Sermon – Matthew 24.36-44, Isaiah 2.1-5, Psalm 122, Romans 13.11-14, A1, YA, December 1, 2019

Tags

Advent, attention, attuned, bury, cope, dramatic, Jesus, keep watch, light, ordinary, parenting, promise, scary, second coming, Sermon

One of the cooler things about my grandmother was a unique skill she had.  She could hold her fingers just so, making a perfect circle between her middle finger and thumb, place the circle in her mouth, and create a whistle so loud it could be heard across a large campus or a packed room, full of people.  The sound was as loud as any instrument you could produce, and the tone was so distinct, you knew right away my grandmother trying to get your attention.  I always thought the gift was super cool, longing to master the gift myself.  But my dad, on the other hand, hated that sound.  Having grown up with my grandmother, he associated the sound with being in trouble.  And he was not alone.  My grandmother’s whistle was so loud and so distinct, the entire neighborhood knew the sound – and also knew the Andrews kids must be in trouble.  Other kids would tell my dad, “You better hurry!”  My grandmother did not need to raise her voice, or call out for her children.  One loud whistle, and the kids knew the whistle meant drop everything you were doing and come immediately.

Today’s gospel lesson has the same kind of impact.  Matthew’s gospel talks of the second coming, a return so shocking people will be caught unawares, with neighbors, family, and friends suddenly disappearing, or swept away unexpectedly, like the people outside of Noah’s ark.  The images are so vivid and alarming, whole book and film series have been created depicting what this dramatic second coming will be like.  Countless street corner preachers have used these images to drive people to Jesus out of fear.  Unfortunately for Jesus, these preachers, books, and films have been so dramatically fantastical, that Jesus’ words have lost their sense of realism.  We hear these words now and either roll our eyes is disbelief, brush them off in discomfort, or walk away in disdain.

Now, I am not suggesting you start watching or reading the Left Behind series, and I acknowledge the two-thousand-year delay in this second coming can leave us a bit skeptical.  But I do think there is an invitation today to step into the parts of the images that are disorienting or even unsettling.  Most of the images Jesus uses today are of people doing their everyday activities:  eating, drinking, working in the fields, preparing daily meals.  These are the activities of life:  reading the paper, driving the kids to school or practice, studying for a test, tending our gardens, preparing dinner.  The space Jesus is talking about is the space in life that can become so routine we can almost do them without thinking.  In fact, sometimes, the routine is so powerful we become absorbed in the routine – not just out of habit, but also because of desire.  Burying our heads in the sand of the ordinary is one of the ways we cope with the world around us.  When the world seems overwhelming or hard, we bury ourselves in routine, leaving little space in our minds, hearts, and spirits for much else.

The problem with burying our heads in the ordinary is that we start missing things.  We pass by the children boarding a school bus from a local motel without thinking.  We ignore how much desolation, deception, and destruction is all around us by avoiding the news.  We stop noticing that elder in church whose health is starting to isolate them from the community.  And we have every reason to bury ourselves – the chaos and need in the world can be thoroughly overwhelming at times.  We all know there are much more unhealthy coping mechanisms, so burying our heads in the ordinary seems pretty tame in comparison.  My family will be the first to tell you that when mommy starts randomly deep cleaning a part of the house, something big has gone awry.

But here’s the thing:  Jesus is not telling us to avoid the ordinary.  Jesus knows as much as anyone we need food to eat – everyday.  What Jesus is asking us to do is keep a part of ourselves out of the ordinary.  Jesus wants our ears to be attuned for his distinctive whistle – the whistle that can grab our attention whether we are in the middle of a conversation, are knee deep in a project, or are binge-watching the latest Netflix release.  But the reasons Jesus wants us to have our ears attuned for his whistle may not be as nefarious as they seem.  In turning to our other three lessons today, we begin to see the light.  Isaiah tells in the days to come, the Lord will be doing some mighty things – beating swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks.  Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more.  Isaiah’s message of peace is a message of joy and action.  Isaiah whistles to us, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”[i]

The psalmist’s whistle is similar.  “Let us go to the house of the Lord,” she says.  Out of the ordinary, and into the house of God, we hear a new prayer for us.  “May they prosper who love you.  Peace be within your walls and quietness within your towers.  For my brethren and companions’ sake, I pray for your prosperity.  Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek to do you good.”[ii]  Can you imagine missing such a beautiful blessing because we were working through our shopping list during mass or afraid of what we would find in the Lord’s house?

Paul whistles to us too.  “Wake up,” Paul says in Romans.  “The night is far gone, the day is near.  Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day…”[iii] Paul’s call for attention is a call to goodness, an invitation into a community of light – in clothing ourselves with that light.

If Jesus’s images felt threatening or scary, enough to drive our heads into the ordinary, the rest of our lessons tell us why we should, in fact, pull our heads out, and keep watch this Advent.  When we do, we hear some stunningly wonderful news – news of peace and harmony, news of blessing and soothing, news of light in a world of darkness.  Perhaps Jesus’ whistle was a bit more like my grandmothers – the whistle that let you and everyone around know you were in trouble.  But the rest of the lectionary today tells us the whistle is a gift – an invitation to turn into the light.

One of the things I loved about WMBGkind, the kindness movement happening in our community, was that the movement opened a real window into the light.  After reading the Last Word in The Virginia Gazette for several years, I had begun to bury my own head – reading the whole paper and then stopping short on the last page so I did not have to read the vitriol in our community.  But once I started paying attention to acts of kindness in our community, my perspective shifted.  I skimmed the Last Word to find the thank you notes – the notes of thanks for big and tiny acts of kindness.  I started to notice photos of countless churches, organizations, and businesses giving back to the community.  I started noticing neighbors holding doors for one another, kids picking up litter, and strangers giving up their time to help someone else.

I have seen the same sense of light here at Hickory Neck too.  As we talked about shining our light this year during Stewardship season, I saw parishioners trying out new ministries.  I watched parishioners increase pledges and talk excitedly about what a difference we could make in our community.  I have watched as longtimers offer lovingkindness to newcomers, as newcomers give of their time to welcome others, and as parishioners and clergy share laughter, love, and levity.  When I listen to the whistle of scripture, I hear light, I hear promise, and I hear invitation.

As a mother of five children, I know we often teased my grandmother for her ominous whistle.  My guess is her whistle was a necessary tool in her parenting toolbelt.  But I found myself wondering this week what might have happened if she had used the same whistle to deliver other news:  hugs and words of affirmation; a quiet whisper in their ear saying, “I just wanted you to know that I love you.”  Instead of the whistle being an ominous sound, the whistle could have been a song of promise.  That’s what today’s lessons offer to us:  a song of promise.  Sure, they may be jarring to the ear at first.  But when we really listen, we hear their promise in the depths of our souls – in places we bury when we bury ourselves in the ordinary.  Our invitation this Advent is to pay attention.  Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  Amen.

[i] Isaiah 2.5

[ii] Psalm 122.6-9

[iii] Romans 13.12-13a

Sermon – Luke 5.1-11, Isaiah 6.1-8, EP5, YC, February 10, 2019

Tags

call narrative, calling, dramatic, fear, fish, God, Jesus, ordinary, Peter, resist, Sermon, servant, Simon, yes

Stories of God calling individuals into a new mission, or “call narratives,” as we label them, are some of our most beloved stories from scripture.  They are all pretty dramatic:  God speaking to Moses from a burning bush, God having Jonah thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish, God sending an angel to Mary, or today, a seraph placing a burning hot coal on Isaiah’s lips.  At first, almost everyone one of the characters resists – with protests about how they are not good public speakers, how they do not agree with God’s mission, how the thing God is proposing is biologically impossible, or how they are so full of sin, they could not possibly do whatever God has proposed.  And yet, after much arguing with God, each individual usually agrees – and often says the words we hear in Isaiah today, “hineni,” or “Here I am;” send me.  The whole process is very dramatic and awe-inspiring.  We love to hear and reread these stories and we love to see individuals rise to the occasion.

But here’s the problem with call narratives.  The stories are so dramatic and the responses are so confident and selfless, that we cannot see ourselves in them.  Those are stories that happen to those people.  We are not Moseses, Isaiahs, Marys, or Jonahs (ok, maybe we are a little like Jonah, but even his story is a bit extreme!).  We can certainly relate to the resistance each servant offers to God, but the call is a bit harder for us to imagine.  God doesn’t come to us in dramatic ways, and we definitely do not feel like God is doing something dramatic in us to change the world.  The last time we checked, we were not being asked to lead a people out of slavery from a dictator, use our bodies for immaculate conception, or even go around proclaiming judgement to the world.  Those sorts of dramatic things are things other people do; not us.

I think that is why I like Luke’s version of Simon Peter’s call narrative.  This pericope, as Bob taught us last week, or this piece of scripture might be the story we need to help us see call narratives are not just about those people.  The way we get there though, is not jumping right to overflowing boats, full of fish.  The way we get there is looking at all the seemingly innocuous parts of the story.

The first small detail of the story that can sneak past us is how Jesus starts teaching.  The text says, “while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him … He got into one of the boats.”  Jesus does not ask permission of Simon to get in his boat.  Jesus does not negotiate the terms of using Simon’s boat for a period of time.  Jesus literally just gets on the boat. He does not seem to care that Simon and his crew have had a total failure of a night of fishing, and are probably both exhausted and frustrated.  Jesus just gets on the boat with a word to Simon.  As scholar David Lose argues, what we learn about in this brazen action is “sometimes God doesn’t ask our permission to get involved in our life, to encounter us with grace, God just goes ahead and does it.”[i]

Then something even more odd happens.  When Jesus finally does get around to asking Simon to push the boat out a bit so he can teach, Simon just does what Jesus asks.  We have no idea why.  Perhaps he simply responds because he knows this is just the way Jesus is.  We know that Simon Peter already had an encounter with Jesus at this point in Luke’s gospel, when Jesus healed his mother-in-law.  Maybe Simon was so grateful for that healing that he pushed the boat out to sea out of a sense of gratitude or obligation.  Or maybe Simon Peter was just that kind of guy – the kind of guy who even when he is bone tired and frustrated would still lend you a helping hand.[ii]  Regardless, his immediate and silent acquiescence tells us something.

Then another funny thing happens.  The text tells us when Jesus is done teaching, Jesus speaks to Peter.  That half sentence almost seems like a throw-away transition.  But even in this transition, we see something special.  What we see in this transition is even “when he’s all done teaching, Jesus isn’t actually all done.  In fact, that he’s just getting started.  Because God’s like that, always up to more than we imagine.”[iii]

Then comes Jesus’ request – to put the nets back out again.  Now, remember that Simon Peter and his crew have just spent the early hours of the morning cleaning all those nets.  So already, Jesus is asking a lot to this worn down, frustrated crew.  But Jesus’ request is funny in another way.  Jesus does not suggest they try his new and improved fishing method.  Jesus does not suggest a new body of water or a different location.  Jesus does not give them new nets to try.  He just asked them to do the exact same thing they had been trying all night.  The only difference this time, as Lose points out, is “… Jesus spoke to them and they do what he says and the word Jesus spoke makes it different, because God’s Word always does what it says, even when those hearing that Word fall short or even have a hard time believing it.”[iv]  God’s Word changes everything.

Now what happens next is pretty typical.  When the miracle of all those fish happens, and Peter senses Jesus offering a call to him, Peter protests as many a servant has – saying he is a sinner.  But what is interesting in this call narrative is Jesus’ response.  Jesus does not say that Simon’s sins are forgiven, or do some symbolic act to cleanse Simon’s sinfulness.  No, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”  Sure, Jesus offers forgiveness of sins.  But Jesus offers so much more.  Jesus offers encouragement and comfort.  Instead of simply insisting Simon can answer the call, Jesus instead offers the words of a pastor.  Those words, “do not be afraid,” will be words we hear over and over again in Luke’s gospel.  Part of this call narrative is a reminder that we do not have to be afraid anymore!

Then Jesus tells Peter something even more incredible.  This miracle he just witnessed is nothing.  Peter is going to do something even greater – be a fisherman of people – “catching people up in the unimaginable and life-changing grace of God.”[v]  Simon Peter really was not someone special.  Simon was not so gifted that he was already a leader in the community.  No, Jesus just picks an average fisherman for this incredible new mission.  That’s something else we learn about God in this passage; this is “how God works, always choosing the unlikeliest of characters through whom to work, putting aside all their doubts and fears and excuses and professed shortcomings to do marvelous things through them.”

And this is how we get back to each person in this room.  Despite the fact that call narratives can be dramatic, call narratives are also full of ordinary little things that remind of us the kind of God we have; the reasons why we trust this incredible, loving God; how woefully unprepared and unworthy any of us really are; and how through our relationship with God we find ourselves saying yes, saying hineni, without an exclamation point, but with scared-out-of-our-minds trust.

We may think call narratives are something that biblical heroes experience.  But the reality is, each one of us here has a call narrative.  Sometimes they are dramatic, but most of the time, they are gradual calls that evolve as we deepen our relationship with Christ, as we slowly, quietly keep saying hineni, as we try, fail, and try again to figure out what God wants us to do with our lives, and as we suddenly realize we are doing it.  We are leaving boats full of fish to follow Christ.  We changing the course of our lives in incremental ways.  We are finally able to see ourselves as Christ sees us – as individuals gifted with special gifts that enable us to share God’s love in our own little piece of this big world.  Do not be afraid, friends.  The secret of you already following God’s call is safe here.  Just keep saying yes, keep saying your quiet hineni and God will keep using you in powerful, dramatic ways.  Amen.

 

[i] David Lose, “Epiphany 5C: Lots to Love,” February 5, 2019, as found on February 6, 2019, at http://www.davidlose.net/2019/02/epiphany-5-c-lots-to-love/.

[ii] Lose.

[iii] Lose.

[iv] Lose.

[v][v] Lose.

Sermon – Luke 9.28-36, Transfiguration, YA, August 6, 2017

Tags

coincidences, community, dismiss, dramatic, encounter, fantastic, feast, God, God winks, incredulous, invitation, Jesus, light, revelations, Sermon, shine, synchronicity, Transfiguration, voice

Today we celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.  Now, normally, we celebrate this feast on the last Sunday of Epiphany, right before Lent begins.  This is the last celebration in a season of days meant to celebrate the ways Christ is made manifest to us.  And what a feast!  What better way to close out Epiphany than to use one of the most glorious experiences of Christ’s life – Jesus shining brightly, wonderfully transfigured for an elite group of disciples?  But we are not in the season of Epiphany.  In fact, we are right in the heart of the season of Pentecost – or what we call “ordinary time.”  As we amble our way through the end of summer relaxation, the placement of such a magnificent feast day seems out of context.  This is not the season of the year when we come to church expecting drama and flair.

And yet, I wonder if this is not the perfect time to talk about dramatic revelations of God.  Just in the past two weeks, I have been a part of two different conversations that talked about how we notice God in the small, seemingly mundane moments of life.  The first was a conversation with a study group.  We were talking about the concept of synchronicity as coined by Carl Jung.  Jung defined synchronicity as “meaningful coincidences” – those events that on the surface seem like coincidences, but upon further reflection the event carries much meaning.  The group could think of countless times when a particularly meaningful song came on the radio at just the right time or someone called you just when you needed the call.  The second conversation I had was with a group of friends, a few of which had read a book about what the author called “God Winks.”  These were little moments when something innocuous happens, but upon further reflection, they may have been moments where God was trying to communicate, affirm, or comfort.  Examples included seeing a bird just after the death of a loved one, or seeing a flower bloom in an unexpected place.

I loved the convergence of these conversations because I think they get to the heart of why the Transfiguration is sometimes hard for us to fully appreciate.  You see, in Luke’s gospel, the text is quite dramatic.  In the midst of prayer on the mountain, suddenly Jesus’ face and clothing becomes a dazzling white.  Two of the greats of our faith, Moses and Elijah, not only appear, but are talking to Jesus.  And when Peter speaks to try to make sense of this fantastic moment, a cloud rushes in, blocking their sight and booming into their ears the very voice of God.  And then, just as quickly as the light and sound show begin, they are left in silence with Jesus as if the event never happened.

We love this story.  And yet, there is a way in which this story is so fantastic, we cannot really relate to the event.  I imagine very few, and maybe none of us, have ever experienced an encounter with God where we saw blazing lights, an appearance of the fathers of our faith, and heard the voice of God.  Occasionally, we will hear stories of someone who dies and is revived, who then tells stories of a bright light.  But for most of us, those kinds of moments are beyond our faith experience.  They are so fantastic that they feel fictional, or at least inaccessible.  The danger with that kind of conclusion is that we can conclude that Jesus himself is also inaccessible – at least in meaningful ways to us.  Unless God talks to us with Bose-quality sound or Jesus shines before us like the lights of Las Vegas, we must be doing something wrong.

Episcopalians can be especially susceptible to this kind of dismissal.  As a people who value the mind, and who celebrate the gift of our post-Enlightenment era, we are skeptical when people share their mountaintop experiences.  I had a friend from high school who went to a pretty conservative, evangelical school for college.  Though she herself was somewhat theologically conservative, even she found herself to be in unfamiliar territory.  You see, at her school, there was an expectation that people share stories of how they heard God speaking to them.  I am not sure why, but apparently the student body had dramatic encounters with God – so much so that not only were you expected to have them yourself, but also they almost became a point of pride or one-upmanship.  The whole practice was like Christian bullying from my friend’s perspective.

But the danger with dismissing other’s dramatic God moments or even the Transfiguration is that we can end up dismissing encounters with God altogether.  Since we do not live in the time of Jesus, I do not expect that any of us will ever witness what Peter, John, and James do.  And since most of us will not have near-death experiences, I do not think we will encounter bright, shiny Jesuses or disorienting, booming clouds.  But we will experience God in tangible ways.  We will have those moments of synchronicity or God Winks.  We may not hear the voice of God directly.  But even if we do not hear a distinct voice whom we believe to be God, God is speaking to us all the time.

I cannot tell you the countless times I have talked to someone who said they felt an odd compulsion to call a friend they had not spoken to in a long time.  When they acted on the impulse, they found a friend in desperate need who needed a good word.  I cannot tell you the number of times someone was clouded with anxiety and the sun shone beautiful rays of light through the clouds, a rainbow appeared, or a creature crossed their path.  I cannot tell you the number of times someone has gotten off their routine – a missed bus, a forgotten item in the house, or a traffic jam, only to then have an encounter they never would have had if they had been on time.

I do not think those are mere coincidences.  I think, knowing how incredulous our information-overloaded minds are, God finds new, brilliant ways to speak to us all the time.  They may not be moments filled with light, but when we realize how we saw God in a person on a particular day, we feel like a light has shined into our minds and hearts.  Those moments may not be clear words spoken into our minds by God, but they may be clear words spoken by a stranger that are as disorienting as God’s own words.  You see, God is showing God’s self and speaking to us all the time.

Our invitation in light of the Transfiguration is two-fold.  First, God invites us to hone our senses.  God invites us to let go of all our human-created incredulity, and to be open to those God Winks or meaningful coincidences.  In order to do that, we are probably going to have to start sharing our crazy stories, knowing that we may be judged or doubted.  But the more we share those experiences, the more we create a community of people looking for tangible signs of God in everyday life.

Second, God invites us to shine light and be God’s voice for others.  About the Transfiguration, scholar Cláudio Carvalhaes says, “Unless we get out of the fortress of our worship spaces, and rebuke the unclean spirits of the powers that be, and shed light into the lives of the poor of our communities, we will never know what transfiguration means.  Glory will be an unknown word and experience.”[i]  Carvalhaes argues that sensing God’s voice and light in our own lives is not enough.  Our work is to come off the mountain, as Jesus and the disciples do in the verses following our reading today, and be agents of healing, care, and wholeness.  The Transfiguration “was never meant as a private experience of spirituality removed from the public square.  It was a vision to carry us down, a glimpse of the unimagined possibility at ground level.”[ii]  In sharing Christ’s dazzling light, and God’s booming voice, we also find our lives transfigured – changed through encounter with others.  We create space for those God Winks and meaningful coincidences to occur, and in so doing, make space for God in us, through us, and around us.  Amen.

[i] Cláudio Carvalhaes, “Commentary on Luke 9:28-36, (37-43),” February 07, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2756 on August 2, 2017.

[ii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 4 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 456.