Eucatastrophe!

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
November 28, 2010; 1 Advent; Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

    (Isaiah 2:1-5) – The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
        In days to come
           the mountain of the LORD's house
        shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
            and shall be raised above the hills;
        all the nations shall stream to it.
            Many peoples shall come and say,
        "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
            to the house of the God of Jacob;
        that he may teach us his ways
            and that we may walk in his paths."
        For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
            and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
        He shall judge between the nations,
            and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
        they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
            and their spears into pruning hooks;
        nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
            neither shall they learn war any more.
        O house of Jacob,
            come, let us walk
           in the light of the LORD!   

    (Matthew 24:36-44) – Jesus said to the disciples, "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

______________________________________________________________________

I have to beg forgiveness today because I didn’t ask permission.  I’m going to use a football analogy.  My wife hates football analogies.  She says life is too short; she’s given up sports for life.  I think some of her attitude was shaped by our first two years out of seminary.  I was assigned to a wonderful priest whom I loved working for, but he was a former football star.  It wasn’t every week, but it seemed like it, that the Gospel somehow connected with football.  In that brief time with him, he may used up a lifetime of football analogies for us.  But I’m going to try one more, begging your forgiveness.

I heard a football commentator this week talking about a certain attitude that some successful teams have.  “You have to be lucky,” he said, “to go undefeated.  But in some ways, successful teams create their own luck.”  He talked about a certain attitude that some teams carry.  They just believe that they are going to win.  When they are behind and it looks impossible, they expect that something is going to happen to open the door for them.  So, the commentator said, they are alert for that possibility – an unexpected fumble, a pass that ricochets.  They anticipate that something is going to happen, so they are just a bit quicker to react.  They get to the ball a split second faster than the team that lives with some dread that the game could get away from them.  Again.

Now, let me balance a football analogy with a literary one.  Better yet, I’ll use some Greek.  That’ll give me a whole other set of people to beg forgiveness from.  Among the words coined by the Oxford University scholar J. R. R. Tolkien in his works of high fantasy, there is the term eucatastrophe.  Tolkien attached the word eu – e u – meaning “good” to the word “catastrophe.”  A eucatastrophe is a sudden turn of events which looks disastrous yet produces a good outcome. 

At the end of The Lord of the Rings, as the evil lord Sauron seems poised for victory, Frodo the Hobbit horribly gives in to the power of the One Ring and claims it for his own.  All looks lost, yet his claiming provokes a struggle that ends with the destruction of the ring and the complete downfall of the Dark Lord and his tower.  The catastrophe turns good.  Eucatastrophe.  A cause for Eucharist – Thanksgiving.

Tolkien calls the incarnation of Jesus – God becoming human – the eucatastrophe of human history, and he calls the resurrection the eucatastrophe of the incarnation.(1)  We call the day of crucifixion “Good Friday.”  It is the source of our Great Thanksgiving, our Eucharist.

Advent invites us into a characteristically Christian attitude of hopeful expectation.  A certain attitude that believes that something is going to happen to open the door to God’s activity as grace – a sudden turn of events where even disaster will produce a good outcome.  It is a form of attention, like the successful football team that is waiting for the ball to bounce their way.  It is an attitude of poised readiness for action, waiting to respond, alert to react, to claim the impossible possibility of hope.  It is the opposite of anxiety.  And it is anxiety, isn’t it, that so often contributes to the creation of that which we are anxious about.

This week I became worried about a friend who is in a trying situation.  I want to help, or maybe even to fix the situation.  I have some very specific ideas about that.  They are ideas rooted in wanting to protect my friend, maybe even to help him escape from an ominous situation.  But he doesn’t want my help or my particular solutions.  He is intent on staying within the situation to try to find if there is some good that can come out of it.  I am given the challenging task to wait – to surrender my anxious solutions and simply to wait with him in support. 

I found myself feeling bad about that, carrying around something that sapped me of energy and joy.  Someone has said that depression is merely the impoverishment of imagination.  Depression is when we simply can’t imagine a world different than the one we are stuck in. (2)  Maybe I had attached myself to some certain solutions for my friend and thus anxiously lost the ability to imagine other more impossible possibilities. 

The critic Hugh Kenner once wrote: “Whoever can give his people better stories than the ones they live by is like the priest in whose hands common bread and wine become capable of feeding the very soul, and he may think of forging in some invisible smithy the uncreated conscience of his race.” (3)

I remember a passage from Lloyd Cassel Douglas’ book The Robe, where some of the characters who are Christians are traveling with a Roman soldier.  He notices their odd alertness.  Whenever they cross an intersection along the route, they seemed to slow, surveying each crossroad as if they were looking for someone who might be arriving from a different direction.  As they neared the crest of each hill, their pace inexplicitly would quicken until they reached the summit where they would slow just a bit, surveying the distance for something expected.  When the soldier asked them if they were looking for someone, they demurred mysteriously.  It was a friend they sought.  You never knew if he might show up, in the next mile, over the next hill, as the next person.  Unspoken; it is the resurrected Jesus whom they anticipate. 

The scriptures offer words attributed to Isaiah, speaking of a future when “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains.”  When “all the nations shall stream to it.”  When “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.”  When “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  The prophet tells them, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” 

Yet, in the composition of the book of Isaiah, these words are set ominously in a day when his nation was threatened from the south by Egypt and from the north by Assyria.  When politicians gave their anxious advice about how either to negotiate an escape or embrace war as a solution.  Isaiah urged them to a higher vision of an impossible possibility. 

In Matthew’s gospel today Jesus tells us to keep awake!  Catastrophes abound – like the flood of Noah sweeping people away in their ordinary day.  Keep awake for the coming of the thief.  But the thief that breaks into the house at the unexpected hour is Jesus.  Eucatastrophe!

You never know when he is breaking in.  It may be over the next hill or at the next intersection.  Even while we wait without imagination, blinded with our attachments, anxious to escape or fix. 

We have a better story.  We have a story of one who is with us as God’s own presence.  We have a story of one who has embraced all that can confront us.  We have a story of one who has defeated defeat, who has overcome death.  His only weapon is love.  His only armor is hope.  He tells us we will win.  He has already triumphed, so we are victorious. 

So keep your chins up.  (I won’t say keep your chinstraps buckled.)  Keep your spirits up and your hearts alive.  Keep your eyes open, alert to the unexpected possibility.  At any moment something ominous can turn for the good.  A ball will drop, an opportunity ricochet; a door will open; love will be on the other side.  In Jesus the game is already determined – you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.  Be strong.  Be of good faith.

Eucatastrophe happens!

_____________________

1.  With thanks to The Rev'd Theophus "Thee" Smith for a 12/2/07 sermon found on the website for St. Philip’s Cathedral, Atlanta, and the Wikipedia article on eucatastrophe.  Smith’s fine sermon is found here 

2.  William Lynch, S. J., Images of Hope; quoted by John R. Donahue, S. J., in an online edition of America: The National Catholic Weekly, Nov. 26, 2001; click here 

3.  from The Pound Era, by Hugh Kenner; quoted by Donahue, Ibid

Attachment

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
November 14, 2010; 25 Pentecost; Proper 28, Year C
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

    (Luke 21:5-19) – When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

    They asked him, "Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?" And he said, "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them.

    "When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

    "But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls."

________________________________________

Chuck was supposed to preach today, but he came down with bronchitis, so I’m pinch hitting for him.  I pulled this sermon from the file.  If you were here on November 18, 2001, you’ve already heard it, so feel free to take a nap.  I’m hoping your memory is a leaky as mine and it’ll sound new even if it’s not. 

There is a story that is supposed to be true, about a Benedictine archbishop of the High Middle Ages living in the days when people endowed the monasteries with great wealth and priceless art in exchange for the prayers of the monks.  The archbishop had been away on state business, and as he returned home to his grand castle, he could see that the estate was entirely engulfed in flames.  Quietly the archbishop watched his majestic home burn with all of its treasures within, and he was overheard saying with a rapt expression,  “Dear God, a burning fire is a beautiful thing to watch.”

One of the words that has crossed easily into both the language of the spirit and the language of psychology is the term attachment.  If you’ve worshiped for very long in this beautiful and holy place, you have probably formed some attachment to this very space.  If you walk in here and feel calm coming over you, if you look around and sense a rising feeling of peace – you have nurtured some attachment to this place of worship. 

Several years ago when I was the rector of St. John’s in Fort Smith, a tornado hit the downtown area, crossed over the Arkansas River and did great damage to Van Buren.  In the earliest moments of dawn, the Junior Warden Gene Rapley got into his car to go see about the church.  Gene Rapley had been brought up in that church; baptized as a child.  His parents had both been buried from that church.  He had chaired the capital funds drive to restore it.  He loves that church with all his heart. 

As he wound his way in the dark through the blocked streets and fallen limbs, it seemed to take him forever to get close to the downtown.  Reports made it sound like the tornado had hit right where the church was.  When he got a few blocks away from the church, the road was entirely blocked.  It looked like a war zone.  He could go no further. 

Gene got out of his car, and picked his way by flashlight and by the beginning streaks of eastern light.  I’ll never forget his face as he told me the story.  “I came up from C Street, not knowing if it would even be there;” then his voice broke and tears welled up, “and there she was.  Old St. Paul’s standing strong and proud,” and Gene dissolved with sobs of gratitude.

When we were in Jerusalem we joined Jewish pilgrims at the Wailing Wall, the only part still standing from the ancient Jerusalem temple.  Visitors touch the wall; they kiss its stones; they bow in reverence and read long passages of scripture; they tuck small notes of intercession into its ancient cracks.  It is that temple that Luke has Jesus speak of in this gospel: “When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’”

Even ancient and powerful and holy things are mere things.  Temporary, vulnerable, passing away.  They can serve as means to connect us with the divine, but they are not divine.  We were created for God, and only God will truly satisfy us.  We were created with a God-shaped vacuum within us, and only God can fill our deepest longing.  Everything we trust in short of God will fail; it is temporary, vulnerable, passing away. 

And yet, at the same time, all creation is good – infused with divine presence.  This church is a good and holy place where we find we can be drawn into a sense of God’s presence.  The Bible and the Sacraments are good and holy, and they connect us with the Divine and reveal God to us.  But all of these are still just things.  They point us toward the reality of the divine Mystery – but only God can satisfy us. 

So Jesus gives us warnings.  Don’t put your deepest trust in things.  Don’t become attached to that which is less than God.  And he points to the holiest object in their world and says to his friends, “All will be thrown down.” 

The reaction of those who hear him is one of predictable anxiety.  “When?  How will we know?”  Another attachment – the need to know; one of our desperate forms of control.  “You can’t know!” he tells them, “and don’t believe anyone who says they know.”  The enticing temptation of various forms of fundamentalism is their false promise of certainty in an uncertain world.  “Do not go after them,” Jesus says.  Surrender your need to know, and trust instead the divine mystery that is known in unknowing.

“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified.”  Jesus takes aim at another attachment – the need for security.  In a violent and fragile world, it is the way of humanity that there will be wars.  There will be earthquake and famine and plague.  We live in a vulnerable creation.  That’s the way it is.  There is nothing you can do to guarantee your safety.  Relax and accept reality, accept your vulnerability.  There are things which will threaten to make us afraid, to terrify us – portents and even signs from heaven.  Do not be afraid.  The living God of the resurrected One is greater than all these.  Your security lies deep within God’s mysterious divine life.

Jesus even goes further, and releases them from the need even to defend themselves, bodily or verbally.  “Don’t bother to prepare your defense in advance.  I’ll give you the words you need.”

Finally, he goes to our most intimate and vulnerable place.  Family.  You can’t even trust your own family.  Not ultimately.  And how many of us know that all too well. 

The spiritual journey is a journey toward pure faith in God.  That’s where our ultimate happiness lies.  God’s divine loving presence is always with us at the center of our being, breathing us into life.  God is our perfect security, perfect truth, perfect love.  Only God is great enough to fulfill our deepest needs. 

Everything else is a gift.  This place, that family, that earthquake, the next threat.  Underneath it all is the bedrock presence of God loving us into being.  So relax and be free.  “Not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

When you are no longer attached, clinging fearfully to what you are afraid to lose, you are free to enjoy everything.  You are as free to shed tears of gratitude when the tornado misses as you are free to enjoy the beauty of the fire.  You are as free to seek truth boldly as you are free not to know much with any certainty.  You are free to live safely within the wings of God’s divine care even as you are free to surrender your life in a moment in this unpredictable and vulnerable world.  You are free to speak openly and to love extravagantly even as you are free to suffer betrayal and sabotage without being undone.

You are free to use and enjoy every created thing in its appropriate way.  To care for this holy place and support its good work.  To love your family and to work and to grow.  But do all that accepting how temporary, vulnerable and passing away all is, except God.  And hold on to things lightly.  Don’t trust them.  Don’t trust them for your happiness.  No, trust God.  Only God is enough to make you happy; enough to satisfy you.  If you try to fill your appetite for God with something or someone else, you’ll just make a mess of things.  

____________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church 
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and it's life and mission, please contact us at -- P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373
More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org
Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org