July 10, 10:30am (Kevin Westling)
I have said it before and you will hear me say it again and again… No one is here by accident. I do NOT mean “Everything happens for a reason.” In fact I do not believe that everything happens for a reason any more than I believe that wealth and power is a sign of God’s blessing – which is the ever-popular theology of Capitalism. What I mean is, you and I are here to carry on what Ezekiel promised: They shall know there has been a prophet among them. You and I have been chosen, or invited if you prefer, for prophetic witness; and, in order to succeed as prophets we must be nestled, must be nurtured, in the womb of community. That is what this is, by the way.
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SERMONS AT TRINITY
Sunday, July 5, 2009
“ The reason you are here”
The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
I have said it before
and you will hear me say it again and again…
No one is here by accident.
I do NOT mean “Everything happens for a reason.”
In fact I do not believe
that everything happens for a reason
any more than I believe
that wealth and power is a sign of God’s blessing –
which is the ever-popular theology of Capitalism.
What I mean is, you and I are here
to carry on what Ezekiel promised:
They shall know
there has been a prophet among them.
You and I have been chosen,
or invited if you prefer,
for prophetic witness; and,
in order to succeed as prophets
we must be nestled,
must be nurtured,
in the womb of community.
That is what this is, by the way.
You see, Jesus was right on, when he said:
“A prophet is not without honor,
except in her hometown,
and among his own kin, and in her own house…”
I am guessing you know exactly what that means
because you have had the personal experience of being marginalized or silenced or invisible…
when you have tried to speak truth-to-power,
or simply
a little uncomfortable candor
in your hometown,
among your own family and friends,
and in your own home.
I suspect those words resonate with you,
somewhere deep down inside,
and you know what it is like
to be the odd one out
because you see
and you know
what others have found blinders to ignore.
Maybe you haven’t always spoken up:
we all know the pressure to sit on that voice,
as if placing a weight on a Jack-in-the-box
so that damn thing doesn’t pop up
and make everybody uncomfortable again.
But the voice is in there
and you hear it
and you know what Jesus is talking about
when he says the prophet is not without honor
except in his or her own house.
You are not alone.
Look around, there are others here just like you.
That is what I mean,
you are not here by accident.
And once here,
waiting for you and me
in this womb of community, is:
Bread newly taken from God’s heart,
from the divine heart’s own oven.
In other words,
waiting for us here,
is a word for you and me to carry and to speak;
Bread, newly taken from God’s heart,
fresh and warm for you and me to take with us…
out there.
That word may be waiting for you
in the lyrics and verses of the worship,
or evoked by the music,
or stimulated by the sermon,
or found in the moment of prayer,
or heard on the voice of someone you speak with,
or in the midst of some class or program
or outreach that you are engaged in.
But it is here,
somewhere in this womb of community,
waiting for you and me to take it with us
and carry it to the next person or people
who need to hear it.
It must not be left here because this is a womb,
a place to receive
food that comforts and nourishes…
A loaf that makes us human,
(where we) join hand in hand…
But words left here, die here,
because they have a limited gestation period.
The word has to leave here
and be heard by all those others
who need to hear it,
even if they don’t know they needed it…
even if they don’t want to hear it.
Ezekiel wasn’t called by God
and given that word,
so that he could be a more spiritual person.
Jesus was not called by God
and given that word,
so that he could be powerful, famous and invincible.
Jesus’ disciples were not called by God
and given their words,
so that they could be a merry little band of pixies
with secret knowledge.
And you and I were not called here by God
and offered our words,
so that we could be more successful contributors
to the pursuit of happiness.
I realize that may not be what you thought
you came here for.
Maybe we arrived here as consumers of spirituality.
Maybe we started out as dutiful
subscribers to religion.
Maybe we were dragged here
out of someone else’s interest.
Maybe we thought by coming here
we could get forgiven,
saved,
holy and non-anxious
about the darkness between us and the grave.
But none of that is why we are here now.
We are here to hear that word…
We are not here by accident,
but we are here to receive that word.
And it is a word that,
once heard,
will trouble us deeply.
It will act like a low rumble inside,
the volume of a whisper.
That word will gently pulsate inside.
It is just a little word,
a teeny, tiny drop in the ocean of thoughts
that form the field of vision
from which we view the universe.
But…
While a single drop of rain falls upon a pond
and isn’t noticed on its own,
it can join in a crescendo of drops
that thunder into a flood,
that overruns the banks of the pond,
that spills into the river,
that overruns its banks and levies and dams
and changes the landscape forever!
Okay, that is only the first half of this sermon.
Here is the second half.
Please considered how difficult it might be to play basketball if you are Michael Jordan’s teenage son;
or play tennis if you were Chrissie Everett’s daughter;
or golf if you were Tiger Wood’s son or daughter.
Now ponder the problems
of Jesus’ brothers and sisters.
Or his mother.
We can get to the discomfort of being Jesus
by coming through the back door of his family.
Jesus is known as “the son of Mary”.
No man in those days
was known as the son of his mother
unless his father was unknown.
To have Jesus referenced as the son of Mary, as in,
“Isn’t this Mary’s son?”
is a reminder of a scandalous history
that just won’t die in a small town.
Likewise, to be Jesus’ brothers –
as in James, Joses, Judas, and Simon –
is to be associated with whatever your brother does…
guilt by association.
“Hey James, isn’t that your crazy brother?
It must run in the family!”
There is an earlier story in the gospel of Mark,
in the third chapter,
when the painful fracture in the bond of his family
is made explicit.
At one point Jesus is at his house in Nazareth,
and on this particular occasion
it is reported that a crowd had gathered
seeking healing for their woundedness…
for their brokenness.
From way in the back,
perhaps out in the alley because they can’t get through, Mary and Jesus’ siblings appear.
The narrator of the story tells us
that the reason they arrived is to take Jesus home
because they think he is possessed –
literally, beside himself it says.
Someone in the crowd yells out,
“Hey Jesus,
your mother and brothers and sisters are here”.
Jesus,
knowing why they came,
yells back:
“Oh yeah, well they aren’t my family,
you are – these people here are my family.”
So you see, his own family thought he was nuts.
Long before Jesus is rejected by his neighbors
at the old family synagogue,
Jesus had to contend with the painful distance
between a prophet and his or her family.
But we need to remember both sides bleed:
it is painful to be his parent and his siblings too.
Jesus’ family becomes suspect
because he is suspect.
His notoriety only serves to keep the scandal of his birth fresh and dogging his mother
for the rest of her life.
His shame is their shame.
And that is the real rub:
they are ashamed…but apparently he is not.
He has a vision they do not see…
He has a knowledge they do not know…
He has a purpose they do not share.
And so goes the prophet.
A prophet is not a predictor of future events.
A prophet is simply someone who has heard the word that God has given them…
A prophet becomes the lips of God…
If indeed we have ever thought about
that word or the role before,
it is likely that we think of people like
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
But actually, Rev. King was an ordinary minister
who really wanted to be an academic not a prophet.
That is often true of the famous prophets –
people like Oscar Romero and Mahatma Gandhi.
But Rev. King had the same issues
with his family and friends
as you and I do when we speak up.
At the time of the Civil Rights Movement,
Rev. King’s popularity ebbed and flowed
even among his own inner circle.
At one point,
Rev. King almost single-handedly
battled against the entire leadership
of the Civil Rights Movement
by deciding to engage in criticism of the
Viet Nam War as a racist war.
He insisted that Viet Nam
was a platform from which to confront racism
and that got him in trouble with everyone
near and far.
Like all prophets,
he was out-of-step with his own colleagues –
as in, a step ahead.
But unlike the stereo-type,
prophets are rarely wild-eyed zealots like John Brown,
marching off to glory
like a moth burning itself in the heat of a flame.
Moses, Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, Ezekiel, Jesus…
They were either well-ensconced
members of the establishment
when they first heard their word, and spoke it;
or they were innocent by-standers
who were abruptly selected for the job and immediately retired into obscurity afterward –
if indeed they made it out alive.
Okay, that is a dramatic enough build up
for a relatively simple task
you and I have been offered here.
Here is what the prophet does,
or what each one of us does once we hear the word.
We hold up the distance between
what we say we believe and how we live.
That’s all.
Once we hear the word waiting for us,
all we need to do is use what we hear
to reveal the distance
between what the people around us say we believe,
and how we actually live.
We can do it with gentleness,
sophistication,
elegance and style,
or in a grittier, more assertive way.
It is up to us and our own gifts and skills.
Being prophetic does not require fame,
public histrionics, or anything terribly heroic.
All it really requires is for us to begin saying
what we already know to be true,
and give voice to a vision
we already know to be possible.
The only reason it feels hard and scary
is that we are under the same judgment.
When we point out the distance between
what we say we believe and how we actually live,
we are including ourselves –
in fact,
it is in our own lives that we most often hear it
and see it
and feel it
clear enough to voice it to others.
So it is scary
because it is also a public confession of our own stuff.
And it is scary
because we want other people to like us
and love us
and affirm us.
But deep down,
once we hear the word God has invited us to carry,
it does not give us any satisfaction or joy
to have others affirm and love us
if we have not been able to be open with them.
So you and I are not here by accident.
We were invited here.
We were guided here.
We were drawn here.
And the reason is that we are prophets.
You and I have been given a word to carry to others,
“That they shall know there has been a prophet among them.”
