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As you know every Monday morning, we
meet for the ‘Coffee with Jesus’ at the Starbucks on Rancho. We normally look
at the lectionary and see what it has to say to us. I thought it was a very
interesting coincidence that I literally was awoken that morning by the alarm,
at the tail end of, at first, a very bad dream of many anxious things and
unpleasant images, till the very end—where I would see Jesus! At the very end
of this dream, I started to see Jesus walking towards me and literally coming
out of the wall. When I came towards Him and started to praise Him, pray to Him,
and tell Him that I loved Him, then He all the sudden, turned into a
photograph. It's been said that it's very hard to really remember much of your
dreams at all, but I thought it was such an interesting coincidence or “God-incidence”
on that very same day, we would have scriptures that talked about the profound
peace, mercy and the love of God. This is a kind of love that is one that binds
us together, as His children of Grace and Promise. To have literally started my
day remembering Jesus bringing me peace and love in this dream, was a message,
I believe, of His guiding Grace to me.
Out of the waters of chaos, our
daily lives begin to find a plateau. This plateau is a peace that helps us to
bring everything back into perspective again. What do we think of regarding
the steadfast love of God? Are they just pretty words that bring us a “light comfort,”
but we don't really have much understanding of its binding nature? This week is
again, another lesson for us in growing our faith, to understanding the providence
of God. A God who is not only with us,
as the Holy Spirit, but one who is truly providing. The only difference from
our lessons last week, is now we need to think about what the covenant of God means.
Just what are we called to grow in understanding to? A covenant is a bridge
that is created by promise. Promise is very hard for the human nature to trust
in, yet alone have enough confidence in. That's the problem pretty much here
with these lessons we have today. The little Gospel snippet this morning is a
connecting text between Jesus just literally wrapping up His miracle of the
feeding of the 5,000 and Mark’s picture of Jesus walking on water. The other Gospel
writers talk about Peter sinking in the water, but this doesn't include that,
what this does include is an interesting twist again of Jesus needing them to not
be afraid.
“Take heart, it is I, do not be
afraid…” They were terrified but at that very moment they began to feel peace.
This was when the air was stilled, and the waters quieted down, and He was once
again on the boat with them just before they would land in Gennesaret. When I
first read that verse, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid...” I thought of
that image that I saw when I was waking up, where it was Jesus’ eyes coming
through first and everything that was previous, was washed away by this most
beautiful peace. It was as if looking into His eyes brought me peace.
That's another key thought right
there, washing away. The reading from Genesis has God saving some of the people
and allowing Noah to take two of each kind, to safety. At first thinking about
this story, people have wondered if the flood was caused by God's Wrath… An even more profound thought however, could the
flood have actually been started out of God's grieving our sinfulness? Perhaps
in some senses, God wanted to “wipe the slate clean and start afresh,” with
those He knew were truly listening and connected to His voice and His purposes.
Two images popped into my mind. The first one is a really funny Far Side
cartoon from years ago that show a cloud saying: “oh oh…” and the experimental
jar of humans broken open below on the earth and they ran free. The other image
that I see, is one of God wishing that we would have a change of heart. There's
that word again, change of heart, the one we learned about in Lent and onward— “Metanoia,”
changing the heart, turning the heart to God. The Gospel gives this away a
little bit in saying: “… for they did not understand about the loaves… their
hearts were hardened.” Perhaps the Disciples weren't necessarily of a very hard
heart but were still growing and weren't open enough yet to realize God's
guiding Grace active in their lives.
This reminded me of a beautiful talk
given once by a young woman who was a survivor of domestic violence. In
beginning to give this talk, she actually became very angry and then very hurt
and in tears. She needed to take it apart and essentially re-envision it this talk
to express her fears and her survival. The story with her talk painted an image
of a man who saw a chrysalis with a butterfly struggling to break free. The man
was saddened and brought to compassion to help cut away the shell to allow the
butterfly to escape. The only problem was that he clipped off a part of the
butterfly's wings. Human nature isn't perfect, but unfortunately the creature
died. Now let us replace this man with the love and peace of God. Let us
imagine God's hands holding that Chrysalis cocoon, and in helping to open it,
is when He notices that the little butterfly actually is starting to find a way
out of this shell. He just gives a little bit of a nudge with one thumb and one
gently guiding hand underneath, and the creature is free.
I love that image of the Chrysalis and
the butterfly because it is so true to the journey of the spirit. This is the journey of the heart to discover
God, His will and purposes. And once you've made your escape from that shell,
you begin to grow. You are making an intentional effort to hear and listen to
God. This is when beautiful things begin to happen. You begin to see God's work
within you, through you and around you. I was counseling someone this week, who
felt challenged in their faith, challenged in the sense of not feeling enough
encouragement or love from their brothers and sisters in Christ. I then began
to share with them my story of finding God back in my life, at the very
beginning. This very beginning was about one year before my conversion experience,
in the fateful summer of 2003, when I just came to this church out of
curiosity. Twenty plus years of being a jaded, “recovering” Catholic before
that, made the start of this new journey, slow. But it wasn't until I saw the
Light of Christ, the love of Christ and His peace come through, flow through, a
very kind and compassionate pastor, that I was trying to break out of my
chrysalis shell. I told the person I was counseling if it wasn't for this
pastor being there, placed there, at that certain point in my life; I may have
never been encouraged enough to move forward and truly dive into my faith.
Our human nature though, always
wants to seem to fight the awareness of the providence of God and His divine
guiding Grace throughout our everyday lives. It is almost as if we are
listening to people with one ear, and it just goes out the other, where the
person is still hurting and grieving. Some of the people I’ve been counseling
are terrible listeners and I’ve been praying that they come to hear God’s
voice. There’s going to be some voices out there as well, that are not coming
from God, but are coming from the evil one. These are those thoughts that create
moments of chaos, anxiety and disillusion. Those are those things that start to
flood in, deepening those valleys that we must be willing to work our way at getting
out of.
Paul talks about making a way out of
the valley. He falls down on his knees to God, the Father and knows his true
place is being a child of Grace and promise. He feels Christ dwelling in his
heart and he feels he is rooted and grounded in God’s love… And now as a good
and faithful pastor, he needs to share this with the people in Ephesus. This is
a beautiful prayer of Paul's that gives a wonderful message not only of the
power of prayer, but talks about our weakness and God's profound strength being
His Shalom and His Hesed. Shalom, we know as the peace of God. Hesed is the
steadfast love of God. This is an unfathomable love something we cannot
completely understand but we shouldn't stop trying to hear this deeply in our
hearts: “… For His steadfast love endures forever.”
Upon that foundation of Christ as
the Cornerstone within our hearts, as His children of Grace and promise, are
those two pillars. These two pillars of unconditional Covenantal Love and Peace
are what motivates us and makes us strong in faith. They are joined together
like that multicolored rainbow God first places in the sky when Noah and the
Ark reach land and the waters recede. That was a fairly obvious sign from God
to reveal to the remnant that He allowed to be spared, to see. It almost seems
though, that the idea of Covenant is conditional… but speaking in terms of a
most costly Grace revealed through Christ, God is just truly seeking our loving
response as revealed by our transforming hearts. With Christ and His New
Covenant on our behalf, it is the Cross which shapes our hearts to realize
God’s Grace through faith.
The scene after today's Gospel,
which you may recognize, are the very last few verses from last week. The
disciples moor the boat to the shore and are starting to walk into the villages.
Jesus is being sought by everyone for healing and He and His disciples are
nearly overwhelmed. Just as mentioned last week, in regard to we are always in
need… We have to think about just what kind of need are we seeking to be
filled?
Saint Paul is trying to help the
Ephesians see that to know the love of Christ is a knowledge that surpasses our
understanding of the ways of the world, in order for us… “to be filled with all
the fullness of God.” This is another aspect of that divide though. This is
that divide within us that we struggle with as both Saint and sinner. We know
we are truly in the world, but we are challenged to live beyond ourselves and
towards the Kingdom of God. We are challenged to tap into a beautiful faith
that has its’ seed planted within us from the Saving Grace of Christ. We are
still those butterflies trying to come out of that chrysalis.
I think it is interesting times that
we live in. They are definitely not times of Peace as I mentioned in my message
last week. A lot of turmoil… however we try to reserve ourselves with a false
sense of calm or an earthly “fix” that is to supposedly make us feel better and
get our reasoning back on track. Many people have drowned themselves in various
kinds of addictions or dependency upon things that never really fill them, yet
alone become the answer they are seeking. It merely covers up their pain and seeming
emptiness. That's when the world and its Temptations overrule us and take
us away from that bright light, Hope and Mission that we are supposed to truly
tap into. In some senses, it's like being that butterfly trapped in the
chrysalis but not believing or trusting that God would come to help them. They
need to see within themselves and realize God’s guiding Grace to rip through
that shell and truly be free. Thinking
about all this reminded me of people in my past.
Years ago, I knew a very promising
young poet who always struggled with his faith, yet alone with all the problems
he had with his family. He was someone that truly grew up alone and only saw a
very dim light ahead leading him into the future. If it wasn't every
other venue that I saw him at, drinking to excess, he would be bragging about
his new found “peace” being cocaine. There would be many times that people
would have to drop him off since he couldn't drive home.... His wife, a
struggling poet and actress, tried to hold things together while she was
essentially raising their three children on her own. She was a devout Catholic
who just didn’t believe in divorce at all, till the day he decided to abandon
their small family and leave without a trace. He was a very lost soul and
confused about his life. She was pretty much in the same boat, sadly. I
remember seeing her getting drunk and performing at a number of venues before
their marriage was “allowed” to officially be annulled. I'm sure we know
someone or have come across other people in our lives journey, who have
struggled not only with even keeping a modest faith but have caved into
complete despair.
Despair is the circumstance of our
lack of faith, our lack of trust and our lack of confidence. Hope is challenging.
It is very hard. I just was consoling someone the other day who is disparaging
beyond belief about the thought of being homeless. There's only so much I could
do to try to help them to listen to God. They need to try to listen to others
as well and be humble to trust that things will change. But just perhaps like
the disciples trying to understand and make sense of the miracle feeding the 5,000
and Jesus walking on the water, they just couldn't or didn't have enough faith in
what they were seeing as well as what they were hearing. The Providence of God
is our great hope and way of flourishing in the world as Disciples of Jesus,
but it does “take two to tango” as they say. Just like Michelangelo's David, WE
need to reach out towards God.
I love that song that probably
wasn’t a religious song at all, for Simon and Garfunkel, but I love ‘Bridge
over Troubled Waters.’ I love imagining Christ singing those words to me. I can see that image from the tail end of my
dream Monday morning, coming through.
The peace and love of Christ which surpasses all understanding, we truly
have access to. Christ is our bridge who laid down His life for a saving Grace
to free us. And He has freed us in more ways than one. He has been our comfort and eased our pain
and has taken out the darkness with His shining light of hope. The troubled waters of our souls need to be
stilled and know that God’s love and peace is there. We WILL find our way in God’s time, through
His Grace to shine again.
Let us Pray,
Loving and Gracious God,
We thank You for all You have given
us
Help us to be still and know that
You are our Father
And we are Your children of Grace
and Promise
Be that bridge over the troubled
waters over our lives
Help us to seek You, hear Your
healing voice in our hearts.
We lift these prayers from our
hearts to You.
AMEN
July
29th, 2018; Tenth Sunday after Pentecost; Year B; Proper 12; SOLA
Lectionary Exegesis
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
136:1-9; Genesis 9:8-17; Ephesians 3:14-21; Mark 6:45-56
This sermon was delivered at First Congregational Church at 10am
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