Seeing God
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
November 27, 1994
Memory Verse: "See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.... The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight -- Indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 3:1)
Today's Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 21:25-36
Opening Prayer: Immanuel, come among us now. Make yourself plain. Take the scales from our eyes and reveal to us your comfort. Speak to us words that gush forth like an eternal well-spring of life. Amen.
Happy New Year! Today is the first Sunday in advent, the start of the Christian year. For the next four weeks, Christians are encouraged to get ready for the coming of Jesus. It should be a time of soul-searching and spiritual discipline. A time for prayer and preparation. Unfortunately, there are other forces at work to make the next four weeks a high-pressure time to buy, buy, buy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines," reported The Columbus Dispatch on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. "The holiday shopping season has officially begun." And shop people did. Sales were up 17 percent from last year, when the average family (intending to spend $797 on Christmas presents) ended up spending $1,060. Getting ready for Jesus has been all but forgotten in the mad dash to spend, spend, spend. "The customer feels good," quipped the general manager of Columbus City Center. But what about the person behind the plastic?
Churches have recognized the need to speak with an alternative voice for centuries. Hence the seasons of advent (to get ready for Christmas) and lent (to get ready for Easter). There are always distractions. There are always enterprises, like shopping, designed to pull us away from the reason for the season. Shopping has become more than just a national pastime. It has become an opiate of both the rich and the poor. Go out and spend some money, buy a new toy or a new outfit or a new appliance, and feel better.
But that kind of feeling better doesn't last long. The toy breaks, the outfit gets dirty, and the appliance loses its luster. It's like the story of the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at Jacob's well. This woman thought she knew all about water and thirst and drinking and satisfaction. But Jesus cut to the quick: "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14). The woman's response? "Sir, give me this water."
For the next few weeks I want us to get ready for Jesus. I want us to seek the water gushing up to eternal life. Not short-lived shopping fixes, but long-term spiritual investments. It's like the difference between cosmetic repairs and substantial rehabilitation. Put a new coat of paint on, and things may look better for a day or a week or a month. But if the roof still leaks the wall will soon deteriorate all over again. Fix the root of the problem, however, and you will enjoy the fruit of your labors for years, even decades, to come. It will cost more in the short-run, but it will cost less in the long-run.
That is the promise of getting ready for Jesus. It takes more work than just running out to the mall to buy whatever suits your fancy. It may even take more money. It will certainly take more time. But the benefits promise to last a lifetime, and beyond.
Getting ready for Jesus begins by looking for the signs of his coming. If you wait to start looking until Christmas day, you may not see him at all. The ancient world was full of people who looked for signs. Remember the wise men, the magi, the astrologers from the east? They had been searching the stars for signs of a royal birth. "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?" they were asking in Jerusalem. "For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." (Matthew 2:2)
I don't know what you think about such star gazing, but my guess is that most of us don't take it very seriously. It makes for a nice story, and a wonderful Christmas pageant, but it's not something we try to emulate or practice. Nancy Reagan may organize her appointments according to her horoscope, but most of us just laugh. Harmless fun, we imagine, but there's no real point in trying to look for signs today about what will happen tomorrow. Life just doesn't work that way. It's too unpredictable. Too random. Too out of control.
Indeed, part of what modernism means is that we have become too sophisticated for all of that hocus-pocus. We know better. As members of a liberal, mainline Protestant church we have risen above such nonsense. We are too rational. Too secular. Too enlightened to return to a superstitious and magical view of the world. God has been reduced from a real being, who sits in the heavens and has influence over what happens, to little more than a moral mandate or an affectionate affect or a life force.
But I am afraid that in our headlong embrace of modernism we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water. The discernment of signs need not be only about soothsayers and fortunetellers. The discernment of signs need be about the discovery of Immanuel, God with us. And it should be a task that engages all who would call themselves Christian.
Take, for example, the sign of baptism. We've had a baptism now for three weeks in a row. For three weeks in a row we've asked the same questions, poured the same water, pronounced the same formula, and sung the same song. I've had two reactions to this outpouring of baptismal grace. Some have asked, "Couldn't you have done all three at one time?" Kind of the shot-gun approach to baptism. Turn on the fire-hose, and let it rip.
Now there's actually something to be said for that approach. There's not only an economy of time but there's also a reminder, by the shear numbers involved, of the breadth and depth of God's generosity. It comes to us all, whether at 8 weeks or 8 months or 80 years. With multiple baptisms I walk up and down the center aisle not with the children in my arms (three would just do me in), but with a bowl of water, splashing droplets out into the aisles as a reminder of who we are in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Many people end up complaining about that as well. "I don't come to church, in my Sunday best, just to have someone splash water at me," is the reply. But that is precisely the point. Baptism comes to us as a sign of Immanuel, of God with us, and that sign intrudes upon us, assaults us, washes us, encounters us with the strange missal of God's indiscriminate love. Here we sit, all dressed up and dignified on Sunday morning, trying desperately to look good and respectable, when along comes something as uncontrollable as a tiny baby or an airborne droplet of water.
Which leads directly to the other reaction I've had. "Why don't you walk all the way to the back of the church?" I've been asked. "I want to see that baby, too." Bingo. We may not fully understand what's going on, but we know its important, and we don't want to be left out. Why should the first fifteen rows have all the fun? "I want to see that baby, too," just in case it would speak yet today as a sign of God's grace.
Now that reaction sounds like people getting ready for Jesus. People getting ready for Jesus are people on the look out for signs. Sometimes the signs tell us to slow down. Other times they tell us to watch out. Most often they tell us to detour from the path we have laid out ahead of time. "The sign of God is that we are led where we do not plan to go."
"There will be signs," Jesus tells his followers, "in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory." (Luke 21:25-27).
My guess is that talk like that does not fit very well in the tradition of this place. We leave roaring seas and shaking heavens to the snake handlers and faith healers. These are all things that make educated, intellectual people rather uncomfortable. But perhaps that's why they closed the canon of scripture in the first place, to keep us from editing out the things we find objectionable. To force us to deal with all this apocalyptic talk about death and destruction, big cosmic moves, that somehow result in resurrection and newness of life.
"When these things begin to take place," Jesus continues, "stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the reign of God is near. (Luke 21:28-30).
We are uncomfortable with such speech. People who practice law or teach in universities or work for armies or preach in distinguished pulpits, people who have profited from the status quo, twitch at the idea that in distress and confusion there would come redemption and grace. We prefer to get these things the old fashioned way: we earn them. Our very success gets off on the wrong track. It leaves us with the illusion that life is somehow under our control. Work hard. Stay on the straight and narrow. Treat people right. And all will go well with you. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, that is probably good enough for most of life's hassles.
But it's not good enough for the large, fundamental, humanly unresolvable situations in which we find ourselves sometimes. Deep down we know that control is more illusion than reality. All too often the formula of hard work, good clean living, and treating people right just doesn't pan out. We lose our job anyway. We come down with cancer anyway. We divorce our spouse anyway. We end up at the jail, with our children on Saturday night, anyway. We end up in a shoddy nursing home anyway. And there is no pill, no noble, uplifting idea, no call to greater effort, that will make everything better.
But I have good news for you today. I have good news especially for those who have given up on Jesus the friendly therapist, Jesus the great teacher, Jesus the fine moral example. This passage speaks to you. Jesus comes also as the Byzantine Pantocrator, holding the world in the palm of his hand. Jesus comes also as Immanuel, God with us. Jesus comes also as the phoenix, rising from the ashes of his own death and destruction.
Do you see? The language of apocalyptic, rather than making us uncomfortable, may be the very language we need to get ready for Jesus. Indeed, there may be no other language available to capture such an incredible thought as this: God is coming. God is coming! Not another expert on stress management, not another sage on positive thinking, not another chaplain on middle-class miseries, but God. And we would do well to watch for the signs of God's coming.
Unfortunately, sign watchers can easily get off on the wrong track. One thousand years ago, as Europe stood on the threshold of the second millennium, it was seized by what Bill Lawren, writing in Psychology Today, called "a paroxysm of preapocalyptic shivers." Legend tells how on the stroke of midnight before January 1, 1000, the "population of an entire country, Iceland, converted en masse to Christianity, apparently as a spiritual prophylactic against the coming apocalypse."
They were sure, you see, that this was it. The magic number. The time after time. The fulfillment of prophecy. And I'm afraid it's going to be even worse this time around. Here's the current issue of the Sun, available now at your grocery store check-out counters. FOUND! JESUS' LOST SERMONS The passages in Christ's own writing that were removed from the Bible 'I will return in the year 2,000 when the Holy Land is at peace.' LIFE AFTER DEATH: Scrolls reveal promise of many lifetimes HELL ON EARTH: What sinners must do to be forgiven WAY TO HEAVEN: It will be found in the world of outer space (November 29, 1994).
I'm afraid this approach to looking for signs will grow in popularity and fervor over the next five years. And if our experience with the Branch Davidians in Waco or the cult in Switzerland and Canada is any indication, an awful lot of people will get hurt along the way. "End of the world" scenarists will use the turn of the millennium as their opportunity to spread the doctrines portrayed by many "doomsday" preachers and believers. But nothing could be further from the truth! And there is another way.
We can take Jesus at his word. "Truly, I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place." (Luke 21:32). Now that's pretty clear. The first generation of Jesus' disciples were promised to see it all before they passed away. Little did they know that they would see it all in a matter of days, as Jesus -- the incarnate Word of God -- hung on a cross to die. As if the rainbow in the sky was not enough, God decided, once and for all, to make clear the divine way of life. It happens at the very point when all our quick and easy answers break down. It happens at the very point of our deepest need. It happens on the cross. And it happens for each and every one of us. By witnessing his death and resurrection, Jesus' disciples saw it all. Even if they could have lasted for a million years that could not have seen any more than they saw. Grace raising the dead. And in the end, the whole world will see it too.
As Christians getting ready for Christmas, we would do well to look for signs that our redemption may be near. I wouldn't look for them at the mall or at the check-out counter. I wouldn't look for them at the drug store or in the aisle marked "analgesics" promising conventional solutions for ordinary aches and pains. I wouldn't look for them in the flashing images of a T.V. screen, regardless of the program. These do not go far enough to address the root problems of life. The one who came preaching good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and liberty to the oppressed is the one we seek, and the signs of his advent can only be found in real life with all its pain, all its disappoint, and, yes, even its death.
This morning we will install two new Stephen Leaders as part of our Stephen Ministry program here at First Church. Can you see this sign of Jesus? Stephen Ministry revolves around the simple idea that when one person cares for another, at the point of his or her need, they will both discover the means of grace. It's death and resurrection all over again. It's standing at the foot of the cross, feeling abandoned. It's gathering in the upper room, feeling amazed.
Jesus has left us a world that's filled with need, and want, and death, and despair. But these are not just warm-up acts for the real show which is to follow. These are the very coming of Christ itself. These are signs, even as baptism is a sign, in which the mystery of Christ's passion and death stands knocking at the world's door for acceptance by faith. It's all here, right now, drawing near, in T.S. Eliot's words, as the "still point of the turning world." Whenever we come in faith to our own death, whenever we come face to face with our own imponderable need, we find it to be that same "still point," the abiding door to resurrection and life. Amen.
Following God
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
December 4, 1994
Memory Verse: "See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.... The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight Indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 3:1)
Today's Texts: Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 3:1-6
Opening Prayer: Good and Gracious God, we praise your name for the goodness of getting us up this morning in our right mind and being able to come here to worship you. You are our portion and cup. You are our wisdom and strength. For your Spirit and your word we pray. Amen.
My son has been a blessing to me in many ways, and among them has been his ability to find a way out of the wilderness. From the time he was a toddler, when I snatched him from the bottom of a hotel spa and he came up laughing, I knew there was something special about him. Since that time he's taught me at least as much as I've taught him about keeping one's spirits up during times of adversity. He's certainly had his fair share of bad breaks. A variety of early childhood traumas, including two surgeries for broken bones, have perhaps given him perspective beyond his years.
One of the things that I find Evan doing whenever we're facing a difficult situation is to look for ways in which it could be worse. I mean he really works at it, actively pondering and measuring in order to find the silver lining behind every storm cloud. On Monday of this week I had an experience of plunging into my own wilderness for about twelve hours. I don't mean to trivialize the concept of wilderness, given all the real problems there are in the world, but on Monday morning, when I got ready for work, I couldn't find my wallet.
I looked high and low, for a good thirty minutes, but it simply wasn't there. I was sure it had been there the night before, but as time went on I started to question even that. Maybe it had fallen out of my pocket as I sat on the couch in the church office the night before. Maybe I had left it at Kroger's on my way home from church. No. I could never do anything like that. Or could I? As I left the house empty-handed, in order to be on time for my first appointment, there was a creeping anxiety over whether or not I would ever see that wallet again.
I felt naked driving to the church without my license, and going through the day without my credit cards. I felt vulnerable, stupid, barren, and guilty -- as though I was doing something wrong. I found myself continually looking in my rear-view mirror and adhering, rather strictly, to the speed limit. It was, as I have said, a wilderness experience.
By the time I got home at the end of the day I had pretty well turned into a nervous wreck. I knew my wallet should be in the house, but it still hadn't turned up. And so I started tearing things apart, looking under every cushion, chair, and appliance. In the process I found a few thing which we had written off as permanently misplaced, but the wallet still eluded me. After another hour of looking, my transformation was complete. I was a total mess. I couldn't imagine another place to look, and I was praying fervently that God would deliver me from this impossible wilderness. Begging would be a more accurate description.
Since my wallet was obviously not in the house, I decided to come back down to the church to look around. I asked Evan if he'd like to go along, offering to pay him a quarter if he found the wallet. Kind of cheap wages for leading someone out of the wilderness, but that was the deal and, much to my delight, he accepted. As we drove, Evan started his pondering and measuring. "Did you have any cash in your wallet, Dad?" "No, I didn't have any cash in my wallet." "And can you cancel the credit cards and get new ones?" "Yes, I can cancel the cards and get new ones." "So things could be a lot worse couldn't they? You could have lost a whole bunch of money with no hope of getting it back."
You see the kid knows how to find that silver lining. As we came to Broad Street and Interstate 71, we saw a spectacular car fire. There was smoke and flames everywhere, and the fire department just had the dickens of a time trying to put it out. They would get it under control, only to have it explode into flames all over again. It was quite a show, and we pulled over to watch for a while. Then on with my search. After scouring the church without success we got back in the car to come home. As we passed the spot where the burning car had been, Evan remarked, "At least this wasn't a total waste of time. At least we got to see a really cool car fire."
Somehow that was the straw that broke the camel's back of my wilderness. I had gotten myself into such a funk over losing my wallet; I had lost all sight of the fact that this was not, in truth, the end of the world. But when I started to laugh about the fact that we were not coming away empty handed, that my anxiety had gotten us out of the house on a wild goose-chase for a wallet that wasn't even at the church in the first place just in order to see a really cool car fire, I couldn't help but to start letting go of my wilderness.
It was like a voice, crying out to me, filling every valley, leveling every mountain, straightening every path, and smoothing every rough place. "At least this wasn't a total waste of time. At least we got to see a really cool car fire." I love it. From that moment on I stopped fuming about my wallet. I just let it go. I stopped fighting and wrestling with a world that was obviously not going to bend to my control. I gave up. After a long day of pointless anxiety, I went on to bed, praying that God would bring some good out of this ridiculous situation. When I threw back the covers, guess what was sitting there? My wallet had been made into the bed.
Now I suppose I would have found that wallet anyway, even if I had gone fretting and fuming all the way to bed (assuming my anxiety allowed me to get there), but I like to believe there was a connection between my letting go and God's answer to my prayer. God comes when we allow the Spirit to enter our lives, and not a minute sooner. For the word to become flesh, for the creator to come and dwell as one of the created, not all high and mighty, invincible and divine, like a rich and pompous paragon of power, but low and puny, vulnerable and human, like a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger, is an amazing proclamation indeed.
It didn't have to be that way. God could have chosen a policy of noninvolvement. Kind of a divine isolationism. A hands-off approach to management. Just sit in your office, receive occasional reports, and watch, as people struggle to get things done on their own. But that was not the way of our God. There was too much compassion, too much investment, and too much at stake for God to simply walk away from it all. The creator was more responsible than that. The creator sought to see the project through to completion.
But involvement could have taken a more direct route than little children and wilderness prophets. God could have come in, with tremendous fanfare from the peanut gallery, to clean things up once and for all with a knock-out punch to every man, woman, and child who ever transgressed the law. Kind of the John Wayne approach to management. Swagger in with a couple of six-shooters and an attitude, to set things straight. Clint Eastwood's "Go ahead, make my day," just sounds so much better than Jesus', "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34).
Fortunately for people like you and me, the peanut gallery doesn't carry much truck with God. In fact, our God seems to rather enjoy confounding the wisdom of the wise and confronting the power of the powerful. Our God seems to have an affinity for surprising the world with things that are sidelined, disenfranchised, and out of the mainstream. "In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius," writes the author of the third gospel, "when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonities, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Anna and Caiaphas, the word of God came -- not to the emperor, not to the governor, not to the mayor, not to the priests, but -- to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness." (Luke 3:1-2)
The contrast could hardly be more striking. At a time when rulers and kings were dominating over their dominions, when priests and scribes were pontificating over their postulants, the word of God broke forth in the wilderness. Not in the war rooms, not in the board rooms, not in the holy of holies, but in that unlikely wasteland of a place called wilderness.
Think of it as a Thornton Wilder play, with two scenes on the same stage, the actors seemingly unaware of one another. In one scene we have the White House, with a president poised over the button of total annihilation, advisiors with furled brows, pages running in and out with top-secret communications, and court-appointed chaplains uttering timely and appropriate prayers. In the other scene, we have the wilderness, with a wizened man in clothing of camel's hair (Matthew 3:4), proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and throngs of partially clad masses wading out into the Jordan River.
Powerful presidents and obscure prophets. Chief executives and crazy extremists. Revered clerics and ridiculed crackpots. If you were the editor of Jerusalem Dispatch, who would make the front page? If you were the host of David King Live, who would take the brunt of your wit and wisdom? If you were the betting type, whose name would you put money on to be remembered long after the sands of time had run their course?
Little could they have known. While the powers and principalities of this world basked in the perks of privilege and position, God came like a refiner's fire and fuller's soap, stage right, to ready the world for a whole new shot at redemption. It was a turning of the tables. It was a changing of the guard. It was an elevation of the lowly and a humbling of the proud. It was the creation of an entirely new standard for salvation and sanctification. It was a voice, inviting us to leave the wilderness which we have come to call home. Setting a child among them, Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the reign of God." (Matthew 18:3)
Whether it's John the Baptist announcing the advent of God's word in the wilderness, or whether it's the incarnate word being born as a little child in a remote Galilean village, it's all the same movement designed to take us away from the vanities and profanities of this world and to draw us toward the things of God. It's not over-powering; it's overwhelming. It's not coercive; it's subversive. It's not rational; it's radical. It hooks us, draws us, leads us, and beckons us from the wilderness not with threats of judgment but with promises of forgiveness. It teaches us the things that are important, but are so easily forgotten in the pressure-cooker of everyday life. It calls us to repent of the anxious frenzy that characterizes so much of our everyday lives, gaining much-needed perspective for the things that make for peace.
During the past five years we have caught glimpses of people gaining such perspective and following God right out of the wilderness. I remember being speechless, incredulous, absolutely dumb-founded when the Berlin wall came down. And then, like a string of dominos, we witnessed the demise of one historic enmity after another. Recently Israel and the PLO decided to get in on all of this wilderness busting. And I could hardly believe my eyes. Here were these two mortal enemies, leaders who had refused to recognize one another even as they vowed to destroy one another, shaking hands and signing papers and smiling around large tables in enormous halls. Notwithstanding the inevitable difficulty with implementation, this whole thing has the hand of God written all over it.
Many people don't realize that this deal was more than two years in the making. Norway was selected by the United Nations for the near impossible task of hosting talks between Israel and the PLO. After months of formal talks, usually reported as "a frank and candid exchange of views," the diplomats were at an impasse. Then the Norwegian foreign minister, Mr. Heiberg, did something different. He and his wife, Marianne, invited the Israeli and PLO representatives into their home on the outskirts of Oslo. Then talks, which often lasted late into the night, went on in secret for 18 months.
When the discussion would become too heated, or it seemed that the diplomats were ready to give up, Marianne would bring out her secret weapon -- her four year-old son Edvard. She would bring him into the room and invite the negotiators to play with him. And they would. These men, hardened by history and hatred, got down on the floor and played with a little boy.
Playing with her son, time after time, broke the tension that existed between ancient enemies. Wrestling with the boy silently made the point that what was really at stake was the future of thousands of other children, Israeli and Palestinian children. And the men made the decision to pay the price and break through centuries of animosity.
Little children have a way of leading people right out of the wilderness just as John the Baptist did with his call to repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The Greek word for repentance, metanoia, means literally to have a "mind change," an about face, a 180 degree turn. The word for forgiveness, afesis, means to "let go," to leave those sins behind, those acts and attitudes that "miss the mark" and distort our relationships with both God and other persons.
That, in the end, is the only way out of the wilderness. One has to turn around and walk away. One has to let go of the things that led us there in the first place. I had to let go of my frantic consumption with finding my wallet. Israel and the PLO had to let go of their hard-hearted denial of the right of one another to co-exist on holy ground. And you have to let go, right now, of your valleys and mountains, your crooked and rough ways, that separate people from the peace of God.
Luke makes it clear that God meets people in the wilderness in order to bring them out. The wilderness is not our home, although many live in the wilderness all their lives. Listen to the voice of one crying out: "Prepare the way of the Lord, for all flesh shall see the salvation of God."(Luke 3:4-6). When Isaiah spoke those words to the exiles in Babylon, some 500 years earlier, everyone understood about the trackless wasteland from which they sought deliverance. When John spoke those words in the region around the Jordan, some 500 years later, he reconnected people with the urgent character of God's ever-flowing stream of redemption. When Jesus came as the incarnate word of God, a little child lying in a manger, he came to awaken that lost part of ourselves as only God knew how.
In the poetic words of Anita Robinson:
"When God wants something great done in this world,
He doesn't dispatch
a legion of avenging angels.
Neither does He call forth
a whirlwind
Nor ignite the fuse
of volcanic fireworks.
No commandeering
of troops into battle
Nor discharging zealous crusaders to holy causes.
He does not orchestrate the burst and boom of thunder
Nor display His fiery arrows' majesty across the sky
to bring His purpose to pass.
When God wants something great done in this world....
He sends a baby,
and then He waits." Amen.
Praising God
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
December 11, 1994
Memory Verse: "See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.... The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight -- Indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 3:1)
Today's Texts: Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Philippians 4:4-7
Opening Prayer: O Lord, we praise you for your faithful hand across many generations. You have shored people up and strengthened them, through trial and rejoicing. Strengthen us now with the comfort and challenge of your word. Speak to us and give us peace. Amen.
I'm sure it won't come as any surprise, but we are not the first church building to fall victim to the ravages of time and violence. Christ Lutheran Church in Bexley has just decided to launch a $1.2 million campaign to deal with the perceived needs of their facility, air conditioning and parking being their top two priorities. Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire, England has just published a 363-page book documenting their efforts over 900 years to build, maintain, salvage, and retrofit that grand example of Romanesque architecture.
Stories such as these have been replicated throughout history. Houses of worship get built to express the deepest needs and highest aspirations of a particular group of people at a particular point in time. And then, to borrow a phrase, they depreciate in value. Things start to deteriorate or people arrive with different values calling for the rehabilitation, and at times even the demolition and reconstruction, of entire facilities. Winchester Cathedral and our own church are two cases in point. The decision to build Winchester Cathedral at the beginning of this millennium was at once the decision to tear down Old Minister Cathedral, by then 450 years old. And the decision to build this marvelous place was at once the decision to tear down the famed church and pulpit of Washington Gladden, across from the statehouse.
The fact is, time takes its toll. It slowly wears down even the most able expressions of human ambition. Athletes realize this fairly early in life; others go to their grave still clinging to the illusion of invincibility. Fortunately Christians have been disabused of such illusions by none other than God himself. The One who incarnated the divine spirit in human likeness, becoming obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross -- hung on that cross as an eternal reminder of the perishability of life. His resurrection, then, came as God's capital campaign and rehabilitation project, for all the world to see.
That is the way of life; and that is the way of God in life. Things do not move forward on a constant incline. They simply move, in fits and starts, with setbacks and accomplishments, heartaches and heartthrobs, ebbs and flows, death and resurrection. Each generation has its own charge to keep, applying themselves as best they can to whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, whatever is excellent and praiseworthy. Otherwise life, as we know it, will slowly grind itself down and burn itself out. There's no way to stand still. If we are not gaining we are losing, if we are not growing we are declining, if we are not living we are dying.
Some 600 years before the time of Christ there lived a king who is remembered in the biblical narrative as the most faithful of all kings. Josiah, the son of Amon, ascended to the throne of Judah at the age of eight, following the assassination of his father and a violent power struggle. "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord," scripture tells us, "and walked in all the way of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left." (2 Kings 22:2)
Josiah's devotion to the God of his ancestors could have been in no way expected. His father and grandfather had ruled for 57 years, with an affinity for every new god that came down the pike. If it carried the name "spiritual" they were for it. Unfortunately, what sounded so good on the surface carried them down some pretty pernicious paths. They set up altars to Baal, Asherah, and all the host of heaven. They practiced soothsaying and augury, and consulted mediums and wizards. They set up sacred poles, read tarot cards, wore magic crystals, and visited palm readers. They did it all! And not just in some out of the way storefront, but right in Solomon's temple. I can just imagine the neon lights flashing and the money-changers counting. "Spiritual" had made it big time.
That was the environment in which Josiah grew up. If environment alone could determine a person's future, there was little in Josiah's background to argue for steadfast and single-minded devotion to YHWH, the God of Israel. But Josiah fooled them all. At the age of sixteen Josiah began to seek the God of his ancestor David. Two years later he set out to restore the temple. Money was raised to hire carpenters, builders, and masons and he gave them a blank check to return the then 400 year-old temple to its original splendor.
Interestingly we never hear another word, after that, about Josiah's temple repairs. I'm sure the builders and artisans did a marvelous job. I'm sure the detail was exquisite and the facilities, by the time they were through, ended up state-of-the-art. But it all got eclipsed by the religious reformation that followed the discovery of an old scroll, perhaps as they tore down a wall or in examined some out-of-the way nook. Scholars speculate it was the book of Deuteronomy, or even the entire Pentateuch. We'll never know for sure, but we do know that it fast became a hot potato. The high priest read it and promptly gave it to the king's secretary. The secretary read it and immediately gave it to the king. Nobody wanted to touch it.
When Josiah heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes and launched into a religious revival that makes the Protestant reformation pale in comparison. The temple was not only remodeled, it was purged of all foreign gods and altars. The idolatrous priests were deposed, as well as the temple prostitutes and those who did weaving for Asherah. He broke down the pillars throughout land, cut down the sacred poles, and covered the sites with human bones. Finally, after all had been made ready, Josiah celebrated the Passover with unusual magnificence. And there was an outpouring of praise, scripture tells us, such as had not been seen in Israel since the days of the judges, 500 years earlier. (2 Kings 23:21-23)
This was the historical context for the prophet Zephaniah, from whom we took this morning's Old Testament lesson. No wonder Zephaniah proclaimed tidings of comfort and joy. This people had managed not only to repair the temple building; they had managed to repair their souls. Once the book of the law had been discovered, the work of the carpenters, the builders, and the masons went completely without comment. We find no descriptions of their artistry and craftsmanship. Instead, we find a people consumed with doing the will of God.
"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel!" proclaims Zephaniah, "rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, … he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival." (Zephaniah 3:14-15a, 17b).
I am persuaded of the connection between Josiah's Passover and Zephaniah's proclamation. Although Zephaniah's prophecy has many apocalyptic, end-time overtones it bespeaks of the new-found zeal coursing throughout Israel. What turned things around was not a new military strategy, not a new economic program, not a new political party, and not a new international alliance. What turned things around was a new fervor for God. It started in the temple and it spread throughout the land.
Nine years after the start of construction on Winchester Cathedral, the construction of another cathedral was begun in Cluny, France. The Abbey Church of St. Peter and St. Paul was to become the largest church ever built in Christendom. It was more than two football fields long, and the vaulted ceiling was more than one hundred feet high. (By comparison our ceiling stands about seventy feet high.) The Abbey Church was under construction for 160 years. The exterior was crowned with towers and spires and flying buttresses.
The church in Cluny was built by the Benedictine Order which founded a community there in the year 910. Within a hundred years Cluny was the largest monastic center in the world. The Benedictine Order spread across Europe and at its zenith included 1100 monasteries and more than 10,000 monks. The center of the order was in Cluny, and it made sense to build a large Abbey Church. For five hundred years it was filled with Gregorian chants and faithful worshippers.
Today, in stark contrast to Winchester Cathedral, all that remains are the towers of the south transept. Everything else is gone. Through the years, the monastic zeal began to wane. The population of monks dwindled. The abbey and the church were finally abandoned. The tiny village had no use for the enormous empty church. They tried using it for a stable for a while, but it was too drafty, and it sat right in the center of town, cutting off one side from the other. So, the village sold it to a merchant from Macon. He turned it into a stone quarry, and for a hundred years, his family removed stones and sold them.
What led to the demise of the Abbey Church, as well as the Temple of Solomon in the days of Josiah's grandfather, was not anger or rebellion, persecution or outside attacks. It was simply a lack of enthusiasm for the principles upon which they were founded. A lack of zeal. A lack of commitment. They fell into disarray and disrepair because the people didn't care enough to maintain them as places where God's name could be praised without embarrassment or hesitation. Last year, 700,000 tourists visited Cluny to view the church that isn't there. There is a hunger and a fascination about something so big, so grand, and so wonderful having gone so wrong.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Although time takes its toll, there is a spirit that moves in the opposite direction. Just ask the people of Winchester Cathedral. In the person of Jesus Christ, God launched a counter-offensive. It was as though God wanted to make a statement, once and for all, that the forces of death and decline could not, should not, and would not have the last word. Paul challenges the Philippians to stand firm in that spirit, without being intimidated by the struggle, even when sufferings come their way. (1:27-30)
"Rejoice in the Lord always," Paul counsels, "again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:4-7)
If that sounds like the first century version of "Don't worry! Be happy!" then you don't know the apostle Paul. He was certainly no Pollyanna. He scolded churches that abandoned their calling and suffered greatly as the chief spokesperson for a new religion in a hostile environment. He suffered from epilepsy, imprisonments, floggings, beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, hunger, thirst, and constant threats both from Jews and Gentiles. The letter to the Philippians itself was written from prison, and he certainly wasn't happy about it. He could imagine better places to be. But in praising God he found peace, as he saw God using even his imprisonment to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ. (1:12-26).
"In everything let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." There's that turning of the tables again. There's that resounding "Yes!" of God's spirit to the "No's" of life. There's that refusal to lie down and give up, regardless of the circumstances. Fill your days with an outpouring of praise, make your requests known to God, and you will be blessed with the peace that passes understanding.
Unfortunately, too many people wait for God to do his thing before allowing themselves to be filled with praise. But that puts the cart before the horse. Praise is the basis, not the outcome, of faithful living. To make God earn our praise, to make God jump through a hoop of our own devising, is not the way to peace. If the season of Advent teaches us anything about waiting, it is that we must fill our waiting with praise. After all, we know how the story ends. We've heard it all before. And we build grand edifices such as this one precisely to lift our hearts to God, while we wait, lest we forget the power of praise.
Doctors learned this lesson a long time ago. Every doctor's office I've ever been to has a waiting room, and they all have copies of Highlights magazine or other diversions to occupy your time with stories and puzzles. Personally, my favorite are those pictures with seventeen things wrong. The doctors know that idle minds grow restless and discontent. Christians are challenged to fill their waiting not by looking for seventeen things wrong but by looking for seventeen reasons to praise God. And find them we can. The God who is yet to answer prayers has already answered prayers. The God is yet to come has already come. The God who is yet to die has already risen from the dead.
This is the story that we tell here week after week in the waiting room of God. We fill the pews with hymnals instead of Highlights, in order to get ours souls singing again of the goodness of God. We dare not allow God's waiting room to fall asunder. There are times when each and every one of us needs this place, or someplace like it, to remind ourselves of God's goodness and love. The exigencies of life take their toll, but in God's waiting room we confront them with praise.
Each of us is waiting for something. Waiting for deliverance. Waiting for happier days. Waiting for a solution to a financial problem. Waiting for a relationship to heal or to end. We're all waiting, and there's not a person here who can make it through just by twiddling their thumbs. We need the encouragement of others and the discipline of gathering together in God's waiting room. We cannot do it alone. We must join our feeble voices in thankful praise, singing, "Gloria in excelsis Deo." Then and only then will we learn to share Paul's conviction "that all things work for good for those who love God." (Romans 8:28)
There's no other way to get to where we want to go. There's no other way to prepare our hearts for Christmas. And there's other way to make sure this church turns out more like Winchester Cathedral than the Abbey Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. It all starts with praise. Regular, disciplined, consistent, and faithful praise. Telling God the things we need, and thanking God for the things he gives.
It's that simple. Praising God is the best way to fill our waiting, even when you don't feel like it. An offering of praise will help you see signs of God's presence and follow God's lead right out of the wilderness. If you can't do it on your own, come here and we'll help you get started. We'll fill your soul, while you wait, with the majesty of God. Then you will learn the secret of being content in all circumstances. Then you will claim the strength to do all things through Christ Jesus our Lord. Then you will receive peace an incomprehensible peace, a calmness in your soul, that enables you to confront the worst life has to throw your way, trusting in the God whose praises you sing, while you wait. Amen.