Third Sunday after Epiphany 2011
Two weeks ago, when Carol Stilwell introduced the theme of our 2011 Stewardship Emphasis, “Bread for the Journey,” she said, among other things, that we were going to “have fun.” When’s the last time you heard “stewardship emphasis” and “fun” in the same sentence? To be honest with you, at the time she said it, I didn’t have any more idea than you did that one week later people would be throwing paper airplanes in church and contemplating a ride on the secret slide.Last Sunday was either a complete breakdown in spiritual decorum around here or it was a sign of life, vitality and vigor in a congregation otherwise known for its seriousness. We take church very seriously around here, and we always have—for 180 years this November, this congregation has been taking church seriously. If you don’t think so, just look around you. Do you see how serious everyone is? This is serious business. We do serious very well around here.
But last Sunday, we showed that in addition to having the capacity to buckle up and buckle down, we also have the capacity to lighten up. This morning, I want to follow up on the lighten up to suggest that on the journey of the stewardship of our lives we must also open up. Open up.
Years ago, I heard Randall Lolley preach a sermon in which he echoed the song of the nuns in “The Sound of Music”: “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Randall Lolley was once the president of a formerly good little Baptist seminary in North Carolina; and he has served in addition as Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Churches of Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Greensboro. Few individuals in the two Carolinas have left more finger prints on moderate Baptist life in these parts than Randall Lolley has. But more of us here this morning know of Maria than we do Randall.
For those of you who are young enough never to have seen the musical or the movie, Maria is a young nun about whom there are many complaints among the other nuns in the abby: “She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee; Her dress has got a tear. She waltzes on her way to Mass And whistles on the stair. And underneath her wimple She has curlers in her hair. I even heard her singing in the abbey. She’s always late for chapel, But her penitence is real. She’s always late for everything Except for every meal. I hate to have to say it, But I very firmly feel Maria’s not an asset to the abbey.” Another nun pipes up to counter the prevailing mood when she sings, “I’d like to say a word on her behalf: Maria makes me laugh.” “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” the nuns sing. “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? . . . . How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do hold a moonbeam in your hand?”
The faith we hold on the journey of our lives from God, with God and to God, is in some ways like a moonbeam. The only way to hold it is with your hands wide open. As soon as you make a fist, the moonbeam is no longer in your hand. Our journey is with open hands, not clenched fists. Our hands are open in thanksgiving to God. Our hands are open in welcome and embrace to each other—and to the so-called “other,” as well, whoever that might be. Our hands are open in compassion and generosity. How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? Only if you keep your hands wide open. Sometimes when I pray, I pray with my hands tightly clasped as I was taught to pray when I was a child. But sometimes when I pray, I pray with my hands relaxed and open to receive, to accept, to allow God in.
In this morning’s gospel lesson from the fourth chapter of the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus is in the throes of a wilderness experience. Far from family and friends and temple and everything familiar, the wilderness experience of his journey becomes a place of temptation. He was famished, verse 2 tells us, hungry, starving, when the tempter rightly points out to him that he has the power to provide for himself the bread that he needs and wants to satisfy his hunger. All you need to do, the tempter says, is to “command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Remember, now, this is the Jesus who will turn water into wine, who will turn five barley loaves and two fish into enough to feed thousands, who will turn the bread and the wine of a Passover meal into a new covenant. The insidious power of temptation is that it always invites to do something that we are eminently capable of doing. It always invites to grasp something that will satisfy a certain want or need we have. In the throes of his wilderness journey, Jesus could have reached down, laid hold of a stone, and turned it into the bread he wanted and needed to satisfy his hunger. But instead, he stood with his hands open to receive, to accept, and to allow God. And as he did, he quoted the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
On the journey of our lives, there is the physical bread, the food we need to provide our bodies with the nutrition necessary to survive and to thrive. But there is another kind of bread; it is the food that provide our spirits with the nutrition necessary to survive and to thrive, regardless of our physical circumstances. A malnourished and shriveled spirit can be as detrimental to the quality of a human life as a malnourished and shriveled body can. It doesn’t always show on the outside, but if you watch long enough and listen carefully enough, you can recognize them in others—and in yourself.
With apologies to T.S. Eliot, I call them the hollow men and women. They are robust on the outside but shrunken on the inside. They are well fed in body but malnourished in spirit. It can happen to any of us. The reality of our journey is that all of us pass through a wilderness experience sooner or later. All of us experience a hollowness that comes with a loss of spirit. Sooner or later, all of us come to place of hunger that we cannot satisfy. But Jesus’ words in his own hunger and deprivation remind us to keep our hands open, to open up to receive, to accept, to allow God in to provide the nutrition for our spirit that we need every bit as much as we need the nutrition for our body.
Now, I’m going to take the time to insist that there is no body/spirit dichotomy here. There no “never-the-twain-shall meet” in relation to our physical selves and our spiritual selves. Each is a component of the other. During the wilderness experience of his journey, Jesus recognized the physical temptation that came with his hunger for the spiritual temptation that it was. The spiritual temptation was to grasp control of his own wellbeing out of the hands of God and by his own power to craft on his own a solution to his wants and his needs. But the inner voice of the Holy Spirit at work in Scripture said, “Not so fast my friend.” “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The physical and the spiritual components of our living are not “either/or”; they are “both/and.”
Some of us here this morning find ourselves very much like the people in chapter six of John’s gospel who when Jesus said, “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,” they responded, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus answered, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:33-35). This bread for the journey, this nutrition for the spirit, cannot be grasped or seized. It can only be received, accepted, allowed in with hands wide open.
So the next several times you pray, let me suggest to you that you practice praying with your hands relaxed and open as a reminder that in addition to buckling up and lightening up, we must open up. Our journey is with open hands, not clenched fists. Our hands are open in thanksgiving to God, and our hands are open in welcome and embrace to each other and to the so-called “other,” whoever that might be. Our hands are open in compassion and generosity.
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? Only if you keep your hands wide open.
Photo by Sharon Mollerus, used by license under Creative Commons.
This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment