“Open Door for Those Who Doubt”

Mark 9: 14-29

February 5, 2012

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

High on my list of favorite Bible verses is “I believe; help my unbelief!” It is certainly one of the most relevant for people who live in this bewildering time when traditional religious beliefs seem to be challenged on all sides, from sophisticated intellectuals espousing a new atheism to fundamentalist preachers embarrassing the rest of us with their outlandish pronouncements about what God is up to in the world. “I believe; help my unbelief” is an important idea. 

I have always identified with the man in the story since I became a father and discovered, among other things, that I didn’t know a thing about babies, hadn’t the foggiest notion of how to hold a baby, change a baby, bathe a baby. I also discovered a profound game change, a love I didn’t even know was in my heart: this little thing was now dependent on me and, thanks be to God, another person, my partner in the project, who knew a great deal more than me. 

So I know this father who brings his son to Jesus. When your child hurts, you hurt. When your child is heartbroken, your heart breaks too. And when one day you have to turn your child over to surgeons and nurses and watch as he is wheeled into the operating room, that is about as empty and powerless and vulnerable as it gets. So I know this man.

The father is waiting for Jesus, and he is not there for spiritual advice. He hasn’t brought his son to have his soul saved. He’s there because he is desperate. He told his story to Jesus’ disciples to no avail, so he pushes his way through the crowd, pulling his son behind him until they find Jesus. His story pours out, in clinical detail. “My son has an evil spirit. When it seizes him, it knocks him down. He shakes all over, grinds his teeth, and foams at the mouth.” 

“Bring him to me,” Jesus says. Then, in front of Jesus, the little boy falls to the ground. Jesus asks a diagnostic question, the question every physician begins with: “How long has this been going on?” “Since childhood…If you are able, have pity on us and help us.” Notice, that’s not exactly a ringing affirmation. “If you are able”—that’s an expression of skepticism born of a thousand failures. This father has tried everything, consulted doctors and faith healers, anyone who might help his son. 

Jesus’ response makes me uncomfortable. It sounds a little judgmental. “If you are able! All things are possible for the one who believes.” Is the implication that the son has not been healed because his father doesn’t believe enough, that it’s his fault? Or is Jesus the one who believes and in whom all things are possible? In either event, this very vulnerable father cries out, “I believe.” I sense that what the father is saying is this: “All right! All right! I believe then. I’ll say whatever you want me to say if it will help my son. I believe.” And then in a pure moment of human integrity he adds, “help my unbelief.” 

Jesus commands the spirit to come out of the boy. He is still in the throes of what sounds like an epileptic episode, and now he’s absolutely still. Jesus takes him by the hand and lifts him up, brushes him off, and pats him on the shoulder. And while the text doesn’t say it I believe the son falls into his father’s arms, tears streaming down the father’s face, and off they go, home, to a new and hopeful future in which everything is now possible. 

Now, if we look closely at the story, we will see an internal contradiction. Jesus says first that healing the boy requires strong belief. Well, the father affirms his belief, sort of, but also acknowledges his unbelief. Jesus heals his son anyhow. John Calvin, careful, tedious scholar that he was, observed that “these two statements may appear to contradict each other, but there is none of us that does not experience both of them in himself.” Really? John Calvin? Both belief and unbelief existing in all of us, even in himself? Self confident, dogmatic old Calvin? Belief and unbelief?  

Somewhere we got the idea that belief means no unbelief, that having a religion means having no unanswered questions, that faith means having no doubts at all. Religious certainty has caused a lot of tragedy in human history. If you have no doubts about the absolute truth of your religion, no unanswered questions, it seems logical to define someone who differs, who adheres to another religion, as somehow an infidel, an enemy. Thinking like that leads to the conclusion that it is a good thing to rid the world of the other, the heretic, to cleanse society by eliminating the doubters. Thinking like that motivates young men and women to strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in a busy marketplace. And when that profound certainty creeps into politics, when ideological correctness is the sole criterion by which everything is evaluated and decided, civil political discourse ends, and the goal is to prove the other wrong at all costs. 

Apparently Jesus can handle a little unbelief. In fact there are some very good things to be said about doubt and uncertainty. Psychiatrist Rollo May said, “The most creative people neither ignore doubt nor are paralyzed by it. They admit it, explore it, and act in spite of it.” 

There would be no advances in science and technology if there were not courageous people willing to risk ridicule and embarrassing failure by doubting conventional wisdom. Steve Jobs’ genius was precisely his willingness to doubt the given in favor of the possible. Without honest, creative doubt, no one would ever have injected a lethal virus into a healthy person’s arm on the hope that it would immunize him/her from smallpox, measles and polio. 

Doubt and faith are not incompatible. In fact, honest faith includes honest doubt. Paul Tillich said, “If doubt appears, it should not be considered as the negation of faith, but as an element which was always and will always be present in the act of faith.” Soren Kierkegaard added, “Your intellect, your reason, will take you only so far. You will never, so long as you are alive and honest, eliminate every doubt. Finally you must leap into the darkness—make the ‘leap of faith.’”

The last book William Sloane Coffin wrote before he died was Letters to a Young Doubter. In it he quotes German poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…You will live into the answers.” Coffin then adds his own encouragement: “Doubts move you forward not backward…religious faith despite doubts is far stronger than one without doubts. I suspect that no one so reveals an absence of faith as a dogmatist.” 

I suspect everyone has doubts. When life strikes a particularly cruel blow, no one is immune to doubting the presence of a good and loving God. No one who has witnessed innocent suffering has not, in some way or another, lodged a complaint with heaven and asked simply, profoundly, “Why?” 

I feel it is important to question God. I feel there is more honest faith in an act of questioning than in an act of silent submission. Questioning God is, itself, an act of faith. “I believe; help my unbelief” is an honest confession, a prayer, and an expression of ultimate hope. Friends, I have never had a word for the suffering of the innocent. I fall back on the notion that God has a lot of explaining to do. What I do affirm with my whole being is there is a God to complain to, to argue with; there is a God to question and doubt: “I believe; help my unbelief.” 

The marvel is that the father didn’t really have much to bring to Jesus: his partial, flimsy faith; his concoction of belief and unbelief; his vacillation between a grateful faith one day and the next day, nothing. All he had to bring to Jesus was the deepest, most powerful, and holiest thing in his life, his love for his son, and it was enough. 

Somehow the word has gotten around that if you have doubts you need to get them resolved before you go to church. Somehow the word has gotten around that if you have honest doubts about the truth of the gospel, the relevance of Christianity, the existence of God even, you don’t belong in a church. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you’re standing outside because you’re not sure what you believe, come on in. There are plenty inside like you. If you have serious questions, bring them to church. You can sit down and have coffee with plenty of people who have the same questions. And here you will find a place where the questions are taken seriously, where people agree to consider them, talk about them, maybe even disagree about them and finally, in our life together, bring them to God   . 

Faith is not having no doubts but trusting God in spite of our doubts. And in the words of Douglas John Hall, “there is no more important responsibility for the minister than to say with regularity from the pulpit: ‘Doubters welcome here.’”

The wonder of this little story, and the good news, is that while the father didn’t have much to bring other than his love for his son, it was enough. That is what Jesus Christ means: You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be morally perfect. You don’t have to have faith like the Rock of Gibraltar. You can bring what you have—your questions, your doubts, your fears, your hopes and dreams, and your deepest, holiest love. It will be enough. It will be enough. Amen. 

“Hope Reclaimed”

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24: 36, 42-44

January 29, 2012

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

“Advent is my least favorite season,” Harvard minister Peter Gomes wrote. The reason? While the major theme of Advent is hope, there is a lot about the world that is devoid of hope. “And we make it worse,” Gomes added, “by covering over that reality with all the forced merriment and partying…I’m tired of the false hope imposed upon people.” 

You might want to reconsider your dinner invitation to Gomes! In his own humbug way, however, Gomes is raising an important issue: Does our hope take the reality of the world seriously, or is it a superficial optimism that sees the world through rose-tinted glasses? 

For me, hope always resides in reality. Centuries before Jesus was born, a prophet wrote that the day is coming when people will stream to the mountain of God; that nations will come and the most remarkable thing will happen: They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.  

The interesting thing about that vision of nations living in peace is that it was a difficult and violent time for Israel. Their reality included being caught in the middle of a power struggle between great nations. The prophet sees a vision of something coming that isn’t there yet, an alternative vision of creation healed, mended and reconciled. 

“I guess we’re not there yet, huh?” writes David Davis, pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey. Davis once had lunch with a distinguished faculty member of Princeton University. He remembered the lunch as being very pleasant, until the end, when the man asked, “So what do you Christians say to people who worry about the state of the world?…Thousands of years and we’re still fighting each other and killing each other. It makes no sense—all the death and destruction. It’s not getting any better. How can there be a God?” Davis says that, like all of us, the man was “looking for a little comfort reading the daily newspaper, a little hope for his grandchildren.”

The precious countercultural, counterintuitive good news of God is that, in spite of what is going on in the world, a day of peace is coming, a day when the economy of war becomes an economy of peace, a day when the money spent on weapons is redirected to produce agricultural implements, when billions invested in bombs and weapons systems are used for life—for education and schools, hospitals and health care. The countercultural message of God is that in spite of what is happening at the moment, a day of justice and kindness and mercy is coming. 

Well, Keith, why hasn’t it happened yet? When is it going to happen? How will we know when it happens? We won’t! We don’t know when or where. No one does. Not even the angels know, Jesus said. He said he didn’t know; only God knows. Keep awake, he said, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. Apocalypticism is the study of the end of things. We don’t talk about it much in the United Church of Christ. Part of the reason is that the people who do talk about it—the pre-millenialists, millenialists, the post-millenialists, the Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHayes, authors of the Left Behind series of books—have made a cottage industry out of predicting the end of the world. They study arcane formulas and interpret esoteric symbols and gleefully describe the final days and the rapture in bloody and violent terms. In the process they totally distort the gospel. So part of the reason we don’t talk much about it is that we don’t want anything to do with the fear mongering and the distortion of the good news of God’s love.

Another reason we don’t talk much about it, the most important reason actually, is that when Jesus is asked when God is going to finally come and bring all things to completion, he says, “I don’t know. The angels don’t know, only God knows…So keep alert, awake.” Live now, Jesus is saying, in hope. Live expectantly, lean into the future knowing that God has the last word. 

In Halford Luccock’s book, A Sprig of Holly, he has an essay entitled “Living on Tiptoe.” He writes, “Nothing really great ever happened without a great many lives being lived in expectation. Those are the kind of folk by which the world moves forward, always standing on tiptoe.” To live hopefully is to work hard. To work for justice and peace is to work at it. To hope for a time when the poor are cared for and children honored and nurtured is not to sit around complaining about how bad things are; it is to find some hungry people to feed and some children to nurture. Peace in the Middle East will require hard and sustained work on the part of everyone—the Palestinian people, Israel, the United States, our president. Everyone will have to sacrifice and compromise. Hopeful people are not passive, waiting for God to come and make everything right. No, until that day, hopeful people work as hard as they can. “Jesus is coming. Look busy,” the bumper sticker says and it is right in its theology of hopefulness.   

Occasionally people will ask if all the ministries of this church are worth it. They say something like, “It’s very nice that you spend so much of your energy and resources feeding and training, welcoming the marginalized, but it really doesn’t make any difference does it? Nothing ever changes.” I usually mumble something about our mission being the reason for our being here.” Next time I’m going to remember what Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abysinnian Baptist Church in Harlem said. The church is located in the midst of social decay and dysfunction, burned out buildings, boarded up storefronts, prostitutes and crack dealers. The church decided to stay put and to reach out, to live expectantly, on tiptoe, watching and keeping alert. A reporter from the New York Times interviewed Calvin Butts  . “You’re doing some good things here, but it’s hard to see what difference any of it is making. What keeps you folks going?” Calvin’s answer is classic. “We’ve read the Bible,” he said, “and we know how it ends. We aren’t at the end yet.” 

We know how it ends. It ends with God, and God’s creation complete, healed, fulfilled, reconciled at last, and all of God’s people, all people, living together in justice and kindness and peace. And no I am not forgetting the “darkness” is still with us, but I would ask that remember that God’s hope in the Jesus way began in one of the darkest moments in history. The relentless hope of God’s vision will not be silenced or defeated, even in the deepest darkness. 

The relentless hope of God’s vision comes to you and me in very human and very real darkness when the doctor comes in and says that the test results are not good; darkness when a dear one dies and a light that shined in your life for years goes out; darkness when the company downsizes and the job that was your security and your identity is no more; darkness when the relationship you lived for and depended on becomes frayed and fragile; darkness when friends you counted on turn against you, let you down; darkness of loneliness when you aren’t sure another soul in the world cares about you; darkness—the dark night of the soul when everyone one of us knows deeply and profoundly our own mortality. 

Doris Betts wrote an article in a journal devoted to art and faith. Her piece was entitled “Why Believe in God?” She began by citing all the new books on atheism and why it makes no sense to believe in God. And then she told a story. Her husband has Parkinson’s Disease. The disease’s progression was rapid. He was in the unlucky 30 percent of Parkinson’s patients who suffer gradual erosion of personality and selfhood. “Where has he gone,” she asked, “my husband of fifty-five years, this father and grandfather, lawyer and judge, this lover and logician, reader and chess player, the durable companion who meant to retire and go world-traveling with me?” 

From deep in her soul, Doris Betts says, “If there is no God, there ought to be. I keep deciding to believe in God, even on bad days. In this, my seventh decade, faith seems to me not certainty, but a commitment, a renewable vow.” 

Hope or despair? I am going to put my money on hope, because 2000 years ago a child was born whose name was Emmanuel. God with us. 

“Building Barns and Postponing Life, Part Two”

Luke 12: 13-21

January 22, 2012

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

Someone precious to you has recently died. You attend a social gathering and you are determined you are not going to talk about your loss. Instead you resolve, as much as possible, to blather about surface pleasantries like everyone else. It is difficult to stay focused, however. Someone is talking about her teenage daughter who hasn’t picked up her room in weeks. In another cluster someone else is talking about the road construction on I-71, ranting about the inefficiency of the state government. Then, as always, the subject turns to taxes. It always turns to taxes! There were times you would have joined in, offered your opinion, but not tonight.  Instead you keep seeing the face of the person who is now gone, and you find yourself annoyed at the small concerns that loom so large in the conversations. You ask yourself, how could they possibly think any of this really matters?

Also imagine a time when worries nagged you to distraction. The day after you made your last car payment someone hits you from behind. How much is that going to cost? Or, your son’s grades at college are getting worse, and he doesn’t seem to appreciate that D’s are just as expensive as A’s. Or, you have just begun to make a list of things that must be done tomorrow, and you are already on your second page. You toss in your bed, as if wrestling with your worry, and it’s a match you are losing. Then the phone rings with that threatening ring that phones seem to reserve for the middle of the night. On the other end is a familiar voice, obviously shaken, telling you that your loved one went suddenly that very night, without pain, thank goodness, but gone now nonetheless. In that instant, whatever it was you were worrying about disappears. It no longer matters.

Death is a teacher. When death intrudes it can add instant perspective. It helps us sort out what is truly important and what is not. The smaller concerns that so often crowd our hearts and minds simply scurry away in the presence of death. It is then that we are prepared to see with rare clarity what it is that deserves our attention, devotion and time.

As I studied in preparation for this message, I tried to imagine what it would be like to pay a pastoral call on the widow of the farmer in Jesus’ parable of the rich fool. It’s not that difficult because I have made many such calls. The farmer has just died. His wife is in shock. She asks, “What am I going to do now? No one told me what happens next.” She rambles and I follow, mostly listening. Then we turn to planning the memorial service, and I ask a few questions about her husband. You see, I didn’t know him well, although on those rare occasions when I did see him I genuinely liked him. But now as we anticipate a memorial service, I know it’s up to me to speak of him as a whole person, not just of those few fleeting moments that I shared with him. 

So I ask, “what was important to him?” She answers, “his family is—was—very important to him. He was proud of his children, although I’m not sure they really know that, but he spoke of them often. When we were younger we used to love taking walks on the beach together. We talked about retiring on the shore so we could take walks like that again. And his church was very important to him, although you might not have seen much evidence of that in recent years. He didn’t stop believing in God, I’m sure of that, but somehow, life just got so busy.”  

I ask, “How did he spend his time?” She replies, “Oh, working on the farm. He was very successful. We had another bumper crop this year. He didn’t want to sell it all at once because if he flooded the market the price was sure to fall. So he tore down the barns and built bigger ones to store the surplus.”

“As for the other parts of his life, well, they got put on hold. I didn’t make things easier for him either. I wanted to know when we were going to get on with our lives. He kept saying ‘tomorrow’ and ‘soon.’ I know he meant it. I know he did. He kept promising that as soon as he got things settled we would go to that house on the shore. And now?…” She pauses and then changes the subject. “Well, let’s get back to planning the service…”

Death is a teacher and among the things it can teach us is the tragic chasm between our answers to the questions. “What is important to you?” and “How do you spend your time?” Experiencing the death of a loved one or pondering our own death can provide perspective on our lives and help us see what is worthy of our devotion and what is not.

I like the farmer. I know the farmer. I am the farmer. Some day soon I will follow a more complete and consistent prayer discipline. Some day I will give my family the time they deserve. And, yes, some day soon I will eat, drink and be merry, too, as soon as my barn is built, as soon as the bills are paid, as soon as…well, as soon as things are different. 

I don’t think I am alone. I have heard so many people speak of how their lives are going to change as soon as their barns are built…when they retire, when the children are grown, when the semester is over. It’s not that we are incapable of doing what we want or should do; it’s simply that we seem incapable of doing them now. And then, in the words of Dylan Thomas, “time, like a running grave, tracks you down.”

A friend’s father developed an interest in wine in the last years of his life. When he purchased a wine, he carefully stored and catalogued it. Friends would sometimes give him a special gift of a rare and costly bottle. My friend said he never remembered his father serving those wines. He always said he was waiting for a special occasion. The occasion never came. When he died—“this night your soul is required of you” those bottles remained unopened. My friend believed his father intended to drink them, and, oh, how he would have enjoyed the company of it all. But special occasions, like tomorrow, never seem to arrive. As Ben Hect put it, “Time is a circus that is always packing up and moving away.” 

The point, of course, is not that we should eat, drink and be merry while we have a chance, even as that is not the point of Jesus’ parable. The point is that if we postpone little pleasures at our peril, how much more perilous is our tendency to put off doing what is truly important and noble in life. It may be a good idea to save money for a rainy day, but we sometimes act as if we are saving our lives for a rainy day, and what is most worth doing remains bottled in some dark corner, waiting for that rainy day, or at least another day.

Which brings me to one of the crowning ironies of our lives: The most important things in life are also the most easily postponed. Think about that. It seems that we cannot long postpone building that barn, running the errands and paying the bills, but all those things together do not add up to much of a life. But developing a depth of relationship with one another, taking time for a person in need, learning to pray, growing in relationship to God—all those things can be postponed, put off to tomorrow. 

Most of us know the things make for a full life, and we plan to make room for them tomorrow. The future, then, becomes the repository of our noblest impulses. It is to the future that we assign “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just.” 

Former British television personality David Frost always posed this question to his guests: “What would you like to have appear on your epitaph?” He could have easily phrased the question this way: “On the night your soul is required of you, what would you want to have said about you?” It was a brilliant question because it led each person to consider what they were living for. And the question prompted remarkably similar answers. Each spoke in grand terms, about love and bettering the lives of others. 

Now I’m not cynical about their responses, but I doubt if the day after the interview, when aides asked what was on the agenda for the day, that any responded, “Well, today I think I must better the lives of my neighbors.” More likely, facing everyday tasks when teacher death is distant again, they probably saved such aspirations for another day, so they could focus on getting reelected or how to advance their careers, all those barns to build. 

Jesus keeps reminding us that our lives were made for more. Not tomorrow, because we can’t live in the tomorrow, try as we might. Rather, the only day we have been given (that is, today) was made for more. Certainly we do not want to share the fate of the one who was given the famous epitaph “Born a man, died a grocer,” just as we would not want any variations on that theme such as “Born a man, died with his barns completed.” Or, “Born a woman, died a politician.” Or, “Born a man, died a good provider.” Or, “Born a woman, died with closets clean.” It makes us shudder to think that our lives could be so summarized.  

Death is a teacher, and from it we can learn important lessons. We will learn to tend to the little things today. We will savor the little things with grateful appreciation: a walk on a trail, the color of leaves, the warmth of the sun, the stillness of our home. And if, in the presence of death, we are led to ponder the end and purpose of life, we will also tend to the big things today. We will not postpone the healing of our relationship with a family member or the deepening of our relationship with God. 

Finally, in the end, if we have tended faithfully to the little things and the big things, on that night when our souls are required of us, we will discover that we did not build all the barns we could have but, with God’s help, we did build an abundant life. Amen. 

“A Deeper Salvation”

Psalm 139: 1-12; Matthew 18: 12-14; Matthew 13: 44-46

January 15, 2012

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

Jesus told a number of parables about losing and finding, of getting lost and being found. His most famous was about a lost boy, the prodigal, who took his inheritance and went to the far country to “find” himself. A Scottish preacher summed up the parable in five words: “Sick of home, homesick, home.” 

There is resistance to the word “lost.” Some Christians have divided the world into two groups, the lost and the saved, and they know exactly who’s in which group. Some Baptists in Alabama actually gave the percentages! I’ve been in evangelistic services where the preacher’s goal was to make us feel as lost as possible so we could come down the aisle to get saved. He created salvation-anxiety, making us doubt our salvation—“Do you remember the exact moment you were saved? If not, you may not be saved. If you died tonight are you sure you would go to heaven?” Such preachers created a kind of spiritual “separation-anxiety” where we felt separated from God whether we were or weren’t. They made you feel sick to fit the medicine they had to offer.   

Jesus goes deeper, much deeper. There are a lot of ways to be lost and a lot of ways to be found. I’ve collected four parables for you today; they offer four pictures of salvation. The first is Matthew’s version of the parable of the lost sheep. “What do you think?” Jesus says, “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does the shepherd not leave the ninety-nine and go search for the one that went astray? And if he finds it…the shepherd rejoices over it more than the ninety-nine that never went astray.”

What about you? Would you leave the ninety-nine to go after the one who was lost? What if you were the one who went astray? Then Jesus adds the words: “So it is not the will of your Abba in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” 

We talk a lot, perhaps too much, about the “will of God” when a person dies, especially in a tragic death, but we should always keep in mind these clear words of Jesus, “It is not the will of your Abba in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” Say it after me, “It is not the will of your Abba in heaven / that one of these little ones should perish.” God the good shepherd leaves the safety of the sheepfold and goes after every lost sheep, not because they are the fattest or best, but simply because they are lost. So God comes after us who for whatever reasons and in whatever ways are lost. And in the finding, there is joy, joy, unbounded joy. 

Then Jesus told a second parable. A woman lost one of her ten precious silver coins. We don’t know why the coin was precious. Was it one tenth of all she would have to live on the rest of her life, one tenth of her retirement? Was it handed down from her mother and father, a precious inheritance as well? She turned the house upside down to find it—lit a lamp, swept every inch of the floor, looked in every corner, under everything. And when she found it she called her friends and neighbors for a party!

Then Jesus adds, “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke loves to make sure we see the repentance side when Jesus meets people with the good news. And for good reason. As the old saying goes: “God loves you exactly as you are, and loves you too much for you to stay that way.” 

The startling claim of Jesus’ message was he came offering forgiveness to everyone, and before they repented, before they had any good idea about what repentance might look like. The word “repent” is as tricky as the “lost” word. In the Hebrew it means to “turn,” to turn toward God; in Greek it means the “turning of one’s mind.” 

Have you ever noticed that religious people always have in mind what repentance should look like for others! God, however, may have a different kind of change in mind. We must not miss the reach of Jesus’ life and message—the giving of forgiveness to people “just as they are.” Then later in the healing power of God comes the change we most need, the change God has in mind for us, not the change others have in mind for us. 

Most of you know I grew up a Southern Baptist, a highly moralistic and perfectionist religion. If you were to be saved you must do this or that, you must be this or that. Even the greatest gift we could have, being born anew, emphasized the “mustness” as if we could “must” it into being. “You must be born again!” We see it on big signs along the highway. It is spirituality and faith almost exclusively in the imperative mode. 

Then at the seminary I discovered the indicative of the gospel which precedes and grounds every imperative: “You are forgiven.” “The Kingdom of God is yours.” I remember receiving communion at chapel, and as I received the bread and the cup I heard the chaplain say something like, “Your sins are forgiven! Are! Repentance means being able to live from forgiveness. Salvation is not about lostness, it’s about being found! In whatever ways I most need to be found. 

Jesus told two more stories of losing and finding. There was a tenant farmer plowing someone else’s land. His plow struck something hard. He probably cursed and said, “Another blessed rock to dig out.” But as he began to dig he saw it was a box, a treasure box. His heart began to race. He ran, and in his joy, in his joy, sold all that he had so that he could buy the field and own the treasure.

Then Jesus told the story of a merchant who sailed all over the world in search of fine pearls. One day at a seaport he was shown a pearl more beautiful than he ever imagined, the pearl he had been searching for all his life, but never expected to find. And he sold everything he had to buy this “pearl of great price.” 

The treasure, the pearl? It is the kingdom of God. And it is also your own true self, the one deeper and truer than all your versions of yourself. Christ is the farmer in the field, and we are the treasure he finds, then goes and sells all he has to own. And you are the pearl of great price, beyond price, which the merchant finds, then sells all he has to own. Yes you, yes me.

Sometimes, maybe most times, we find we are found in community, in Christ’s community of the lost and found ones. Seven-year old Veronica got lost and couldn’t find her way home. It was a big city. She ran up and down streets trying to find landmarks and couldn’t. She got very scared. A policeman saw her and put her in his car and drove her around looking for her street. After a long search she said to the policeman, “You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.” 

James deeply loved his church but was somewhat combustible. One night he stormed out of a church meeting. The group was upset, didn’t know what to do, angry at James’ abrupt exit. Nora said, “I’m going to get him.” So she drove to his house a few blocks from the church and knocked on the door. When he opened it, she said, “James, come back to the meeting.” James began weeping, then came back. He told the group with tears in his eyes, “I was the lost sheep.” There was courage in Nora to go get him, courage mixed with compassion, and there was courage in James to come back, courage mixed with honest humility. Sometimes we can lose our way so bad we can’t find our way home, not on our own. So Christ comes to find us, Christ and his people. 

Carl Jung wrote about the “defeat of the ego.” You know, all those things that we construct to hold our lives together. The task is too big for the ego. What we have constructed is unsustainable, and our ego shatters, falls apart and disintegrates. But, as Jung observed, it is in the shattering that we search for the deeper self which we hope and trust is there. For people of faith it is like walking on a dark path and leaving behind as we walk the shards of the ego, the broken pieces of the old self that has died. And here Christ comes tracking us by the broken pieces of self we’ve dropped behind us; Christ comes following our trail of broken pieces!  And he finds us and leads us home to God, to self and a fuller life. I’ve seen it happen. 

Fred Craddock tells the story of playing Lost and Found as a boy. One person would close their eyes and count to a hundred. All the others would run and hide, then the person would set out to find them. Craddock remembers finding the perfect place to hide: underneath the steps of the back porch. He crawled through a small opening and hid in the shadows. He said that for awhile he gleefully said to himself: “No one’s going to find me! No one’s going to find me!” Then suddenly it hit him, “No one’s going to find me!” So he stretched out one leg so his toes peeped out from the edge of the back stairs. 

Isn’t that what we most want in life? To be found? Not to win some game, but to be found? Found and loved and treasured. So today, take note, God has come in Christ to find us, we God’s treasure, God’s pearl. Amen. 

“The Peace of God”

Isaiah 11: 1-9; Matthew 3:1-12

January 8, 2012

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

For more than two thousand years, Christians have been telling the story of the Prince of Peace in particularly non-peaceful circumstances: German and American and British troops observing a cease-fire and singing “Stille Nact” together on Christmas Eve during World War I; Confederate and Union troops meeting after dark to exchange gifts around a common campfire. President Jimmy Carter tells about spending Christmas at sea aboard a submarine. He and a few other officers and crew members met to read the Christmas story. “We heard about the birth of the Prince of Peace” Carter said, “while sitting between the forward torpedo tubes loaded with lethally powerful weapons of war.” 

Among the contrasts during this amazing season, none is more striking, nor more unsettling, than the biblical motif of peace—peace on earth, goodwill among all people, the Prince of Peace—and the reality of the world in which we live. 

We read this morning of the vision of God’s peaceable kingdom. It is a peace and tranquility that so captivated the imagination of nineteenth-century American artist Edward Hicks that he painted the scene—the Peaceable Kingdom—100 times. It is a vision of God’s creation restored: a wolf resting beside a lamb, a leopard lying down with a kid, a calf and lion together, an infant plays over the den of a poisonous snake. In Hick’s paintings, the eyes of the animals, perpetual enemies, predators and prey, are large, wide open, innocent, in amazement at this unlikely tableau. 

Peace is one of the most persistent themes of the Bible. God means for people to live in peace with one another and with the whole creation. God means for the foundations of peace—righteousness and justice—to fill the earth. God has given the creation the means to establish peace, and God will not rest until the cause for peace captivates the hearts and minds of everyone—all nations. 

In the meantime, there is still Afghanistan, and the al Qaeda network, and Iran, and Israel, and Palestine and the Sudan. In the meantime, Woody Allen once observed, “On the day the lion and the lamb lie down together, only the lion is going to get back up.” 

The gap between vision and reality has been there from the beginning. The Bible does not ignore it. The Bible is not glib about peace and the human prospect. The Isaiah passage of the peaceable kingdom begins with a scene of desolation and destruction, perhaps a battlefield on which the soldiers of Israel were overwhelmed by the powerful Assyrians. Maybe the prophet is walking on that battlefield with tears in his eyes. Maybe he is thinking about God’s peace and the tragic reality of human history all around him. His eyes fall on a stump—incredibly there is a tiny green shoot emerging. Something new is happening. There is new hope, new possibility and new potential. He hurries home and writes down what he sees, some 700 years before the birth of the Prince of Peace. 

The contrast between vision and reality is as old as that. And people of faith have always struggled with the contrast and the moral imperatives that come along with the decision to be faithful to God’s vision, to try in our lives somehow to contribute to, or at least not distract from, the peace of God. 

One of these imperatives is pacifism. A pacifist is a person who wishes to be faithful to God, who will bear witness and bear the burden of refusing to participate in conflict, refusing to defend country, family, or self violently, convinced that violence is always counterproductive. It is a strong argument. Good, courageous people have made it, lived it, and paid the price for it. Pacifism is, I believe, a noble and important witness that must be made to remind the rest of the world that there are alternatives to war. 

But people of faith have arrived at another conclusion. St. Augustine argued that war is evil but sometimes, in human history, there are conditions more evil. And, therefore, there is such a thing as necessary conflict and violence, a “Just War” Augustine called it. There are occasions when resorting to force may be a tragic necessity. Reinhold Niebuhr came to that conclusion. After WWI, much of the intelligentsia in the West, turned to pacifism. From the ashes of that war rose National Socialism—Nazism. Niebuhr saw it coming and changed his mind. Nazism was evil. He wrote, “There are historic situations in which refusal to defend the inheritance of a civilization, however imperfect, against tyranny and aggression may result in consequences even worse than war.” Niebuhr called it “Christian Realism.” 

The contrast between vision and reality has always been with us. And now, some two weeks after the birth of the Prince of Peace, we find ourselves still living between the vision of God’s peaceable kingdom and the reality of the world in which we live. So what are we to do? Our nation’s leadership consistently reminds us that we are at war against terrorism. We can agree or disagree with the premise, but as followers of the Way we cannot take their word without asking some hard questions. Questions like, what practices of prevention can dissuade people from terrorism? How do the issues of hunger, oil dependence, and political justice, particularly for the Palestinian people, play into a vision of a peaceable kingdom? Answers to questions like these require a national and personal commitment. 

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wrote in a recent sermon: “There are different ways of waiting…there is waiting for salvation to come from the outside…and there are those who wait with faith and who fight for truth even when they are defeated and beaten back a hundred times. This is the kind of waiting that sends forth seeds out of which change and progress may one day grow. The difference is between waiting for lilies to appear that have never been planted, and doing your utmost to help good seeds find nourishment in rocky soil.” And then later, she wrote: “We must choose to use the waiting time wisely: to be the doers, not hearers only; to acknowledge the presence of evil, but never lose sight of the good; to endure terrible blows, but never give in to those who would have us betray our principles, or surrender our faith.”

You see this peaceable kingdom idea is profoundly personal. Cynthia plans to take down all our Christmas decorations this week, including our family crèche. Every year when I see the manger scene for the first time I pray that I place it in my heart because it is a vision of God’s kingdom of peace on earth. It happens in the unlikeliest of places: in Bethlehem. It’s a story we know and love—of a poor, vulnerable young woman and her husband, traveling a long distance because the most powerful government in the world wants to count them; a story about a man and woman having to stay overnight in the stable and their baby being born there. The sheep and cows and lambs are all there—and around the edges of the tableau, in my imagination at least, are the lion and leopard and wolf: the whole creation, for this blessed moment, at peace. 

Might we think about the nativity more than once this year? It is about God’s intent for creation and for each one of us—God’s love appearing in the most unlikely of places, bringing the hope for peace, even in the midst of violence and conflict. 

On December 18^th I attended the concert of the Heritage Singers. Our own Cliff Davis is a member of the a cappella group. It had been a stressful two weeks. I had just returned from Biloxi; we had buried Tom and my friend, Rob, was actively dying. I love to hear talented singers, but at that moment, it was simply another obligation to be fulfilled. But then they began to sing, sing about the hint of hope and the promise of God’s possibility. And for a blessed moment, the peace of God came—vision and reality became one. And it was enough, more than enough. Amen.     

“To Be Still”

Isaiah 9:2, 6-7; Luke 2:1-7

December 24, 2011

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

This is the night we have been waiting for, the night of the Nativity, and this is the scene our hearts and minds are so hungry to see: the Child born in a manger, a makeshift crib for a makeshift night. There is Mary, the teenaged mother with more courage and faith than I can imagine, and Joseph the brave stand-in father, and the animals, the first to witness the holy birth; a cow, a donkey, a cat—what’s a barn without a cat. Maybe a dog, yes please, a dog. Adrian Martinez painted the Nativity scene; he put a dog in the picture. Why the dog? “I am the dog,” he said, “looking on.” 

Denise Levertov in her poem about the Nativity writes, “It’s the wondering animals, ox and ass, unused to human company after dark, who witness, alone with Mary and Joseph, the birth, who hear the cry, the first cry of earthly breath drawn through the newborn lungs of God.” 

Mary and Joseph name him Jesus, as the angels had commanded which means “God saves.” Jesus was a good name. The prophet Isaiah had prophesied he would be named, “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Imogene Herdman, author of the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,  says that with names like that Jesus would have never made it out of the first grade!

The shepherds are about to make their way. “And the cord is cut,” Levertov writes, …and the shepherds that self-same moment have sprung to their feet in a golden shower of angels, terrified, then rejoicing. They lope downhill to the barn to see their redeemer…

Yes, the shepherds, the migrant workers of their day, last to be hired, first to be fired, first to go to war, last to hear any good news, suddenly good news of great joy to them: For unto you is born this day…a Savior.

The wise men are on their way across the desert. Grotto’s fresco captures their arrival. They in their elegant robes and gifts that would make Nieman Marcus look up. They with their impossibly elegant camels. Are those camels? One has his mouth open wide, baying forth his praise. A servant is settling him down. Above the red star blazes across the heavens. It is the star the camel saw. The oldest magi kneels, kissing the infant’s feet. As we would if we had the chance. 

Where is the innkeeper? The one who says  , “No room in the inn!” Is he somewhere just out of sight looking on? Frederick Buechner tells the innkeeper’s story. “Don’t make me a complete villain,” he says. “I am guilty. But nothing is entirely black…Not even the human heart.” “Do you know what it is like to run an inn—to run a business, to run anything in the world for that matter, even your own life? It is like being lost in a forest of a million trees, and each tree is a thing to done…Later that night, when the baby came, I was not there…I was lost in the forest somewhere, the unenchanted forest of a million trees…All your life long, you wait for you own true love to come—we all of us do—our destiny, our joy, our heart’s desire. So how am I to say it…? When he came, I missed him.” 

“So pray for me,” the innkeeper asks. Pray for the Innkeeper. And so we do, and for ourselves lost in a forest of a million trees. 

But we’re here tonight aren’t we? Whatever we had to do to get here we’re here. We’re here because the story is never shut to our entrance. The thing we most need is just enough silence—not just the silence our ears hear, but a silence of the heart, of the mind, a stillness. Just enough silence to open up a space for some new word to come in, enough stillness to gaze long enough to see something we’ve not seen before, to hear at a depth never heard before. Be not afraid…For unto you. To hear an infant’s cry that splits open your heart. 

This story, this amazing story is not really about facts. Who knows what the facts of Jesus’ birth actually were? As for myself, the longer I live, the more inclined I am to believe in miracle, the more I suspect that if we had been there at the birth, we might well have seen and heard things that would be hard to reconcile with modern science. But of course that is not the point, because Luke is really not interested primarily in the facts of the birth but in the significance, the meaning for him of that birth just as the people who love us are not really interested primarily in the facts of our births but in what it meant to them when we were born and how for them the world was never the same again, how their whole lives were charged with new significance. 

It is impossible to conceive of how differently world history would have developed if that child had not been born. And in terms of our faith tonight, much more must be said because for our faith, the birth of the child into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living life. Merry Christmas.  

“Advent and the Way of Courage”

Isaiah 7: 1-10; Matthew 1:18-25

December 18, 2011

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

Christmas music has been playing pretty much nonstop for weeks now. One radio station plays nothing but Christmas music– “Do You Hear What I Hear?” “Silver Bells,” “The Little Drummer Boy” –slowly driving some of us to distraction. 

Religious humorist David James Duncan writes that when he was young his older brother died, and in his grief he decided to honor his brother, whom he described as his best friend, by adopting his brother’s habits, his likes and dislikes, even his tastes in music. The problem was that his brother’s favorite Christmas song was “The Little Drummer Boy,” which Duncan hated. He writes, 

“Think about the song’s premise. Here is some uninvited urchin, standing right next to the manger banging away on a drum.Have any vindictive relatives ever given a child in your home a drum? “Pah rum pah pum pum” is an extremely kind description of the result. Yet out of reverence and love, this unidentified “poor boy” marches up to the manger of the sleeping Christ child and bangs away on his drum…I like to picture the infant Jesus’ eyes, so innocent and new that they are unable to focus, startling wide open at the sudden banging. I like to picture God wincing On High, wanting to cover his beloved son’s ears…send in the Wise Men to stop the banging, only to sigh, swallow hard and think, “Nope. These are mortals. This is earth. Let the drummer boy drum.” 

Now, Duncan says, every December the first time he hears “The Little Drummer Boy,” “the truth hits me, the truth of our spiritual poverty gets to me…The line “I played my best for him, pah rum pah pump um?” What more can one offer, no matter how silly or bad it sounds? The line, “Then he smiled at me pah rum pah pump um?” What more can we hope for than to please the Child King?”  

The way Matthew tells the story, Joseph is the pivotal figure. Mary ordinarily gets all the attention—the carols, the great art, the adoration. In the small crèches in our homes, Joseph doesn’t have anything to do but stand in the back and watch. In Matthew’s version, however, it all begins with Joseph—and his dilemma. His fiancée, his betrothed, which means that Joseph had negotiated with Mary’s family while she was young to be his wife, announces she is pregnant, and Joseph knows he’s not the father. You can’t have a more human dilemma than that. Joseph, Matthew tells us, is a “righteous man.” That means he takes his religion very seriously, and for him religion means the Law of Moses. The law stipulates that because Mary is legally betrothed, she should be tried for adultery and executed by stoning. But before Jesus is born, Joseph has second thoughts about the conventional religious definition of righteousness. He resolves not to turn Mary over to the authorities but to send her away. Joseph, while often overlooked, is the first person to break out of the confines of conventional religious morality. 

Then Joseph learns in a dream that the child to be born is from God. And he makes a second amazing decision: he’ll go through with the marriage. He will be Mary’s husband and the child’s father. When the baby arrives, it is Joseph who names him Jesus. And then he takes his place in the back row, to do what new fathers have always done—watch and wonder. 

Matthew ties the whole drama to something the prophet Isaiah said centuries earlier: Behold a  virgin shall conceive (actually Isaiah said “young woman) and bear a son and they shall name him “Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.”  Powerful forces were bearing down on Israel. The future looked frightening. And at that very moment, Isaiah starts talking about a sign God will send: a young woman will bear a son, Emmanuel, “God with us.” And “God with us” will make all the difference in the world. 

There is seemingly no end to the human interest in the topic of God. A number of recent best sellers argue against the very idea of God. There is nothing in those books that you haven’t heard in a late night bull session at college. In the meantime, more than 90 percent of us continue to believe there is a God, but that’s where the unanimity stops. A recent magazine posed this question on the cover: “Who Cares About God?” The responses were all over the map, reflecting the religious diversity of our country. Some were bizarre: Billy Riley is into New Age Spirituality, believes in anything that embraces love…sees himself flowing in the energy of the bobcat who comes down from the mountain, mingles, then goes back up. Ruby Keutzer pictures God in a white gown with long hair, just floating.

In the midst of our God-saturated culture, so hungry for a genuine, authentic religion, Christianity makes a stunningly simple claim. In the child, “God with us,” in this world, this mundane, wonderful world of ours, God is here. 

When it comes to God, however, we prefer abstractions: God as a theory, a concept, the God of the philosopher– the Prime Mover, the First Cause. And yet, here is this child, born in desperate circumstances, a no vacancy sign at the Motel 6, threatened by impersonal political powers, born out back in the dirt and chaos of a cow shed…God with us. 

Think of what that says about God and God’s power. Think about how vulnerable that makes God. God puts this whole project in the hands of a man, a carpenter. God comes in a way that forces that man, Joseph, to make decisions and act on them. God becomes vulnerable to, subject to, a human being whose decisions and actions either will or will not advance God’s kingdom. When God acts, it is not a matter of pulling strings, pulling off great cosmic miracles. It is a matter of stirring a man, a woman, to be responsible, to live and act faithfully, to do what God wants done. There’s something in that of God’s call to you and me—to be responsible for the project God started with the birth of the child, God with us. 

Joseph makes his decision, acts on it. The child is born, and Joseph takes his place—watching and wondering. That, too, is part of what Christmas is about, the wonder of it. In fact, one of the best things Christmas does is reactivate our capacity for wonder, which, frankly, most of us keep on the shelf most of the year. We lose our capacity for wonder and delight in the common mundane things of life because we’re so busy, driven, compulsive. We lose our capacity for wonder when we buy into the mindset that everything in life can be analyzed, weighed, measured, evaluated as to its market value, and if it can’t, it is of no account. We lose the capacity for wonder when life wears us down and we decide to be guarded, wary and cynical.

Dag Hammarskjold said, years ago, “God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” 

God with us—a sign for you. Every birth, every child, every baptism—here in this church—is a sign that God is with us. Let Joseph be your mentor and guide. Stop the frenzied rush, the sprint to the finish line, which is what the next week will feel like, and take your place in the back row—watching and wondering. Listen to the familiar carols, hold a child if you can, open your heart to love, say “thank you,” say “I love you,” and wonder at the love of God. 

Emmanuel—God with us, wherever we are, whatever is happening to us. Chaplain William Hampton kept a diary while serving in Vietnam near Khe Sanh, the site of one of the war’s worst battles. H e described how young Marines, frightened, dirty, weary, fresh from combat, crawled into the small dugout cave that was their chapel, only twelve at a time. The surroundings were starkly simple and earthy: a makeshift table, a plate of bread, a cup of wine. The atmosphere couldn’t help but remind one of the stable-cave in which Jesus was born. In that underground assembly, God promised to be present again. Hampton wrote: “The service took place to the accompaniment of a continual anthem of incoming rockets, mortars shaking the ground on which the small group stood, often dangerously close…God still comes to his people and God always has, even in the center of the hellish nonsense humankind calls war.” 

God with us: a sign—of God’s presence with you and me, every day, every situation, in every birth, in our growing and becoming, in our rejoicing and our weeping, in our struggling and our loving, in our suffering and our dying. God with us. The wonder of it all. Amen.

“Advent Peace: Letting Go of Fear”

Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11

December 11, 2011

R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

Parishioners at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Church in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, voted “Silent Night” best Christmas carol. How about you? Near the top of my list is “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” It was written by a prominent American clergyman, Phillips Brooks, after a trip to Bethlehem in 1868. The hymn contains a line that gathers up the deepest and best meanings of the birth of Jesus: Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight. 

That’s what it’s about: the hope and fears of all the years, even after we learn that Bethlehem doesn’t look at all like the Hallmark cards portray it, that it’s not a little town but a city, a very busy city, a tourist trap actually, with crowds of visitors and shops selling olive wood figurines, and vendors pushing and shoving nativity postcards in your face. It’s still a favorite even when we learn that Bethlehem is as volatile a place as any on earth. 

The hope and fears of all the years.  Now, there is inside us a place for fear. There are things in this world worth being afraid of. Appropriate fear keeps us from making foolish and dangerous mistakes. We come with two built-in fears the psychologists tell us: fear of falling and fear of abandonment. 

Fear can also be a great enemy of life, the great impediment to love and hope and joy and peace. “Do not be afraid,” the angel says to the shepherds. The way Luke tells it, “The glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified” and the first words they heard were “Fear not.” Something amazing is about to happen. Something is about to happen that changes everything. But don’t be afraid. 

Walter Brueggeman says that’s what Christian faith is about: “Fear not.” Brueggemann asks us to recall a time when, as children, we were frightened: maybe lying in bed, sure that the shadows on the wall were of a monster hiding and the bumps and creaks on the stairway were the portent of something dreadful about to happen. We called out to our father or mother, who appeared and took us in his or her arms and said, “Everything is all right. Don’t be afraid.” That, Brueggemann says, is what faith is about, and it is the primary and persistent message in the Bible. 

To Moses nervous about the dangers of leading his people out of Egypt, God says, “Fear not. I will be with you.” To any who face the ultimate threat to life: “Even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” To frightened disciples at on open tomb: “Fear not. He is not here. He is risen.” 

In our Gospel text John the Baptist, who would never be mistaken for Mr. Rogers, is having some misgivings about Jesus. In the first place, Jesus isn’t acting the way John thought that the messiah should act. He isn’t talking about laying the ax to the roots and burning dry branches. He isn’t calling the religious leaders names like “den of snakes.” In fact, he isn’t judging and condemning sinners at all. What kind of messiah befriends sinners, is seen with them, eats with them? What kind of Messiah would spend his time with unclean men and women instead of insisting that everybody obey the Law of Moses? What kind of religion would it be that emphasized inclusivity and kindness instead of purity and exclusiveness? 

But, in the second place, maybe John is scared. He’s alone in a damp cell. He knows he is going to die. So maybe the reason he doubts and asks Jesus to reassure him that he is right, that he’s about to die for something true and not a vain hope, is that he’s frightened. 

Jesus sends his friend an intimate but coded message. Tell John that the blind can see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. Jesus words are almost a direct quote from Isaiah. John would know it, but his captors would not. “Remember, John, as you sit there, in that cell, remember the promise that came to our people at the darkest, most frightening moment in their lives, when a cruel enemy was about to attack and kill and imprison and exile. Remember the words, “Be strong, do not fear!”

A few years ago Bob Greene wrote about Franklin Roosevelt’s famous statement during the Depression—“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”—and how it reassured a frightened nation. Greene suggested that it’s different in America since 9/11, that if all we have to fear is fear itself, it’s enough. “Today,” he wrote, “fear is not a byproduct—it is a primary item. Evidently those who attacked us do not want our land, our riches, our buildings. What they want is our terror…Fear itself is their goal.” 

We’ve always known that the power of fear is a motivator and market force. Fear sells car alarms and security systems. Fear sells guns. Fear causes population shifts as refugees move across borders and as city dwellers head to the suburbs. And fear limits and paralyzes. Fear of failing prevents us from trying something new, stretching, and risking. Children humiliated by a teacher are afraid to speak up and ask a question, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Fear of rejection keeps us from going out for the team, trying out for the part, applying for the job. Sometimes fear of rejection—or fear of intimacy—prevents us from saying, “I love you.” Fear prevents us from striving for greatness. Someone once said that “if Michelangelo had been afraid of heights, we’d have the Sistine Floor.” Peter Gomes says fear, not sin, is the curse on human life, and that when Jesus Christ frees you from your fears, your fear of death, you are literally given your life back. 

There is something paralyzing about fear, something that reduces the scope of our lives, the extent of our love, the depth of our passion, the generosity of our giving. Of course, we’re afraid at times. We can’t talk ourselves out of fear. Who isn’t afraid that something will happen, that the plane will crash, the test will come back positive, the condition will be terminal. Who isn’t afraid ontologically, as the philosophers put it, of nonbeing, of a world without us in it, of death, to put it plainly? Of course, we are afraid, as were the Hebrews who saw all the Assyrian horses and chariots and armored troops bearing down on their weak militia. 

Faith does not mean that fear disappears. It means going on doing what you need to do, going on with your living, your loving, your caring, your passion, in spite of your fear—because something has happened that is more real, more pervasive, more powerful, more to be trusted than whatever it is you are afraid of, even your own death. “Courage,” Anne Lamott says, “is just fear that has said its prayers.” 

Frederick Buechner tells about his only brother, Jamie, who lived in Manhattan, alone—a private, dignified, proper gentleman who was dying of cancer. Buechner writes, “He never went to church except once in a while to hear me and he didn’t want a funeral…When I suggested maybe cocktails and dinner for some of his old friends, he said that sounded like a good idea. He did ask me to write a prayer for him that he could use and keep on the table by his bed.” This is what Buechner   wrote for his brother—and for all of us: Dear Lord, bring me through the darkness into light. Bring me through pain into peace. Bring me through death into life. Be with me wherever I go, and with everyone I love. In Christ’s name I ask it. Amen. 

So may this Advent season remind us of this simple truth: The hopes and fears of all the years are met in something that God did long ago. God has come among us. God’s love is the most powerful reality in the world and in your life. God’s love lives among us and in us. Therefore, “strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are fearful of heart, be strong, do not fear.” Amen.  

“Advent: The Things that Make for Peace”
Ezekiel 37:1-14; Matthew 5:33-37
November 27, 2011
R. Keith Stuart, Ph.D., Minister

The holidays are upon us. Most of us have mixed feelings about the season. It’s the best and worst of times. We look forward to the holidays, but they inevitably fall short of our expectations. We anticipate the parties and functions, but over commit to the point where the season becomes stale and we can’t wait for it to end. We shop excitedly for gifts, but at the same time we don’t want our children to get caught up in the “must have” mentality of the season. We wish it could be simpler.

Then there are families. Maybe all your relationships are picture perfect and you have no tension or baggage when you gather. For most of us, however, there is at least one stale relationship, perhaps more. Maybe your family is dysfunctional. Whose isn’t? The Simpson Family sat down for their Thanksgiving meal. Homer began with a prayer, “I give thanks for the occasional moments of peace and love our family has experienced…well, not today. You saw what happened. O Lord, be honest! Are we the most pathetic family in the universe or what?”

At least Homer’s honest. Most families have days like that at some point. When holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas put families together for a couple of hours or a couple of days, the result can be terrifying. It can be like a MMA cage match, fighting to the death. You walk into to your parent’s home and your mother says, “You’re wearing that?” Even though you’re forty five, you instantly feel fifteen. The conversation moves to the weather, which you think is safe enough until your uncle starts in about “crazy weather patterns” and “global warming conspiracies.” Your sister-in-law gets into a nasty argument with your banker brother. You overhear phrases like “TARP, welfare, Goldman Sachs skimmers, socialist slackers and Satan all in the same sentence.

Holiday family get-togethers can easily turn into an apocalyptic nightmare. There will be blood…and tears…and maybe even broken bones.  A man walks into a doctor’s office and tells the doctor that he’s broken every bone in his body. “That’s impossible,” the doctor says. The man then touches his leg with his index finger and screams “Ouch!” “See, I told you.” The man touches his arm and yells, “Eeeeooow!” Finally, he touches his ribs and can barely maintain his composure as the tears roll down his face. “Doctor, I’m telling you I broke every bone in my body.” The doctor rubs his chin, and then conducts a thorough examination. “Well, sir,” he tells him, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is you haven’t broken every bone in your body. The bad news is you’ve broken your index finger.”

For a few moments I want to speak about the things that might make for peace in our relationships. I turned to the Bible to see what inspiration it might offer this Advent season. I discovered the Bible has good news and bad news. I chose Ezekiel’s well-known vision of the valley of dry bones as a metaphor for family get-togethers. It’s a powerful story of death and rebirth. Ezekiel gives the bad news first. He describes Israel’s  condition in sobering terms—all life had left them; no sinew or flesh. Sound like any family function you’ve been to lately? Then he gives them the good news. He says that even the driest bones can still have new life breathed into them. How do you do it? With grounding, healing breath. The Rabbis have a beautiful image of spirit or breath (same word). They see the spirit as a house guest in the body. Therefore, in every breath, the divine dwells. Note that as you begin the season.

First, don’t make assumptions. Before you see family, take some cleansing breaths. Breathe out assumptions, and breathe in acceptance. Albert Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” The story that you carry with you about family is persistent and makes all the sense in the world to you. But what if most of it is fiction?

Two Buddhist monks are traveling through the woods. They come upon a woman standing at the bank of a river. She needs to get across, but is unable to make it alone. The elder of the two monks picks her up and carries her through the rushing water. Once they are on the other side, the woman leaves the monks. The younger monk is stunned by the events. They are not allowed to touch women so intimately, and he doesn’t know what to make of his friend’s behavior. Finally, after stewing over the incident for several miles, he says to his companion, “How could you touch that woman back at the river the way you did? Have you no respect for our vows?” The elder monk turns to his friend and says gently, “Are you still carrying that woman? I put her down at the river bank over an hour ago.”

What stories about family are you carrying into this holiday season? So and so is quiet, therefore they must be angry with you. So and so is late, therefore they don’t care about you. There may be some truth to the story, but it’s still a story. You choose whether to carry assumptions into the holidays or start fresh. Breathe new life into family by letting go of the stories and assumptions that drag you down.

Second, don’t take things personally. How much of the tension you feel around family are you making about yourself? It might not be about you at all. Take some cleansing breaths before seeing family. Breathe out drama. Breathe in acceptance.

An Irishman once came upon two people brawling in the street and asked, “Is this a private fight or can anyone get involved?” Don’t we often do the same thing with family? When someone is pushing our buttons, most of the time they are involved in their own drama. Is there anything gained by getting involved? Just smile and breathe and move away. If your liberal nephew is arguing with your conservative uncle and all you want is a relaxing time, then smile and breathe and leave them alone. It’s not about you.

We don’t need drama to feel alive and important. We are alive and important because we house the spirit of God in our mind and body. Drama doesn’t help us thrive. It distracts us from our essence as vessels of peace in the world.

So how do we differentiate between helpful feedback from family and unnecessary drama? Picture yourself as a harp with all kinds of large and small debris swirling around you—words, feelings, innuendos, assumptions, drama. Some float toward you, passing right through the spaces between the strings. But others hit the strings, striking a chord that reverberates way back to your past, bringing up old hurts. Note what strikes and what passes through. Notice what passes through but don’t chase it. If something sticks, say to yourself, “Okay, what can I learn here to make beautiful music?”

Third, speak the truth. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Before you see family, breathe out pretense and breathe in authenticity. I believe that more good can come from working through even the harshest truth than concealing it behind a veil made up of spared feelings or saved face. Speak your mind, stand by your truth. There may come a time for you to say “enough!” this holiday season. Thrive in your own truth this season.

Thich Nhat Hahn offers this reminder, however: “Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech…I vow to cultivate loving speech. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering…I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain, and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words than can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or community to break.”

Fourth, do your best. We’re all human and we make mistakes. We might even make some mistakes with family this season. Others might make mistakes with you. With some combinations of people conflict is almost inevitable. The question is how forgiving will we be—with ourselves and with others?

Do your best and maybe your best this season will be just a fraction better than last year. But that will be enough. You are making progress. In the words of Tao Te Ching, “Do your best then step back. This is the only path to peace.” Before you see family, breathe out impossible expectations and breathe in acceptance.

In the movie, “As Good as It Gets,” Melvin, played by Jack Nicholson, is an obsessive compulsive. He leaves the psychiatrist’s office by way of the waiting room filled with depressed people. He turns to them and says, “What if this is as good as it gets?” Well, I want to add two words to Melvin’s question, “What if this is as good as it gets for now?

In the future it could be a whole lot better than this. If we work at not making assumptions, not taking things personally, speaking authentically and not buying into drama, the future will be a whole lot better.

 Choose to thrive this season. Choose to breathe new life and spirit into the relationships that are important to you. Even if they appear dead and lifeless, that just means the only way is up. So take one step towards improving the relationship.

It’s all about breathing, breathing in the spirit of God, and breathing new life into those relationships grown stale and lifeless. And it’s about a new-born, struggling for his first breath. It’s never easy, but then his   peace is never the absence of struggle, but the presence of love. Amen.