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November 19, 2006
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:19-25, Mark 13:1-8
“Thanks Givings: Earth Endings and Birth Beginnings”
Thanksgiving for the gifts we receive in this year and throughout our lives, and
Consecration of the gifts we offer for the new year and beyond, falling on the same
Sunday, remind us of the vast cosmic cycles of spiraling seasons we participate
in all the time! Life is such a rhythm of flowing and ebbing, beginning and
ending, receiving and giving, falling and rising, emptying and filling, dying and
living – we all know the feelings! Ecclesiastes sums it up in his way, as
everything having its time with us. Modern singer of stories Harry Chapin
adds,
All my life’s a circle; Sunrise and sundown;
Moon rolls through the nighttime; Till the daybreak comes around.
All my life’s a circle; But I can’t tell you why;
Seasons spinning round again; The years keep rollin’ by.
Then comes a verse evoking this time of harvest journey, of coming of age, of maturity
in life and faith – time of both rest from our labors and revival for them, time
of drawing to ends implicit with new beginnings – time of grasping as much full
meaning and purpose to life-in-faith as we possibly can, with all the help of our
elders and saints! – time of enduring to the full and whole ends of our lives, however
unusual, unexpected, enlightening and exhausting attention to such time can be –
as witness the book about dementia our sister Pat Smith offers us, Who Are You,
and What Have You Done with my Mother? -- time of what Mark here calls
“the Day approaching,” time of the church liturgical year commonly known as “Christ
the King,” traditionally “reigning in glory,” less imperially “rising in fullness
and wholeness,” expressiveness and inclusiveness of all of creation.
Harry Chapin goes on to sing of this time --
It seems like I’ve been here before; I can’t remember when;
But I have this funny feeling; That we’ll all be together again.
No straight lines make up my life; And all my roads have bends;
There’s no clear-cut beginnings; and so far no dead-ends.
Chorus again?
Biblical texts for these times, such as Mark’s text for this morning, are called
“eschatological,” literally “study of last things” -- the final result of our faiths,
the destiny of humankind, even the end of the world! But of course “ends”
of things have not only to do with some kind of linear conclusion, the perishableness
of things. “Ends” also have to do with cyclical recurrence of things, their
purposefulness as well – not just what happens to them ( to us) “in the end” but
what we are created for “in the beginning” -- and how well we accomplish “our ends”
in what we call “the meantime.” Jesus’ use of eschatology tends to be less
apocalyptic – this is what’s going to happen to us individually in the end – whether
by predestination or freedom of will! Jesus tends to be more prophetic – this
is how the world and we in it must change to fulfill God’s purpose and hope.
Jesus and those who write the gospels in his spirit certainly see all kinds of signs
of the end. Today’s text refers to the “abomination” of the Roman attack on
the temple. Every good war is justified by some such “abomination” or other
– even as “Pearl Harbor,” “Gulf of Tonkin,” “9/11” may be seen in our own experience.
Jesus goes on to advise us not to fight but to flee the wrath that is to come!
We always can make three choices regarding an enemy – fight, flight or friendship.
Friendship, risky and tricky as it may be, is the only one that both gets rid of
the enemy AND gives them the chance of redemption. Jesus insists that “final judgment”
is never some fixed and irrevocable stamp of divine approval or disapproval upon
others or us. Rather, by the grace of God, judgment remains repentable and
renewable, repairable and restorable. It calls to us to trust and to risk
all over again – as if for the very first time?! – in God’s faithfulness to God’s
promised ends in each and all creatures. For God is not mocked in the
end.
In Jesus the Christian part of us sees the most complete embodying God’s promise
to us. Yet we acknowledge there are other ways than Jesus to get to God --
for the very God of someone so imaginative and creative as Jesus can never be limited
or conscribed! Rather than coming just once or twice, the promise of Jesus
sending the Holy Spirit upon us, beginning with Pentecost, is that he will come
to us every day! Every moment of every day! He will meet us wherever
we are, whoever we are, whatever is happening with us or to us! In that sense,
sisters and brothers, every day is the “end” of our lives! Every day bears
the meaning and purpose for which we are created, individually and altogether –
whether we always see such meaning and purpose or not. That’s part of what
congregations are for – to keep reminding us who we are becoming!
And Jesus’ coming, the Spirit’s revealing Jesus in us and to us, is as much a surprise
every time of our lives! For Jesus is always coming from where we least expect
him to be! He is forever taking the sides of those we do not even see!
Comforting the suffering! Including the excluded! Making the unworthy
worthy! Even if, as Jesus says here of the temple, it means all our grandest
and most glorious artifacts and edifices, both literal and in our own minds
and hearts – all are cast down and destroyed – that the Spirit may show us an always-new
way.
Look what God does with Hannah the mother of Samuel here! The very redemption
of her whole people depend upon her faithfulness and her fruitfulness. From
her lineage will be descended both David and Jesus! Literally, even without
knowing, the whole world is waiting on her! In her culture childlessness is
seen as a curse. Women are valued only for the children, that is, for the
male children they produce. Hannah is pitied by her husband, goaded by her
husband’s other and child-bearing wife, rejected and disdained by all around her.
Each one of us, male as well, may identify with the pain and grief of her emptiness
and her apparent condemnation never to know the joy and the satisfaction of conceiving
and releasing that which lies deeply in us to be born!
We men may always have a harder time believing we can give birth to ourselves.
Especially in this holiday season, many of us are given to deeper questioning of
the meaning and purpose, the value and fertility of our lives. We are subject
to depressions, repressions, oppressions, and despair. We become our own worst
enemies, trying so hard, even too hard, to escape self-condemnation. When
sometimes the word to us is, just stop digging! Just stop trying so hard!
Just let God be God, and let go of the rest! Can we not see ourselves in this
Hannah – always weeping, never eating, deeply sad of heart and soul – sitting all
day by the door of the temple – the place presumed to be source of all magic and
mystery by which our prayers are answered in ways that we ask them to be!
Now contrast that scene with this song Hannah sings upon birth of Samuel!
It probably is a free-standing psalm of national thanksgiving for Israelites adapted
to Hannah’s sense of vocation and mission. Her song inspires Mary’s song we
call the Magnificat – announcing the birth of Jesus as one who will change the whole
world! These songs remind us that what we call “salvation” is not only personal
and individual but public, even political, and gift to all of God’s peoples!
Harvesting is communal – produced by and belong to all. All harvest comes
from God who creates every harvested element – including the gifts of our own lives!
When we “Grow One Step” in our giving today, we grow in relation to God the Giver
of All! It takes the gifts of us all to make the church. Our friend
John Dodson says, not every has resources, but everyone can be resourceful!
Some of the richest persons I know are the poorest – living closest to earth, on
the edge all the time, hustling their very existence! That keeps us honest
-- alive and growing – each one just doing all that we can. I dream not to
worry again about next year’s Budget once this Sunday and next are completed. We
will just do what has to be done with all the harvest we’ve got! After all,
what are we holding onto it for? And where will we take it with us?
In the same way we are invited this day to take upon ourselves the psalms of our
own national thanksgiving and make them as true to the promise of God for all.
Thanksgiving since President Lincoln’s anguish over the deep divisions and deaths
of our Civil War has been national time to confess -- recall contradictions between
who we say we are and long to be and the ways we act and are now – between the unconditional
giving, providing, protecting of God for us – and our own church and national shortcomings
of giving, providing, and protecting others.
Birth-beginnings as Jesus says here require “earth-endings.” Jesus expresses
impatience with the disciples’ awe of huge and traditional buildings. They
cannot help but crash in their times – so many “Towers of Babel.” If the systems
and structures of life have failed us, Jesus says they cannot help but fall.
The last election, for instance, does not end the war in Iraq! A system far
beyond party control produces such war. Only a change of that system will
end it – and other wars following from it. Jesus calls us to the resistance
of every abuse of power. In the meantime there are peoples of faith throughout
our nation hurting today because they trusted so in “prophets” who became like Jesus’
“deceivers” here.
The commitment, the option, the action of God are made clear in Hannah’s song by
breaking the bows of the mighty and girding the feeble on strength! Impoverishing
the rich, enriching the poor – together! The rich cannot become poorer, nor
the poor richer, without one another! We all belong at one Thanksgiving Table
harvested for all. How do we raise the poor and lift the needy and give us all places
of honor among the great leaders – so that each one may learn from the other, based
upon compassion, solidarity, mutual love and care?!
Christ is a most unusual priest, according to Hebrews. He is not seeking personal
holiness over others -- no self-elevation and self-escape from all the mess of this
church and this world. Not like the high-soaring, high-scaling “Wingfield
Towers” of our new city -- climbing their ways to a heavenly perch looking down
on us all. Jesus is rather a priest of engagement and endurance in the struggles
of this real and thus-far unjust world that God loves so much as to give of God’s
very own flesh and blood. Jesus is not the one who goes up but the one who comes
down – all the way down! -- that God’s will is done on earth as in heaven!
There is no shame or embarrassment whatever to God’s willingness in Jesus to be
identified with the least of us, and with the least part in any of us! Whatever
your Thanksgiving table this year, make sure to seat your whole self! Jesus
assures us, God finds no shame, no embarrassment in our humanness.
In Peterson’s bold translation of Hebrews, as on Thanksgiving, we know in our hearts
everything needed already has been prepared for us to receive! We are our
own worst blockers and barriers to our own perfect reception! In Jesus God
is fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah 31 -- that God’s own words are written not
outside but inside of us! Written on our very hearts this morning -- that
each may know God for ourselves. Jesus has made the way for us “without hesitation”
to “walk right up to God!” Just tell God that Jesus sends us! We are
his mission!
For Jesus frees us and clears our every way everyday by the example of his own life
-- his fullest possible offering – of all he is, of all he has, of all he says,
of all he does. Jesus is among us this Thanksgiving and Consecration Sunday
as the one who holds nothing back! And when Jesus has offered all that he
can, he leaves his whole self to us – as his body! He leaves us without excuse
to withhold ourselves. His offering has made us “presentable inside and out!”
The priestly work of Jesus -- so pastoral and so prophetic as well – invites us,
says Hebrews, to be so fully “inventive” in “encouraging love and helping out” –
not only in this but in every season and cycle of life! We are urged to keep
gathering together -- coming to worship, each participating in our ways. This
table before us is always a Thanksgiving Table! Our meeting is always Communion
– offering ourselves in living remembrance of Jesus. Each of us can do something.
Many of us can do more! That is how blessed we are. I long for us to
be free enough in our blessedness to get this congregation out from under the twin
shadows of capital indebtedness and apportionment short-fallenness!
There are so many other requests for our help pending before us just this morning
– for sleeping bags, for deposit on safer housing, for completion of dental work.
But how are we to respond unless and until we honor our debts? We must become
free to create “freedom money” together! Free to liberate all our resources,
from God and for God alike! Our money and our resources must be for us to
trust and to risk to God in new ways of mission and ministry -- in congregation,
community, and beyond. There is no “end” to how far this congregation can go and
can grow. With the “watering can” as the symbol on our “Estimate of Giving”
forms this Sunday – the symbol of God as primarily “for giving” – for showering
all of God’s blessings upon the just and the unjust alike! – let us receive and
give on as we are given. Let us grow this congregation, and the spirit of
the flourishing Christ we all witness and serve! Amen.
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