Up And Running
Sermon
Sermons On The Gospel Readings
Series I, Cycle B
We all have a stake in making sure that our young people get up and running. This is a given for families, but it is also true for congregational families too, for the simple and obvious reason that today's young people represent tomorrow's church leaders. Our text is about the process whereby we get up and running.
It begins with a curious picture of Jesus being baptized. On a wall somewhere in a church building you have seen an artist's depiction of this. Jesus' experience is such that he sees the opening of the heavens and out of those heavens comes the Spirit "descending like a dove on him." Jesus' baptism even has an auditory dimension. "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:9-11).
If you juxtapose his baptism to yours, yours probably pales in comparison. It's unlikely that it packed the kind of drama his does. But don't be so quick to underplay your experience, nor assume that nothing like this has ever happened to you. What is initially happening here has to do with a sense of being called.
When you were growing up, you played all kinds of imaginary games and in those games there were roles you gleefully fulfilled. You were the teacher, the mom, the dad, the physician, the nurse, the musician, the figure skater, or the whatever. Assuming those imaginary identities brought you hours of delight, experiences like that are enrichening and enable us to begin to imagine who we might become in the future.
We can't be all those things, but eventually a clearer picture of who we are begins to take shape and in time we feel called -- or led -- in a particular direction. Not medicine, but teaching; not a technical field, but one that more directly deals with others; not business, but the arts; not sales, but service. It can happen gradually, almost imperceptibly, or it can suddenly dawn upon us. There is about this process, though, a sense that we alone are not calling the shots; somehow we are in the grip of a force that both compels and attracts. There is a door and we feel both drawn to it from this side and called to walk through it from the other. Such is the nature of vocation.
Vocation, too, has more to do with meaning than happiness. There is a measure of rote and tedium in any calling, but we live with that knowing that we are participating in an endeavor whose significance transcends the sometimes irritating baggage it brings with it. Medicine, teaching, fathering, mothering, working in the institutional church -- point to whatever calling you will -- not one is insulated from the possibility of burnout.
But then what is burnout, if not the emergence of a kind of tunnel vision whereby we cannot see the forest for the trees? Some people wear two different contact lenses, but for different reasons. With one contact, they are able to see well close at hand; with the other, they are able to see well off in the distance. In burnout, we tend to see only through the lens that grants vision up close. We become absorbed in the minute and mundane. Translate that in terms of raising children, and we see parents so focused on the daily frustrations of raising children -- scheduling, transporting, managing, and all the rest -- that they forget what they are ultimately about, namely the shaping of character and the fulfillment of maturity.
C. S. Lewis said it well: "To follow the vocation does not mean happiness; but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow."1
We gather weekly for public worship and one important reason for doing that is this: Worship helps us become disentangled from the trees so we can see the forest. Worship reacquaints us with both the larger picture, and the One who holds before us -- and draws us into -- that larger picture.
Now our text flows from calling to chastening. "And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him" (Mark 1:12-13). I am thinking of chastening in the sense of being refined and made purer in style.
Again, please do not let the imagery be off-putting for you. We too have such moments, even though we might paint the experience using different colors and figures. We call these wilderness moments, these times of testing, by other names: student teaching, field work, internship, or on-the-job training.
Some of our theological schools sit high atop hills. One can leave the din around the base of such hilltops and ascend to a place of bucolic loveliness just a block from urban sprawl. The symbolism of it does not go unnoticed, issuing in a question like this: Is the place of the church above and beyond the world, or in the world? It is, I believe, both. There is a problem in both directions: Stay in the world too long and you can lose your way; but stay in the church too long and you can become, as the old expression puts it, "so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good."
Theological educators, as well as educators in other disciplines, know that the academic must be tempered by the practical. The late Roy Pearson once put it like this to students graduating from Andover Newton Theological School:
The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain; turn and take your journey...." It is obvious that I have no way of knowing whether all members of this graduating glass have stayed long enough at the mountain of Andover Newton. One fact, however, is clear: you have stayed long enough to qualify for your diplomas, and unless you are remaining here for further study, you are about to "turn and take your journey."2
The purpose of any educational program is to prepare students so they can eventually "turn and take their journeys." It's not to keep people in school. And to ease the transition from academia to the work-a-day world, most educational programs involve hands-on experiences that go on shoulder to shoulder with the presentation of theory.
Of particular note in our text is the fact that Jesus was tempted by Satan, the personification of evil. In every calling, there is present the opportunity to exploit, misuse, and abuse. Sadly in every calling there are those who succumb to these temptations: teachers, ministers, business people, doctors, social workers, psychotherapists, mothers, fathers, grandparents; in the ranks of each there are those who abuse trust and behave in wantonly selfish ways. We fool ourselves if we think the seeds of such are absent from us; always they are there. Therefore the agenda? Admit they are present and then consign them to our internal jails and throw away the key. And there is help with that assignment: "... and the angels waited on him." On us, they also wait.
Calling, chastening, and now commissioning: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news' " (Mark 1:14-15). To commission is to put into service.
Among those who collect toy trains, a distinction is drawn between the collector and the runner. The collectors amass their favorite trains, put them on shelves, and just look at them. Runners are those who take the trains off the shelves, turn on the electricity, and enjoy them. We are to be in the latter camp.
In the economy of the kingdom, everyone is to be moved in the direction of being a runner, someone on the move with and for God. The pithy preacher of Ecclesiastes said it like this: there is "a time to seek, and a time to lose...." Worship and church education are seeking times -- times when we seek the closeness of God and the knowledge needful to fulfill our ministries. Then we walk through the portals of the sanctuary and out into the world, there to lose ourselves in the interests of others only to -- given Gospel logic -- find ourselves in a deeper way.
Up and running. God knows it beats the alternative: down and crippled. Not only, though, does it beat the alternative; it is, more to the point, how God has wired us for Kingdom service. Everyone up and running -- with God, for God, through God, and to God.
____________
1. Quoted by Gilbert Meilaender, "Divine Summons" (The Christian Century, Nov. 1, 2000), p. 1111.
2. Roy Pearson, "Long Enough at the Mountain" (Andover Newton Quarterly, January, 1976), p. 210.
It begins with a curious picture of Jesus being baptized. On a wall somewhere in a church building you have seen an artist's depiction of this. Jesus' experience is such that he sees the opening of the heavens and out of those heavens comes the Spirit "descending like a dove on him." Jesus' baptism even has an auditory dimension. "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:9-11).
If you juxtapose his baptism to yours, yours probably pales in comparison. It's unlikely that it packed the kind of drama his does. But don't be so quick to underplay your experience, nor assume that nothing like this has ever happened to you. What is initially happening here has to do with a sense of being called.
When you were growing up, you played all kinds of imaginary games and in those games there were roles you gleefully fulfilled. You were the teacher, the mom, the dad, the physician, the nurse, the musician, the figure skater, or the whatever. Assuming those imaginary identities brought you hours of delight, experiences like that are enrichening and enable us to begin to imagine who we might become in the future.
We can't be all those things, but eventually a clearer picture of who we are begins to take shape and in time we feel called -- or led -- in a particular direction. Not medicine, but teaching; not a technical field, but one that more directly deals with others; not business, but the arts; not sales, but service. It can happen gradually, almost imperceptibly, or it can suddenly dawn upon us. There is about this process, though, a sense that we alone are not calling the shots; somehow we are in the grip of a force that both compels and attracts. There is a door and we feel both drawn to it from this side and called to walk through it from the other. Such is the nature of vocation.
Vocation, too, has more to do with meaning than happiness. There is a measure of rote and tedium in any calling, but we live with that knowing that we are participating in an endeavor whose significance transcends the sometimes irritating baggage it brings with it. Medicine, teaching, fathering, mothering, working in the institutional church -- point to whatever calling you will -- not one is insulated from the possibility of burnout.
But then what is burnout, if not the emergence of a kind of tunnel vision whereby we cannot see the forest for the trees? Some people wear two different contact lenses, but for different reasons. With one contact, they are able to see well close at hand; with the other, they are able to see well off in the distance. In burnout, we tend to see only through the lens that grants vision up close. We become absorbed in the minute and mundane. Translate that in terms of raising children, and we see parents so focused on the daily frustrations of raising children -- scheduling, transporting, managing, and all the rest -- that they forget what they are ultimately about, namely the shaping of character and the fulfillment of maturity.
C. S. Lewis said it well: "To follow the vocation does not mean happiness; but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow."1
We gather weekly for public worship and one important reason for doing that is this: Worship helps us become disentangled from the trees so we can see the forest. Worship reacquaints us with both the larger picture, and the One who holds before us -- and draws us into -- that larger picture.
Now our text flows from calling to chastening. "And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him" (Mark 1:12-13). I am thinking of chastening in the sense of being refined and made purer in style.
Again, please do not let the imagery be off-putting for you. We too have such moments, even though we might paint the experience using different colors and figures. We call these wilderness moments, these times of testing, by other names: student teaching, field work, internship, or on-the-job training.
Some of our theological schools sit high atop hills. One can leave the din around the base of such hilltops and ascend to a place of bucolic loveliness just a block from urban sprawl. The symbolism of it does not go unnoticed, issuing in a question like this: Is the place of the church above and beyond the world, or in the world? It is, I believe, both. There is a problem in both directions: Stay in the world too long and you can lose your way; but stay in the church too long and you can become, as the old expression puts it, "so heavenly-minded that you are no earthly good."
Theological educators, as well as educators in other disciplines, know that the academic must be tempered by the practical. The late Roy Pearson once put it like this to students graduating from Andover Newton Theological School:
The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain; turn and take your journey...." It is obvious that I have no way of knowing whether all members of this graduating glass have stayed long enough at the mountain of Andover Newton. One fact, however, is clear: you have stayed long enough to qualify for your diplomas, and unless you are remaining here for further study, you are about to "turn and take your journey."2
The purpose of any educational program is to prepare students so they can eventually "turn and take their journeys." It's not to keep people in school. And to ease the transition from academia to the work-a-day world, most educational programs involve hands-on experiences that go on shoulder to shoulder with the presentation of theory.
Of particular note in our text is the fact that Jesus was tempted by Satan, the personification of evil. In every calling, there is present the opportunity to exploit, misuse, and abuse. Sadly in every calling there are those who succumb to these temptations: teachers, ministers, business people, doctors, social workers, psychotherapists, mothers, fathers, grandparents; in the ranks of each there are those who abuse trust and behave in wantonly selfish ways. We fool ourselves if we think the seeds of such are absent from us; always they are there. Therefore the agenda? Admit they are present and then consign them to our internal jails and throw away the key. And there is help with that assignment: "... and the angels waited on him." On us, they also wait.
Calling, chastening, and now commissioning: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news' " (Mark 1:14-15). To commission is to put into service.
Among those who collect toy trains, a distinction is drawn between the collector and the runner. The collectors amass their favorite trains, put them on shelves, and just look at them. Runners are those who take the trains off the shelves, turn on the electricity, and enjoy them. We are to be in the latter camp.
In the economy of the kingdom, everyone is to be moved in the direction of being a runner, someone on the move with and for God. The pithy preacher of Ecclesiastes said it like this: there is "a time to seek, and a time to lose...." Worship and church education are seeking times -- times when we seek the closeness of God and the knowledge needful to fulfill our ministries. Then we walk through the portals of the sanctuary and out into the world, there to lose ourselves in the interests of others only to -- given Gospel logic -- find ourselves in a deeper way.
Up and running. God knows it beats the alternative: down and crippled. Not only, though, does it beat the alternative; it is, more to the point, how God has wired us for Kingdom service. Everyone up and running -- with God, for God, through God, and to God.
____________
1. Quoted by Gilbert Meilaender, "Divine Summons" (The Christian Century, Nov. 1, 2000), p. 1111.
2. Roy Pearson, "Long Enough at the Mountain" (Andover Newton Quarterly, January, 1976), p. 210.
