If
you were to drive the highways and byways of the Deep South here in the United
States – you know: tobacco country, the
Bible Belt – you would likely come across large billboards sprouting up out of
the earth, injecting themselves into the roadside landscape. However, you will not see the ruggedly
handsome Marlboro Man in his Stetson hat anymore because you can no longer advertise
cigarettes and tobacco so blatantly.
However, you can still hawk religion.
And
so you are quite likely to come across a billboard like this: A solid black background and stark white
letters that read, perhaps, “We have to talk” with the messenger being God
herself – or probably himself since you are in the Deep South after all.
Imagine: God proclaiming that we have to talk. Would that it could be so simple! As Methodist pastor Charles Reeb noted, “I
mean, wouldn't it be nice if, when we were ever confused about something, all
we would have to do is look at a billboard and find the answer or look up into
the sky and there would be something written in the clouds? Or what about the
radio? That would be great! We could just tune in … and God's voice would break in
for each of us and say, ‘This is what I
want you to do.’ A lot of us would love
to hear from God in such a clear way.”
Now,
I do not mean to sound snarky or cynical.
After all, I do believe that God (or Spirit or Ultimate Being, whatever
you call this sacred and eternal presence) that God still speaks in our world,
mostly about God’s dream for the world – though certainly not on billboards or
the radio or by skywriting or even tapping us individually on the shoulder with
a personalized message.
I
believe instead that God speaks to us through the Gospel’s call for compassion
and justice and reconciliation and radical hospitality that we believe was
characterized best in the person and ministry of Jesus. More than that, I believe that that same
Gospel message has been etched onto the minds and hearts of all of us sitting
here this morning, we who still call ourselves Christian in an ever more
secularized world. However, because of
this world that we live in and the strong messages it sends, I also believe
that the voice of Jesus is not the only voice we hear.
I
would submit that all of us have competing voices in our heads insisting on
what is right and wrong, good and bad, black and white. And many of them are really seductive
too.
A
confusing cacophony of sound: Part of being human, I guess, at least in this complex
day and age. Life never seems simple
because in those ethically and morally challenging situations that we all face
everyday when we most need to hear the voice of God, the voice of the Gospel,
the voice of Jesus, it is precisely at that moment that those other voices become
a rich crescendo swirling about us.
And
too often their endless chatter drowns out the voice we need most to hear above
all the other voices: “Blessed are the
merciful”. “Feed my sheep”. “Love one another”.
If only we could clearly and distinctly hear that voice, surely we would
know where our commitment lies, what we ought to be doing, where our life
should lead us.
There was a
young man who won tickets to the Super Bowl, and he was understandably
excited. However, his excitement lessened when he arrived at the game and
realized that his seat was in the back of the stadium and all the way up at the
top. He was in the nosebleed section, no doubt about it.
However, when the game started, this young man
looked through his binoculars and saw an open seat, down in front, next to the
field, right on the 50 yard line.
He immediately raced down the stairs and approached the man
sitting next to the empty seat and asked if it was taken. The man
replied, “No.”
The young man was so surprised. So he asked, “How could someone pass up a
seat like this?”
The older gentleman responded, “That’s
my wife’s seat. We’ve been to every Super Bowl together since the day we
were married, but she has passed away.”
The young man looked at the older
gentleman and said, “Oh, man, I’m sorry to hear that. But, couldn’t you
find a friend or a relative to come with you and at least use the seat?”
“No,” the older gentleman sadly said,
“I wish, but they’re all at the funeral.”
With all those voices swirling about in
our heads, competing for our attention, telling us what our priorities should
be and how we ought to live our lives and what path we should follow, how do we
distinguish between them? How do we figure out where our commitment lies and
what we should do? Super Bowl? Or
funeral? Sharing? Or keeping?
Arming our teachers? Or
controlling our guns?
Where is the voice of God, the voice of
the Gospel, the voice of Jesus in all this?
And why is it not clear?
It reminds me of a story I heard about
how the news of the Battle of Waterloo reached England. The report from the battle was apparently first
carried by sailing ship to the southern coast and then by signal flags from
church spire to church spire all the way to London. And when the report was
received at Westminster Abbey, the flags on the church began to spell out the
message, "Wellington…..defeated…."
However, before the message could be
completed, a heavy pea soup fog rolled in.
Can you picture how, with that heavy fog, a heavy blanket of gloom
covered the hearts of the people? Welington…..defeated….”
However, when the mist lifted, it
became clear that the signal flags of the Abbey had really spelled out a
different message – this one triumphant. "Wellington…defeated….,the
enemy!"
Similarly, how do we know when all
those other competing voices are fogging our minds, so that the true message
that we ought to hear is hidden – or only partially known? It is an age-old question. It is a question that the congregations in
many of the churches the Apostle Paul founded wrestled with. And so, perhaps in response, Paul penned the
passage we just read that comes from his letter to the church folk in
Rome.
His
conclusion is simple: “Do not conform to the pattern of this
world (no surprise there), but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is.”
The renewing of
your mind: Paul is saying that it begins
in your head – and in your heart. It
begins by listening to all those competing voices - but then putting each one
aside when it makes your heart cringe just a bit until the only one left is the
one that proclaims…what? That violence
only begets more violence, that the gap between rich and poor is indefensible,
that Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus – everyone is held in God’s embrace.
However, Paul
goes on to say that it is not enough just to think those happy (what we would
call) Christian thoughts. Thinking and action need to become one because it is
only then that we will be transformed, that we will be Christ-like, that we
will be part of God’s dream for the world. It will happen from the inside
out. First, your mind and heart followed
by your actions.
And so it is
not enough to sit here on Sunday mornings thinking Christian thoughts and intellectually
taking in the Gospel message – though that is an excellent beginning. In fact, Paul would say that it is only place
to begin – and perhaps, I would add, one of the best reasons to be part of a
church.
However, it is
what you will do when you leave here – when your mind has been renewed, as Paul
would say. It is what you will do – the
actions you will choose to take - beyond these four walls that ultimately will define
you as someone who is following the path of Jesus – or following the way of
someone else. It is not enough to feel
transformed here if you continue to be conformed to the spirit of our culture
that values personal advancement and rugged individualism over all else.
As former
President Jimmy Carter once noted:
“"To me faith is not only a noun, but also a verb." (He went
on to say), "In Christian tradition, the concept of faith has two
interrelated meanings, both implying fidelity: confidence in God and action
based on firm belief."
In this passage, Paul goes
on to write about some of those faithful actions – and he gets awfully specific
– so listen up:
“…if you give
encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in
charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress,
keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the
disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them.
Keep a smile on your face.
Love from the
center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for
dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second
fiddle.
Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and
aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in
hard times; pray all the harder.”
Yikes!
It’s enough to make you turn away from all this Christian business and
find an easier way to get by.
It is like the man who fell off a cliff, and halfway down, he caught hold of
a bush. As he hung high above the ground, he shouted, "Is anybody up
there?" Silence.
Again, he
shouted, "Is anybody up there?"
A voice
answered, "Yes, this is God."
The man yelled
frantically, "Please help me!"
There was another
moment of silence. Then God said, "Let go of the bush, and I will catch
you."
There was
another long silence as the man looked at the ground far below. Then, he
yelled, "Is anybody else up there?"
Surely sometimes we feel like that man
hanging halfway down the cliff. We do not
know where to turn. We hear so many
seductive voices blithering in our head.
And yet, we still hang in there. We still hold on to this Christian business
as our rock. You see, once long ago when
we were baptized (a baptism that here in this church we re-affirm every year),
we committed ourselves to listening above all to the voice of Jesus and so
anchoring our lives to something greater than ourselves, greater than the
spirit of our culture. And I pray that we
still have faith that we are being transformed – albeit slowly – and that
someday will really live out God’s dream for the world.
You see, I believe that we have what it
takes, with the help of God, within us – to be all God meant for us to be. It is etched on our hearts. It is a voice in our heads.
And I would suggest that, deep in our
hearts, we know what is right and good because the voice of God, the voice of
Jesus never stops proclaiming to us the essence of the Gospel message. And if we acknowledge all those other voices
we hear and one by one let them go, we will only have one voice left to guide
us, and it will be the voice we have been yearning to hear all along.
And so, we come to the end of this
Lenten season when we have been seeking ways to hear that voice – God’s voice –
the Spirit’s voice - above all the other voices. We have sought it in silence
and scripture. We have sought it in the
nooks and crannies of prayer walls and in the lighting of candles. Surely we have sought it in song, in the
music we have heard – the pianos and oboes and guitars and ukuleles.
As your pastor, I hope you have renewed
– or even found for the first time – a way (or ways) to connect with God
outside of worship. My prayer is that
you will continue to explore what you have discovered beyond Lent and that you
will most patiently and intentionally listen for the voice of God, the voice of
Jesus, the voice of the Gospel over all the other voices you will most
certainly hear – and that you will have the strength and the courage, with
God’s help, to act upon it.
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