God calls the worlds into being...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Lent 2, Sunday March 5, 2012.  In addition to the Lectionary texts, I am exploring the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ.

One of my favorite pastoral theologians, Gertrud Mueller-Nelson, has written that in Lent we are reminded – yet again – that God has a very old tradition of picking “the inept, reluctant, non-eloquent types to carry forward the message of change and atonement” to the world.  And while that should be good news for people like you and me, it is not an easy task.

Not only is the message of Lent unpopular in our culture – what do you mean learn from my suffering… I want to get rid of it! – it is also a spiritual truth that can never be adequately explained or purchased  – only experienced. Lent, you see, is our “conscious engagement with suffering and death” so that we might “take stock of our lives as they truly exist and then reform what remains in order to experience it more fully and passionately.”

Morrie Schwartz of Tuesdays with Morrie fame expressed the counter-cultural wisdom of Lent like this when he said:  "When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others…

And the Judeo-Christian-Muslim traditions suggest that this won’t and cannot happen until you have confronted your own mortality.  Just look at Peter in this morning’s gospel lesson:  when Jesus makes it clear that his mission includes going to Jerusalem where the “Son of Man must experience an ordeal of suffering, be tried and found guilty by the elders, high priests and religion scholars, be killed and after three days rise up alive," what does Peter do?

·     He freaks out, yes?  Peter grabbed Jesus, tried to bar his way and block the Lord from moving towards death only to be told by Jesus:  Get thee behind me, Satan.

·     Did you hear that:  Get thee behind me, Satan?  To Peter – the rock – the foundation upon which the Church will be built.

He called his dear friend and student Satan – the adversary – an Aramaic word for the confuser and opponent of God’s will for creation.  And just so that we don’t miss the point, Jesus goes on to tell us:

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?

And that is where we’ll pick up our second conversation about the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ.  You might recall that in the season of Lent I am taking each of the five weeks to introduce and review with you one of the key theological documents of our tradition.  Last week I spoke about how our faith is shaped in community rather than in private – we are not isolated spiritual consumers – but rather people gathered together to trust, experience and embrace God as the Eternal Spirit.

Today I want to emphasis another insight about God from the Statement of Faith, namely that: God calls the worlds into being, creates human beings in God’s own image and sets before us the ways of life and death.

·    This is what Lent is all about – this is a key truth about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus – God calls and creates us in his own image to live fully in the world amidst the ways of life and death.

·    So let’s playfully consider what each of those truths – calls the worlds into being, creates us in his own image and sets before us the ways of life and death – might mean for us at this moment in time, ok?

And I want to begin by clarifying something I was asked about last week in trying to distinguish the difference between a statement of faith and a creed.  I tried to say that a statement of faith is NOT a test of faith – it is a human attempt to clarify our understanding of God’s presence in our lives – that is always open to both question and challenge, yes?  Creeds are rarely treated as open-ended:  you either believe or you don’t.

But statements of faith are intended to invite conversation – and questions – and even doubt.  Because statements of faith are never written in stone and always up for revision.

·     Does that help?  Do you see the subtle difference? 

·    Creeds have become eternal guidelines in the larger church while statements of faith are regularly reworked and massaged as time and experience matures.

That is part of what is taking place in the three insights for today where we’re told that God calls the world into being, creates us in his image and sets before us the ways of life and death.  Theologian, Roger Shinn, has observed:  It is vital to start at the beginning of our story where we have come to see that God speaks a word to start creation. In our tradition there is a connection between creation and word for creation is not just an act of power, it is also an act of creating community and meaning.  Neither creation nor communion with God is automatic or effortless.

·    Think about that with me for a moment, ok?  Neither creation nor communion with God is automatic or effortless.

·    What does that say to you?

In the story of Abraham and Sarah, what was the work – or effort – that was required to be faithful?  Trust – an incredible amount of trust that God’s word would become flesh in his flesh – prompting St. Paul to say:

Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.

Trust is the work of faith – the effort we must bring to the covenant – and it takes practice, encouragement and the company of others to help us mature.  In a culture that is full to overflowing with things to do and distractions, we are asked to remember that holy living – creative communion with the Lord and one another – is not automatic.  It takes work.  Eugene Peterson is helpful when he writes:

All of us have impulses from time to time to live a holy life – creatively in communion with all that is true and good and beautiful – a life lived for and in and by means of our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. And then someone telephones with an invitation to the hockey game – or we notice that the salad needs oregano – or the grab-grass in the lawn becomes a priority. And before you know it we become distracted by the mundane and forfeit, yet again, the holy – or so we assume.  But holiness is not separate from the hockey game, the oregano or the crabgrass. Holiness is not being nice. A holy and creative life isn’t a matter of men and women being polite with God, but of humans who accept and enter into God’s working of shaping salvation out of the unlikely materials of our sin and ignorance, our ambition and waywardness – as well as our loves and aspirations and nobilities…

·    To be in communion with God – to be trusting in faith – takes work and effort. That’s the first truth – and what are you thinking about what I’ve just said?

·     Do you have any thoughts or questions or concerns? You might say that when God calls we are asked to respond – and trust is essential to a faithful response.

First, God calls the worlds into being.  Second, God creates us in his own image.  Now for many in our Reformed tradition to be created in God’s image means that we posses – and must use – our capacity for rational thought, right?  That is what separates us from the so-called lower forms of life – we have the ability to think deeply and logically – and must apply that lest we descend into chaos.

And I trust that this is true – but only in part – because it is not accidental that we speak of God as creating, yes? So over the years I have come to see that in addition to deep and rigorous rational thinking, being formed in the image of God also includes using our imaginations creatively: for beauty and politics – for art and compassion – for feeding the hungry and nourishing our souls.

Do you know the hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth?” It opens with God’s creativity in creation – earth and sky and love – and then sings of wonder, the harmony of night and day, the joy of ear and eye as well as the delight of heart and mind, the mystic harmony that links sense to sound and sight, creative human love and compassion. 

And how does each verse close?  LORD OF ALL, TO THEE WE RAISE, THIS OUR HYMN OF GRATEFUL PRAISE!  Let’s be clear: logic and imagination – as well as compassion and creativity – are signs of being created and formed in the image of our God. The divine image includes the capacity to respond, the gift of freedom, the sharing of God’s creative power and love” within our lives – so faith has to do with drawing on the totality of God’s image for the Lord has set before us the ways of life and death.

This links the creativity of the Genesis story with the responsibility articulated in Deuteronomy where our brother Moses reminded those who had been rescued from the horror and oppression of slavery that they had a choice to make:  God has set before you the ways of life and death.  Jesus said much the same thing to his disciples:  I have set before you the way of life and death – will you follow me?

Often we think of this in terms of the grand issues of our day – where do we stand on a woman’s right to choose contraception for herself – how can we advance the cause of peace in the Middle East when Israel is threatened by the possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran – is health care a right or a privilege – will the corporate greed on Wall Street ever be held accountable – and clearly the Lord has set before us the ways of life and death on these matters.  And, at the same time, as our 18^th century Congregational friend and theologian, Jonathan Edwards wrote not far from here in Stockbridge:  “Perhaps there is not one leaf of a tree, nor a spire of grass, but what produces effects all over the universe and will produce them to the end of eternity.”  The ways of life and death touch our individual lives and small choices, too.

I think of the story of the true story of a cabbie in NYC who had been called to a dark home at 2:30 in the morning.  He waited at the address – tired and ready to call it a day – and finally went to the door and knocked.  Just before he threw in the towel, however, he heard a frail, elderly voice say, “Just a minute” so he waited.  After a long pause, the door opened and a small woman in her 80s stood before him with a tiny nylon suitcase.  Inside the apartment all the furniture was covered with sheets and things looked barren. “Will you carry my bag out to the cab,” she asked.  The story continues…

After I put her bag in my cab, I helped the woman walk from the curb. She thanked me and I told her, “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.”  As we drove off, she asked if we might go through downtown. “It’s not the shortest way” I told her but she said, “I don’t mind. I’m in no hurry.  I’m on my way to a hospice and I don’t have any family left. Besides my doctors tell me I don’t have a lot of time left.”

So I quietly reached over and shut off the meter… and for the next two hours we drove through parts of NYC. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived as newlyweds. She had me pull-up to the front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.  And sometimes we would sit quietly in front of a place in the darkness.  As the first hint of the sun came up, she said, “Ok… I’m tired now. Let’s go.”

We drove in silence to the address she had given me and when the orderlies came out she asked, “How much do I owe you?”  When I told her nothing she said, “But you have to make a living?” There will be other customers I told her and without thinking bent over and gave her a hug. She held on to me tight and then said, “You have given an old woman a moment of joy.”  Then she went inside… and I thought: what if that woman had gotten and angry driver – or me when I was in a hurry – what if I had refused to wait?  And in that moment it became clear that I hadn’t done anything more important in my whole life.

Great moments and grand issues call us to consider the ways of life and death that have been set before us by the Lord – but so, too do the ordinary times – the times of hockey games and oregano and crab grass. Most of us will not be remembered for what we have done – or said – or even believed.

No, most of us will be remembered for how we have made others feel.

Today, on the second Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the God who creates: the God who calls the worlds into being and shapes us in his own image – as reluctant, inept and confused as all the rest who have gone before us.

For the Lord our God has set before us the ways of life and death and asks us to follow Christ by faith – and this is the good news for today.