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Inspire Sermon by Brian Russo July 18, 2010, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Jonah 1 Matthew 4:18-22
So my friends, the question is, do you yearn? Have you yearned lately? Or better and more exact for us this morning, when was the last time you felt… inspired? One of my best friends, Dave DeGiralamo once enlightened me saying, do you know that if you break down the word, Inspire, it literally means to inhale/to breathe in the spirit of God? How awesome is that -- that when we are so moved, to the point when language is utterly deficient in explanation, we are literally taking in an element of divinity! That when we are inspired, we feel as if the whole world and cosmos suddenly has meaning, or a higher meaning for that matter. Inspiration then is really the greatest seduction, for it unites us with a dreamscape of senses that are otherwise unapparent to our everyday normal faculties. So I ask again, have you felt inspired? How about lately? In the fascinating world of astrophysics, there is a notion that theorizes that if you were an observer watching someone fall through a black hole, it would eventually appear as if that person completely stopped moving. That at the moment they passed through the event horizon, time and space ceased to matter, and thus illustrated on an eternal canvas a frozen portrait of their final image. Mind-bending, right? But what’s even more of a shock is when you think of it as a metaphor in this vain: could friends and loved ones say the same about you and your present life? That is to say, is who you are now just a cemented portrait of who you were years ago, whenever you ceased to move, to evolve, to change, to feel inspired? I must say that it’s always been a personal ambition of mine to never inherit that type of painting. For if I was today who I was some years ago, I’d be nothing less than a fire and brimstone preacher! Hard to imagine, but that really was me, and every time I reflect on it, it gives me shudders. I simply wasn’t the kooky, lovable, hair-which-most-of-you-cant-stand minister that I am today. I was nasty and vindictive in my Christianity, quick to point out the failings of others while conveniently forgetting my own. But thank God, thank God that inspiration continuously claimed my life, such that I can happily declare that I’m no longer that dude. There’s too many of those dudes in the pulpit right now as it is, too many dudes whose faith never changed beyond the Sunday School lessons mommy and daddy handed down. There’s actually too many dudes in general, but I digress. ? Back to the point: to be inspired, to truly be inspired, as so many of us faithful followers claim to be, is to be joyous; to let the cup runneth over; to be moved; to feel alive; to have your mind altered, your senses aroused, your path undeniably changed. And I suspect, that this is precisely why the first-to-be disciples got up and moved and walked with Jesus. A decision, mind you, that forever changed the landscape of history, for without them and their inspiration, who knows if any of us, or this church, would even be here today? Imagine the scene that Matthew paints for us. Fishermen on the sea, casting their nets, locked into a family business of familiarity, the only tradition they ever knew and that which ultimately defined them. That’s what life was for them; that was their life’s meaning; to get up everyday, cast their nets, bring home what they could, and hit repeat upon the suns rising in the morn. They were cryogenic images of time, phantoms in the mirror of yesterdays past. And yet, as soon as they meet Jesus, they instantly changed. They were in fact Inspired -- they inhaled the mist coming off the heavenly sea, windswept in by the presence of divinity. Matthew writes that, immediately, immediately, these disciples got up from what they were doing, and cognitively left their families and everything they knew in life; they let it all go and followed him. Wow. If that’s not the product of inspiration, then what is? Of course, I am not meaning to declare that you are woefully uninspired if you haven’t left your comfortable job for an occupation otherwise insecure – that would be ridiculous. And of course I am not implying that you have to give up everything, literally leaving your loved ones behind to taste the bitterness of abandonment – that would be wrong. And I’m certainly not preaching to the Taylor Bernsteins, the Tommy Rebecks, and all of the little ones to get up and leave their family on the whim of inspiration – that would be reckless, and indeed, childish! But I am hoping that they, and perhaps all of you, will someday, at some hour, be so tantalized by something so enthusiastically motivating, that your mouth and eyes will open so wide in astonishing wonder, that you might become like those disciples, believing that there are things so awesome in life that are simply worth everything to sacrifice for and follow. And oh, doesn’t the idea of living like that just give you chills? I don’t know about you, but it does to me, and makes me feel like the late Bob Ross as he ecstatically painted a new tree into a world he continuously self-created. And understand this, inspiration comes in many shapes and sizes. Most of us, perhaps even all of us, will never meet Jesus on the sea or on the road like Paul, so we must, we must, find our own treasures to captivate us. And they can be so simple! Just the other night, when I wished nothing more than to be in bed, I had to take Vincent, my new puppy, out for a late night walk. It was so silent, and the clouds above were like a celestial blanket tucking me in to my surroundings -- all I could think of was lying down (even the pavement looked comfortable), calling it a day, hoping for nothing more to happen between me and my inevitable sleep. And then all of sudden, the clouds momentarily broke at a single point, and revealed the most beautiful and architectural of constellations formed by distant stars that perhaps and probably have long since ceased to exist. You might find such a thing trivial or un-noteworthy, but I tell you this: at that moment my mind and soul were flooded with a thousand thoughts and a million sensations. I was simply inspired. Do you realize, I found myself saying to Vincent, that we are on but a sphere, floating, held up by the invisible force of gravity, in space! We’re in space, spinning, moving, and just hovering there! And we’ve been there ten thousand years multiplied by 450, 000! Are we are only one of billions of other spheres, within billions of other galaxies! And all of those stars up there have their own time, story, and possibilities of inhabiting life, just like you and me. There’s a whole universe of knowledge, and experience, and testimony yet to have been seen, let alone discovered. There is more, there is more, there is so much more! …Sadly to say, Vincent wasn’t as moved as I, as he just itched his neck, yawned, and then rolled around the grass. Oh well But from one single cloud break, I was inspired. I was moved. I had previously wished to do nothing else but sleep, to go into an unchanging subconscious state of sloth, and yet was completely overcome and awakened by an inspiration so unfathomable, that I stayed up combing through websites on astrophysical discovery and forums on cosmological theory. Why sleep, why do nothing, when my heart and mind leapt for so much more? Have you felt inspired? How about lately? Inspiration, my friends, comes through so many different vehicles, that mine might look extremely look different from Cindy’s, and her’s extremely different than Mark’s, and so on. It could be the stars for me, it could be a book for Cindy, a song for Mark, and your boyfriend, girlfriend, athlete, celebrity, or even, hopefully, Jesus Christ the Lord for you. And the real point is, that when you discover it, when you find him, that you don’t just shrug your shoulders, saying, ‘eh, I’ve seen enough, I’ve seen better.’ You don’t run away like Jonah, saying it’s simply too great for you to handle, the gravity of its power too crushing to wrap your mind around; and you never personify George Costanza choosing to remain in a waking comatose of existence – that is the death nail. For it’s when you get here that Jesus Christ himself could descend once more, meet you at your job, and you could reply, ‘sorry Jesus, or whoever you are, I’m just fine as it is, my life is good enough.’ No, no, no… there is so much more and we get up to follow it, to chase after him, to see our passions through, to change, to become excited… and then finally when inspiration blazes as white light before our eyes, we preach on it, allowing everyone else to inhale the amazing grace we have personally, and in awe, experienced. Amen. |