Posts
For God so loved the world that he went out of his way to try to save us... Are we really saved? Do we really see the light in the Darkness? Today's Gospel is probably one of the most beautiful, and most well-known scriptures on Jesus amazing gift of Grace to the world. The Gospel writer John, was not only a poet, but someone who tried to illumine the disciples’ hearts with the Divine reality of who Jesus was.
For God so loved the world, that he
gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may
have eternal life. What do you think he means by eternal life, and what kind of
perishing is he exactly talking about? We may perhaps have heard the scripture
so many times, that we don't really listen to these words deeply, spiritually
enough. The kind of perishing he is talking about, is when we look out into the
daylight and only see it as flat and empty. A couple of years back, I counseled
someone who had tried to commit suicide and the description of that moment
where they were contemplating crouching in the windowsill of their 4th floor
apartment, I will never forget.
What we fail to realize enough about
ourselves, or ignore because it's something we don't understand, is that we
have Spirit within us. The soul is the Breath of Life, the very Spirit of Life,
given by God to His creation. When we are tempted enough to fall so much into
the darkness spiritually, things become flat, empty and purposeless. As a
former painter, I could not even fathom not seeing, or perceiving depth but
utter flatness, utter Darkness.
That person literally looked into
the face of death. Whether it be a moment, and their Guardian Angel rescued
them from doing something they would truly regret, they were looking into the
face of death. This past weekend was an intense pep rally for God.
Everything was intense. Everything was full, overflowing to the point of “overdosing”
on being a disciple of Jesus. But then maybe people need to have their
batteries recharged, if not through this type of program, you need to respond
and reflect on your own.
Let's face it though, we are very
conditional people. We want to run everything just the way we want it run. We
have this delusion of control and illusion of power... What are we really
running, what are we really in charge of though? If you're not taking the wheel
to your spiritual journey, someone else, perhaps the ruler of this world, is.
I love hearing other people preach. It's
kind of a rarity. I do investigate some Churches obviously to help me develop
ideas for us here, but it is a treat to see where other people's hearts are at
with God's living and transformative Word. My one colleague is a wild man. God
bless his fantastic energy! He can set your spirits on fire with his fantastic
sense of humor, as well as his deep and personal faith. It's that deep and
personal faith, that is a part of what Proclamation really is. The message God
sends you, should never be a short-order cook form, it has to be from all that
you experience and what God sends you truly to your heart to hear and
share.
The Old Testament lesson for this
morning is really strange. I could see it as one of those 1950’s films with the
fake backdrops and everything else and perhaps Charlton Heston as Moses once
again... the people are bellyaching and complaining and they're not happy, they
can't be made happy and you just kind of want to maybe slap them around a
little bit? But then when you think about the reality of Manna, which is pretty
much believed to be this fungus, spider dust on top of desert fixtures, doesn't
sound too edible to me, either. They didn't want to starve so God provided
something for them, anyway. But it does sort of sound like a bad B movie horror
scene, snakes coming out of the sky and biting the people... That old punishing
parent God of the Old Testament, is making His point. Then of all strangeness, He
offers a little snippet of Mercy by instructing Moses to set a poisonous
serpent on a pole and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.
One of the things we've been hearing
about for a number of Sundays in Lent, has been this confrontation with God,
this theophany with God. This serpent upon a pole, in some senses, we can see
is the people looking into that mirror of the law to then begin to realize what
they must do to reconcile themselves with God. Remember we don't like having
those mirrors. If anything, we’ve tried to do the best we can to remove the
silver from the mirror, to see through it, to have the responses and conditions
we favor for ourselves, over and above God's...
We are like prodigal children. Perhaps
we want to be children of Grace and promise, but we don't want to live into it
or commit to it as God is calling us to. It's like that old saying we'd like to
have our cake and eat it too, but then that’s what creates our wallowing in
Wilderness of the world. We love to wallow, we love to spin our wheels and
complain. We would like to have that health-wealth Gospel reality, where
that cheap Grace makes us feel “good,” but we don't have to be responsible or
accountable to anyone.
The problem is, in order to begin to
confess, where we are and who's we are, after we have reflected upon God's
treaties to us as his children... we have to make good on that metanoia. We
have to make good on that internal change. The one thing I love about being a
pastor deeply committed to spiritual formation, is that I try to guide you to
naturally find that inner point to transform from. The colleague I heard preach
shared, his whole life’s Journey. Here was a former Episcopal priest, which
that sounds like a paradox, he's only former in the terms of the world, but you
never lose your commission and ordination to serve God. The world may say you
are former in many things, but God helps you see the present as well as Beyond
yourself through His amazing unconditional love and Grace.
Paul's letter this week, offers us
some wonderful nuggets to think about, in regard to this journey of believing,
receiving, incorporating and sharing God's Grace through the fruits of our
lives well lived, finding the light in the Darkness! Finding the lights
in the heart of the darkness, is like seeing into a gray backdrop and beginning
to see its many colors come forward.
What did you notice about the motions
I just did in believing, receiving, incorporating and sharing? You should
notice that the sharing gesture is in the shape of a cross. God does truly
stretch you. Now, what does this motion forward mean for you? I'm reaching out
to you. Fairly soon it will almost be a full year here, living in Paradise. I
still have so much to learn about all of you, all of your stories, your
children, your pets, your senses of humor and so on and so forth. What may be
difficult for you to see, but you should think about in connection with Lent
and Easter, is that when a New Journey Begins, it literally is very new and the
past is gone. Everything you see about you, from the tall palm trees, people
driving crazy and mountains upon mountains everywhere, is all very new. It is
literally very new for me!
I know some of you come from
Pennsylvania, and New York, and different places across America; do you
remember that first moment when everything seemed extremely new when you came
here to Vegas? Take that thought with you, and think about what the Gospel
writer is saying here, what he is saying about New Life. When you leave the
past behind, when you grow from the sins you have committed, not only just
taking responsibility for what had happened, but growing, learning from them
truly spiritually— you are leaving it behind, your old life. That old life is
dead and gone. The Old Nature life is that Chrysalis shell I have talked about
on a number of occasions. You are that Christian under construction. If you
haven't picked up the March newsletter that we have ready this morning, take a
look and see at one of the clip art pieces, I sent Ellen to put or use in the
newsletter. It is a yellow, caution sign saying, “Christian under construction.”
The Christian is portrayed in a pose of reflection, or prayer. However, you
want to interpret that image, the point is, the person is reflecting. The
person is thinking about their lives and they are listening to where God is
leading next!
The season of Lent is to teach us
about thinking or reflecting upon ourselves. We are “Works in progress,” and
God never has condemned us. God only always hopes that we choose His plans for
us, then our self-concerned, personal plans. We are just like those Israelites
in the desert with Moses, complaining and belly aching, even after getting free
food and now they're getting bitten… and most likely many of them are
bewildered in wondering why God had Moses put the serpent on a pole? Some of
you may recognize the serpent around the pole, it is used or has been
transformed into the sign for the medical world. Healing is what it has become
a symbol for. What do we need healing from spiritually? We don't go here often
enough to think about that. What we need healing from spiritually, is seeing
those two sides of ourselves clearly and knowing, growing into the side that
God wants us to respond through, and that is that New Nature.
The Gospel writer, as well as Paul,
lays it out there for us: Choose or perish. We can choose to stay in the
ruins of our old life and die a spiritual death, that may consume us, or move
forward finding that light in the darkness. That light in the darkness seen as
Christ’s hand extending down from that cross bringing you out of the Valley to
the Mountaintop of the joy and Triumph of Easter! One of the things that I have
read about, regarding dreams, and this goes beyond Sigmund Freud's findings
with dreams, but what a house represents when you're seeing bits and pieces of
housing that you've either lived in or were part of at one point in your life.
When you start to see many dreams and visions of your past starting to crumble
and fall away in your mind's eye within this unconscious flow… your heart is beginning
to contemplate that metanoia, that turning towards God into that New life.
These were things that I thought
about when I was counseling this person who tried to take their own life.
Everything they saw was falling apart but instead of seeing it as a hopeful
sign of light in the Darkness, they took it in the form of grieving and wanting
to cling to what they once were, and what they once had. They couldn't move
into the light to save their life. There are some camps out there of thought,
saying that suicide is a sin simply because the person is trying to make a
decision about keeping their life, when this is something that is in God's
Realm. I can only agree with a part of that. Reason being is that
suffering and Evil, is something we don't have control over. Evil is a problem,
and the ruler of this world has gotten stronger by making us feel more
bewildered, by our not being able to change the world.
If we truly can't change enough of
the world, are we in life where we ought to be? Here is that question that
leads us to understand why at times during our faith Journey, we may feel to be
wallowing in that wilderness. “The Best Is Yet To Come” finding the Peace of
Christ at the center of your life, and in your hearts, is a long journey, but
we are on that road. Christ is that light in the Darkness. He is what we are to
look at, to live. To truly live is to be reaping that New Nature responding to
God's Grace out of a love we are capable of in our very selves.
Let's recap these thoughts here, so
it doesn't seem like the last scene in The Sopranos television show, where they
just cut out to a black screen and you have these thoughts, these Witnesses of Spirit,
these lessons of Faith just end. What we’re to learn this week is that Jesus was
lifted on the cross, so that we may look to Him, and live. Through the Lenten
Journey, Jesus is making his way to that inevitable cross. That cross that
absorbs death, to recreate, to give us New life through Grace. We need to let
those old buildings crumble of our Old Nature selves, our old ways, former life
and rebuild realizing that mirror to our transgressions as points of learning for
us to truly become that New building. We are to be renewed as the New Creation
founded by Jesus gift of the cross.
Our journey as a church body… Right
now, we are just on the edge of that New Creation or Resurrection. We are on
the edge of being replanted as a community of believers, even with “used pews”
from California. The blood, sweat and tears of our faithful committee members
are making sure that this new home will be a blessing for years to come. Even
as a community, we are in the process of not looking back to the past but
growing into a glorious New future. Only way we can keep “growing and going,”
in the right direction is with the right “attitude of gratitude.” The right
attitude is looking way beyond yourself, way beyond narrow-minded things, that
kept you in one place or another. This new leg of the journey is our
Resurrection which we must continue for the glory of God, to grow from beyond
ourselves and our old ways and into something continually new.
Another year or so from now, I'll
probably have so many stories to share of this New life here, you'll ask me to
stop sharing them… but in the meantime I hope we can grow together through
Christ’ love and be truly a New Nature team for the sake of the Gospel, in
hopes to change the world!
Let us pray,
Gracious and loving Lord of life,
Continue to guide us to look upon
all you have given us through Grace
In order to live in a righteous
faith
That is the natural fruits of our lives
lived
Beyond ourselves unconditionally
loving You and neighbor.
We lift this prayer to you, in order
for Your healing Grace to answer
Amen
March 11th,
2018; Fourth Sunday in Lent; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 107:1-9,
17-22; Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 9:30am
No comments:
Post a Comment