|
Beginning with the Benediction Sermon by Cynthia A. Jarvis September 14, 2008, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Isaiah 55:6-13 I Thessalonians 5:12-28
From the shore or the lake, the mountains or the meadow, a week with the grandparents or a season of sloth in the backyard, we have returned to the community that is home…or have wondered through these doors in hopes that this community might become home…as together we seek to make sense of our somnambulant days and our sleepless nights by turning our lives Godward. We do this together because we were not made to stumble upon the meaning and purpose of human existence alone. For one, our minds do not have the necessary distance to see ourselves as we are or as we were created to be; neither can the human heart be discernibly human apart from exercising compassion, an act which necessitates the presence of others. Put a bit more theologically, we cannot announce to ourselves that we are loved without condition: we need another; nor can we pronounce ourselves forgiven apart from the humanly inconceivable word of mercy and grace spoken over us. So we have gathered to hear a word not our own that speaks in opposition to every word which continues to tell us who we ought to be and what we ought to do in order to be loved, forgiven, happy. Moreover the means we have been given to sort out what is worth our lives—scripture, sermon, font, table--are means designed to work in a crowd that minimally includes two or three. Finally, as if we needed one more reason to be here, I remind you at summer’s end of Barbara Grizutti Harrison’s words written in the Piazza Navona while eating a gelato: “I am not happy when I do not go regularly to church,” she writes, “and not (I think) because I am oppressed by the consciousness of wrongdoing, but because I am weightier, having missed the opportunity to meditate, express adoration, contrition and thanks in loving and dignified communion with others.” The original name of this crowd to whom we have returned is ecclesia, a Greek word that signifies those “called out” by God’s address. Let us be clear: we are not talking about organized religion but about the community-creating reality of Christ’s living presence in the world. Sometimes that coincides with the visible church or the tall steeple; but now and again we are taken by surprise when, on the 6:48 to the city, a stranger acts to strengthen the faint hearted or support the weak or is, of all things, patient. As Christian ethicist Paul Lehmann noted “one always sooner or later is bound to encounter another human being who has never been baptized and appears to be totally unaware of, or indifferent to, the koinonia [another word for the church], yet who behaves like the Lord’s anointed. This,” he says, “may be one of God’s happy private arrangements in order to keep baptism from becoming an advertising campaign.” Yet whether we have to do with the church visible or the church invisible, we who are called out by God’s Word often find ourselves called out of the culture—or positioned counter to the culture--as well. “Suddenly it seems there are too few uses for words like humor, pleasure and charm; courage, dignity, and graciousness; learnedness, fair-mindedness, openhandedness; loyalty, respect and good faith,” writes essayist Marilynne Robinson, a former Presbyterian and consummate theologian. “What could have appeared for a moment able to compensate us for the loss of these things?” she asks. “Perhaps I presume in saying they are lost. But if they were not, surely they would demand time and occasion—time because every one is an art or a discipline, and occasion because not one of them exists except as behavior.” On one hand some think of the church as the community gathered to practice the art of courage, dignity and graciousness; the community exhorted to exhibit behavior that is learned, fair-minded, openhanded, loyal, respectful and faithful for Christ’s sake. Paul said as much when he admonished the Thessalonians to encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with all, repay none evil for evil but always seek to do good, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. No doubt these words which demanded time and occasion were seldom used by the Greeks of Thessalonica as their pessimism in the face of death found them clinging to the practices of other-worldly mystery cults or the carefully calculated worship of emperor and empire. Yet the admonitions at the end of Paul’s first letter are more than a list of virtues out of vogue that could be ginned up with a little discipline and determination on the part of the church’s fall line up of programs. When I read our text for the morning, my imagination travels to Jesus and the kingdom contained in his parables where the first are last and the last first…or to John’s revelation of the place where God will wipe away all tears from our eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain…or to that band of saints who confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth, making it clear they were seeking a home whose builder and maker was God. In other words, Paul’s benediction pronounced over the church at Thessalonica bring to mind the future for which we were made, the eternal life in which we will be wholly ourselves, the dwelling place where God himself will be with us and be our God. We have glimpsed that future, that life, that dwelling place, that relationship in Scripture, in the saints who have gone before us and supremely in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now as the fellowship-creating reality of his presence in the world, Paul counsels us to begin with the benediction: to live as though the future promised in his coming is present, provisionally, where two or three are gathered in his name. Likewise theologian Robert Jenson counsels the church to act as “a cell of messengers and advocates in the world on behalf of the world’s own future. The church’s task,” he says, “is to interpret…each reality in the world as an occasion of that hope which is there if Jesus lives; to treat, in words and speaking deeds, each hope and fear as a hope for love’s triumph.” Three things mark the life of the community that begins with the benediction; that advocates in the world on behalf of the world’s own future. In the first place it is a community that is neither optimistic nor pessimistic but is bound to a hope that looks in all things for the extraordinary to break into the ordinary, for light to dispel the darkness if only for a moment, for weeping to tarry only for the night because joy comes in the morning. I say again, this is not the wishful thinking of the Society of Cock-eyed Optimists. Still before us is the aftermath of Ike, the genocide in Darfur, the crushing poverty of Haiti, the unremitting violence throughout the Middle East, the gaping divide between rich and poor in this nation: before us is the “as yet unredeemed existence…ruled by sin and marked by death,” says Barth. “But [we] cannot close [our] eyes to these events, nor seek escape in thoughts of heaven or the wonderful Last Day, because [we] can find more than those who have no hope even…” in the darkest night. “We do not want you to be ignorant,” Paul wrote, “…that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” This is the sure and certain hope of the community addressed by God in Jesus Christ that looks death in the face and shouts nevertheless, “Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory.” In the second place and distinct from “idle contemplation, [hope that advocates in the world for the world’s future] assumes at once the form of an action….Hope takes place,” says Barth, “in the act of taking the next step.” The temptation in economic and political times such as these is to stay the course or choose the known way. Are we not all holding on by our toenails to what we have and to a way of life that is slipping away every time we pump gas or pay the mortgage or open a tax bill? Have the last few months not made us cynical about a once great democracy’s capacity for civil discourse, for truth-telling, for intelligent consideration of the future and our responsible involvement in world affairs? Yet a community of hope that is neither optimistic nor pessimistic but sees in the present intimations of God’s purposes, such a community also clamors in these times more than times of economic or social ease to take the next step. “If the gospel promise is true” Jenson reminds us, “we have nothing to lose and occasionally something reminds a few believers of this. Then their works become [the] exercise of some outlandish hope entertainable only if Jesus lives. They go too far—and just so interpret the world by the gospel….[For] it is by pursuing the common good unconditionally and imprudently that the church makes…plain” the hope to which she is called. Conversely, I might add, “When the church is too consistently sensible, the world will interpret the church’s address religiously and moralistically, despite all verbal claims” to the contrary. All of which brings us to the third mark of the community that advocates in the world for the world’s future. Put negatively, the fellowship-creating reality of Christ’s presence in the world can never be a private affair. Only last of all do we hope for ourselves. Our hope is rather for the world God so loved and thus our ministry must be a public ministry of witness undertaken by those who know they have nothing to lose and Christ to gain. To paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer, if we are to be advocates in the world for the world’s future, we must give the world visible proof of our calling….To wit: if the world despises any of God’s children, we will love and serve them. If the world does them violence, we will give succour and comfort. If the world dishonors and insults them, we will sacrifice our own honor to cover their shame….Where the world oppresses, the church will stoop down and raise up the oppressed. If the world refuses justice, the church will pursue mercy, and if the world takes refuge in lies, the church will speak for the dumb and bear witness to the truth. Marked then by a hope that seeks intimations of the eternal in each day, that clamors in hard times to take the next step and that goes public, may this community of faith begin again with Paul’s benediction, a benediction that sends us out to be subversives for Christ’s sake! Therefore in a world hell bent on war and violence go in peace; in a time ordered by fear, be of good courage; amid the politics of meanness, hold fast to all that is good and render to no one evil for evil; in the face of prejudice and hatred, strengthen the faint hearted, support the weak, heal the afflicted, honor all people. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of him whose Word has called us out, turning our somnambulant days and our sleepless nights, in some eternal sense, Godward! |