Sermon from Sunday, January 25 - heard from someone that it - TopicsExpress



          

Sermon from Sunday, January 25 - heard from someone that it spurred on some interesting Sunday evening dinner conversations. Its one of those sermons that people either really like - or dont care for at all... Psalm 62:5-12, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 January 25, 2015 Title: “As If” Psalm 62:5-12 For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from God. God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God. Trust in God at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them. Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay to all according to their work. 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away. A few years ago, I did a sermon series based on a book by Wayne Muller, called How Then Shall We Live, in which he explores the meaning of this existence, and in that book, he writes these words: Here are a few journal entries from Forrest Hallmark, four years old. At the end of each day, his mother would ask Forrest if there was anything he wanted to remember, and she would write it down for him in his journal. Thursday, May 5 1994 I love dinosaurs. I love ‘em love ‘em love ‘em. I love sharks. T Rex is the most fearless hunter. It is Thursday today. My days are getting different now cause we’re doing different stuff. Why do bunny rabbits hop? I just don’t know how bunny rabbits hop. Sunday, June 12, 1994 I’m happy today. I wish we goe’d on a hike and I wish there were butterflies in rain forests. Is there a rain forest in Micronesia? I played on my tricycle…I slipped and almost fell but I didn’t. I ran over Sis’s tail and hand. Sis growled. I said I’m sorry. I want to go to the rain forest sometime soon. When we read this, we are undoubtedly struck by the natural curiosity and thoughtfulness of this four year old. Forrest’s parents were considering moving the family to Micronesia to work for the government, and so he is wondering how it will be there. His name, Forrest, arose partly out of his father’s deep love of nature. As it happens, Forrest had developed a fascination with rain forests. If our time with Forrest and his journal ended here, it would be simply a sweet moment in the life of a bright and vital young boy. But two weeks after this final entry, Forrest was killed in an automobile accident. He died at the age of four—with his brother, Bryce, who was two years old, and his grandfather, who was seventy-five. Forrest’s mother, who was driving the car, somehow survived. After the funeral, she and her husband gave me a copy of his journal. Now, let us go back and read the entries, knowing that two weeks later, this boy would meet his death: I’m happy today. I wish we goe’d on a hike and I wish there were butterflies in rain forests. Is there a rain forest in Micronesia? I played on my tricycle…I slipped and almost fell but I didn’t. I ran over Sis’s tail and hand. Sis growled. I said I’m sorry. I want to go to the rain forest sometime soon. What strikes us about the writing now? What emotions arise as the words touch our hearts? What do we feel about the boy’s life now that we know the circumstances of his death, which would soon follow? Does each word become more poignant? Every event naturally carries more weight. Our attention is riveted on young Forrest, on these moments from his brief life on earth. Thus it is with a life framed by death. With death as its companion, each moment of life becomes instantly more compelling. (Muller 148) When I read Muller’s words here, it reminded me of an idea that I came up with, years ago in another congregation, about doing a pretty radical experiment, based on a book that had come to fascinate me, a book by Stephen Levine called A Year To Live. I had proposed in the weekly bulletin that a small group of us take on the personal experiment of thinking and living as if someone had given us just one solitary year to live, and to do the things that need to be done in that time, both the practical things, like filling out the five end of life wishes forms, or making sure to think and plan for our funeral services, but also to make sure that we did the emotional and spiritual things that need to be done before we pass, like doing a review of our life, of making sure that we have made peace with all those we need to make peace with, and confronting our own fear of death, in whatever form it comes. Out of this year long experiment, out of this year framed by death, to use Muller’s words, I hoped that those who chose to go on the journey, including myself, would come to learn the value of life, and the fragility of the time we are given on this side of the veil. After putting the idea into the bulletin, I got a few interested inquiries from people who were really intrigued by the idea, like I was, but surprisingly, at least to me, I also got some very viscerally negative reactions to the idea, people who were really turned off by it, and it was voiced to me that that this experiment seemed to diminish the reality of getting such news, the news of having only one year left to live, and how, in fact, could one ever really mimic that reality? How could you “play act” with such a horrifying idea? Now, all of these objections and concerns were all respectfully voiced and shared with me—but I was really kind of taken aback by some the concerns. Certainly I hadn’t meant to trivialize the idea of an impending death, and though I have not yet experienced what it means to have someone say to me that because of so and so illness, I may not live that much longer, I have certainly walked by others who have been given this news ,though, again that is not the same thing a being given the news myself, I realize, of course. But the reaction in my former congregation of some to that little thought experiment has not left me, because it surprised me, it really did. It surprised me that somehow this little experiment in conscious living, and conscious dying, to live as if we did not have forever, had touched a surprising nerve in a few folks. Even in an age that gives us more life, more time, on this earth, than most of our ancestors could have ever imagined because of advances in medicine, some of us really do struggle with what it means to die, to be no more, at least no more on this side of eternity. As I shared with you in the past, one of the earliest ways the Christian church came to understand the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection was not through the idea that he died for our sins, though that was one lenses that was used to understand the crucifixion, but rather it was this radical idea that in Jesus’ death and new life, in his resurrection, God has defeated the power of death forever through this Jesus of Nazareth. In the ancient world, where so many died so young – living to 40 was considered a long life – where death was a constant specter, haunting the dreams, and realities of so many, this was indeed good news. “O death, where is your sting…” the New Testament Scripture asks ironically… And I do think that is true, what the New Testament says, but the life to come is different from the life that is here, that is in the now, and our lives are not just to be lived in the expectation of what is to come in the next life. This life is not just preparation for the life to come, but is a gift in itself, a good gift, that we often squander, BECAUSE we refuse to contemplate the truth that it is a limited gift, a gift with an ending point, a gift that is not forever. But what if we didn’t deny the obvious, what if we didn’t live as if we have forever to live this life, what if we lived life as if we knew, not just intellectually, but emotionally, we KNEW that death was our constant companion, and that this knowledge was not a scary thing, this truth about the end of this life, but we lived as if it was a reminder to us not to squander the moments we are given in this life. To get to that point, I want us to look at these passages from both the Old and New Testaments. Now, the context of the passage from 1 Corinthians is an odd one, really, because you might not realize that Paul is trying to answer a question from this church at Corinth about what these early believers are to do with their lives, especially about love and marriage, knowing and believing that Christ might be coming back at any moment, something that was surely believed by many in the early church. Paul’s advice is to live as if we knew that everything was temporary, that everything, both good and bad, was fleeting – it is Paul’s own version of a thought experiment – live as if you weren’t mourning for a lost friend, even live as if weren’t happy, live as if you knew, deep in your bones, that everything was transient, fleeting, and the Lord was coming, that the present form of this world was passing away, to put it in Paul’s own words here. Live our lives as if we knew that all things, good and bad, joyful or joyless, were temporary, fleeting, not forever, that we knew the truth that all things were passing away – for everything there is a season, the writer of Ecclesiastes says in the Old Testament, pointing us to the ancient rhythms that form all of life, life and death, love and loss, joy and pain, up and down, death and resurrection. And the living of our lives in this way, in the “as if” way of living, a thought experiment, a spiritual experiment, where we understand, we know in our bones, that the good times will come and they will go away, and the bad times will come and they will go away, to live as if all things are temporary, even the good stuff, the stuff we want to hold onto, if we live that way, if we live as if we know that truth already, then perhaps, just perhaps we can live more lightly and we can hold onto things we treasure so deeply, we can hold onto them more loosely than before. Money, a good job, a beautiful house, the spouse, the kids even, all of it –and maybe we can also hold onto our pain, our sorrow, our tragedies, more loosely as well. All of it is transitory, all of it will have its day but no more than its day, the Psalmist we just heard seems to say, in the following words: Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them. The good and the bad, the pleasure and the pain, live as if all were fleeting, all were to be gone tomorrow, Paul and the psalmist seem to say, for the present form of this world is passing away. I know that this type of thinking, this idea that all is temporary, that we do not have forever on this earth, in this life, is macabre for some, difficult for others, but as Wayne Muller puts it “if we know we will die, then we will know we are alive.” (Muller 160). And Paul and the psalmist, they surely want us to live, and live well and live deeply, in the time that is given each of us. It is living a life that little Forrest lived, which was a life lived in the moment, in the now, as children are wont to do – “become as little children,” Jesus says in another place in the New Testament, live in the moment as they often do, surely that is some of what Jesus means when he tell us that. Sure, save for the future, be prudent, honor your commitments, but stay in the now, stay in the here, stay in the right here, in the present, for surely no one knows the day or the hour, Jesus says in another part of the New Testament Gospels. And the final piece of the puzzle, the question, of living a life as if we knew that we didn’t have forever, is that it can focus us on the One who gave us this one wild and precious life, to quote Mary Oliver, this God who is our Creator. When we understand that all things have their time and place, the good and the bad, death and resurrection, hope and hopelessness, we can eventually move our gaze, our fixation, away from what is always before us, the right now, and the right here, with all of its goodness, with all of its evil, and we can sometimes move that gaze to the One who meets us in every one of those moments, the God who was and is and will always be. Surely Paul and Psalmist want us to do, to live as if our lives mattered to others and to God, and to ourselves, which they actually do – and to make those lives more meaningful for ourselves, and for others, and ultimately to the God who gave us that life in the first place. Amen.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 04:23:52 +0000

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