[This sermon was not recorded.... so sorry!]

January 12, 2009 ~ Revival Day 2
The Grace To Give
Romans 5:1-9 & Luke 10:25-37

I remember as a child watching television. Now, that’s not very noteworthy in and of itself, but perhaps being raised in a small town in the middle of nowhere New Mexico, we had an odd mixture of television stations. In addition to the major networks, with their local affiliates, we had regional stations from as diverse places as Los Angeles to Lubbock, Texas. From the station in Los Angeles, I became acquainted with the quirky car dealer, Cal Worthington, and his so-called “dog Spot.” Each new commercial would pair up this cowboy-dressed salesman with a different animal that he would call, “Spot.” One week it would be a python and the next week it would be an elephant. Who knows what it would be the next time! That was the fun of it.

But from the other station, the one we received originating in Lubbock, Texas, I learned my heart-stopping fear of tornadoes. Tornadoes were very prevalent in Lubbock. The area around the city wasn’t nicknamed “tornado alley” for nothing! However, as common as tornadoes were in Lubbock was how uncommon they were in Roswell, my hometown. Actually, only one tornado has been recorded near Roswell in most of a century, and that was only in 1997.

But a child’s mind cannot make the distinctions of geography, especially since the news, with its gruesome photographs, came right into my own living room. So, I came to expect tornadoes with every passing storm, even though we never had them. One day when a severe storm blew in, I became convinced that we were going to have a tornado. With my mother rolling her eyes and wondering what on earth I was doing, I painstakingly dragged my toy box into the garage, found my favorite blanket, took a broom from the wall, and sat confidently next to my favorite toys with my blanket wrapped around me, the broom clutched in my hands, and the broom handle sticking straight up to the ceiling.

I had decided that the garage was the safest place in the house (it was the only place you could see the studs in the wall since it was unfinished). I had wisely discerned that I would need my blanket in case the storms winds were cold. The broom handle would surely prevent the ceiling from falling in on me and the toys were necessary – of course! – for me to play with until the rescue workers got all the debris removed from around me.

What odd images we have sometimes of what provides stability and security in the stormy times of life! While I know a lot more now about safety in storms, I am nonetheless touched by my childhood attempts at figuring it out for myself.

Yesterday, in our first Revival Worship Service, we began our conversation about safety. In that sermon, titled “The Wisdom To Wonder,” I explored the perfectly understandable, but theologically suspect, human desire to find security during times of trial and tribulation in rigid theological doctrines and narrow religious beliefs. Rather, in times of danger we are to do what the book of Hebrews advises, and that is have a paradoxical faith which has assurance in things hoped for and conviction in things not seen. That is, the more danger we are in, the less tightly we should grasp on human striving for wisdom and the more open we should become to receiving the wisdom of the creator God, which is always larger than our human certainties and more sure than our worldly principles. I was reminded yesterday that doubt can be an avenue to faith as much as belief, if we trust in the God of creation to be in charge.

So tonight I again ask the question, what do we do in times of trouble? In what do we rely in times of economic uncertainty and general dismay? Tonight, I proclaim to you, and to myself as well, that we need the Grace To Give to get us through hard times, to guide us along the rocky path, to lead us to the place just right that God has prepared for us in the storms of life. The Grace To Give… to give up our easy and sometimes hurtful perceptions of what is solid and sure in life and grasp the image that God in Christ Jesus gave us… a strength found only in giving and a power found only in vulnerability.

Images can be deceiving, and perceptions are unreliable. I remember asking my mother as a kid exactly why all banks seemed to spend a lot of their money on really big, grand, and intimidating buildings. “Wasn’t that a waste of the good money we give to their safekeeping? I innocently asked. My mother laughed at me and said, “Why the banks have to convince us that when everybody else is going under, they’re solid and here to stay.” “Even if it isn’t true?” I asked in confused bewilderment. “Especially if it isn’t true!” my mother replied. What a lesson in banking philosophy we’ve had in the past year!

It’s natural for us to assume that that which is biggest is strongest, and that which appears to be impenetrable is the most vulnerable. Particularly in times of misfortune and suffering, we instinctively turn to those things which appear to give quick security and easy protection. This may not necessarily be bad, if what we need is superficial security and skin-deep strength. But the problematic side of that simplistic sense of power is that it won’t last long nor go deep for us and it tends to cause us to do the opposite of what God calls us to do. When we rely on stability as the world offers it, we tend to avoid anyone or anything that looks weak or appears vulnerable. Sometimes, we even seek to destroy the “other” or the “less than” in vain hopes of building up our own image as tough and stable.

In Jesus’ day that would have been to ignore, ridicule, or cast out the widow, the orphan, the stranger… in our day, it is also the widow, the orphan, the stranger… as well as the homeless, the immigrant, the Eastsider or the Westsider, or… (fill in blank here). Jesus had something to say about that… actually, he had a story to tell. The Good Samaritan story is Jesus’ not-so-subtle reminder that just because it was the common or customary thing to avoid the obvious outsider, it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Who is hurt by our vainglorious attempts at grabbing power? In places like Zimbabwe and Haiti, the ramifications are obvious, but aren’t they also becoming obvious in places like Chicago and Cleveland? Attempts to grab and accumulate and hold onto power – which promises to protect and secure us but rarely does… for long – are perhaps understandable, but are ultimately ineffective (to put it mildly) and often just downright sinful (to put it bluntly!)

Rather, isn’t our call to give up power as the world knows it in order to find true security? Isn’t this Christ on the cross, crucified? I know we just finished with Christmas, and it’s always difficult enough to move from a baby born in December to the Passion of Christ in March or April. But this is our lot, to hold these two moments of our savior’s life together, in tension, but in hope. The innocent, weak baby and the broken man on a cross used to shame and scorn.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky

Surely these aren’t images of power and strength, and hardly the kind of help one gives one’s neighbor struggling with finances, or children in danger of being beaten, or a community that has lost its hope because of the number of boarded up windows is more than the number of ones with drapes.

But it is the message of the Gospel of Christ. Paul preaching to the church at Rome reminds them that glory that we share with God through our faith in Christ, is not a glory in the powers and principalities of the world, but in the sacrificial solidarity and valuable vulnerability exhibited by Christ himself. Paul writes, “we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

It seems strangely odd, countercultural, counterintuitive, almost disloyal and unfaithful to thank that the grace of giving up oneself can win over the power of manipulative might and brute force, the kind of powers that bring banks down to their knees, moves armies to attack, and forces us to blockade ourselves in our homes at night for fear of the stray bullets and targeted thievery. But it is this grace of giving that will save us.

Edgar Allen Poe tells a marvelous tale called “A Decent Into The Maelstrom.” In it he tells of two brothers, both fisherman, who fished off the Norwegian coastline. They chose to fish regularly in a part of the ocean that was considered off-limits by most of sea-travelers as well as those who fished. It was condidered extremely dangerous because in a particular area where the wind and the currents collided, at certain time of day, a huge vortex, a gigantic whirlpool, “The Great Maelstrom” they called it, would form, and drag down below the waters anything that got caught in it.

These brothers were careful, and very good at what they did, and never got caught. Until one day, when they had a particularly good catch, and pushed their luck to the limit, they headed to shore, only to find the wind conditions had drastically changed, and they were dead still in the water. They tried rowing, but the boat was so heavy laden with fish, it went nowhere. Panicked, they tried to signal for help, but were too far from those who kept their safe distance.

And sure enough, the winds began, and were soon gale force. The ship began to toss, and before they knew it, it began to circle. The brothers lashed themselves to whatever would not blow overboard: one held himself to a ring bolt at the front of the boat, the other held on for dear life to a huge barrel tied securely to the other end of the dock. Barely able to see beyond their arms, suddenly, the man who was holding onto the ring found his brother madly trying to peel his hands from the small ring to hold onto it himself. Not knowing what to do, the man let go and ran to the barrel.

Then, as the boat began to lean as the vortex gained speed, a strange thing happened. The rain and wind was pulled out of the center and the circling boat was calm. Understanding that they were going to die, the men responded differently. The panicked brother, now holding onto the ring, closed his eyes in agony. The other brother, now holding onto the barrel, looked out. He watched with a kind of perverse wonder the other objects that the storm had picked up: a tree trunk, a piece of another ship, fishing gear, and other items he could not identify.

Marveling at their common fate, the man began to take notice of a strange fact. The larger items were moving faster down into the depths of the vortex. The lighter, smaller items were circling at about the same level, moving down very slowly. Of course, the boat was the largest and heaviest object of them all, and so was moving the fastest. He quickly understood what he had to do. Yelling at his brother, and making hand motions, he tried to get him to come to the barrel and tie himself, with his brother, to the barrel to jump overboard. The brother looked up, and nodded negatively, closed his eyes, and hung on even tighter to the ring.

Time was of the essence, and knowing that his brother had made a fateful choice, the man could wait no longer. He took the rope of the barrel, tied it tightly around him, and looking back at his brother one last time, he jumped overboard.

When the barrel and he surfaced, he found the situation exactly as he had expected. He watched the fishing boat with his brother on deck, move quickly down the center of the whirlpool, while he swirled at about the same level. For what seemed like hours, the water began to slow down, and the wind subsided to normal storm levels, and the vortex disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, with the ship out of site.

It wasn’t until morning that fisherman discovered the man tied to the barrel, barely alive, but still breathing. They did not recognize him, for when he had left the morning before his hair had been raven black. Now, it was white as snow.

Beloved, we are in a maelstrom.

Whether or not it is we, ourselves, who have felt the sting of being let go at work, or a family member, friend, or neighbor who has, we are hurting.

Whether or not it is we, ourselves, who have found our retirement savings drying up like water in the desert, or a family member, friend, or neighbor who has, we are struggling to survive.

Whether or not it is we, ourselves, who have found ourselves yelling at our loved ones or sinking into a depression, or it is a family member, friend, or neighbor who has, we are in despair.

Nonetheless, with the Psalmist we declare boldly, “weeping may tarry for the night, but hope comes in the morning.” Let us not tether our hope to that which the world says is the strongest, mightiest, most durable forces around us. For in doing so, we are likely to discover that which is considered mightiest by worldly standards is only a broom stick pointing in the air. We are also far-too-likely to leave our neighbors – our brothers and sisters – behind.

Let us rather bind our hurting neighbors in need and ourselves to that which the world might count as weak, but which God counts as true strength, for surely “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”

Let us have the wisdom to wonder and the grace to give, and truly God will provide!


[References and notes to be added later....]
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/abq/preparedness/SWA/svr_tues.htm




Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2009 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096