"Not Who We're Going to Be"

“Not Who We’re Going to Be”

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

December 1, 2013; 1 Advent, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(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." 

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Advent themes. 

Do you know what time it is?  It is the moment for you to wake from sleep.  At an hour you cannot know, the Son of Man will come like a flood.  He will take one and leave another behind.  So be alert; be awake!  Be ready to change in the blink of an eye. 

But know that there will always be resistance.  The householder doesn’t want this divine thief to break in and change the status quo.  Those who are comfortable and empowered don’t like it when one is taken away, out of their influence, and they are left behind.  But like a thief, Jesus comes and liberates.  So be alert; be ready to awaken from your stupor. 

I heard an interview on KUAF’s Ozarks at Large last Friday.  Kyle Kellums was interviewing two Nashville songwriters who spoke of a bit of wisdom they picked up from another, more successful Nashville writer.  Rodney Crowell said, “I really struggled with my voice until I discovered I have to write songs only Rodney Crowell could write.” 

Much of the spiritual journey is learning to sing with your own voice – finding your true self – the authentic, unique person God has created you to be.  And sometimes, that is very different from how you started out. 

Kyle’s interview Friday morphed into a conversation about singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker.  He’s the guy who wrote Mr. Bojangles.  You probably know that song.  (And he’s a friend of parishioners Walt and Linda Eilers.)  Anyway, Jerry Jeff Walker is one of the renowned Texas Outlaws;  he’s known as the Texas Troubadour.  But he was actually raised in upstate New York, and his original name was Ronald Crosby. 

The guys Kyle was interviewing liked that story so much that they wrote a song they call Ancient History.  It starts with the words “Cassius Clay was Muhammad Ali,” and it continues with some great images of change:  Harold Jenkins was Conway Twitty; Roanoke, istoryVirginia is the Star City; Ervin Johnson was Magic Johnson; Richard Starkey was Ringo Starr; Frances Gumm was Judy Garland; the secret sauce was Thousand Island; the eighth world wonder was the Astrodome.  And the chorus that repeats throughout the song:  It is what it is / Not how it’s gotta be / From my point of obstructed view / We are who we are / Not who we’re gonna be / Every passing moment / Is ancient history.[i]

“We are who we are, not who we’re gonna be.” 

I hear stories from so many people who have come to St. Paul’s because they have found here a new way to be who they really are.  Some of them tell stories of coming from places where they were shamed, or frightened with guilt, or made to believe they couldn’t be themselves. 

One parishioner said, “I remember the day I suddenly knew, I couldn’t be the way they were – my family, my friends, my community.  I simply could never fit into their world and their world view.  I realized, for me to be sane – to be whole and real and authentic – I had to leave that place.  I love them, but staying there would have been like drowning.  I had to leave in order to breathe.” 

For him, it was like the drowning flood that Jesus speaks of in today’s gospel – two were working together, when the Lord came, and one was taken and one was left.  Jesus came like a thief, and snatched him away into a new life.  It was an Advent moment for him.

There are Advent moments when God’s reality breaks upon us, and we are changed.  Here’s how it happens for some people.  Many of us are told we’re not good enough, we don’t measure up.  Some of us went to churches that told us that we are totally depraved, that all human beings are sinners in the hands of an angry god, that we are judged and condemned, and that we deserve everlasting damnation. 

Christ’s Advent happens when we realize that’s not true – when we realize that God loves us and pours out divine love upon us continually and eternally.  When we realize that God made everything in creation and declared, “It is good!” 

We are fundamentally good, and God loves us.  To quote Thomas Keating:  “The fundamental goodness of human nature, like the mystery of the Trinity, Grace, and the Incarnation, is an essential element of Christian faith.  …Our basic core of goodness is our true Self.  Its center of gravity is God.  The acceptance of our basic goodness is a quantum leap in the spiritual journey.”[ii]

Did you hear that?  A quantum leap.  Lothar Schafer talked about quantum jumps in his three lectures about What Quantum Physics Reveals About How We Should Live.  Change tends to happen in jumps and leaps, including evolutionary change.  We may be living in a stable, even stuck place, thinking we are unworthy – that we are failures, we are misfits, we are unlovable – then all of a sudden grace breaks in.  We realize we are loved.  We are loveable.  We are good.  We have potential.  We can thrive.  We can be who we are – and Ronald Crosby leaves upstate New York behind; he becomes Jerry Jeff Walker and writes songs only Jerry Jeff Walker can write.

For most of us, these Advent quantum leaps seem to reoccur over and over in our lives, often around the same theme repeated at deeper levels of our spiritual consciousness.

Like my friend who felt he couldn’t fit in, could never measure up to the expectations of his home of origin.  He left home and found new space to be and new freedom to become who he really is.  But after a while he found himself again working to earn acceptance, yes, in a different, more compatible world, but it was in some way just another verse of the same old song.  Now he was trying earn his new friends’ approval, dancing the same old dance in a different key.  So in another Advent quantum leap, he quit trying to earn others’ acceptance, and became his own reference point.

But after a while, he found that he was an even harsher judge upon himself than his friends had been toward him.  And once again he had to go through the same Advent process of being taken away – this time he had to let Jesus come again and take him away – take him away from his own self-judgment. 

Now he says he’s struggling not to pass on the infection to another generation.  Not to act as he was taught to act; not to act in a judging way toward his children and his colleagues.

At ever deeper levels of consciousness, he is allowing the love of God to flood him and to take away the condemnation and to raise him out of the bondage that he has known.  “It is what it is / Not how it’s gotta be…  We are who we are / Not who we’re gonna be.” 

So be ready.  You know what time it is.  At any moment the love of Christ could come like a thief in the night to wake you from sleep and to snatch you out of your dark place of stuckness, to raise you to a new place of light, over and over, until you write the songs that only you can write, and find your voice to be the Word that God intends to speak and sing through you.

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[i] Peer Cooper and Eric Brace, Ancient History, sung on Ozarks At Large, KUAF, The Art of Writing a Song, 11/29/13.  http://www.kuaf.com/content/art-writing-song

[ii] Thomas Keating, Open Heart, Open Mind, 2006, p. 158

 

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How Do You Deal With Anger?

How Do You Deal With Anger?

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

November 24, 2013; Last Pentecost, Proper 29, Year C

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Luke 23:33-43)  When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

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(This sermon was first preached Nov. 21, 2004)

A

re you one of those people who was taught never to be angry.  Good girls, good boys, don't get angry.  Right? 

Wrong.

Anger is an inevitable emotion.  It is planted deep within our evolutionary inheritance.  In various places in scripture it is said that God becomes angry.

I like to say that anger is the appropriate emotion whenever anything or anyone you love is threatened.  Some bully tries to intimidate your little sister...; you are angry.  Anger is an emotion that energizes and motivates us for action, protective action on behalf of what we love. 

Our gospel story today is a picture of a collection of angry people.  "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God" scoff the religious leaders.  "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself," mock the soldiers of the political state.  Religion and politics, church and state are both angry at Jesus.  And for good reason.  He threatened what they loved.

Jesus challenged the religious conventions, teachings and power structures of his day.  First century Judaism was characterized by a rigid purity system that defined righteous and sinner, pure and impure, sacred and profane.  It was Biblically based, objective and clear.  It was also oppressive.  The system was enforced in part by powerful elites who held a monopoly on forgiveness and administered an unjust system of tithes and sacrifice through the Temple.

Jesus' teaching of easy, universal access to a forgiving, compassionate God whose sun and rain fall on just and unjust alike subverted everything they held as precious.  He threatened what they loved, and their resulting anger motivated them to stop him.

But he had to be a political threat to be executed.  Pilate and the Romans couldn't care less about whatever religious laws Jesus might have broken.  He was of interest to them only if he was a political threat.  But he began to attract crowds.  And riding into Jerusalem on a donkey accompanied by a Messianic demonstration was enough in the ruthless reign of Pilate.  The Romans loved order, power and control.  Anyone or anything that threatened what they love provoked the deadly anger of the state.

So we see the fruits of anger.  The religious and political authorities stand together at the cross, scoffing and mocking the one who formerly threatened what they love. 

A

nger is contagious.  One of the criminals picks it up and joins the crowd.  "Aren't you the Messiah?  Save us!"  In the insanity that mob anger creates, he joins the victimizing rage of his own executioners. 

But the other criminal does something else.  He looks about with a bit of objectivity and self-reflection, rare commodities in an emotionally charged atmosphere.  "Jesus," he says simply.  "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."  What gentle, kind words in a cauldron of anger.

And Jesus.  At the center of this vortex of anger.  What is his state of mind?  "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."  Amazing.

H

ow do you deal with anger? ...the anger of others and your own?  Whenever anything you love is threatened, what do you do? 

At our best, we'll try to maintain some composure.  Maybe like the criminal on the cross who looks around objectively and self-reflectively, we'll try to bring some rationality and understanding to the situation.  That rarely works, does it?  It probably didn't work for the good criminal.  He points out to the raging one, "Look, we deserve this.  Get off his back."  How much do you think the angry criminal appreciated that insight?  Not much, I imagine.  Instruction and rational argument rarely change minds, it seems. 

I don't have a lot stake anymore in the notion that if you just explain your ideas persuasively enough, people who disagree with you will come about.  Happens pretty rarely, doesn't it?  That doesn't mean it's not worth the effort.  Rational discourse is at the heart of civilized life.  But I've come to expect modest results.

I remember a conversation with a sincere pastor from another denomination who is convinced that I am apostate and my congregation will probably be going to hell because of our heretical Episcopal ways.  We talked rationally and passionately, with good will, for about an hour.  No minds were changed.  We both went away much like we began, and the best we both could say probably was "Father forgive him, he doesn't know..."  Never put your satisfaction into results that involve changing another.  We are almost powerless to change another human being.

But we do have some modest influence over our own selves, our hearts and minds.  However, in my experience, I'd have to emphasize that word "modest."  It's hard for us to change.  It's hard for me to change, especially about things that I have a lot of passion about.  That's where prayer helps.  Especially when we're angry about something.  When something we love has been threatened.

How do you deal with your anger?

M

y friend Barbara Crafton who's visited St. Paul's in our McMichael series talks about the problem of our carrying anger toward people whom we might see as adversaries or enemies, people who threaten what we love.  She suggests that we place them first on our prayer list.  Before we pray for those we love (that's easy); pray for your enemies.  Picture them being showered with God's light and grace.  But do so for only a moment, not long.  Otherwise, we're tempted to start our lectures and tapes about their wrongs. 

How do you deal with your anger?  See those who provoke you bathed in God's light and grace.  And then move on in your prayer and in your life.

Prayer is a mystery.  Who knows how God may use our prayer as part of what God is doing to heal the world?  But primarily what prayer does is to change us.  Such a prayer as seeing God's light and grace showering our adversary can change our hearts.  It can help our appropriate anger whenever someone or something we love is threatened.  It can help that natural anger not grow into unhealthy resentment and rage – which is anger directed outward – or bitterness and depression – which is anger directed inward.  Such a prayer can give us space, so that if we are drawn to any speech or action, we are more likely to be more objective and self-reflecting like the good criminal, or maybe even forgiving like Jesus.

What good does it do?  That depends on your perspective.  At the end of the day on Good Friday, the good will of the compassionate criminal and of the forgiving Jesus changed nothing objectively.  All three were dead.  The religious and political threats had been eliminated with the efficient violence of state justice.  But from another perspective, everything had changed. 

When Jesus absorbed evil upon the cross, and all its lesser cousins – ignorance, control, pride, insecurity, lust and hunger for power, even well-intentioned anger – when Jesus absorbed all of those without returning any of it, Jesus broke the vicious cycle and defeated death itself. 

R

esurrection happens.  It's what God does with death. 

Jesus invites us to participate in a profound act of resistance.  He invites us to refuse to take the bait that turns anger into rage or resentment.  He invites us to refuse to sink to the level of the provocation.  I imagine the raging criminal offered entertainment to the mockers as they listened to him rant.  That's what they expected. 

But Jesus on the cross, refusing to return their hostility, subverts their world.  It is a subversive act of power to refuse to enter the vortex of the self-reinforcing cycles of inflating anger.  I'll bet it troubled Jesus' adversaries to hear his words, "Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."  That's unexpected.  That'll cause anger to pause.  I'll bet they remembered that, and were haunted.  That's how we can participate in what God is doing to heal the world.

A

nger happens.  It is the appropriate reaction whenever anything you love is threatened.  But what will we do with our angers?  Right now, they are at the front of my prayer list.  I'm asking God's shower of grace and love upon those who represent the greatest threats to what I love.  That's probably the only thing that will prevent my contributing to the vicious circles all around us. 

"Father forgive me; I don't know what I'm doing either.