Where Does It Hurt?

Sermon

Feb. 25, 2018

Based on Mark 8:31-38

“Where Does It Hurt?”

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            I don’t know about you but I’ve been a bit moody lately. I know I’m not the only one. A few days ago I was having dinner with a group of friends. One of them was talking about how grumpy everyone was at work that day. But she said to herself, “I have life group tonight!” She was looking forward to getting together for dinner at Cap City Diner with her friends. I was too. It was good, uplifting, to be with a group of friends, to laugh, to talk about what’s going on in our lives, just be together, when you are feeling moody.

            Maybe it’s the weather. These several days of rain is like a wet blanket on our spirits. Or maybe it’s been the emotion of the past few weeks, what happened in Westerville, and in Parkland, Florida, that has people feeling a little moody. Maybe you’re feeling fine and care free. But a lot of people are feeling some stress, even a little anxiety. The shadow of suffering is creeping over the land and we are looking for relief.

            And that’s what makes the scripture passage this morning hard for me to talk about. There’s no relief found in this passage. Instead, it’s Jesus making the first of three predictions about what life has in store for him, persecution, misunderstanding, rejection, beating, crucifixion, and resurrection. Resurrection sounds great, but none of the other stuff. It would be nice to go straight to resurrection and bypass all the suffering. But that’s not how it works. Rather than avoid the suffering, Jesus is moving right into it and bids his followers to do the same. We want relief from suffering, but that’s not what Jesus offers. And that’s why it is hard to talk about this passage in this season when for many of us the shadow of suffering lurks.

            I very much sympathize with Peter. They had been waiting for a savior who God would send to make everything right, to restore Israel to its proper place of glory and power, to put Rome in its place, to bring back the glory days. Jesus is that messiah. Peter and the rest are in on it. They are Jesus’ posse, positioned to be a part of the restoration of Israel. But then Jesus starts saying things that don’t match with what Peter had in mind how things were supposed to play out.

            If Jesus is the messiah, he’s the one who should be persecuting those who are not being faithful to God’s ways. Why should he be the one being persecuted? If Jesus is the messiah, he is the one who should be rejecting the false and corrupt leaders. Why should he be the one rejected? If Jesus is the messiah, he should be overseeing the punishment of the oppressors and the lifting up of the oppressed. Why should he be the one who is beaten and crucified, to suffer at the hands of the oppressor he was sent to take out? How is it that the liberator is to achieve the work of liberation by being crushed by the oppressor? Sure, Jesus talked about coming back to life after three days, defeating the power of death. I wished he said more about what happens after he comes back to life. But he doesn’t. He says a lot about what happens before his resurrection and that’s what Peter finds so disturbing. It’s disturbing enough for Peter to take the initiative to pull Jesus aside and tell the messiah that he shouldn’t be talking like that. It’s making Peter uncomfortable and a little confused.

            Jesus is not sympathetic to Peter’s sensitivity. You feeling uncomfortable and confused? Too bad. Get behind me! You are either going to follow me or you can walk. You have your mind on human things instead of divine things. You’re thinking that my work as messiah is going to play out like humans have always done it, exchanging one oppressor for another, to the victor goes the spoils, rule or be ruled, to be king of the hill you have to pull down the person at the top of the hill first. That’s how humans think but that’s not how God thinks. God’s power is not one of domination but of love, justice, liberation, compassion, and never, never walking away and abandoning anyone, an intense and unshakable solidarity. That’s how God thinks and that’s not how Peter was thinking. So Jesus tells Peter he needs to get his thinking straight.

            But it doesn’t get any easier when Jesus calls the disciples together, along with the rest of the crowd that happened to be standing around at the time, and he tells them what being his follower means. To be a follower of Jesus, to live your life guided by divine thinking rather than human thinking, then you’re going to have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus’ way of suffering, persecution, rejection, death, and resurrection to new life. The way of Jesus is not a way that bypasses suffering but instead walks right through it. Who wants that?

            This, for me, is why this passage is hard to talk about right now. In a time when there is already a lot of suffering in the world, when we all could do with a lot less suffering, how do you apply this teaching about bearing your cross in times like these? Rather than being relieved from suffering and death Jesus calls us to follow by walking with him toward suffering and death. It’s a difficult teaching to talk about.

            I’m not even sure where to begin to unpack this teaching and connect it with our daily lives. And I don’t know how far to take this. What I want to talk about barely scratches the surface of the call to follow Jesus from suffering, to death, to resurrection life. This is deep work, hard work, life-long work. And each of us comes at it from different places. Some of us are farther along in this than others of us. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, what I’m going to say is inadequate to the task at hand and may not fully connect with you and your relationship with Jesus. But, I guess that’s true for all my sermons. So I invite you to stick with me and see if any of this resonates with your own experience.

            Let me start by setting our minds at ease. When we consider our discipleship, this is not about our salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. We don’t earn our salvation. We don’t have to make the grade as a disciple of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. If you were to believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the grave you will be saved. That’s the simple gospel message, the message that Billy Graham proclaimed in a myriad of different ways before millions of people over several decades. Salvation and discipleship are two different things. The criminal on the cross who asked Jesus to remember him when he entered into his kingdom was told by Jesus that that very day he would enter into paradise. Christ has died for our sins. We are forgiven. If we believe this then our salvation is made effective. That is the great news of God’s grace.

            But what does it mean to be saved? What are we saved from? We are saved from bondage to the powers of sin and death. We believe that Jesus has broken those chains. And although we continue to fall short, and although we remain mortal and will experience physical death, we claim that in Christ these powers do not have the final word, that there is something else, that we can live our lives more free from sin, and that we will live forever with God, although our physical life will end. So this is what salvation is about. But is there more? Is the reality of salvation only something we experience after we die?

            See, we are meant to live free from the powers of sin and death in this life. It’s not something reserved for life on the other side of the grave. We can live in freedom now. We can live a full and abundant life now. We can experience a taste of resurrection life now. Even now, we can be made new. What does that mean? How do we do that?

            When I was a kid, I was on the receiving end of a lot of bullying. I was an easy target. From maybe around third grade until about half way through high school I was bullied by someone. And it hurt. Being bullied hurts. No one wants to be bullied. I still feel a little tightness in my chest when I encounter bullying or learn of someone who was bullied. How do you get free from that if you have experienced the bullying? What if you were the one who was doing the bullying? To get released from the bondage of bullying, it is necessary to get in touch with where it hurts. Where does it hurt? I wonder how many people who engage in bullying behavior have experienced abuse in their own lives and they are striking out at others rather than work through the suffering. I wonder how many people who have been bullied strike into themselves rather than work through the suffering. To get free from the bondage of bullying and experience a kind of resurrection into new life, can you come alongside someone who loves you, who asks you the question, “where does it hurt?”

            I don’t remember what network it is, but for several years now you can watch a program that’s about intervention. In each episode, one or two people and their families are followed around and interviewed. In each family there is at least one person is addicted to some kind of substance, either alcohol or narcotics. In every episode you hear about pain, how the addicted person is trying to numb their pain, deep pain they have experienced somewhere in their family history. At the same time, the rest of the family talks about their own pain, the pain inflicted on them by the addict along with the dysfunction of their own family. It all leads up to the intervention, where the addict is told by their family how much they are loved but also confronted with a choice, to either get help right then or lose contact with their family. Sometimes the addict turns it down but most of the time they accept the offer and go into rehab. It’s the same basic story over and over. And that’s how addicts make their way towards freedom from the bondage of addiction, which is to confront and work through the question, “Where does it hurt?” Freedom from addiction requires taking up your cross, walking through the suffering, dying to that part of yourself so that you can experience a sort of resurrection into a new life. An addict and their family can’t get there unless they come along someone who loves them and can ask the question, “Where does it hurt?”

            Last week, I joined twenty five other people throughout the country to participate in an on-line learning experience called “The Practice of Showing Up: The Spirituality of Anti-Racist Work.” It is an opportunity for white people who are dedicated to dismantling systems of oppression to come together and work through the damage that these systems of oppression has inflicted on us as white people. Oppression not only hurts the oppressed, it hurts the oppressor as well in subtle but real ways. It does damage to the soul. One of the points the facilitators make is that anti-racist work is trauma work. That’s where the spirituality of anti-racist work, or justice work generally, comes into play. Working for a more just world, where systems of oppression are dismantled so that people are free to be their whole, best selves, is trauma work. It is spiritual healing work. And so, as we move into this time together, we are going to be looking at our own family histories, we are going to reflect on our own complicity in structures of oppression that we receive advantages from, often without even realizing it, we are going to come alongside each other with love and address the question, “Where does it hurt?” Freedom from bondage to racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, requires taking up our crosses, walking into the places of suffering, let something of ourselves die so that we can experience a sort of resurrection into new life. Tearing down systems of oppression must include coming along someone who loves you who can ask you the question, “Where does it hurt?”

            To experience freedom from the sin and death that binds us, to experience a sort of resurrection into new life, we have to walk with Jesus, pick up our crosses and go where it hurts. We have to confront the suffering. We cannot deny it, become numb to it, let suffering control us, or bypass it. We have to pick up our crosses of suffering, whatever that looks like, so that we can lose that life of hurt and suffering, die to that kind of life and be resurrected into new life.

            But we can’t do it alone. It’s too hard. We too easily deceive ourselves about what binds us. We deflect. Or we close in on ourselves, afraid to be vulnerable, afraid of “going there,” where the pain lives. Too often we suffer in silence. And the suffering itself binds us, even sapping the life from us, slowly killing our souls. We need others in our life who love us, people who also suffer and are seeking to confront and be set free from that which causes our suffering, that which binds and destroys. We have to carry our crosses of suffering and death together. That’s what we are at our best, a cross-carrying community.

            What would that look like for us? What would it be like if we were a community who have determined to take up our crosses and walk the path of suffering, death and resurrection? Try to imagine it now. Imagine that you are surrounded by fellow sufferers, people who are broken and hurt just like you are, people who love you and will not reject you or abandon you. Imagine you are in a circle of friends who can ask you the question, “Where does it hurt?” I think all of us need that kind of community. I believe that this community gathered here has the makings of becoming more like the kind of community we need. Are we willing to go there? Are we willing to lay our defenses down, make ourselves vulnerable, and venture into where it hurts?

Transforming the Wilderness into Eden

Sermon

Feb. 19, 2018

Based on Mark 1:9-13

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

It was brought to my attention that there have not been 18 school shootings so far this year. A more accurate number would be 5. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/no-there-havent-been-18-school-shooting-in-2018-that-number-is-flat-wrong/2018/02/15/65b6cf72-1264-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html?utm_term=.1372edab43d4

            Once again, we have entered into the season of Lent. This is a period of time set aside for inner reflection, repentance, abstinence, sacrificial giving. It is a time for us to be more serious about our relationship with God. We up our game, so to speak. And we take the time to do this because we know what comes next – the holiest week of the year for us, the week that leads to the great celebration of Easter. So it is a time for sober reflection, of prayer, fasting and giving of alms as the traditional pattern calls for.

            So I invite you to imagine beginning this journey toward Easter as a journey in the wilderness. We heard in the scriptures that Jesus began his journey to the cross by spending forty days in the wilderness. So let your journey to the cross begin in the wilderness as well.

            What is the wilderness like? I will be the first to tell you that I have never been in the wilderness. I have never been far from a road that can take me to a convenience store in a short period of time. But when I think about wilderness, I imagine there are no roads, no towns, no services, no internet. Not only are you off the grid, you are off the map. Something could happen to you and it might take days, even weeks, for someone to find you, if you ever get found. The wilderness is a place where you must be resilient when the unexpected happens. You have to make do, get creative with the resources you have, don’t let anything go to waste. To be in the wilderness requires a great deal of self-discipline. You can’t drink all the water the first two days you are out there. The canned peaches are going to need to last awhile so maybe eat only a couple slices a day. The wilderness is a place where there are wild animals, snakes, nasty biting insects. Did I say snakes? Wilderness is not tamed. It is wild-erness. The human footprint is minimal to non-existent. In the wilderness we have to do the civilizing and ordering ourselves. It has not been done for us. In the wilderness, we have to make a place to dwell. We have to create the space in which we will live. We have to transform the wildness into a garden.

            So how do we experience the wilderness? Of course, we could head for Alaska. There is plenty of wilderness there. But does wilderness have to be a geographic place? I wonder if for most of us our experience of the wilderness is of a different type. It is more like a way to describe the state of our souls. It is an inner reality. We can think of times in our lives where we didn’t know where we were going and there were no maps or roads to lead us to where we wanted to be. Maybe that wilderness experience was a time of loss. You left home and were living in a new city where you didn’t know anyone. Everything was strange. Where’s the grocery store? Where do I get my haircut? Where’s the bank? How does the mass transportation system work? You are surrounded by strangers and feel alone. And you have to make your home in the wilderness of this strange new city. Or maybe you have experienced the wilderness due to a dramatic change of life circumstances. Your career has ended, either through retirement, or those jobs disappeared, or for whatever reason you can’t work in that field anymore. Now what do you do? Part of your identity was wrapped up in that job and now it’s gone, along with a part of who you are. Your life is different now. It feels untethered, adrift. Little is familiar now that you don’t get up in the morning to go to work and you don’t have a paycheck to deposit. The world goes on but you are just lost. Life has become like a wilderness. Or maybe your wilderness has been spiritual in nature. Your relationship with God used to be vibrant. You would come to worship on Sunday, sing the hymns, be moved by the special music, and get all the God bumps. You would dive into the word for your daily devotion, have an ongoing conversation with God all day long, consistently sense God’s presence. But now all that is gone. Your spiritual life is as dry as a desert. You haven’t sensed God’s presence in a long time. You come to worship and sing the hymns but it’s just going through the motions of the Sunday morning routine. Your Bible sits there collecting dust. Your life is grey, uninspired, devoid of meaning or direction. And you feel like you are all alone. That’s what the wilderness can be like.

            We hear that after Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, as he came up from the water the Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove that descended from the heavens that were ripped open as a voice says from heaven, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness. He was not led by the Spirit, as Matthew and Luke have it. No he was driven. Jesus was expelled from civilization, pushed into the wilderness. And while he spent forty days in the wilderness, Mark tells us three things about his time there: he was tempted by Satan, lived with the wild animals, and was tended to by angels. What are we to make of this? Mark is incredibly sparing with the details. It is like he has left the storyteller an outline and left it up to the storyteller to fill in the details, to put flesh on the bones. So I’ve been working on trying to fill out the story. I suggest to you that what we have in Jesus’ time in the wilderness is a reversal of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Jesus spends his time in the wilderness beginning the work of transforming the wilderness into a garden.

            Consider the parallels. According to Gen. 3:24, Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden. Jesus was driven into the wilderness. Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan and gave in to the temptation. Jesus was tempted by Satan but did not give in to the temptation. Adam and Eve lived with the wild beasts in their time in Eden. Jesus lives with the wild beasts in his time in the wilderness. There is a tradition that angels tended to the needs of Adam and Eve when they lived in Eden. Here angels tend to Jesus while he lives in the wilderness. I believe that what Mark is suggesting without explicitly saying it is that Jesus is the new Adam whose essential ministry is to transform the wilderness of this world into the new Eden, to bring everything back to the way it was before the Great Fall. Jesus’s ministry is at its core the ministry of restoration.

            Now if this is true, if this is what Mark is trying to communicate, what do we do with this? Perhaps in our own wilderness experiences we can once again look to Jesus, who is our companion, our friend, our brother. We can draw comfort and strength by affirming in faith that Jesus walks with us through our lives. Sometimes he is even carrying us. We can look to the teachings of Jesus as a guide for how we are to live our daily lives. While we still roam the wilderness at least we have a set of ethical teachings so that we know how to treat other people, know what to value, what matters most in life. We can live our lives in the wilderness claiming our identity as those who represent Christ in the world. We can operate out of the conviction that we are part of the body of Christ even as we try to make sense of the spaces in which we live or make our way with low spiritual vitality.

            Maybe we can join with Mark and place our hope on Jesus, the one who restores life, who can transform our wilderness experience into something new, something life giving, something like Eden. Perhaps.

            What if we look to what Jesus does in the wilderness and frame it as a way we are to live as Christ followers? What would it mean for us who live in the wilderness of this world to resist the temptations of Satan, to live with the wild animals, and to be tended to by angels? Let’s take a few minutes and reflect on what living our wilderness wandering life after the pattern of Jesus might look like.

            First, what would it mean for us to resist the temptations of Satan? That’s a constant struggle, isn’t it? The ways we are tempted are of such variety, intensity and subtlety that it is impossible for me to enumerate them. Each of us is tempted by Satan in ways customized to each one of us. And it is relentless. Until we draw our last breath the temptations will come. And let’s face it, Jesus could overcome the temptations of Satan because he’s Jesus. We are not as fortunate. In fact, we may be tempted to not even try to resist, but to give in to the temptations. The temptation to surrender, to fall into despair, is real. But when that temptation is resisted, something beautiful happens.

            This past week in Westerville has been nothing short of amazing. Never before had Westerville lost a police officer in the line of duty and Saturday a week ago two were shot and killed. Now the temptation was to let anger win the day. But whatever anger there is has been completely overwhelmed by love and support. In thousands and thousands of unique ways, the community has surrounded the officers that remain to let them know that they have the support of the community. Westerville has come together like I have rarely seen a community do. This evil action became the catalyst for an amazing outpouring of love and commitment to keep Westerville as a great place to live. Westerville resisted the temptations of Satan this week, and it was an amazing thing to experience.

            We turn to the eighteenth school shooting in the first 45 days of the year. It was on Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day. Seventeen people were killed and many more injured by one young man armed with an AR-15. We’ve seen this before. For some, I believe an increasing number of us, what happened on Wednesday is no longer shocking. We’ve lived through this pattern so many times. The temptation here is for despair, of regretful acceptance that school shootings are the new normal. Will we as a society give in to that temptation? I fear that after Newtown that this is exactly what we as a nation did. I hope I’m wrong. I hope that if we have fallen into the temptation of despair that we will repent and commit as a nation to do whatever it takes to assure that school shootings are so rare that they become shocking again. Maybe it has to start with you and me refusing to settle for what happened in Parkland as just the way things are in America. We can’t have the society God longs for if we succumb to the temptation of despair.

            I want to talk quickly about these two other parts of Jesus’ time in the wilderness, where he lived with the wild beasts and where angels tended to him. I think we can connect Jesus living with the wild beasts as pointing to our responsibility to be faithful stewards of creation. Jesus didn’t kill the wild beasts. He didn’t domesticate the wild beasts. He didn’t lock the wild beasts in cages or turn them into pets. He lived with the wild beasts, just like how Adam and Eve lived with the wild beasts. That’s how we ought to approach our relationship with the environment. Now, let’s face it, we as a species have done a lot of domestication of the wild. Zoos have an important mission so I’m not running them down. But it still seems to me that zoos are not quite what God intends. We as a species have done quite a job dominating the environment. And a growing number of people are drawing the conclusion that our impact on the environment has triggered the sixth great extinction. That is what we are living in now. It is happening. What we are left with is to try to mitigate the impact of the extinction and hope that we are not one of the species that will become extinct. That’s just where we are. So how can we be mindful of our impact on the environment? What choices can we make, what actions can we take to live with the environment rather than dominate or destroy it?

            Finally, a word about being tended to by angels. One of my favorite scriptures is Hebrews 13:2. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hospitality to strangers: this is what we are supposed to do. And by hospitality I don’t mean tea and cookies. I mean creating a space of mutual sharing. A space where the host offers to the guest a comfortable space, food and drink and the guest offers the host a story, words of wisdom, or a good laugh. Hospitality is about mutuality. It is about seeing in the face of the stranger the face of a potential angel who has something to offer you. Can you see how radical it is to look at the stranger as not someone to fear or hide from but as someone who has something you need? A wilderness of strangers becomes transformed into a host of secret angels waiting to be coaxed out of hiding through your hospitality. We should try to engage strangers in this way and see what happens. I wonder how it might transform our society if we did.

            There are times when the world seems so dangerous, so damaged and broken, that we would rather stay enclosed, whether that be inside the church, inside our homes, inside our circle of friends and family, inside ourselves. We want to wall ourselves off from all the crazy wilderness that is the world in which we live. But the Spirit drives us into the wilderness. We are driven into this society in which we live. We must be wilderness dwellers. And as we live in the wilderness, however we experience it, let us look to Jesus, the master gardnener, who wanders with us through the wilderness. Let us look to each other, that we might wander through the wilderness together. Let us trust the Spirit that moves within us, prompting, guiding, strengthening, as we each do our part to transform the wilderness into some semblance of a restored Eden.

Laying the Mantle Down

Sermon

Feb. 11, 2018

Based on 2 Kings 2:1-12

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            Have you ever had to say good bye to a mentor? Maybe you were moving away. Or your mentor was dying. I can’t say I have ever had that experience. But I’m confident the older I get the more likely that time will come when I will have the chance to say good bye to a mentor before they draw their last breath. I can imagine that saying good bye to a mentor, one who has had a major influence on your life, is hard to do but also very sacred and powerful.

            The Ramones were an iconic punk rock band from the 1970s. Their music and the attitude that came with it inspired a lot of kids to pick up a guitar or some drum sticks and make their own music. All you needed was three chords and a lot of teenage angst. One of those bands that were inspired by the Ramones was U2. They looked to the Ramones as one of the bands that inspired them to make their own music. Several years ago, Joey Ramone was in the hospital dying of cancer. The Edge and Bono went to see him, one last time. They played for him a song that was on their most recent album called “In a Little While.” They got Joey’s approval. In fact, they were told that this was perhaps the last song Joey Ramone heard before he passed away. How cool that must have been to have that moment to say good bye to someone you idolized as a kid, someone who inspired you in such a deep way, and to have that person express appreciation for you and your work.

            I have found that the older you get, the more you start thinking about the next generation. You wonder about, maybe sometimes worry about, or sometimes are inspired about, the generation following you who will continue the work, continue the tradition, continue our nation, continue the church. None of us will be here forever. One of these days, each of us will have to lay it down, make room for the next generation to step up and carry on.

            The Olympics are a great reminder of this. These athletes are so young! A big deal is made about this long jump skier who is the oldest Olympian this year at the staggering, ancient age of 45! They have athletes this year at the Olympics that were born in the year 2000. It is very inspiring to see these young people compete, so full of energy, of emotion and passion. The Olympics inspire such hope for a better future for the world, even as the weight of the world’s brokenness hangs like a cloud. It’s exciting to see a new generation of Olympians, even as we anticipate the Olympian movement continuing into the future as even younger kids dream about the opportunity to go for the gold.

            So, yes, the time will come for each of us, a time of transition, when the mentor must make room for the mentee to take their place, to have their moment on the stage. And it is important that those transitions happen well.

            The story of Elijah and Elisha that we heard this morning is about making that transition. Elijah the mentor is about to be carried up to heaven on that fiery chariot. Elisha the mentee will take his place, carrying on the prophetic work so that God can continue to speak to the people. Let’s take a look at this fascinating story and see what can be found about making this transition from one generation to the next.

            The first thing to notice is how Elijah keeps trying to ditch Elisha. “You stay here, God is calling me on to Bethel…you stay here, God is calling me on to Jericho…you stay here, God is calling me on to the Jordan.” Time and again, Elijah tells his student, his disciple, his mentee, to leave him and let him go. But time and time again, Elisha says, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” Elisha refuses his teacher, his master, his mentor. He will not leave his side. We don’t know why Elijah tries to shake Elisha off. Elijah knew that the Lord would be taking him soon. Maybe he was worried that if Elisha saw God take him that Elisha may get harmed? After all, no one can see the Lord and live. Or maybe Elijah did not think that Elisha was supposed to keep following him. God was coming to take Elijah, not both of them. Or maybe it was some kind of test, that Elijah was testing Elisha to see how faithful he would be to Elijah as he prepares to leave this world. What good is it to hang with Elijah any more now that his work is finished, he is all spent, washed out, retiring from prophecy? We are left having to ponder what exactly was in Elijah’s mind. But we do know that Elisha had no intention of leaving Elijah’s side. He would stick with him to the end.

            I wonder. If you have a mentor, do you stay in relationship with that mentor or have you moved on? Perhaps that mentor was important to you for a season, while you were learning the ropes of your career, or you were going through a detour or were navigating a setback or a difficult problem, you have made it through the trouble with your mentor’s guidance, but then you have just moved on and lost touch with that mentor of yours. I believe people come into our lives for a season, that God places these people in our lives to help us through or to lift us up to the next stage of our life’s journey. But once you get through that stage, is it o.k. to leave your mentor behind? I wonder if that might be a mistake. Sure, your relationship with your mentor may change. You don’t need that mentor’s guidance like you used to. But does it hurt to check in now and then? Would it not be a blessing for your mentor to get updates on how things are going, that they may see how the time they invested in you has helped make you who you are today?

            The second thing to notice is the question Elijah asks Elisha when they get to the other side of the Jordan. “What may I do for you before I am taken from you?” The moment has come. Elijah’s departing is imminent. Their time together is drawing to a close. Elisha has stuck with Elijah all the way to the end. So if there is anything Elijah can do for Elisha, this is his last shot. Elisha is ready to answer the question, and it seems a bold request. “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” The first thing to notice is that Elisha knows what is Elijah’s treasure and it is his spirit. It is Elijah’s spirit that connects him with God so that God can work through Elijah to work miracles and to speak truth to the people. But why does Elisha ask for a double share? Does he want to be twice as powerful as Elijah? Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that Elisha has in mind how inheritance rights worked in those days. When the father dies, the first born son is to receive a double portion of the inheritance. So Elisha is claiming the role of first born son and asking for a double portion of his inheritance. Elijah acknowledges that what Elisha is asking for is a difficult thing. This inheritance is not the same thing as land and material wealth. It is an inheritance that is tied to their relationship with God. Elijah’s prophetic inheritance is actually connected to God’s purposes. Nevertheless, Elijah tells Elisha that if he is able to see God take him then his request will be granted. And as we learn, Elisha watches Elijah be carried up into the sky riding a fiery chariot. His request is granted. He is empowered by God to continue the work of a prophet.

            What would you ask from your mentor before you say good bye? Would you be so bold as to ask your mentor to give you a double portion of their spirit? Maybe that is too much to ask, a difficult thing indeed. How do you give someone your spirit? Maybe you could simply ask for a blessing, to have your mentor pray for you, to tell you how proud the mentor is of you and how grateful the mentor is that you will continue the work. I don’t know what it would be. But I hope that when the time comes for you to say good bye to your mentor that you won’t miss the opportunity to humbly ask from your mentor just one more thing, something that you can receive and hold on to. Because I can imagine that the parting gift your mentor offers you will be treasured within your heart. It will be a source of courage when life gets scary, of assurance when you are feeling discouraged. To get one last good word from your mentor, what a gift that would be.

            The final thing I want to say about the story of Elijah and Elisha is what happens after the chariot swings low to collect Elijah and carry him up to heaven. Not everything that happened was read this morning. We did hear what Elisha called out and how he ripped his clothes into two pieces. This is a traditional act of mourning. The departure of his master has struck him with grief. But then he looks down and sees Elijah’s mantle which fell off his shoulders and floated down to the ground. He picks it up and walks back to the Jordan. Striking the water with the mantle Elisha asks, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” At once, the water parts from one side to the other, allowing Elisha to walk back across into Judah on dry land. He returns to continue the work of a prophet, possessing the mantle that once belonged to Elijah, his spirit connected to God’s like Elijah’s. He has the power and the authority to do what Elijah did, to work the miracles, to speak God’s word to the people. But Elisha remains his own person. He does the work in his own way. He is not an Elijah clone. He makes his own contribution to the prophetic tradition.

            At some point we all will have to relinquish our tasks. We will have to lay our mantles down. Whether it be retirement, or a radical change in our physical or mental capacity, or the closure that death brings, a time will come when each of us will have to entrust the work that needs done for the next generation to tend to as they see fit. It’s not about trying to clone the next generation to do everything the way we have done things. Those who follow us will continue the work, will carry the tradition forward, will see to it that the church of Jesus Christ remains, but they will do it in their own way. And we have to trust that the next generation will be faithful, that they will pick up the mantle and carry it for a season until the time comes for them to pass it on to the next. It will be different. But it will be o.k. And we can be assured that the church will be in good hands because the church does not belong to us. The church belongs to Jesus, the one who said even the gates of hell will not prevail. The church of Jesus Christ will always exist until Christ returns and firmly establishes the reign of God, when there will be new heavens and a new earth. So when the time comes for us to relinquish the mantle of faith, we can be assured that God will continue to move in the hearts of another generation to pick up the mantle of faith and continue God’s redeeming work in the world.

            Now I am not suggesting that any of us need to be relinquishing anything right now. The mantle is on our shoulders now. Every one of us has the responsibility to do God’s work now. We don’t get to retire from being a disciple of Jesus Christ. We don’t get to retire from our responsibilities as members of his body, the church. Our responsibilities change. What we are able to do certainly changes as our life situation changes and as our bodies wear out. But we can’t just lay the mantle down and walk away. Well, I guess you could. None of us are forced to be disciples. God is love, so God does not coerce. We are not chained to God’s side. We can always walk away from God, even though God never walks away from us. No, this is our time to be faithful, to commit ourselves to God and to the world God loves, to represent Jesus by our love for God and for one another. Now is our time to do the work.

            But at some point, our days will come to an end. The time will come when we will lay the mantle down. Our work in this life will come to an end and we will enter in to our rest.

            So here’s the question for us: when we lay the mantle down, who are the mentees we will lay it down for? Who are the ones that we have mentored along the way? We all need mentors in the faith who have been living this life a bit longer than we have, who have learned some lessons that we need to learn. I hope you have such mentors or are looking for a spiritual mentor who can guide you. Everyone needs a Yoda right? But, this is my challenge, to myself and to all of you. Are you open and willing to be a mentor for the generation that follows us? It doesn’t matter how old you are, whether you are a teenager or in your nineties, you have experiences with the ways of God that you can share. You have made mistakes that others need to learn from. You have had those moments where something about God became more clear to you, those aha moments when things started to make more sense. You have had your times of struggle, when God seemed distant and your prayers didn’t seem to get much past the ceiling, when you were angry at God, or maybe even bored with this Jesus stuff. You have gained some wisdom along the way. Are you open and willing to share it if someone comes along looking for a spiritual friend, a guide, a mentor? Will you be that mentor so that when the time comes for you to lay your mantle down you will know who will pick it up and carry on the work?

Focus

Sermon

Feb. 4, 2018

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany – Year B

Based on Isaiah 40:21-31

Rev. Dr. Kevin Orr

            A few days ago I was trying to work at Starbucks. I needed to focus on my work. But I was sitting next to two guys who were in a constant and loud conversation about work, including a few bits that needed to be held in confidence. I tried to work, but their conversation was really distracting me. It was hard to focus. Of course, they had to talk loudly because Starbucks was full of people and most of them were having their own conversations. You could barely hear the piped in music because there was so much talking going on. With all these conversations going on, it was hard for me to focus on my work. In fact, it was almost impossible. And I’m pretty good at tuning out background noise.

            I know, you probably are thinking, “Maybe you should get up and leave, go someplace quiet.” But no, I chose another option. I went to Spotify on my phone, put in my earbuds, and cranked up the latest Arcade Fire album. All was well. The background noise was muted out and I could finally focus so that I could work…on this sermon.

            Sometimes it is hard to focus on the task at hand because of all the background noise. Or you have multiple responsibilities demanding your attention all at once. We call it multitasking. Or it’s one interruption after another. You’re trying to get your work done while the phone rings, then your husband asks you something, then someone’s at the door, then the laundry buzzer goes off. Or sometimes it’s hard to focus because our heads get crowded with thoughts. You are trying to focus on your work but your thoughts are wandering off, thinking about what Julie said yesterday, thinking about what’s for dinner, thinking about what you will do this weekend, thinking about what Julie said again. Our heads get full of thoughts pulling us in all kinds of different directions. It can be hard to focus.

            But then there are other times when we focus on things that shut us down or drain us of our energy. You focus on how you never have enough money. Or how you don’t have the strength and stamina you used to have. Or how your hopes were dashed. Or how the hopes and dreams you longed and worked for will not come to pass. Or you focus on what someone did to you, how you were cheated, how you were hurt and mistreated. We sometimes focus on things that raise our anxiety. We relive over and over in our heads negative talk that weighs us down. We focus on what we lack, what we used to have, how great things used to be and how pitiful things are now, and we get down and depressed. We may even start thinking it’s too late, it’s not worth it, it’s over.

            What we focus on makes a difference to how we are able to engage or not engage with life. If we focus on negative things, it brings us down and maybe even immobilizes us. It can take away our hope. If we don’t focus on anything at all, we go in lots of different directions or spin our wheels. We can’t get anything done. If we focus on possibilities, on positive things, it lifts us up and energizes us. If we focus on God, even in difficult times, we find renewed energy and commitment to move forward with hope.

            Israel, God’s chosen people, were languishing in Babylon. They were in exile. They were broken, a shadow of their former glory. And when they focused on their dire situation, it brought them down. They were despondent. They wondered if their way was hidden from God. Did God know what was happening to them? Did God care? Israel had lost so much. They used to have their own land. They used to have a lot of wealth. Kings used to come to Jerusalem to see the glory of the Temple. David’s rule was top rate. Solomon’s wisdom and wealth was legendary. The whole world knew about the power of Israel’s God. But now it was all gone. Jerusalem was in ruins. Israel had been overrun and all their best had been taken captive and marched to Babylon. Under the oppression of the king of Babylon, they had no political power. They were vulnerable to exploitation. They were a small minority in the land of Persia. They were thoroughly beaten down. They were a defeated people. And as they focused on their lot, despair arose as hope faded.

            But the prophet sought to draw their attention toward God. In their gloom and despair he asked them, “Have you not known? Have you not heard?” The prophet reminds them that rulers come and go, but God is constant. In the big picture, all rulers are barely rooted in the earth when God blows on them and they wither and blow away. These great and mighty people, in comparison to God, are just dust in the wind. The prophet reminds them that God is the creator of everything. Wherever they look, in this foreign land of Babylon where they now live in exile, God made that land. God made the Persians, their captors. Everywhere they look, they see the handiwork of God, the one who made earth and sky and sea. The prophet reminded them that God does not faint or grow weary. God is full of energy. Some speculate that God is energy. I don’t know about that, but the prophet says that God does not faint or grow weary. And he also says that God shares God’s power with those who are faint. God does not hoard power. God shares it. The energy of God energizes those who are low on energy. God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. God does not beat up or wear down. God builds up and renews. So the prophet says to his people, who are down and depressed, weighed down by their loss, and says to them, “Hey, don’t you know who God is and what God has done? Don’t focus on all that you have lost, focus on God who is with us!”

            This doesn’t mean that God makes sure every situation has a happy ending. The prophet isn’t saying that all the people have to do is focus on God and everything will be better. They will have renewed hope. They will remember how awesome God is. They will be encouraged. But they will also remain in exile. They will remain a broken people, oppressed, a shadow of who they used to be. Their present situation will not change overnight. What they gain is hope and the strength to move forward with their lives. God is everlasting and full of power. But God doesn’t fix things or orchestrate everything to work out the way we want in every situation, or even, dare I say it, the way God wants. Yes, God’s plans can be frustrated. Things don’t always work out the way God intends. Free will and rebellion is real.

            There are many examples of this. Think of John the Baptist. He was the greatest of prophets, the forerunner of Jesus. Yet his head was cut off in a jail cell. Stephen proclaimed the gospel to the people in Jerusalem. As we read in Acts 7, Stephen preaches an amazing sermon, taking us through the Hebrew scriptures in order to reason with the people, to help them see what God was up to. But he got stoned to death for it, the first of millions who have given their lives for the sake of proclaiming the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. Yet, God saw to it that Peter was busted out of prison, sending an angel to break the chains that held him. The same thing happened to Paul, who not only got busted out of jail but was also saved from shipwreck and a snake bite. Why did God save Peter and Paul but not John the Baptist and Stephen? The prophet would say that God’s understanding is unsearchable. Some questions we just can’t answer.

            Maybe that comes across as a dodge. When you don’t know the answer, just say, “Who knows? It’s a mystery.” People have always struggled with the question of why bad things happen to good people, why God allows some people to make it through their struggles while others fall. It seems unfair, or arbitrary. All I want to say about that is that God never sits back and does nothing. If God is love, then God always acts in loving ways. God influences every situation in order to bring about what is the best in that situation. It’s just that God’s influence is not the only influence in any given situation. God’s influence can, and often is, resisted. It may not be the best answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people. But it seems the most consistent to God’s character and the fact that our choices and actions make a real difference.

            What God does in every situation that we find ourselves in is to strengthen and empower us. If we turn our focus to God, rest in God’s presence, remember who God is, how God loves us, then we are energized. We may be so filled with renewed energy that it is like we are soaring on eagle’s wings! But if not that, we may have enough energy to get running, to set those goals, make that plan, call that meeting, hit the streets and get to work. But if not that, God may give us the energy we need to keep walking, one step after another. You may not be sure exactly where you are walking, but standing still isn’t good enough for you. You will pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read. You will get up a few minutes earlier so you can spend some time reading the Bible and praying. You will drop by and see your neighbor who lost her husband a few months back, just to check on her. God gives you enough energy to do something positive. It won’t solve all the problems in your life. But at least you are doing something to make things better.

            And that’s the point that the prophet was making, a point we can receive today. When we focus on God, remember what God has done, remember who God is, remember that God is with us, we find that our spiritual strength is renewed, a glimmer of hope is kindled within us, regret and despair loosens its grip. We find ourselves able to move forward and not be frozen in place. For us, individually and as a church, this is good news. Focusing on God, we are energized to fly, run, or walk, moving forward into the future God has in mind for us.