejoice.  In the early years of the church the word “rejoice” was interjected on this Sunday into the liturgy in various places to remind worshippers that they were well on their way to the light of Easter. 

Along the same vein and more central to the tradition we uphold, in some Episcopal and Anglican circles today is known as Refreshment Sunday.[3]  The message to the faithful is to take a deep breath, to relax the Lenten disciplines a bit, to take stock of the journey so far.  For certain, there’s more of Lent to come, there is more work to do for all of us, but we are making progress. 

Almost there, we’re almost there ...

Sometimes when we’re in the middle of something we don’t have the luxury of knowing the target.  But, we do know on Ash Wednesday how long the Lenten journey is going to be.  From the very beginning there’s light at the end of this particular tunnel.

For the Israelites in our first reading, however, it was a far different situation.  They had followed Moses out of Egypt without a timeline and the wandering was growing old.  Obviously disappointed, they are sounding anxious and impatient.  More likely than not they were murmuring among themselves.  “They spoke against God.”  They confronted Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”[4]  They complained about the food.  Milk and honey it was not.  The Promised Land, whatever that was and wherever that was, couldn’t possibly be worth all their present hot, hungry, thirsty misery.

They had lost sight of the purpose and the meaning of their journey.  The difficulties they were encountering had robbed them of perspective and hope.  They didn’t know – and neither did Moses – if they were almost there or not.  And, at least initially, it sounds as though they’d pretty much stopped caring.

That group of travelers, once so hopeful, had adopted a distinctly negative view.  What strikes me about this is how universal a phenomenon it is – from century to century, from civilization to civilization, from community to community.  There’s something about humankind that wants to complain, that wants to blame, that wants to point, that wants to judge.  Perhaps it’s the human condition.  Maybe it’s just the way we’re wired. 

Take the gospel reading for example, that beloved verse from John that we all know.  It appears in all sorts of places, doesn’t it?  I have a seminary classmate who jots “3:16“ under his signature on all his letters.  And probably every one of us has seen fans unfurl banners with “John 3:16” on them at baseball games and the like.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”[5]  That is the ultimate in reassurance.  I understand why we love it so.  It is good news.  It’s news that makes the heart swell and sing. 

How many of us, though, tend to approach that verse from a less expansive point of view?  How many of us, without even thinking about it, certainly not on purpose, qualify its message, making it seem almost as though the verse could read: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who doesn’t believe in him won’t have eternal life, but will perish.”[6]  We take something that is so hopeful, something intended to make us whole, to give life to us and to the world, and we turn it into something that instills fear, even condemns.  Without thinking about it, we turn the love song of John 3:16 into a mighty discordant threat.  “If you don’t believe the way I believe, you’re out.”

I know that sounds harsh.  I also know that we don’t mean to do it, that we do know better.  And, a case could be made that we have good reason to be watchful and wary.  Our entire globe is in the midst of a remarkably difficult and challenging time.  Whole economies stagger.  Some governments teeter on collapse; others are being overthrown.  So much of what once seemed stable now appears unreliable.  There’s lots of talk – endless talk – about restoring greatness.  We and everyone we know are full of fear.  And, the trouble is, like our wandering ancestors following Moses though the desert day after endless day, we don’t quite know where we are, we don’t know if we’re still close to the beginning of our troubles or if we’re nearing better times. 

I can’t answer that question.  But, while we indulge our fears and shake our heads at the awfulness of it all and blame our favorite bad guy, let’s not lose sight of what we do know.  We are gifted with “memory, reason and skill,” to quote the prayerbook.[7]  We have the capability for selfless generosity.  We can look at our confounding negativity and we can change.  Not because of who we are but because of whose we are.  Our getting beyond ourselves, however, isn’t an automatic sort of thing.  We have to want to and we have to keep at it. 

It just happens to be Lent, a blessing of sorts.  For that’s the very focus of this six week season:  to acknowledge our mortal nature, to engage in self-examination, to repent, to make a right beginning.[8]  We know where we are.  We’re a fraction beyond halfway through.  Easter will dawn before we know it. 

Refreshment Sunday couldn’t have come at a better time.  Now is the moment to ask where fear and uncertainty are getting the best of us.  Now is the moment to wonder – bravely and honestly – how, or if, we demonstrate in our lives God’s love for the whole of creation.  Now is the time to make our course corrections.

All of life is made up of middle points and transitions to which we attribute unique and special importance.  And, today is one of them.  We know where we started.  We know what we were hoping for when that cross was smudged on our foreheads nearly four weeks ago.  We also know that this is a finite season.  We are not wandering aimlessly.  Easter Day is on every calendar – a mere three weeks from today. 

How wonderful, wonderful that day will be …[9]

Although we are well on our way, take advantage of this Refreshment Sunday.  There is work still to be done and there is time in which to do it.  Reassess.  Take your own spiritual pulse.  Regroup.  Recommit.  Press on with determination and with quiet hope.

There is a love song being sung that is yours to hear. 

Almost there, we’re almost there …

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[1] The words and music for the song “Almost There” are by Jack Keller and Gloria Shayne.

[2] The movie, directed by Jack Smight and produced by Ross Hunter, is a remake of the 1941 film “It Started with Eve.”

[3] These details about Lent 4 from Hegedus, The Rev’d Dr, “Sermons that Work,” 4 Lent (B), 22Mar09

[4] Both quotes are from Numbers 21:5.

[5] John: 3:16

[6] Read in Clavier, The Rev’d Anthony FM, “Sermons that Work,” 4 Lent (B), 26Mar06

[7] “Book of Common Prayer,” pg 370, Eucharistic Prayer C

[8] “Book of Common Prayer,” pg 265, invitation to an holy Lent

[9] The actual line from “Almost There” is “how wonderful, wonderful our love will be.”