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The little Swedish Lutheran Church I
started going to in Chicago at the beginning of my journey had a beautiful
miniature wooden ship that was at the entryway to both the fellowship hall and
part of the sacristy room. I wondered what the significance of that was, as I
also looked at the buttressed ceiling and the shapes of the ceiling. I studied and
taught art history which looked at a lot of Church architecture, but I never
thought that a part of the symbolism of the structure of the sanctuary was to
reflect that of a ship. Well in this particular view, it looks like the church
is a capsized boat but then perhaps that's looking at the glass half empty.
Maybe it's better to think of the church as “upside-down” to the world and has
a view straight above and beyond— being in full marriage and partnership with God.
Pioneering a partnership with God... can we think of ourselves truly as married
to our faith Journey?
Today we have some classic scriptures,
the first from Genesis is of course that passage that feminists decry of
Genesis 2. A part of me has to say, if the author did not put “… helper and a
partner…” in at least three different times throughout this passage, I would
have a problem with coming from a rib as well. I would want to say it's the
opposite. Well, since women are the child bearers, we should be the ones
that the rib to make Adam comes from. But then this is the chicken, or the
egg sort of thing… and I guess patriarchy won out. Life's too short. That
slogan, “Life's too short...” I remember a couple years back there used to be a
really tacky billboard sign in downtown Chicago. It actually made the local news segment for
its controversial suggestions. Basically,
it said: “Life's Too Short, get a divorce!” It showed a scantily clad women in
lingerie with a glass of wine in her hand.
Divorce we know, is an ugly side
effect of humanity's problem with either irreconcilable differences or just not
willing to be in sync with one another as a team. Team is a wonderful word, for
to be in a team is to count on one another. It is to be accountable to each
other. it is to be enlightening, inspiring and encouraged by one another
towards a greater goal and mission that is at hand. This IS a discipleship
song. Disciple and ship, two words that come together to talk about the people
that make up the steeple. We do get hung up in that building now, don't we? We'd
rather let something else be at the helm then taking the helm ourselves with
God's help and following, parting the waves of the world to where we're
supposed to be steering towards.
The Gospel passage we have today has
the Pharisees once again trying to be conniving jerks and seeing if Jesus will
go against the law of Moses. What they failed to do or see however was that
they saw the law only as a means of control and did not see people at all as
being equal or in Partnership. You could say that they cherry-picked aspects the
Old Testament’s scriptures to ignore “helper and partner” as well as ignore
many things about the importance of family. Jesus is giving a testimony to
family here and the words He says are beautiful in trying to get them to hear.
He first scolds them and saying that their hardness of heart, this commandment
is for them and what God has joined together, let no one separate.
There's a lot of things we have let
separate us not only from one another but from God. Our lives at times could be
like that capsized boat, where we're trapped underneath and we're feeling that we
are succumbing to the waters, drowning in our own troubles, sadness and worry.
That's the funny thing about tears… If you cry a lot, it's hard to see through
your eyes. It's hard to see out there that there is much or any hope or promise,
when you seem to be drowning in your own despair. We should fight this
however, if we feel this way is the Body of Christ in the world. We should
fight it when we look out there and count the numbers and see very few people
in our congregations and very few people contributing to much of anything
beyond thinking the pastor should do everything. The church doesn't necessarily
have “Flex-Seal” though, it has Christ. I don't know how many of you have seen
it funny commercial about the Flex-Seal tape, but they had a man who sawed a
boat in half... and basically taped it back together with the tape. I know some
friends who use that for their air mattress and it did not work.
The Pharisees were using the law not
only to control people, but they were seeing it in some senses like the Flex-Seal
tape. They thought the law can fix and control everything. We do this in
our relationships though as well. We think there's some magical answer or we
find other means that further divide us from one another. The discipleship
themes we are now getting into, during this endless season of “extra-Ordinary”
time as I like to call it, have us moving from intention, motivation and
priorities, to now thinking about being accountable. Are we accountable to one
another yet alone to God and His mission in the world? Do we come together
every Sunday in sync with one another with being on a team of disciples, doing
things in a spirit beyond Sunday? That has been the hardest aspect of “growing
and going” as not only the bride of Christ, but as a body of believers to do
things together for a greater goal and purpose beyond the Sunday morning stigma.
That saying of smooth sailing is
funny to connect to thinking of our relationships as well as our spiritual development
“growing and going” down God's path. If you thought of yourself as an actual
ship, who is at the helm of that ship? If your faith is very strong then you
truly do see Christ at the helm, His Holy Spirit guiding you down a smooth,
sailing path. Our ships just like our churches, are broken structures however.
There's many pieces and elements that create the structure. The wear and the tear
and the holes and the frayed marks have been glued, re-nailed or perhaps even
Flex-Seal taped over. Beyond this human reality, the Helm of our ship has two
ill-fitted pieces creating it. These two
pieces are greed and indifference. We can't break away from this or can't
remove it because it is a part of who we are as both an “aspiring” Saint and
willful sinner.
And when we feel we're completely
alone at the helm, and don't lean on God to guide us… the rudders of our sins
lead us to tread the waters of transgression or disobedience. Yes, I'm using
highly abstract language and symbols and I'm not just doing that because the
artist in me saw great connection to a ship with these lessons, but there's a
fine line boundary within us that has us see reality very clearly and avoid the
truth of the matter with abstraction. These are things that we cannot see,
or we have chosen not to believe, on many occasions or deny. The Pharisees we
could say, were blinded in seeing the need for people to be bound, united to
one another spiritually. They allowed the law to make their reality very hard
and rigid and not open to see how we need one another, we need to be a
functioning family. Moses and Abraham were their pioneers of the faith. They
were not willing to see that perhaps what they have laid down as a cut and dry
perfected path to God was not developed the way that God hopes for us to have
it developed. The law became their anchor over Yahweh.
We do this though, all the time. We
let things steer our lives and sometimes or to some degree, out of control.
We're not exactly becoming the Titanic, mind you and crashing on a rock… but
we're starting to see our journey together as church, developing some seriously
leaks. We may have our mindset so strongly on one thing or the other, that we
justify it to the point of the detriment and destruction of another. We've been
seeing this politically in the world right now, with this quieted Civil War
that doesn't seem to be getting any better. It is becoming more divisive, evil
and unconscionable. We are divorced among one another in coming together and
talking about the issues at hand, yet alone we are truly divorced in our
opinions on which way the world should turn.
All you need to do is “cherry-pick”
around the truth and paint any kind of picture you'd like to. We see it with
the scriptures today. I may have begun to joke about Adam's rib, patriarchy and
feminism… but in the Medieval era of history, justifications against women, violence
against women and the development of witch hunts was influenced and justified
strangely enough with this passage from Genesis. I even read a commentary on
this, preparing for this Sunday's message. How sad it is to see how someone has
distorted and steered away from the truth of God, what the Word is truly
revealing(!) The Pharisees were doing the same thing with the laws that
Moses put in place. Basically, what they interpreted was that a man could
basically do anything he wanted to and leave a woman destitute and in suffering.
According to the Pharisee’s interpretation, if the husband wanted to get a
divorce, and play around with someone else… it was okay for him but there is no
equality or anything for wife. Many Middle Eastern cultures today still
have this as their law of dealing with the sexes. The Pharisees were so set in
their ways, it was almost to the point of being beyond control. They neither
felt they needed to be reconciled to God yet alone realized the folly of their
ways and their viewpoints.
That's why I love the end of today's
Gospel when Jesus says to “…let the little children come to Him. The Kingdom of
God belongs to them.” The most powerful line which He leaves us to think about
this week whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, will
never enter it. What Jesus is really saying here is about being open. He is
teaching us about being humble and it is about allowing God to be at the helm
of your life. We sang lovely hymn this afternoon, ‘Jesus Savior Pilot Me.’ It
made me think of a funny version or variation of that theme with a campfire
Jesus song: ‘Jesus Drop Kick Me Through the Goalposts of Life.’ Perhaps God
does need to give us a good kick somewhere.... “pun intended.” Who is your
captain? What is our Gospel and what are we married to? These are very
important subjects to ponder especially today. What have we made our Gospel?
All of us have a different way of looking at things that's why we continually
need to return to that process. This is that daily process of reflecting upon
our baptism and wondering: are we confessing what God needs our hearts to grow
from? Are we truly reconciling ourselves to one another yet alone repenting to
God and are we letting the gospel truthfully transform us, renew us into those
New Creations that the kingdom of God has been built for?
Yes, I have been delightfully
married to my wonderful husband for 9 years next year will be our 10th. I don't
think we need a medal yet… Maybe if we get to at least the 30th mark, some kind
of reward? Our relationship has been built on trust and support of one another
it's never been an easy road. It's never been an easy road being a pastor and
an artist. I've wondered where God is at many times but then that's my own
problem of not trusting myself, having confidence in myself. Am I in control,
am I allowing God to be in control of my heart to do the right things? That one
thing that sticks out for me from are overdosing on James this past month is
that we do need to be “doers of the Word.” We need to be doers of what we know
is right in our hearts that God points us to, leads us to. This alien
righteousness maybe a difficult abstract thing to find, but just like thinking
of the church as that capsized boat, we need to be positive and see it as
looking out into an “upside-down” world with the Radical Gospel of Christ as
our fuel.
When we live truthfully into the Gospel
of Christ, the world that we are living in, is upside down. We are in a wilderness
that has been well established by the old nature. We can choose to wallow in
that wilderness or tap into that new nature where God leads and truly realize
the Kingdom of God, here and now in our midst. Being those little
children is going to require us to tap into prayer more deeply. I know from
speaking for myself these last few weeks, I pray every night when I feel any
kind of anxiety or the weight of things upon me. I don't care if it's in the
middle of the night and my cats are very happy that I'm awake. I have to pray,
and I need God to guide me. I pray for Him to guide me and I know He does. I just
need to believe it more deeply. These are things we need to think about in our
everyday life. Life certainly does not go the way one plans. There may be times
you don't have time to clasp your hands together and prepare to dive into the
unknown waters... life just might push you off the side of the edge— sink
or swim, that simple. No one ever said being a disciple is easy. The real
health wealth of the Gospel is His Wonderful Amazing Grace that has given us
something truly new within us to tap into. Be it, Do it live it!
Let us pray—
Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus
Help us to be strong, help us to know
You are with us, at the helm of our lives.
May we never fear or have anxiety
about the rough waters ahead
May we see that smooth sailing ship
of Your Gospel
Leading us and renewing us as truly Your
children of Grace and promise
We lift these prayers to Your most
loving name
AMEN
October
7th, 2018; 20th Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 22; Year
B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
128; Genesis 2:18-25; Hebrews 2:1-18; Mark 10:2-16
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub at 12:30PM
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