The undiscovered country

Psalm 23; Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8; John 14: 1-3

First Church of Christ, UCC, Woodbridge, CT

October 28, 2012 – Reformation Sunday
 

Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun, Vincent Van Gogh

 

 

             For the first time in a long time I am diverging from the lectionary.  Normally I like to receive an assignment from the Holy Spirit:  “Here, preach on this!” and then struggle with what I’m given.  In this way the scripture has a way of working on me even as I am working on the sermon.  In spite of this, the Holy Spirit seemed to have another idea.

 

            Last week I attended the funeral of a long time member of my church in Monroe.  Marie had four sons, one of whom preceded her into God’s glory.  The other three spoke in turn about their loving mother, of how she raised her boys into men who loved their mother, each other and what it means to be a human being in this world.

 

            The three scriptures for today’s worship came from Marie’s service.  As I sat in the pew and read them in the worship bulletin, I saw words and phrases that spoke to me of this church, right now.  “He restoreth my soul.”  “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.”  “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”  “…a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in me.”

 

            And then the sermon title came to me:  “The Undiscovered Country”.  Some of you may recognize this phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  In his famous soliloquy that begins “To be or not to be”, Hamlet contemplates taking his own life but cannot find the courage to carry through—not because of any fear of divine wrath but because of the great unfathomable unknown that awaits him.

 

“Who would Burdens bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.”

 

(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1, 76-82)

 

            But those few of you who may be Star Trek fans will recognize the phrase ‘the undiscovered country’ from the sixth movie of the same name, where it refers not to death, but to the future—itself a great unfathomable unknown that awaits us all.
 

 

            There are times we human beings approach the future in the same way we approach death.  Both can make us feel more than just uncomfortable but vulnerable, defenseless.  We’d rather not talk about it but if we do, we do so with some measure of dread.  Some days we do all we can to forestall it.  There are days that thoughts of the future “make us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of”.  We fear it because we don’t know what lies ahead, especially in this ever-changing world.  Yes, we have faith, we have trust in God but in truth we really don’t know.  When the old mapmakers reached the end of the known world, they wrote “beyond here there be dragons”.  No one has traveled to the future or to death and returned to tell us what is there waiting for us.

 

            What we do have is Jesus’ reassurance, that in God’s house there are many rooms and that Jesus goes ahead to prepare a place for us, not only beyond death, but also into our future.  Jesus has gone ahead of us, like a guide building and lighting a bonfire in the distance, so that weary travelers can find him and come to the place that been prepared.

 

Walk with me, Lord

Walk with me

Walk with me, Lord

Walk with me

While I’m on this pilgrim journey

I want Jesus to walk with me

 

 

            Meanwhile we are on our pilgrim journey, looking for those still waters, that promised green pasture in which to lie down just for a while.  We tend to wander off the paths of righteousness from time to time, sometimes stepping off the path just so we can find it anew.  Because it’s not an easy path, is it?  Righteousness isn’t something we come by naturally.  Sometimes we stumble across it like a gift.  Most of the time it comes from perseverance, from striving in our daily living to align our actions with the will of God.  And we need God’s help to do this.  All the time.

 

Hold my hand, Lord

Hold my hand

Hold my hand, Lord

Hold my hand

While I’m on this pilgrim journey

I want Jesus to hold my hand

 

            In order to sit at that table with our enemies that God has prepared, we need God to help us stay at that table, to not leave until both we and our enemy have been fed and satisfied, for that is what God intends.  Rather than God helping those who help themselves (which is not biblical), God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves, even what seems impossible.
 

 

            Even when we cannot imagine the way forward through the valley of the shadow of death, the place has not only been prepared, and the way, but Jesus promises to come again, to take us to where he is, that we may be there also.  Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, through the surprising grace of the Holy Spirit, God is willing to do whatever it takes to get us to where God is.  God is not yet done with us, for God is still speaking.

 

Be my guide, Lord

Be my guide

Be my guide, Lord

Be my guide

While I’m on this pilgrim journey

I want Jesus to be my guide

 

            But it doesn’t mean we get to walk around Good Friday and the time in the tomb, that valley of death.  Our way to that future that Jesus has prepared leads straight through the way of sorrow.  When Jesus said, “Pick up your cross and follow me”, we knew where he was going but did we really think we were going anywhere else?[1]

 

            There is a season for everything, and seasons mean that there are cycles, ebb and flow, phases of light and darkness that are intended for growth.  And growth includes dying as much as planting, birth, and harvest.  We can’t have one without any of the others.  Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it bears no fruit.”  There is no growth, there is no harvest if the seed does not die.

 

 

We are the Body of Christ, something altogether different from another non-profit or an organization or a club or even a family.  Jesus came to change human lives: to heal, to forgive, to love unconditionally, to show justice, to be fearlessly generous with himself that everyone would know the love of God that has the power to transform us into something new.  It doesn’t mean that the way we are is bad or not good enough but that God is still creating us, shaping us, renewing us because that’s what a Creator does.

 

The purpose of being the Body of Christ is to be Christ in the world:  a living, breathing body doing the work of Christ—healing, forgiving, loving unconditionally, working for justice, being fearlessly generous with ourselves that everyone would know that the love of God has the power to change human lives.  And we are called continually to seek out how to live that purpose in our own lives and in our life together as a community.

 

Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun and author, writes that “[seeking] depends on the willingness to let God lead us through the deserts of a lifetime, along routes we would not go, into the Promised Land of our own lives.”   How willing are we to be led to that yet undiscovered country called the future?  How healthy is our trust in God?  For surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, yes?  Then though we may have everything to fear, we have nothing to lose and all to gain.

 

Nobody but you, Lord

Nobody but you

Nobody but you, Lord

Nobody but you

While I’m on this pilgrim journey

Nobody but you, Lord

Nobody but you

 

Amen.

---

[1] Thanks to J. Barrett Lee for his reflection, A Growing Church is a Dying Church

Lizz Wright, "Walk With Me, Lord" - live, Soho Revue Bar
 

Star Trek VI - "The Undiscovered Country" trailer
 

A holy disruption

Psalm 91: 9-16; Mark 10: 32-45

First Church of Christ, UCC, Woodbridge, CT

October 21, 2012

 

 

             A spiritual discipline that I have endeavored to apply over the years of my adulthood, especially as a pastor and mother, is the acceptance of disruptions.  A disruption is any change in the status quo.  It can be welcome or unwelcome, expected or unexpected, or merely a suspension of the usual process of living.  Many a time I have welcomed a disruption, even planned for a few of them, such as moving away from my home in Massachusetts to Ohio, then to here in Connecticut, and resigning from full-time ministry.  Some of these planned disruptions of ‘the way things are’ were of the most positive kind, like getting married or having children or returning to work, yet each also came with its own challenges as well.   Most of the time I work at welcoming disruptions into my status quo; many of them are of the merely inconvenient variety, but usually they are an opportunity for ministry.

 

            In fact, ministry is comprised mainly of disruptions to the status quo, the way things are in our lives.  Someone loses a job or needs some help paying the bills or just moved into town or was in an accident or has just quit smoking or is in recovery or received disturbing news from a lab report or a relationship has ended or a loved one has passed away—and they need to talk, they need community, they need help. 

 

            Jesus knew this.  Often he would try to get away by himself and pray but more often than not, folks who were sick or hurting or lonely would find him, and Jesus would give them what they needed most: healing, love, forgiveness, and a changed life.

 

            In this morning’s scripture lesson Jesus and the disciples are headed for the biggest, most traumatic disruption of their life together.  For the third time Jesus has told his closest friends and followers what will happen to him when they reach Jerusalem.  He goes into great detail—betrayal, torture, then death, and at the last, resurrection. 

 

            Two of the disciples, James and John, have the strangest reaction to this disruption, this oncoming train wreck:  they ask to be at the right and left of Jesus when he comes into his glory.  The author of Mark does nothing to gloss over their request or to make them appear less connected to this impudent demand, as does Matthew by having their mother ask Jesus for them.  Mark presents the disciples as very human.  It would not be the last time that when a leader’s death or leave-taking is imminent, even one as beloved as Jesus, someone would make a power grab.  This does not beg for a judgment but rather understanding.  By asking for seats of glory, they betray their fear at losing Jesus and the intimate community from which they have received a new life.

 

            Nevertheless, Jesus is as cool as a cucumber.  As the ultimate transition man, he exudes an ideal non-anxious presence.  He does not judge them for asking something from him, even as he is about to enter the city where he will meet his death.  He responds to the ignorance that is masking their fear with gentleness, as though they are young students lacking certain life experience.
 

 

            What the disciples do not understand is that disruptions can also be deep sources of transformation, especially the ones that cause a great deal of pain.  Like a mother giving birth to a child, painful disruptions have within them the possibility of transformation, of birthing us from one life into another.  It is how we approach and creatively handle these disruptions that determine what shape this transformed, changed life will take.

 

            Jesus warns James and John that indeed they will drink from the same cup and share the same baptism, but who will be at his right and his left has already been prepared.  I have often wondered if the two thieves who were crucified on the right and left side of Jesus were representative of these two disciples, illuminating the truth that on the path to glory there is no escaping pain and disruption, but that there is also transformation of the highest order.

 

            You’d think that if the other disciples were listening in, they would have heard Jesus’ warning and heeded it, but no.  Thankfully these other disciples are just as wonderfully human as we are.  They become angry at James and John, perhaps because they made the request before any of the rest of them could.

 

            Jesus then reminds them of the worldly powers that be, that there is a certain pecking order to be observed and obeyed but as usual with Jesus, it is turned upside down.  Eugene Peterson puts it this way in his paraphrase The Message:  “You’ve observed how godless rulers throw their weight around,” Jesus said, “and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.”  And in so doing, Jesus has set the disciples and us free from any humiliation from the powers that be by commanding that we be humble instead, by living as servants and slaves.
 

 

            Servanthood is a life lived in the service of disruption.  The master calls, the servant responds, disrupting whatever task or chore they were currently doing or few minutes of peace they were enjoying.  The servant is willing to disrupt his or her life for the sake of the master.

 

            A few years ago I used to meet with a group of clergy friends for a monthly spirituality group.  Each month we would take turns leading the group through a discussion, some prayer and singing, and sharing Communion.  One particular occasion we shared Communion quite differently.  We were instructed to take a sizeable chunk of bread and then to feed each member of the group with a small morsel of it, saying each person’s name with the words “I am willing to disrupt my life for you.”  Communion reminds us that Jesus was willing to disrupt his life, even lay down his life, for friends.

 



 

 

            You are currently living through one of the most challenging disruptions that can disturb the status quo of a congregation, a time of conflict, division and woundedness.  Whenever, wherever there is conflict it is always tempting to root out the source, the cause of the tension and discord, like the disciples in their anger against James and John.   We want to know who is to blame, because if we could just get rid of them, we are convinced that all would be if not well, at least better.

 

            Father Greg Boyle, who for 20 years has ministered to gang members in Los Angeles, says this about what might be to blame:  "There is an idea that has taken root in this world, that is at the root of everything that is wrong with this world, and that idea is that some lives matter more than others.”  In our hearts we wish this were not true; we think we don’t operate that way.  After all, the very fabric of our American society is founded on the words, ‘created equal’ and yet that same society is shot through with the very real truth that some folks don’t matter as much. 

 

And yet it is Jesus who is calling us into the fracas, who associated with the ‘those-who-don’t matter’ of his time, who instructs us to love our enemies and forgive them.  It is Jesus who disturbs our status quo by pulling our attention off of ourselves and onto him.  Indeed it is Jesus who is the root, the cause of this disruption to the disciples by going to Jerusalem to face his death.  When he says we will drink from the same cup and share in the same baptism, he is saying, “Look at what God is doing through me.  Be prepared, for God will use you as well, for the sake of God’s kingdom.” 

 

How might Jesus be the root, the source, the cause of the disruption of this church?  What might God be trying to accomplish here by disturbing your status quo, by disrupting the way things are?   Yesterday at the conference meeting I heard these words:  We are a church obsessed with our doldrums.  When our practice of church becomes an unconscious pattern, when the status quo holds the church hostage, such as giving the same pledge each year or the same people leading or the same people volunteering their time, it is then that a holy disruption is needed.  Author Sue Monk Kidd wrote, “The truth will indeed set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live.”

 

God does new things.  Our faith may be an old, old story but that story is about God constantly doing a new thing.  Jesus Christ may be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow but Jesus is still and will always be the one who disrupts the way things are.  Church consultant Gil Rendle puts it this way:  “The church, right now, is under the illusion that it can build a new prison using the old prison’s bricks without losing any of the prisoners.”  It may be a jarring metaphor but we do tend to think of keeping people here rather than sending people forth to be the church in the world.  We can’t live a life with Jesus and think we’ll remain the same as we’ve always been.

 

I’ve said once, I’ll say it a hundred times:  a life with Jesus is no rose garden.  The only thing we’re truly promised is that Jesus will be with us to the end of the age; that God will unconditionally love and forgive us; that the Holy Spirit will continue to comfort and agitate, inspire and afflict us.  There are no guarantees that we’ll be successful at this thing called community.

 

I’d like to share with you a quote by one of my favorite authors, Samir Selmanovic.  He grew up in what was Yugoslavia, the son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother.  He was raised culturally Muslim but as for religion he was raised as an atheist.  At 18 he began his compulsory service in the army and it was through a friendship there that he converted to Christianity.  His family disowned him, throwing him out of the house, and it was years later before he was able to reconcile with them.  He is now a Christian pastor and the founder of an interfaith community called Faith House Manhattan.  He says this about what is promised in following Jesus:

 

“Jesus offered a single incentive to follow him…to summarize his selling point: ‘Follow me, and you might be happy—or you might not. Follow me, and you might be empowered—or you might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends—or you might not. Follow me, and you might have the answers—or you might not. Follow me, and you might be better off—or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well.’”

 

Are you willing to disrupt your lives for each other and for the sake of Jesus?  Are you sure you want to be a servant and a slave of all?  Are you ready to learn to love well?  Do the words of Jesus challenge you, provoke you?  His words were intended to poke holes in our arguments, our resistance, in our status quo, to change our lives and our life together.  For through those holes, through those holy disruptions will come shafts of light, to illumine our way to true servanthood, to glory, to transformation.  Thanks be to God.

 

One thing left

Psalm 90; Mark 10: 17-31

First Church of Christ, UCC, Woodbridge, CT

October 14, 2012

 

To annihilate the Self-hood of Deceit and False Forgiveness, William Blake, 1804

 

 

             Francis of Assisi, whose feast day was ten days ago on October 4, was the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in the Umbrian province of Italy in the late 12^th and early 13^th century.  He lived a comfortable life of beauty, leisure, education, and even fought as a soldier against the neighboring town of Perugia on behalf of his town Assisi.  But wealth or battle did not bring the glory that Francis sought or a sense of purpose for his life.  After being captured and held for a year in a dungeon, Francis returned home disillusioned. 

 

            Francis’ transformation to a man of peace and poverty did not happen overnight but through a series of visions, dreams and encounters with God.  In his searching for God he came across a leper while riding through the countryside.  Even though he was repulsed by the sight and smell of this deformed creature, Francis got off his horse and kissed the hand of the leper.  When the poor man returned his kiss of peace, Francis was filled with joy and took this as a blessing from God.

 

            Some time later Francis was led to the ruins of an ancient church named San Damiano.  While praying there he heard Christ speak to him from the cross, saying “Francis, repair my church.”  Francis interpreted these words to mean to rebuild the ruins of this country church.  Francis then took some of his father’s cloth and sold it to buy what he needed for building supplies.  Francis’ father saw this as an act of theft and brought his son before the bishop for justice.

 

The bishop told Francis to return the money, that God would provide what was needed.  Francis gave back not only the money from the sale of his father’s goods but also all the clothing he was wearing, even stripping himself of his father’s name, declaring that he was now completely free, like the birds of the air and the flowers in the field.  He went to live as a beggar, depending on the kindness of others and the mercy of God.  He rebuilt the church of San Damiano and went on to repair the wider Church, the Body of Christ, with words of peace, trust and hope.  And it is Francis we have to thank for the tradition of the crèche or nativity scene at Christmas.

 

He founded a community of friars or brothers, another for women, the Order of St. Clare or Poor Clares as they were also known and another called the Third Order, for those who wished to live the Gospel in secular living.  The rule of St. Francis or the Franciscan way of living came from three scriptures in the gospels:  the order to the disciples to take nothing on their journey, the command to take up one’s cross daily, and this morning’s lectionary reading where Jesus tells the rich man to sell all he has and give it to the poor. 

 

 

St. Francis of Assisi & Doves, Cyra R. Cancel, 2009

 

            Like Francis, the rich man in today’s lectionary reading is also disillusioned with life.  Francis lived his young adult years according to the way he was raised; so has this rich Jewish man according to the laws of Moses and the Ten Commandments.  He’s done everything right, followed all the rules, and enjoys a comfortable life.  What’s wrong with that?  We have plenty of people like that in our world today, even ourselves.  We’ve earned what we have, fair and square.  And yet, are we not troubled?

 
 

When I closed my eyes so I would not see

 My Lord did trouble me

 When I let things stand that should not be

 My Lord did trouble me

 When I held my head too high too proud

 My Lord did trouble me

 When I raised my voice too little too loud

 My Lord did trouble me

 

 

            A life with Jesus is not a rose garden.  Jesus has this way of looking at us, not with judgment but with the same fierce love he directs at this rich man, a love that accepts us as we are but will not allow us to remain that way.  And it is through this lens of love that Jesus sees the one thing left, the one thing that keeps this rich man from following Jesus with joyous abandon.

 

            Even the disciples who have left everything behind to follow Jesus have one thing left, one thing that keeps them from joyous abandon.  Peter sounds as if he is saying, “What more do you want from us?”  What I can hear Jesus reply is, “Your pride, your stubborn will, your surrender.”  Yes, the disciples followed Jesus.  They did not walk away sad from Jesus, but walked with him, willing to leave behind everything and everyone.  Yet they still held onto a willful unwillingness to understand Jesus and the path he was on, perhaps because they knew where it would lead.

 

 

Did trouble me
With a word or a sign
With the ringing of the bell in the back of my mind
Did trouble me
Did stir my soul
For to make me human, to make me whole

 
 

            We all have our pushpoint, that limit we reach when we refuse to go any further, we can’t see beyond the present situation, when we’ve had enough and have no more to give.  We can’t imagine a future that leads from this place of sorrow or pain or emptiness or disillusionment.  And yet we seek it nonetheless.  Regardless of our reality, life goes on.

 

            In the movie “Out of Africa”, when Karen Blixen has lost her farm, her possessions, her husband to another woman, even her lover to his freedom, she devises a game to help her bear her circumstances.  She thinks of being on safari, the camp by the river, flying for the first time and seeing the world through God’s eye, how good it all was—her life in Africa.  And now that she has to leave it, she remembers it all, until she just can’t stand it.  Then she goes one moment more, increasing her sorrow beyond her ability to handle it.  Only then does Karen know that she can bear anything.

 

When I slept too long, slept too deep
My Lord did trouble me
Put a worrisome vision into my sleep
My Lord did trouble me
When I held myself away and apart
My Lord did trouble me
And the tears of my brother didn't move my heart
My Lord did trouble me

 

 

            Mother Theresa once said, “Give, but give until it hurts.”  Give right into your limits, to that point where you think you can’t bear it any more.  But Jesus wants us to give not at the point at which we can’t stand it any longer, but to give beyond that.  Jesus wants to trouble us so far that the first will be last and the last first.  Jesus wants that one last thing out of the way between his heart and ours. 

 
 

Did trouble me
With a word or a sign
With the ringing of the bell in the back of my mind
Did trouble me
Did stir my soul
For to make me human, to make me whole

 
 

            I don’t know about you but I can’t read this passage and think that I’ve done enough, that I’ve given enough, that I’ve sacrificed enough, for the sake of God’s kingdom of justice and peace.  According to globalrichlist.com my family is the 29,907,929 richest on earth, comfortably within the top 1%.  That only takes into account our annual income before taxes, not including our retirement savings, college savings for our daughters, or any stocks or other savings accounts.  Even then there are things we do without, such as a Smartphone, iPods or an iPad or tablet computer, cable TV, travel, or home improvements until they’re necessary.  We give to our church and this church, to the UCC special offerings, the schools that gave us a great education, to public radio and TV, the environment and other causes that are dear to us.

 

            And yet there will always be one thing left that will stand between us and God, unlike St. Francis who stood before his family, his village and his God with nothing but a heart full of love.  Even when we take one step closer, one step beyond our comfort zone, Jesus is there, looking at us with a fierce love, telling us that there is still one thing left.  How far are we willing to go?  What then is holding us back?

 

            What is the one thing left for this congregation to give that the first may be last and the last, first?  What is something you’re trying to pull off yourselves that seems impossible but not for God?  How is Jesus troubling you as an individual and as a community of faith?  What is the one thing left in your own life that is standing between you and joyous abandon?  To what are you holding on tightly and not about to let go?

 

And of this I'm sure, of this I know
My Lord will trouble me
Whatever I do and wherever I go
My Lord will trouble me
In the whisper of the wind, in the rhythm of a song
My Lord will trouble me
To keep me on the path where I belong
My Lord will trouble me

Will trouble me

With a word or a sign
With the ringing of the bell in the back of my mind
Will trouble me
Will stir my soul
For to make me human, to make me whole

 

Amen.