What Counts In Your Life

Sermon-Year C-Advent 3 December 13, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I was in Meijer’s this week. Actually I wind up in Meijer’s just about every day for something or other, and I like to go to those self-scanners. So I go through and the machine keeps asking me if I am using my own bag. Then it says that I will need assistance. So the lady comes over and says that this is really a special case and she will need to call someone with a special key. I had four items. So she called. And we waited. The special person never came. I finally asked if I could just use a different machine. On and on. Nothing was allowed, I couldn’t move-the special person wouldn’t come. Finally, I said, “well, forget it, I don’t have time to…” And then I heard my own words from the last two weeks, and I said, “that’s ok, I’ll stay here-I’m working on my waiting skills.” And the special guy with the special code eventually came, very harried and rushed, and I told him that it was ok, there was no hurry.
I was one place, and realized that I could be someplace else. It’s called Advent. It’s the season when we realize that we can be someone different, we can prepare, we can grow, we can change, we can make room in our hearts for someone new. It’s not easy-but for me, it starts with waking up-hearing the words.
Two weeks ago I asked you to spend some time this season waiting, watching, being quiet, slowing down. Last week I asked you to look for surprises. Did you see any surprises this week? Did anything happen that shocked you? astonished you? Woke you up? Once I started waiting for surprises, I was taken aback how often it happened.
Advent is about waiting. Advent is about preparing to be surprised. And Advent is about the journey. The journey from who we are-to who we will be. Meister Eckhart, the great medieval theologian, once wrote: “He who would be who he ought to be must stop being what he is.”
Several years ago, it dawned on me that Jesus was always on the move. He never seemed to be in one place very long. He didn’t travel to exotic places, but he always seemed to be going to new towns, seeing new people. The more I thought about it, the more I saw the gospels as a journey. It starts with Mary and Joseph traveling by donkey even before the birth, and the gospels end with Jesus again riding on a donkey-this time into Jerusalem. In between he’s always on the move. And then, after pondering this for a while, the next realization for me was that Jesus’ moving was more than just physical. He was also on a spiritual journey. And when that finally sank in, I started thinking about myself. Am I moving, too? Am I going from who I am, to who I am called or meant to be? This may seem simple and obvious to you, but it was a real revelation to me.
Three times in this morning’s gospel people plead with John, “what should we do?” The crowd, the tax collectors, the soldiers. “What should we do?” They want to be different, they want to be better. But they are unsure, unclear about which direction to go. They need the wake up call.
There is a special new version of the Bible called, The Message, a paraphrased version by Eugene Peterson. This is how he translates verses 8 and 9 from this morning’s gospel "It's your life that must change, not your skin….What counts is your life.' What counts is your life.
What should we do? I think I have to care enough about my life to go on a journey. I think I have to care enough about who I am to wake up and be surprised. I think I have to want my life to count. There is a great AA saying, "Fake it 'till you make it." It means, act like the person you want to become, until you become that person.
So if the first week of Advent was about preparing, and the second week was about being open, then this week is about caring enough about our lives to want them to matter. What counts is your life.
“What should we do?” the people keep asking John. Act like your life matters, he tells them. Act like your faith matters. I was one place, and realized that I could be someplace else. It’s called Advent. It is a journey. I can wait and watch and be still. I can be open to surprises, and see things anew. I can become a different person. I have to wake up and want my life to count. There is a great quote from that famous book of theology, "The Princess Bride", that goes like this:
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgement that there is something more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. In traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be the key is to allow yourself to make the journey.
Jesus was always on the move. Not just geographically, but spiritually. He was always growing, always becoming. So are we. Sometimes we have to fake it til we make it. Sometimes we have to just keep moving. But I think the first step is to hear the words, and believe that what counts is our life. It can happen when you’re standing in line at a store. We can wake up anywhere. The key is to allow ourselves to make the journey.

Being Surprized

Sermon-Year C-Advent 2 December 6, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas? Remember when Christmas was all about being surprised, not knowing what was coming?
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius-the Caesar of all the Roman Empire, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John-who was standing out in the wilderness. Five world leaders, the 2 highest religious leaders. And the word of God came to….John. A man who was nothing. A man who had no nice clothes, no home, a man who lived on insects and honey. A man who lived in the wilderness. And this is who the Word of God came to? Do you think Luke the gospel writer is trying to make a point?
Why would God choose someone so, unimportant, so unlikely, so improbable to use as a messenger? Think about it for a moment. Could God have chosen a more implausible person to get the world ready for a savior? Well, I suppose he could have-God could have chosen some young teen aged woman from an unassuming, no name family but even God would never do that, right. The Advent story is supposed to convince us how crazy God is, how he never uses what we would use, to change the world. The Advent story is supposed to surprise us.
How would you announce that a savior was coming? How would you try to stop the world-or even slow it down? How would you grab people’s attention? How would you let people know that the world was changing? My guess is that you wouldn’t send one person, WITHOUT wifi, out into the wilderness who would start yelling that people needed to change their lives. My guess is that you wouldn’t send one person, a young woman, who would simply promise to be faithful no matter how hard it became. I think we would have done a much better job than God at getting the word out. You wouldn’t trust this life saving, life changing message to people who were so, small and unimportant. We would be a lot more careful than God, a lot smarter, a lot wiser, we would plan things MUCH better.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas?
Over and over in Advent we hear stories of the unexpected, the unprepared, the unready. Everyone in the Advent story is always incredulous, disbelieving, skeptical-have you ever noticed? John the Baptist’s parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, John’s parents were too old. Zechariah was even struck mute until he wrote these famous words-“His name is John” (not Zechariah). And so we have the song sung by Zechariah. Elizabeth was too old, they gave the baby a non-family name (unheard of, impossible!). Everything around the story of John the Baptist was a shock. Nothing happened according to plan.
Every year at Christmas I preach on getting our hearts ready for the birth of a savior. But as I listened to today’s gospel I started wondering, is that wise? Maybe we’re supposed to be caught off guard, perhaps we shouldn’t even try to be prepared. No one seems to be in the gospel story, right? I think back to when Christmas was most fun, most exciting for me-and for most people--it’s when I was about 6-I didn’t know what was coming next-when everything was a bombshell.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas?
It becomes and harder to get surprised the older I get. I work a lot at being prepared, being ready. Don’t you? We do all these things to be organized. Usually when we get startled (at least at my age) it’s not a good thing. It means something caught us unawares, we were metaphorically, napping. I’m meeting with 4 couples right now who are preparing for marriage next year. If you want to see someone who works around the clock to be prepared (usually for several months), look at a bride. Or a bride’s mother. I don’t think we want to be surprized. That’s why Advent may be important for us. Advent is the time when strange characters stand out in the wilderness and yell at us, “PREPARE TO BE SURPRIZED!” It’s when angels come to people and say, “YOU CAN”T BE READY FOR THIS”. Advent is the time when we look up at stars and hear odd voices, and get visits from unusual people, all saying the same thing, “you won’t believe what’s coming next!” I started counting all the things yesterday that were surprizes. The Legos team won the Spirit award at the state competition. Blane was in shock. The coldest day of the year so far, and there were Tianna and Sara Eziuka standing out in front of WalMart ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. As I turned to leave them, and I was thinking about this sermon and the surprizes that I had yesterday, there were fireworks going off over Belleville lake (after the Christmas parade). When I started looking for revelations they were all around me.
I think Advent is the season when we’re supposed to be surprized. I think this is the season when we’re supposed to walk around noticing all the things that catch us unawares. Every Biblical story in Advent is about how God shocked normal folks with amazing things. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought-maybe this is how I should get ready-to look for surprizes.
Last week I asked you to Choose quiet, to watch, to wait, to slow down. This week I ask you to allow yourself to be surprized,-to be caught off guard, to notice how many times in a day that something happens that you don’t expect. The more I watched last week, the more I waited, the more I slowed down and became quieter-the more surprises I saw and felt. I think this is what we do in Advent, what people did in the first Advent-they allowed themselves to be surprised. It isn’t an easy thing for adults. We almost have to be ready for it. We have to prepare ourselves to be surprised-and that’s an oxymoron. But I think this is what Advent teaches me-when I slow down, watch, listen, quiet, wait, that’s when the surprises come.
When’s the last time you were surprised at Christmas?
Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"