[Oe List ...] FW: Binkley Church Sermon December 16 2007
Herman Greene
hfgreene at mindspring.com
Fri Dec 21 07:56:27 EST 2007
Bill,
It is set forth below and attached:
The Winged Life
Denise Cumbee Long
Isaiah 35:1-2, 5-10
December 16, 2007
As I watch the children this morning, I am reminded of how
much they can teach the rest of us about living in the moment. The
immediacy of the present is what truly matters, and there is joy in all that
is “Now”! I am grateful to the Binkley children this morning as they make
the ancient story of Jesus’ birth new once again.
I am glad that the children at Binkley are learning about
the Christmas story through our Nativity re-enactment and Sunday School
programs. They are probably much better informed about the meaning of
Christmas than poor little Larry. I received an email this week with Larry’s
story and want to share it with you. The story goes that Larry was known to
be a wild child, a boy who got in trouble early and often. As Christmas
approached, Larry realized that his actions might have consequences,
consequences affecting his odds of receiving the special bicycle he really
wanted.
Now, Larry’s family wasn’t much for going to church, so he had some
confusion in his mind as far as Jesus and Santa Claus were concerned. Larry
decided he would write letters to the Baby Jesus in order to persuade the
powers that be to look kindly upon his request.
Dear Jesus:
I've been a good boy this year and would appreciate a new bicycle.
Your Friend, Larry
Now, Larry knew that Jesus really knew what kind of boy he was. So he ripped
up the letter and decided to give it another try.
Dear Jesus:
I've been an OK boy this year and I want a new bicycle.
Yours Truly, Larry
Well, Larry knew this wasn't totally honest so he tore it up and tried
again.
Dear Jesus:
I've thought about being a good boy this year and can I have a bicycle?
Larry
Then, Larry looked deep down in his heart and knew he had
really been acting badly and was deserving of almost nothing. He crumpled
up the letter, threw it in the trash can and went running outside. He
aimlessly wandered about and finally found himself in front of a church.
He went inside, looking around, not knowing what he should really do. He
was passing the crèche which was sitting on a table near the front, when all
of a sudden, he reached over, grabbed a small figure and ran out the door.
He went home, hid it under his bed and wrote this letter.
Jesus,
I've got your mamma. If you ever want to see her again, give me a bike.
Signed, You know who.
Little Larry was indeed a bit confused, but I'm not so sure
that most of mainstream America is any less confused about the way the birth
of Christ is celebrated in 2007. It is the Christ child who is held
hostage, the gift of God for all people. The mystery of the incarnation has
been kidnapped by a culture confusing materialism with true joy.
On this third Sunday of Advent, we dare to speak of joy.
But, how can we do this with our eyes wide open to what is happening around
us? We live in a world where war kills soldiers, terrorists and innocents
alike, where the morning paper assaults our eyes each day with the latest
news of death or suffering, where international cooperation on climate
change can be trumped by those who refuse to give up their perceived right
to economic progress at all costs
a world where children are hungry or
abused, where diseases still ravage and kill, where a homeless person can
still live and die alone. We all know the feeling of pain and brokenness,
of splintered dreams and fractured relationships.
How can we dare speak of joy when we know that Christmas is
not very merry for many of us? To ignore the harsh realities of life would
be dishonest. But, to let sadness silence mention of real joy would be
equally wrong, for joy IS here, even if it is fleeting, elusive, and so
tightly tangled with sorrow that we cannot separate them.
It is the nature of joy to be elusive
.we cannot even say
what it is exactly, only what it is like. As G. K. Chesterton writes:
Good news; but if you ask me what it is, I know not;
It is a track of feet in the snow; it is a lantern showing a path; it is a
door set open.
(from An Advent Sourcebook, edited by Thomas O'Gorman,
1988.)
Patrick Henry, in his book, The Ironic Christian's
Companion, writes of God's grace in a way very similar to how I have
experienced joy. Henry says:
I trust God's grace but hesitate to identify it in particular cases. It
often blindsides me, regularly catches me off guard, seldom hits me square
in the face. When I know the grace of God, it's nearly always after the
fact
(like) Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guides to the birds,
I am
concerned with
the field marks of the grace of God. Since I usually discern
God's grace at a distance and after the fact
. I am always on the lookout
for field marks that can be seen in retrospect and from afar
I am not
defining the grace of God. I'm saying what I have found it to be like.
(The Ironic Christian's Companion, Riverhead Books, 1991, pp. 2-3)
And so it is with joy. I cannot define it. I can only say
what I have found it to be like: it is like a feeling of "good news; but if
you ask me what it is, I know not." What I do know, is that it is not a
constant condition.
I used to think that those who had really succeeded, those
who had done everything right, were deeply and truly happy, all the time.
It was the prize one achieved by living and thinking the right way, a kind
of cheery enlightenment. I felt badly that I never seemed to be able to
reach this state of abiding joy. I felt guilty when I was depressed or
angry or lonely. There must be something I just wasn't doing right. But
now, I have come to a different way of thinking. I believe that just as
Patrick Henry experiences God's grace in moments which catch him off guard
and then disappear, so I am touched by joy. As Robert Frost says, "Nothing
gold can stay". Our human condition is not one where it is possible, or
even desirable to be in a perpetual state of cheeriness. In fact, trying to
chase down happiness only causes it to slip away. As the wild, mystical
poet William Blake wrote:
He who bends to himself a Joy
Doth the winged life destroy,
But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.
Joy is not something to be sought. It is what happens to us
when we live fully and deeply. It flits into our lives and then out again.
We cannot make it stay, we can only kiss it, cherish it as it brushes us
with its wings and flies away. Living the "winged life" means that we cannot
clutch and grasp and force our way to happiness. Instead, we must journey
through the peaks and valleys of real human life, knowing that Pain will be
our companion for part of the way, as well as that lovely, elusive visitor
called Joy.
John Heagle writes:
In an age which offers a variety of escapes from the human condition,
Christians are more than ever a sign of contradiction
In Jesus, God became
available to us as the depth of human life. Thus, a Christian believes that
the experience of ultimate meaning comes not from a leap out of the human
condition, but a journey through its dark waters." (Heagle, An Advent
Sourcebook.)
Like Heagle, I believe that ultimate meaning does not come from trying to
escape life- trying to escape the pain which is the inevitable result of
loving another person, or taking risks, or trying and failing. Meaning is
found in the midst of all life experience. We are meant to experience all
that it is to be human, even when it requires journeying though dark waters.
T. S. Eliot says that we "ought to be explorers."
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
.
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my
Beginning
.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. (Four Quartets)
Advent is a time of contrasts- shadows and candlelight,
painful soul-searching and joyful anticipation, ancient stories and new
interpretations. It speaks to us of journeys of the spirit, journeys
through the cold and empty desolation, yes, but also walks down that smooth
highway in a blooming desert where God's beloved people will sing for joy.
Advent is a time for acknowledging the pain that can be found in darkness
while also loving the safe, deep places in the night skies of our souls
where creativity is born. It is a time when our spirits need to walk awhile
in darkness, and it is also a time when we long for the light. Perhaps we
should savor Advent's contradictions, roll the parodox around in our mouths
like a smooth lemon candy which is both sweet and sour. Perhaps we should
go exploring, Advent-uring, looking for field marks of joy in our messy,
painful, lives.
I wonder if we cannot really know joy without also knowing
sorrow. It is almost as if deep joy can only be experienced against a
backdrop of suffering so that its edges and curves are defined with an
aching clarity. This is not to say that we welcome tragedy or look for
suffering. And it is not to deny that some are destroyed by the immensity of
grief. But for most of us, we live in the tension between the two,
struggling with how to find meaning in the whole mix.
Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked
.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow
is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable."
These are the words of the great Lebanese poet and artist,
Kahlil Gibran. They ring true to my own experience, and, I would guess, to
the experience of many of you. Joy and sorrow are the threads in the fabric
of our lives. They are tightly woven. In fact, what we most love is often
the source of both our greatest grief and our greatest joy. We cannot
escape the sorrow. And we may not see very well the field marks of joy.
Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies, (Pantheon Books,
1999) is one of my all-time favorites. She is funny, honest, and traces the
field marks of joy in her own life in a way which touches familiar spots in
the hearts of her readers.
In this passage, her best friend, Pammy, has died a few months earlier of
breast cancer. Lamott has taken her young son, Sam, on a vacation to Mexico,
to the very same resort where last year, she had called Pammy every day to
talk about what they had seen and where they had gone.
Now, she writes, there is "no one back home desperately
hoping I would call", and her grief is "huge, monolithic." She meets Tom, a
funny, ex-alcoholic Jesuit priest. Tom tells her that the great
psychologist, Carl Jung, sometime after his beloved wife died, said, "It
cost me a great deal to regain my footing. Now I am free to become who I
truly am." Lamott writes: And this is God's own truth; the more often I
cried in my room
and felt just generally wretched, the more often I started
to have occasional moments of utter joy, of feeling aware of each moment
shining for its own momentous sake. (pp. 70-71).
Lamott goes on to describe one particular shining moment in
which sorrow turned to joy, or as she says, a time of alchemy. She and Sam
had decided to go on a boat trip, snorkeling in the Sea of Cortez to swim
with the seals. Unfortunately, Sam's wetsuit was too small and not
well-insulated, and he had to return to the boat, shivering, and
disappointed, unable to get to the shore where the seals lived. "It was
about one moment later that the extraordinary happened," writes Lamott.
Dozens of seals started swimming up to us
looking right at us with their
moist doggy compassion. Sam started laughing, and I felt the moment go from
cramped to very spacious
After awhile, the seals went under the waves, and soon we were on our way
back home
The next thing we knew, the boat was surrounded on both sides by
dolphins, literally hundreds of dolphins leaping out of the waves everywhere
you looked, in arcs like rainbows
It was almost too much; I hung my head and laughed. Everyone on board was
crying out in joy as more and more dolphins leapt on both sides of the boat;
it was like the end of the Fourth of July when they set off every last
firework they have, and a new explosion follows before the last has even
disappeared
When we were back in our room, I said, "Honey, you need to write this down
so that we never forget what happened today."
. This is the story he wrote,
painstakingly, above his drawing of the dolphins leaping over our boat:
"I am going to see the seals. I took a boat to see the seals but I could not
make it to the shore. But they came to me. And on the ride back we saw some
dolphins and it was magic to us."
"So you see?" writes Lamott, "Alchemy; dross to gold". (Traveling Mercies,
pp.241-243)
In this season of Advent may we each experience a moment of
God's alchemy. May we be more aware, more observant. May we see field
marks of the "winged life", those moments which come to us even in the
middle of cold, dark waters, brushing our faces briefly with joy.
For God loves our brief, messy, human lives. God became a
human child, and that child grew up to teach us of the great ocean of God's
love. "These things I have spoken to you," says Jesus, "that my joy may be
in you, and that your joy may be full." We have been created in God’s
image, and therefore created for joy. As Frederick Buechner says,
.whatever else it means to say that God created us in God's image, it
surely means that even when we cannot believe in God, even when we feel most
spiritually bankrupt and deserted by God, God's mark is deep within us. We
have God's joy in our blood." (Buechner, The Longing for Home).
Thanks be to God for this mystery of love and alchemy of love! AMEN.
_____
From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Bill Salmon
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 9:03 PM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] FW: Binkley Church Sermon December 16 2007
No attachment. I'd like to read this sermon too. Bill Salmon
----- Original Message -----
From: Isobel <mailto:isobeljimbish at optusnet.com.au> & Jim Bishop
To: Order Ecumenical <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net> Community
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] FW: Binkley Church Sermon December 16 2007
Hello Herman,
What a treasure this is---
Thank you for posting this on the listserve. It has already made a
difference to the way I will approach the rest of the Advent
season. It is a joy to read, and reflect on Denise' s words. If it is
appropriate to give her my thanks, I would like to do that, through you.
Greetings to you and yours,
Isobel Bishop.
----- Original Message -----
From: Herman <mailto:hfgreene at mindspring.com> Greene
To: 'Order Ecumenical <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net> Community'
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 1:02 AM
Subject: [Oe List ...] FW: Binkley Church Sermon December 16 2007
I would like to share with you a sermon preached in our church last Sunday
by our minister Denise Cumbee Long. It is good to know the Gospel lives
Herman
_____
From: Maureen Rosen [mailto:office at binkleychurch.org]
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 1:07 PM
To: April Kemper; Art Sherwood ; Bob and Pat Goetz; 'Bob Dunham'; Cheryl
Richard; 'Gary Long'; Gary Stutts; gramsamter at aol.com; 'Gwen Sherwood';
Herman Greene; Janet O'Neal; 'Jaye McDermott'; Jim and Susan Pike ; Jim
Joyce; John Kent; 'Julia Hoyle'; 'Katherine & Talmadge Walker'; Kimberly
Brewer; Mary Alice Dorton; Shirley Hamrick
Subject: Binkley Church Sermon December 16 2007
Attached is the sermon from this past Sunday. Thanks!
Maureen Rosen, Office Manager
Binkley Baptist Church
1712 Willow Drive
Chapel Hill NC 27514
919-942-4964
office at binkleychurch.org
_____
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