CELEBRATING:
SERMONS
14 - Feb 2010
A sermon delivered by Rev. Gordon How
The Story We Tell Here Changes Everything
We certainly live in difficult times - and I'll be
the first to agree, these are times that are both shocking
and hard-to-understand. The good ship "Truth and
Honesty" is rusted and it is sinking. Think of
the leaders and high-profile people who have lied and/or
have been taken off to prison. Think of the political
leaders who said there were WMDs in Iraq but had no
proof. And this week, a Canadian Armed Forces Base Commander
- multiple charges of 1st Degree Murder and sexual assault.
Think of the Olympic athletes who have cheated…so
many, that now there is a whole laboratory testing industry
is required alongside every sporting event - amateur
or professional! Think of the celebrities who have cheated
on their loved ones. Think of how religion is abused
for personal gain ---stories of preachers pushing for
their own glory their own warped agenda.
Most Christian religious leaders say that faith is
about peace because God is love - but some other religious
leaders say - no! - faith is about fierce holy anger
and God's way is to be violent. "Here, strap on
this bomb and go and blow up yourself and some innocents!"
And there are Christians now, in Africa (Bishops and
others in high places), who say: "Trust me - it
is right to hang people because of their sexual orientation…"
Pardon my abruptness, but who in blazes can we trust?
Is anyone out there telling the truth anymore? Remember
the reporter Daniel Pearl who uncovered a truth a few
years ago in Pakistan and they cut this throat - sometimes
journalists are the truth tellers - and many die because
they find out and say things that the powerful don't
want known and as John puts it in his Gospel: the darkness
hates the light... Indeed, the good ship "Truth
and Honesty" is rusted and it is sinking.
Is anyone out there telling the truth? We want to
believe - we need to believe. We intend to be building
our lives on rock, on solid ground, and yet it feels
sometimes like we're standing on boards in a river and
they sinking under us. When our children hear from us
at night that they are loved, when we vow a steadfast
love - when we say to each other as we congregate here
- "The Peace of God with you" - we must be
telling the truth. It is our only hope.
I talked this week with a friend from out of town.
With the season of Lent coming next week, he said he
was close to giving up for Lent. I ask what was he giving
up, chocolate or smoking?" He said, "No. Just
giving up." Pills, maybe. He had a bunch of those.
And in his darkest moments - when his particular circumstances
seem to be just too much, when all around him the fabric
made up of people who ought to be trustable so clearly
is unraveling, he said the whole of creation looks to
be corrupted, bent and leaking and we seem to be perishing.
It is like the Apostle Paul saying - "all of creation
groans in labour."
Yes, these are de-stabilized times. And the sum total
of all the problems floating around out there leave
us tottering and sometimes in shock. And if there is
anything redeeming to be found in here, anything death-defeating
and breath-restoring and life-giving - it is surely
this: that a word is spoken here on which we can stand.
Sometimes we talk about under-standing the faith - getting
it, grasping it - which, of course, we never really
accomplish - but we know it is important to pursue.
I want to suggest that we might also over-stand the
faith. That we stand on the promises and the life of
faith as if to say - this way, this truth, this life
- I can trust. It is truth telling and it will hold
me. It is solid, and upon it I can stand! I can over-stand
it. So today, as we totter on the sickness of the soul
of humanity and society, and wonder about the strength
of the fabric of faith, it is time for a dose of Abraham
and Sarah, with some Nicodemus thrown in. We confront
a sea of baffled and frightened humanity, and say, in
effect - here are some old stories. Take them to heart
- and give the story to the broken world.
A prominent U.S. Presbyterian preacher, Tom Long,
once gave a message about one of the string of stories
in Matthew's gospel - there is a storm, the disciples
are out in a boat - they are terribly frightened - then
Jesus calms things and then they land on the shore and
then he feeds the crowd. Know what this means?, he asked.
He answered his own question: The world is scared -
Matthew's people are scared - because the waves are
high and they (we) may not make it - and then God, through
Jesus, feeds them. Simple, isn't it; and isn't this
what it is all about?
The story we tell here changes everything - and it
won't be heard other places.
The main reason for this part of the Bible to be read
among us is that it points to the central thread in
all of the Scriptures - in all of the faith of Jews
and Christians - the promise of God to bless the earth,
to bless creation. Christianity is sometimes misread
as a promise to carry us off somewhere else, somewhere
"heavenly" - but the principal biblical message
is found in the simple proverb-like statement: you send
your Spirit, Lord, and the face of the earth is renewed
. God of the spinning green earth - sweep through the
valleys - the rice fields, the alleys, fill us with
your song that we might sing.
The promise, you see, comes with a blessing attached
that is usually understood and received as a curse.
It often sound like this: Go - to a different place.
And there is a parade of calls to make that journey
to a different place - which always is not a curse but
rather a promise filled with hope…
- Sarah, almost everyone thinks you're barren, but I
see a fruitful land where you will be mother to a people
who will bless the earth ! Will you go?
- Moses, Pharaoh thinks you and yours are slaves who
only make bricks but, no, you are the people who will
bless the world! Go down, Moses!
- Jonah: Go to Nineveh - No, Jonah, I said go to Nineveh!
- People of God, once you lived in darkness but now
you are becoming light.
- the world says you are trash, you raggedy band who
follow this Jesus - but you are the salt of the earth,
you are light to the world, you are the seed of new
growth, you are the yeast in the bread of life! So,
walk with me, I will walk with you - we'll build the
land that God has planned, where love shines through.
Go to a new place - let a new thing happen - the story
keeps telling us - not because we are hopeless or this
earth is a write-off but because the opposite is true
- because we carry within us the fruitful seeds of the
Kingdom which mysteriously is both here and is coming
- and the place we are to go might be right here - a
whole new world waiting to be born, re-forming, like
- another world sitting just under the crust of this
one...
Midst WWII the American-born English poet T.S. Eliot
wrote: "We shall not cease from exploration and
at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where
we started and we will know the place for the first
time..."
This brings us to Nicodemus. In what may be the most
significant miscalculation in the life of our churches,
mainline Protestant churches have chronically underestimated
the possibility inherent in the experience of 'rebirth'.
We have joined with Nicodemus in claiming to not understand
what Jesus could possibly have meant when he said 'You
must be born from above - born of the Spirit'. We have
tended to let those words become the property of arm-waving
charismatics and Pentecostals and we have tended not
to teach about the possibility of new life in him. Maybe
we have not been truthful enough.
In fact, here's a party trick - if you're among a
group of United Church folks - or any from the traditional
mainline denominations for that matter - ask out loud
who has been born again. Ask who is delighted with their
new life in the Spirit. That will stop the conversation
short for a embarrassing moment! Most will not know
how to answer. It's another language for another people.
You'll get the chip-bowl and all the dip to yourself
for the rest of the evening.
Point being - we have somehow missed out on providing
a way of understanding the spiritual experience Jesus
said was right at the heart of things. You won't even
see the Kingdom, he said - without this new birth, which
I take to mean this new perspective, this new understanding
of what it is to breath the breathe of God - a new understanding
of what it means to receive the grace of God! Yes, we're
spooked by the idea of being re-born in the Spirit.
I wonder why… God's grace is what enriches us -
and we cannot turn that on and we can not turn it off.
Nicodemus wouldn't go because he knew what he would
have to give up, and he couldn't do it. He saw the truth
- saw Presence and Glory in this Jesus - but he couldn't
become truthful because it would pull him into another
orbit, into a new place, where his status and position
would be at risk. To go would be too costly for Nicodemus.
In the final analysis this may be the only thing we
ever really have to say, because it's the word that
God has been offering all along. It's the only word
from God on which we can stand: "I am still building
you. Still sending my Spirit, still renewing the face
of the earth. Still quenching hellish fires with rivers
of justice. Still taking what is bent and blurred and
bringing back beauty. That's what is true. Will you
come? Will you Come and See?" Bless now, O God,
the journey, that all your people make…..
Sermon Resources: Genesis 12:1-5 , John 3:1-17; D. Norris.
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Shaughnessy Heights United Church
congregation is a Christian faith community respecting
each other in our diversity and reaching out to all
who seek God’s love.
1550
West 33rd Avenue,
Vancouver, BC V6M 1A7
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Tel:
604-261-6377
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