012912 Authority Over Demons
Authority Over Demons
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 January 29, 2012
Mark 1:21-28 Russell Eidmann-Hicks
There was a man who owned and drove a hearse for his job as a funeral director. It was also his family car since he couldn’t afford another one. One day he was driving his hearse and was getting ready to go past the town’s other funeral home. He saw that a funeral procession was getting ready to leave. He had his radio turned up fairly loudly, so he turned it down and slowed up a bit as he went past the funeral home so that he would not offend anyone.
Once he got past the funeral home, he then turned the radio back up and headed on to where he was going, which was the local Taco Bell. But as he pulled into the parking lot, he looked in his rear view mirror, and to his horror he saw that the funeral procession had followed him by mistake right into the Taco Bell parking lot. You have to be careful what authority you are following.
We need authority, but we also need to be careful what it is that has authority in our lives, what controls us and motivates us. In our culture that has so many powerful influences, so many temptations, so many possibilities; it is vitally important that we be very careful about what it is to which we give our allegiance. If we’re not careful we may end up heading in a very negative direction.
In the Gospel of Mark Jesus began his ministry by going to teach in a synagogue, a house of worship. The people were astounded because he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. His message was not dry and academic, but taught with compelling clarity and conviction, from the heart. His actions went even beyond his words. “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.”
Jesus had authority. He began his ministry claiming one life from the devil, carving out territory for the Kingdom of God. He established God’s way with the authority of his presence. There are plenty of people or groups claiming authority in our lives: the corporation for which we work or the shows we watch or the labels on clothes we wear or stocks we own or movie stars or rock bands or football teams. It may be Google, Apple, or Verizon. Or it may be Rush Limbaugh or Jon Stewart, or the Giants game or Hustler magazine or that chocolate cake in back of the freezer. There are lots of things that speak to our hearts and want to control our thinking. The question is, which voice do we listen to and follow? Which might be demons, seeking to control us in terrible ways?
What are demons, do you suppose: evil spirits, negative things that control us, powers of darkness? My sense is that we all have demons of one sort or another. They are the things that possess us, and cause us to do what we know is wrong. We wrestle with destructive patterns in our lives, habits of self-gratification or self-denial or self-righteousness, inner demons of arrogance, fear, or low self-esteem, or cycles of elation or despair. They catch hold of us, take over our will and make us self-destructive.
Demons can be very powerful. Alan Lang, in a report to the National Academy of Science: “Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior,” identifies nine characteristics of addiction: Impulsive behavior, Difficulty in delaying gratification, Sensation seeking, Antisocial personality, Nonconformist values, Sense of alienation, Deviant behavior, Heightened feelings of stress, Little regard for goals generally valued by society. These are indicators of being possessed by this particular demon.
Here is a story from Alcoholics Anonymous that illustrates this: “A few years ago I lay desperately ill on a motel floor in a southern city. I learned later that within a few hours, if left unattended, I would have gone into alcoholic convulsions and might have died. At that point in time I did not know I was an alcoholic.
I crawled to the telephone, but was shaking and quivering so badly that I could not dial. Finally, I managed one digit and got the operator. “Please help me,” I pleaded. “Call Alcoholics Anonymous.” She took my name and address. Within ten minutes a man walked in the door. I had never seen him before, and he had no idea who I was. But he had the breath of the Father on his face and an immense reverence for my life. He scooped me up in his arms and raced me to a detox center. There began the agony of withdrawal. To avoid bursting into tears, I will spare the reader that odyssey of shame and pain, unbearable guilt, remorse, and humiliation. But the stranger brought me back to life. His words might sound corny to you, like tired old clichés. But they were words of life to me. He told me that right now the name of the game wasn’t guilt and fear and shame but survival. He told me to forget about what I had lost and focus on what I had left….Above all, he affirmed me in my emptiness and loved me in my loneliness. Again and again he told me of the Father’s love; how when his children stumble and fall, he does not scold them, but scoops them up and comforts them.”
A word of authority can cast out demons. Truth spoken to us with love can transform our lives. Even though we may be powerless against the demon or addiction or fear, we have a Savior who has power over evil. A word from Jesus casts out demons. The word of God is called a sword in scripture; and like a sword, God’s word cuts through lies, delusions, and demonic voices. With the light of Christ within us, we can cut through demonic ideas or voices or influences When a demon appears, we can shout with Jesus: “Be silent, and come out!”
This is not always easy; not all sweetness and light. As it says, ” the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.” It can be a gut-wrenching, soul-searching, heart breaking experience. It has to do with admitting our worst, showing that part of us we want no one to ever see. But if we have to courage to name the demon, to admit the darkness, then healing can occur.
In our reading this morning, it is very interesting that the first demon Jesus casts out in Mark appears right in the middle of a worship service. On the one hand it causes us to remember that demons are quite at home in church, they are not necessarily left behind when we step in the church door. We are, after all, a gathering of common folk, and we are all capable of the best and the worst of human behavior. Negativity, mean-spirited labeling, calls for hatred can be found in churches as well as outside.
Louise Fratto gave me the review of a new book about the Inquisition in the church in medieval times. Actually there were about three inquisitions, filled with torture, brutality and lies; yet wrapped up in extreme piety and self-righteousness and faith. It is a scary thing that the most triumphant expressions of religious fervor can also be the most dangerous, filled with violence, lack of compassion and cruelty. We can find this tendency in our own day, when we target certain groups of people based on their religious or ethnic background. We saw it in the McCarthy era and the “Red Scare.” We saw it in the civil rights movement, as those speaking up for freedom and equality were demonized by our society. We see it ways many groups are targeting the Islamic religion and surrounding it with layers of fear and distortion and violent rhetoric. We hear it in distorted and outlandish calls to hatred in the political arena. Demons of destruction and intolerance are still with us, and can reappear if we are no careful.
The writer, Adam Gopnik, writes: “What makes a civilization lose the inquisitional tendency? The truth seems to be that abundance helps – the more goods there are, the more purely symbolic the struggles over them tend to become – but the idea of decency matters most. The values of tolerance are one of the most difficult lessons to impart, not because people are naturally cruel, but because power is naturally fearful. We’re slow learners. The Inquisition has become a byword for cruelty combined with state power and superstition because it was.” Authority comes with the compassion of Christ.
With faith we cut through demons of fear and brutality . Religious or political institutions can be vicious and cause great conflict. Yet, worship in the church is one of the best places to deal with the demons in our lives. In worship we are encouraged to look into our hearts, to re-direct our lives to pathways of life and health, to seek to grow in wisdom, compassion, community, and inner strength. We listen to the authority of the Word of God and preaching that takes us inside of that word. We confess our sins; we receive pardon. We look into the dark places in our hearts, to face the demons that control us. With God’s grace, we find our own voice of authority that can cast out evils within our own hearts.
Over the centuries our tradition has developed ways to face our demons, with God’s help. Prayer and meditation are ways to deepen our souls, to give us greater inner strength and resources to fend off the darkness. Study and preaching give us greater wisdom and insight to spot the demons at work in our lives. Helping others pushes us past our small selves to allow the spirit of love to shed light inside our souls.
A beautiful parable of this power offered by Jesus is found in another story from Mark. The disciples decide to row across the sea of Galilee, but are caught at night in a raging storm. The waves and wind threaten to swamp them. Ancient superstition was that demons lurked below the surface of the waters causing the waves. The disciples seeing Jesus walking over the surface of the waters; he had authority even over waves. They call to him, he steps into the boat and immediately, the waves and wind cease; they find they have arrived at their destination. The meaning is clear. When Jesus gets in to the boat with us, we find stillness, strength and a holy direction. Without Christ, we are lost to the demons.
The role of our faith and worship is to name the demons; to help us to see them clearly and then to throw them out. In worship we hear the word of God spoken with authority and with love. That Word casts out evil; it makes demons flee; it reclaims our true selves. Let us celebrate Jesus’ authority to heal and protect and transform. Amen.
Read more012212 Fish Tales
Fish Tales
Jonah 1:1-6, 11-17; 3:1-10 January 22, 2011
Mark 1:14-20 Russell Eidmann-Hickss
Who here has moved to a new house or new job or no job this year?
Who here has fished or watched someone fish?
Who here has jumped at the chance of doing something wildly different?
Who here has wondered what it would be like to leave everything and start again?
Both of the scriptures this morning are about being called by God to a new life-direction. It’s about hearing an invitation to move in a new direction, and either running pell-mell in the opposite direction, or saying yes and taking a leap of faith. We can find ourselves at crossroads in our lives, times of decision and uncertainty, times when we must prayerfully discern what is the best course forward, the most life-giving path, the choice that will reap the finest reward. And we know that it is often terribly obtuse, scary, and painful.
Robert Frost wrote this familiar poem, The Road Not Taken, to describe this:
| Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, I shall be telling this with a sigh |
We hope, with Frost, that one day we will be able to look back on the decision we made and be able to affirm that it was a fruitful decision, one that led to fulfillment and prosperity and thriving. We hope that it will offer us an open door into a bright possibility. But it is not always clear at the time.
To get somewhere it is helpful to know where we are going. As someone once said to me, if you don’t know where you are headed, any direction is just as good as another. If you have no goal, then anywhere you end up is where you’re headed. As people of faith, we have a goal; we are headed for the joys of salvation, a life of blessing, and the gates of heaven; we are seeking God. What that means to each of us may differ; but we have a path forward on which we walk. We are headed for what Jesus called abundant life, eternal life, or the kingdom of God here on earth. So what does it take to get there?
One thing it takes is listening to God’s call. It takes discerning what is most life-giving and true; what will make our lives enriching and full and true. And it takes the courage to follow that call when we hear it.
Imagine for a moment a lakeshore, a beach with sand and round stones, fishing boats of several colors, bleached and worn by salt and sun, pulled up and tilted to one side, nets drying in the late-day heat. A circle of fishermen huddle on the shore, some mending nets, while several toss their nets out into the tranquil waters, their muscles flexed and powerful from years of throwing nets, and their skin darkened by years of exposure from wind and sun. Their catch has dwindled and their livelihoods threatened by overfishing in their area, with an enormous new fishery developed by Herod Antipas in the next town. They throw their nets, but with little hope of a large catch. Now they sit idle, wondering how they will feed their families, the hope leeched from their eyes.
This scene could be found in our day – in parts of Detroit, MI or Elkhart, IN or Camden, NJ; places where skilled workers hang out at home or in the local coffee shop, wishing for an opportunity, for meaningful work, for someone who would appreciate their talents and pay them a living wage. The economy has shifted around them and they are left high and dry, like fish in a dry lakebed. No matter how many times they toss their nets into the clear waters, it keeps coming up empty. The fear gnaws in their guts as they drain their savings and look for ways to buy groceries and to pay for rent and heat, water and lights.
This experience can be found in our own lives in times of grief or despair, times of illness or unemployment, times of dislocation or loss. It’s like Jonah in the belly of the whale, lying in the sloppy dark, not knowing what the future may hold, feeling gnawing fear and impending doom. We find ourselves without a straight path forward, without certain knowledge of what will offer us a future that will be life-sustaining and wholesome. Many of us face two roads in the woods and don’t know which one to follow.
I had a time like this many years ago, when I decided to drop out of seminary at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT, and to figure out what else I was going to do. I was convinced I didn’t have the skills, nor was I good enough as a person to be a parson. I spent two years working as a VISTA volunteer, living on a tiny stipend that they offered, while living in a meditation center, spending hours each day meditating, walking, and praying. When these two years wound down, I had to decide what to do next. My VISTA work was developing self-help programs with the elderly in senior centers and housing projects, and starting support groups, training programs, and other ways for seniors to help one other. A job opened up in elderly services in the town, and I applied; thinking that this might be my career path.
At that time I went off on a three-week solo retreat in a cabin in Maine. It was my first retreat alone, and I consulted with teachers, who gave me a strict schedule that began at 5am and ended at 9pm; filled with hours of meditation, work cutting trees for firewood, cooking, gathering water, praying, and reading. It was in an old wooden cabin in a clearing on the side of Flying Moose Mountain in Bucksport. I had some free time each day and would walk up a trail, bordered by pine trees, ivy, blueberries, and pale lichen. At the top of the mountain was a glorious vista of surrounding hills and the ocean bay near Blue Hills. One day I was walking along the rocks at the top and looked up and saw an enormous black bear, up on her hind legs glaring at me, while her two little cubs were running around between us. I looked her in the eye and said, “Yes, M’am. I understand,” and turned and walked away; afraid that I’d hear the pounding of her paws behind me. But no, she went one way and I went another.
At other times I would sit up there on the rocks and consider what to do next with my life. I wanted, more than anything, to follow a path of religious training and growth. I had been a religion major in college and then went to seminary; but I wasn’t sure what would help me the most to live with integrity and health. I wanted my life to be meaningful and to help others. I prayed. I walked. Then one day, as I rested in the sun in a rocky outcropping, I found myself talking out loud to a small tree that was waving in the breeze. (After you’ve been along for two or three weeks, you do a lot of weird stuff….) “What way should I go?” I asked the young tree. “Who am I and what should I do?” Surprisingly, I received a wonderful answer. The tree swayed in absolute stillness, letting the wind wash over it, and it spoke to me. It told me about simplicity and ‘thusness,’ about having no shame or worry or fear. It spoke of a harsh and unforgiving world, but also of its enjoyment of summer’s warmth.
The tree told me of enormous patience, of being true to myself, open to trusting God, of simply being without obsessive thought, and allowing each day to unfold as it is. I came back a number of times and consulted with this tree; and each time it gave me wisdom about how to move into my own future. Oddly, it was a wonderful counselor.
I decided on that mountaintop that I would not go into ministry; I felt I didn’t have the skills or the temperament. I would accept the job in the town and continue to live in the meditation center, living a simple, spiritual life, and growing stronger in faith. I journeyed back home, confident that I had made a good decision. I did some odd jobs and I meditated a lot. But I still found myself discontented and empty, without momentum or a clear vision for my future. I felt as if I were surrounded by enormous brick walls on every side, without a way forward. Like Jonah, I had made a dumb decision, and was headed in the wrong direction.
You could say I was swallowed up in the belly of the whale. It was dark and gloomy; I was sloshing around in my own anxiety. Jonah lay in that whale’s belly for three days, but it must have felt like three years. Jesus lay in the tomb after his crucifixion for three days, a time of deep silence, but also of tremendous possibility. After being unemployed and depressed for three or four months, I felt enveloped in anxiety and darkness that I feared would go on for eternity. But, like Jonah, things were moving, developing, under the surface. Throughout I was seeking to discover God’s call for me, a pathway toward a meaningful and fruitful life; and it seems God was at work on this too.
There was a small UCC church in the city that I had passed many times at work; it was a large brick monstrosity of a building stuck in an impoverished part of town called Fair Haven. I thought it was closed down; it looked like an abandoned prison, with wire mesh on the windows and an aging brick façade. I decided to go on a Sunday to see. In the church I discovered a tiny, dwindling congregation of friendly people, in an enormous sanctuary with glorious Tiffany windows and an aging pipe organ. It was led by a younger minister, who was trying to get the church to grow. He was recently divorced, smoked like a fiend, cracked rude jokes, and was at odds with many in his congregation. I started going every week, sang in the choir led by a student from Yale Music School, and found myself enjoying the community and friendships I was making. It was an odd bunch of people – working class, most elderly, some from Italian Protestant background, some who had been in the church their whole lives.
I helped them to start a soup kitchen, and served as their first chair-person, and wrote grants for them. I found it to be very fulfilling. Finally, after about a year, the minister and several leaders in the church approached me and asked if I would consider being called by the church to be their assistant minister. They thought they could get grant money from the conference to do urban ministry. Wow. Suddenly my future, which had seemed so cloudy and uncertain was made clear. Like Jonah, God had thrown me out on a bright, sunny beach, with great new possibilities ahead of me. This was, I realized, what I wanted more than anything else in the world.
I applied to return to divinity school; I called to turn down the job in elderly services and was told I was their top choice….sorry! I met with church leaders and wrote grants and got funding, and there I was, on the road to ministry. I worked in that church for several years. One day a young seminary student named Martha Eidmann came to that church, and she ended up doing her fieldwork for her divinity school degree there. Years later we started dating – and we haven’t parted since. Truthfully I haven’t really looked back. I chose a path less travelled, but the one God chose and led me to, and the one that has allowed me to prosper in grace-filled ways.
God spat Jonah out on the shore near Ninevah; and he finally did what God had called him to do: to preach God’s word to the people and to call them to repentance. He was successful, much to his surprise; the people of Ninevah responded to his word and changed their hearts, allowing God to forgive their sins. Jesus walked across the sands by the sea of Galilee and called to Simon, James and John to enter into ministry and to become fishers of people. It worked. Through their discipleship, walking with their Savior, many were saved; the church was born, and they began to build, brick by brick, the kingdom of God here on earth. Instead of empty nets, they filled churches with people.
Each of us have received a call by God. Each of us has a goal, a path forward, ordained by God. Yet, this call can begin in a time of trial, a waiting in the belly of the whale; it can begin as an agonizing wait that robs us of sleep and that drives us to distraction. But this can also be a time of renewal and creative redirection, when God opens a door into a new and prosperous land. We can start out sloshing around in our own fear and sorrow, lost in darkness and worry. But in the end, God can deposit us on the shore of a new and wondrous land, offering us the opportunity to use our talents and to express our deepest dreams. Take the road less traveled, the one called by God. Amen.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Let us each answer God’s call. Amen.
Read more010812 Spirit Over Waters
Spirit Over Waters
Genesis 1:1-5 January 8, 2012
Mark 1:4-11 Russell Eidmann-Hicks
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, met and married a wealthy widow and faithful Christian named Molly Vazeille and adopted her four children at forty-eight years old. This kicked off, what biographers have since referred to as the ‘thirty years war.’ During his ministry, Wesley traveled twenty-five thousand miles on horseback and reached forty thousand sermons. His belief was that marriage should not change his travel and ministry habits, saying, ‘I cannot understand how a Methodist preacher can answer it to God…to preach one sermon, or travel one day less, in a married than in a single state.’
In the early days, Molly traveled with John, but became constantly ill. She asked John to travel less, but he refused. Sadly, they became bitter enemies. In the final correspondence between the two, John wrote: ‘I think it right to tell you in my mind once for all without either anger or bitterness…if you were to live a thousand years, you could not undo the mischief that you have done.’
John Wesley had an amazing theology of marriage. His sermons on marriage are riveting, exemplary, and convincing, which goes to show that you can have a theology of something but not a reality of it. That’s the power of self-deception.
A rite-of-passage or ritual like marriage should be transforming; it needs to change us from the inside out, and we can’t expect that we are going to be the same person before and after. It just doesn’t work that way. |t’s like going through a graduation; it is a passage into a new life. Marriage does that; so does a terrible illness or loss. It’s like having a child; it shifts everything in the universe for a family, and if it doesn’t something is wrong. Doug Brown in our church is going to be going through the rite of ordination soon, as he will take vows to become a minister in the United Church of Christ. This will change his life, and the lives of those around him – as he takes on vows of ministry. He will still be the same person, but something fundamental will shift in his life.
In the parable of the Great Banquet Jesus tells of people from the highways and byways being invited into a fabulous banquet given by a king. Everyone is invited in, passersby and the poor and lame. But, at the meal the king finds someone who is not wearing a wedding garment. In other words, this person has not been changed, has not become a new person by the experience of grace and faith, and so is tossed out into the cold. Change is needed.
In the healing stories in the bible, Jesus changes people’s bodies and souls – he heals paralysis and withered hands; and also casts out demons. And after each event he says, “Your faith has made you well.” We are saved through grace by faith. Our faith allows God to work within us, transforming us from the inside out.
This is true of the sacrament of baptism. It is meant to be life changing; a shift at the core of our souls. A person who goes into the water is meant to be a different person when she or he emerges from the baptismal font. Entering into the water, a person may have be filled with resentment, jealousy or despair; he or she may have sinned terribly, been stained by years of selfish living or hatred or violence. But in the waters of baptism, we are cleansed, washed clean of evil and sin, and emerge as new creations, shining with the joy of Christ, with a clean slate for the future. As Jesus entered into three days of death and emerged as resurrected Savior; so we emerge from baptism as newly born. As God’s spirit moved over the waters of chaos, formed dry ground, and breathed life into all creatures; so baptism re-creates us. We are newly formed.
Most of us, of course, were baptized as babies, so have little memory or understanding of the meaning of this sacrament. It is meant to signify the possibility that we are able to find renewal and recreation at any moment in our lives. We are offered the possibility of resurrection.
I heard a preacher from 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York tell this story once. He related that on one Sunday morning he was preaching and looked up into the balcony and saw a lovely young women staring at him with tears streaming down her cheeks. This was disturbing, and so after the service he walked up to the balcony and found her still weeping in the same spot on the pew. He asked her what was her sorrow. She shared that she was a model working in NY, and had been terribly hurt. “Can I really start again, start fresh? Is it really possible to begin again?” she asked intensely, while being wracked with sobs. Yes, that is the promise.
What is astounding about baptism is that it produces extraordinary equality – each person becomes a child of God, member of a holy family, and at one with God’s love and grace. That person can no longer be ignored or dismissed or tossed aside; each becomes the apple of God’s eye. That is why baptizing babies is a beautiful thing; at birth each child is treated with equal love and equal possibility. Of course, we would say that God treats all people with this kind of love, baptized or not; and we are called to do the same. This is the basis for our understanding of justice and harmony in this world. We are each to be loved, and given second chances, even the most ill, the most despised, weak, or rejected.
The wonder of baptism, the wonder of God’s love for us, is that each of us at our baptism are revealed as God’s beloved, the one with whom God is well pleased. We can start fresh – like little babies just born. The wonder of the Christian faith is that people whom the world would reject, whom many would ignore or spit upon or oppress become God’s most precious ones. We are welcomed as new creations, as ones newly resurrected and able to start fresh.
Philip Yancey writes this in his book Amazing Grace: “Friedrich Nietzsche accused the Christian Church as having ‘taken the side of everything weak, base, ill-constituted.’ He scorned a religion of pity that thwarted the law of evolution and its rules favoring power and competition. Nietzsche put his finger on the scandal of grace, a scandal that he traced back to ‘God on the cross.’”
“Nietzsche was right. In Jesus’ parables the rich and healthy never seem to make it to the wedding feast, while the poor and the weak come running. And throughout the ages, Christian saints have chosen the most un-Darwinian objects for their love. Mother Teresa’s nuns lavish care on homeless wretches who have mere days if not hours left to live. Jean Vanier, founder of the l’Arche movement, lives in a home that employs seventeen assistants to work with ten mentally handicapped men and women, none of whom will ever be able to speak or coordinate their hand movements. Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement admitted to the folly of her soup kitchen: ‘What a delightful thing it is,’ she said, ‘to be boldly profligate, to ignore the price of coffee and go on serving the long line of destitute men who come to us, good coffee and the finest of bread.’” (p. 265-266)
Baptism is a returning to the primordial waters of creation, the muddy DNA soup out of which we all came, and the oceanic waters of chaos out of which all life springs, infused with the breath, the ‘ruach’ of the spirit. It is about a new creation; a new chance at life. It reminds us that we are created in God’s image, with God’s spirit-spark glittering within. When we rise out of the waters of baptism, we are fresh and newly minted. We may not have a dove descend over us, but we glow with the radiance of God’s blessing and God’s grace, trailing clouds of glory.
Change is necessary – metanoia in the greek – catharsis. We see this in films, when a person with serious character faults is changed and becomes a new person. A classic example is Ebenezar Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. After a long night of self-examination, his heart is transformed.
Years ago I studied in Italy for a semester in college, and a though I was a religion major and took many classes in religious history and theology, I lived in the green-room at the theater. While I was in Rome, a friend visited who was studying theater at Edinborough in Scotland. He encouraged me to sign up for an experimental theater project that was going on outside of Venice. I got my school to allow me some time off, and I travelled to Venice, and found the group I would be with for the next three days. This experiment was by an innovative theater director named Jersy Grotowski. He wrote about ‘saintly actors’ who sacrificed themselves on the stage, for whom theater was a profound religious experience. His experiment was to take an audience through an intense, all night experience of theatrical encounter with a group of actors, so that the audience in the end would lose all inhibitions and become completely transformed into their true and spontaneous selves. I was in the group going through the experience. We travelled to a ruined castle in the countryside outside of Venice. As the sun started to set, we were split into small groups, and taken through a series of wild experiences that lasted the entire night. We were taken into a room filled with ashes on by one, where we were spun around by several people, brought down into an underground wine cellar filled with fires and smoke with drums playing and dozens of people dancing. We ran barefoot through the woods in the dark, to a place with a huge fallen tree, where we crawled through a tunnel to meet with a strange man in a cloak who did not speak but who gave me a sweet drink. Dozens of us danced silently in a clearing the dark forest. We slide down a muddy slide into a freezing cold pool of water. Finally, we were brought back to the castle courtyard, where we circled a huge wooden barrel filed with grapes, which they spilled out on the courtyard, and we danced through these, around a huge bonfire. At dawn we crawled into an enormous pile of warm hay to sleep. By that point I was covered with mud, cold and exhausted, I had lost my sweater and shirt. But what a night!
In the end Grotowski declared the experiment a failure. He said that in spite of the intense experiences, the audience still did not lose their self-consciousness. We still held onto our skepticism and distance. I can attest to that. I remember distinctly dancing around the bonfire at the end, and catching the eye of the director, and he recognized my embarrassment.
Our faith is not about changing ourselves; it is about God changing us. We are saved by grace through faith. It is God’s grace that changes us, not ourselves. And so any attempt to change ourselves fails, if we do not allow God in. In the healing stories in the bible, Jesus says, “Your faith has healed you.” By allowing God into our lives through faith, we are transformed.
With that blessing comes a life-time of second chances. We can be changed, melted down and re-forged. Just when we feel that God can no longer accept us, when we are sure that the waters of grace have run dry and we are left beached, high and dry like bones in the sand; God reminds us of our baptism. Just like children who break a window or a prized vase, and are sure that they will be thrown out and rejected forever, we are surprised when our parent God shows us love and forgiveness. Love transcends rejection, and we can find new life after mistakes and sinful choices.
When we begin again, we return to God’s muddy soup and emerge cleansed, saved and newly minted, ready to start fresh. Let it be so. Amen.
Read more010112 Light Up the New Year!
Light Up the New Year
Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 January 1, 2012
John 3:16-21 Russell Eidmann-Hicks
To everything, there is a season…a time to be born and a time to die…a time to mourn and a time to laugh…a time to sew and a time to rend apart… As you can see, we experience times of growth and happiness and health; and also times for sorrow, chaos and pain. In this world we find a time of blossoming and fruitfulness, and also a time of decay and destruction. We’d prefer the good times to last, the times of joy to carry on; but inevitably we experience the downturn. As Senator Moynihan said at JFK’s funeral: “There’s an old Irish saying that eventually this world will break your heart.” Perhaps that is why wedding vows don’t just vow to be there for better, in riches, health and blessing; but also in worse times of poverty, sickness and grief.
In the same way, God’s promise is with us in all of these seasons, in all of the ups and downs of this life:
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
As we step today into the open door of 2012, we peer ahead hoping for a glimpse of what is in store. It would be great if we could have a preview of coming attractions, with movie trailers that would give us a sense of what we’re going to have to deal with. The big difference between a New Year and movies is that the movies have already been made by the time the previews have come out. In the New Year we truly don’t know what’s going to occur, and so we’re not able to be sure – like figuring out what movie to watch. We have no way to illuminate the path forward, except with our faith and hope.
I did hear that about 70% of Americans believe that 2012 is going to be better than 2011. Too many people have been saying that they will be very glad to see and end to this past year. We’ve had enough of bleak economic news and stock market roller coasters and weird, dangerous weather and disasters and war. Enough. We’re ready for something brighter.
We have a light to guide us – a star, a lantern, a candle; a light that can guide us from the darkness of lost despair to a safe haven of radiant peace. We have a Savior who reminds us that self-giving love and self-emptying are the ways toward fulfillment and joy. And whatever happens, God will be with us. No matter what run-down stable we end up sheltering within, God will be there. No matter how scary Herod’s soldiers are, no matter what floods threaten or locusts attack, no matter how dark the shadow of the cross, God’s light still shines a pathway forward. No matter what burden we will have to bear, God is still there…mysteriously, faithfully, inevitably.
Brenda was a young woman who was invited to go rock climbing. Although she was scared to death, she went with her group to a tremendous granite cliff. In spite of her fear, she put on the gear, took hold on the rope and started up the face of that rock. Well, she got to a ledge where she could take a breather. As she was hanging there, the safety rope snapped against Brenda’s eye and knocked out her contact lens.
Well, here she is on a rock ledge, with hundreds of feet below her and hundreds of feet above her. Of course, she looked and looked and looked, hoping it had landed on the ledge, but it just wasn’t there. Here she was, far from home, her sight now blurry. She was desperate and began to get upset, so she prayed to the Lord to help her to find it. When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but there was no contact lens to be found. She sat down, despondent, with the rest of the party, waiting for the rest of them to make it up the face of the cliff. She looked out across range after range of mountains, thinking of that Bible verse that says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” She thought, “Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.”
Finally, they walked down the trail to the bottom. At the bottom there was a new party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff. One of them shouted out, “Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?” Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying it.
Brenda told me that her father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a picture of an ant lugging that contact lens with the words, “Lord, I don’t know why You want me to carry this thing. I can’t eat it, and it’s awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I’ll carry it for You.” I think it would probably do some of us good to occasionally say, “God, I don’t know why you want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it’s awfully heavy. But, if you want me to carry it, I will.”
We’ve got burdens that we are bearing into the New Year. We are carrying loads that are heavy, and that weigh us down. And we often question why God is asking us to carry this: illness, sorrow, fear, sin, hurt, longing. But when we’ve got hope in our hearts and prayers on our tongues, then light shines and the burden is easier to bear. We are able to move into operating rooms under the surgeon’s knife and trust in God’s grace and healing powers. We are inspired to hold the hand of the sick and to pray with strength and hope. We are able to walk into the dark of unemployment or grief with a friend at our side. The burden becomes lighter and the way brighter.
With patience and trust we can expect for things to become clear over time, to open up into understanding and insight. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to a young poet a century ago:
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves…
Don’t search for the answers,
they could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Austria
Yes, things are unclear and dim; we don’t get the answer sheet ahead of the exam; things still fall apart and decay…but new shoots spring up out of the cold dirt of spring. Light dawns and we find answers to our questions. As much as things seem to be spinning out of control and sinking into death, cries of newborns still resound in nursery wards. When we fear to see leaves tumbling and hear winter winds blow; seeds are sending up shoots to greet the glow of spring’s sunshine. We can trust that as one season passes, a new one can begin. From seasons of sorrow, another possibility can arise from the ashes of the old.
It’s a hot summer morning in the rural community of Tyler, Alabama, about 10 miles outside of Selma. There is a secluded clearing in the woods where volunteers are picking up the last of the debris from the church that once stood there. Soon they will begin pouring the foundation for a brand-new church.
An arsonist burned the tiny church to the ground six months earlier. To the small, African-American congregation, it was just another tragic example of racial hatred in an area that has already known more than its share of hatred. But now the work has stopped. This morning is special because they have a guest. His name is Chris Deer, and he is coming to apologize to the congregation, because he is the arsonist.
He begins to apologize for his efforts. He had a speech all prepared in his head. But all he can do is blurt out, “I’m sorry,” before he dissolves into tears. And then Pastor Pettway, puts his arms around the shoulders of the sobbing white boy, and says, “It’s OK, son. You don’t have to say anything else. We forgive you.”
Later, Pastor Pettway and the congregation demonstrate their forgiveness by appearing in the courtroom where Chris is being tried for arson. And they come as character witnesses on behalf of the accused.
Six months later an overflow crowd is jammed into the brand new church. They are black and white, Presbyterian and Baptist, young and old. They are there to celebrate rebirth. At the front of the church there is a simple wooden cross over the pulpit. It represents hope. But at the back of the church, there is a cross made from the fire-scarred timbers of the old church. It represents forgiveness.
We are lovers of light…those who believe in new beginnings and sunrises and full moons. We can be patient with our burdens because we trust that God has a reason for our efforts and our heartaches. We seek stars that guide the wise across desolate wastes. We are followers of dreamers and visionaries who seek the out-of-the-way stables where unexpected new life is born. We are determined explorers of spiritual treasure, seeking glimmers of gold in wild and gloomy locations.
What star are you following in this season? What do you seek in 2012? Is it more of the same; is it decay or doom? Or are you willing to put your faith in a God who can make all things new, who can shoulder our burdens and open doors in the darkest of alleyways? Happy New Year! Bring it on, 2012! Amen.
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