David Orendorff        Mark 1:14-20     January 22, 2012

I have been a fulltime pastor for 35 years.  In that time I have delivered more than 700 sermons.  Yet this week, like many weeks for those 35 years, I worried if I could write a sermon to deliver.  I am not saying I worried about having a good sermon; I was worried whether there was to be a sermon.

There is a message in today’s scripture for us when we worry.  In Mark Jesus begins his preaching in a time of fear and worry.  Jesus’ friend, teacher and mentor, John the Baptist has been arrested and will surely be killed.  It is a fate Jesus will also suffer.  Jesus preaching in Galilee begins not in an easy time, but in the midst of life’s evil and vicious tragedy.

I invite you to open your Bible to this passage, Mark 1:14 and both read and listen to it.  This time I am going to read my translation with some parenthetical remarks of clarification.

After John was arrested Jesus went into Galilee preaching (proclaiming like a town crier, telling everyone in a loud voice) the good news of God, and saying that the time (kairos which is a spiritual time and not chronos or a clock time)is fulfilled (plethora is the root - so the spiritual time is abundant)and the Kingdom of God is at hand (you can reach out and touch it), repent (change your mind) and believe (the word is faith, both a belief with the mind and a trust of the heart) the good news.

Now let’s read it again.  This time see if you can hear a message to ease our worry.

After John was arrested Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, and saying that the time of God’s Spirit is abundantly fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand, change your mind and trust the good news.

Jesus preaches good news into the face of bad news.  Jesus proclaims a bright future into the face of darkness. Jesus preaches God is with and for us.  He preaches that we don’t have to wait for death to be with God; God is with us and for us right here and right now.  Now is the time to repent, to change our minds from believing that God is far off to trusting that God is here.   Now is the time of the good news of God’s deliverance.

Now a brief word about time:  Greek has two words for time, chronos and kairos.  Chronos is clock time. Kairos is Spirit time.  Chronos is the quantity of time measured in seconds, minutes, hours and years.  Kairos is the quality of time measured in joy, peace, and optimism.  When we say, “I had a good time” it doesn’t mean I had a good 9:30 a.m., it means the experience of the time spent was good.  To be in kairos time means to be in the good time of being with the Spirit of God.  In kairos time God is at hand and the experience is one of abundance and peace, a time filled with God’s deliverance.

The message I take for sermon writing is that God will help me if I will change my mind from worry to faith.  And it works.  Every time I finally ask and trust God for help, voila, there is a sermon.  Sure, some sermons are better than others, but there has for 35 years always been a sermon.  When I repent of my fear of life and trust that God is caring for me I enter the Kingdom of God and the sermon comes.  When I repent (change my mind) and move from chronos time when God is far off to living in kairos time when God is very near, I am open to God working in and through me.  God does the work and I just write.

Another example from my life:  For nearly the same 35 years I have been a parent.  When the kids where small I worried about being a loving parent who would be a help and not a hindrance.  When they were teenagers I worried about grades, sex, drugs and a host of other demons.  When they became young adults I worried about their life choices for mates and careers.

It has been the preaching of Jesus that has kept me sane.  For at every parental worry, after a rock head delay, I would finally repent (change my mind) and believe/trust that God was in my parent life just as much as God was present in my sermon life.

When I worry I am living outside the Kingdom of God and the abundance of the moment.  But when I repent, and sometimes I have to repent several times in rapid succession, and trust that God is near then I enter the time of God’s Spirit and actually become a non-anxious and better parent, because God makes it so.

I have more examples from being married for 40 years, from being a voter and citizen for 45 years, from being mostly consistently employed for 50 years, and being a little bit of a hypochondriac for 60 years.  And in each of these and more, when I have repented, changed my mind from fear and worry to trusting God, the Kingdom of Heaven has been present; I have been delivered from worry and made to be a better person; the good news of God has sustained me and mine; and time was spirit time full of God’s abundance.

Psychologists have another name for repentance.  They call it cognitive therapy.  It sounds more scientific and reliable than repentance but it means the same thing.  Cognitive therapy, which has been shown to be as effective for most people as anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication, is simply the process of changing our minds, changing how we think.  Its process is simple:

1.  Get to know the thought that leads you to fear, worry, anxiety or depression.  Usually that thought comes from some adverse experience.  A good way to get to know the thought is to write it down with great detail taking at least fifteen minutes each day for four days. An even better way is to tell it to another trusted person, not asking them to solve anything, just to listen to you and to ask clarifying questions and point out repeated themes.  This is what a trained therapist is good at.

2.  Knowing your mind, how you think, it is then possible to develop a way to interrupt the negative thoughts and replace them with more positive and less anxious thoughts.  So when you go down a negative trail, you can stop yourself and choose a positive trail.

3.  Now you write the positive thought down, taking as much or more time with it as the negative.  Or you tell another person how you would change your thinking.  Both methods reinforce and strengthen the more positive thinking.

For example:  I am worried about writing a sermon.  I recognize that I am worrying because there were times as a child when opening my mouth in public brought ridicule and embarrassment/shame.  I recognize that this worry is both useless and counterproductive to me writing a sermon.  So I replace my worried thought (I repent) with the thought that God is with me and will give me a sermon.  I trust this new positive thought because for 35 years it has been true.  And voila, I cease the worry and begin to write.

But enough about me!  What about you?  Let’s do little exercise in repentance or cognitive therapy, which ever you prefer.  Take a pencil and your bulletin so you can write some brief notes.

• Write down a small worry. Save a big one for later.
• Examine your mind around this worry. From what experience might it have grown? What outcome do you fear? Jot those down.
• Now seek a positive thought, a thought of God’s deliverance, from your worry. Envision the help you need from God. Replace the worried thought by writing down this new thought that trusts God four times.

By thinking on the new thought that trusts God with this worry, you have repented; you have changed your mind.  As you sit with this new thought you have entered spiritual time, God’s time and God’s kingdom.  This is divine cognitive therapy.

I am well familiar with how once we change our minds our elephant of an unconscious changes it back for us.  So do this simple exercise often as you need to.  And for big fears or worries, take more time and find a trusted friend.  Reunion and Covenant Groups are wonderful healing places for repentance.

Jesus, at the arrest and certain death of John the Baptist proclaims, shouts in public, that God’s abundant time of deliverance is now; the very Kingdom of God is at hand.  Jesus pleads with all who hear to change their minds from fear of today to trust of God for ever for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Shalom and Amen.

 

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David Orendorff        John 1:35-51        January 15, 2012

There is a joke that has made the rounds in several variations.  The thrust of the joke centers on God having an annoying answering machine which directs and prioritizes the calls; For English press 1, for Spanish press 2, for Louisiana Cajun press 3, for northern Setzhuan Mandarin press 4, and so on until all the hundreds of languages are covered.  Or, there is a mental health version in which obsessive compulsive folks are asked to press 9, and 9, and 9, and 9, and… well you get the point.

The joke makes me smile because it points out how absurd it would be if God operated the way we do, and what patience God must have with our human ways.  And I think it more likely that God is repeatedly calling us and getting our busy signal or our annoying answering machine which requires all kinds of special codes before we will listen, if we ever listen.

In the history of our faith it is not we who first approach God, but God who comes to walk in the garden with Adam and Eve seeking their company; God who seeks out Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the prophets.  In the record of our faith it is always God that makes the first move.  It is God who picks up the phone and dials our number, then dials it again, and again, and again.

Today’s lesson is St. John’s way of teaching us the variety of ways that God persists in calling.  The other gospel writers, Matthew, Mark and Luke, want us to know the names of the 12 disciples closest to Jesus and each of them gives us a list, though the lists don’t fully agree.[1] For all of the gospel writers the number is more important than the names, because the 12 represent the twelve new tribes of Israel.  John is the only gospel writer who does not ever list the names of the 12.  Evidently, for John, it isn’t important that we know the names.

What John thinks is important is how these earliest of disciples heard and responded to God’s call in Jesus. Though he tells only four call stories, he goes into details that the other gospel writers don’t.[2] The four calls, in the order John offers them, are through a teacher, through a family member, through a direct call from Jesus, and through a friend.[3]

One of the ways God attempts to reach us is through teachers.  The first call St. John identifies is that of two students, disciples of John the Baptist, who hear John call Jesus “the Lamb of God” thus identifying him as the expected messiah.  One of the two students is Andrew, the other is not named.  Both of them stay with Jesus.

It is true, and continues to be true, that persons of faith instruct us on the way to follow Jesus.  Such folks might be Sunday school teachers, teachers in the school system, preachers, writers, mentors or wise folk we have come to respect.  It is through such teachers as these that God often works, hoping we will hear and learn, hoping we will say yes to his call.

Another way that God can call to us is through our families.  In the second call of St. John Andrew goes to tell his brother Simon Peter what he has heard and seen; what he has found in Jesus.  It is the witness, the testimony of family that will often lead us to faith in Christ.  A beloved brother or sister, a parent or grandparent, earn our listening because we know they love us and so God uses them to call us in hopes we will answer.

The third type of call St. John reports is a direct hearing from Jesus, from the voice of God.  Jesus finds Philip and says to him “Follow me.”  There is something so compelling in this direct encounter that Philip leaves what he is doing, whatever his present life is, and follows.  And in following Jesus, Philip discovers the truth of Jesus’ life changing, life giving, message and relationship with God.

There are moments in our lives when a reading of scripture, a moment of listening prayer, the top of a mountain or the shore of an ocean, our presence at a dying, a trauma or a mystical experience becomes a direct call from Jesus, from God, to us.  In such a direct call, should we choose to answer, we experience an inner shift to a life of deeper and more committed discipleship.

The final form of call St. John identifies is the invitation of a friend.  Philip is so excited about what he has found in Jesus that he tells his friend Nathanael.  And when Nathanael proves to be somewhat of a skeptic asking “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip says to him, “Come and see for yourself.”  God can use our friends to call us to follow Jesus, or to at least come and see for ourselves.

Now note that all four of the four ways St. John identifies the call of Christ in our lives are relational.  To be a student, a family member or friends are all forms of human relationships.  And to hear God call directly to us is a relationship with God. Sociologists and historians have noted that early Christianity was primarily successful because of the loving relationships they formed in their communities.  We know that we are successful as a congregation only in so far as our relationships with God, each other and our community are caring and loving.  Folks most often follow Jesus because we who are followers of Jesus invite others with our lives and our words to come and see for themselves what Jesus can mean in life.

Many, if not all of us, have heard the call to follow Jesus in all the ways St. John notes.  We have encountered Jesus directly in prayer and study.  We have had our faith directed and reinforced by teachers, family and friends.  God calls us daily in one of these or all of these ways.  Every day we are being asked to follow Jesus; to grow in love.  And so every day our lives, by relationship, beckon others to follow Jesus.

Now notice, that though there are many ways in which God calls us, our response is but one.  Whether we hear directly from Jesus, or through a human relationship, we must all come and see for ourselves.  Though faith can be testified to by others, it is we ourselves who must decide if it is true or not true, if we will follow.  None of us is asked to believe because of another’s witness.  Our faith is a faith of personal choice and experience.

This radical emphasis on personal choice, on our freedom to come and see for ourselves is one of the things that got John Wesley and the early Methodists into trouble.  Folks just couldn’t believe that God would let us decide.  But this exactly what Methodists have traditionally believed; that God comes to us in love and gives us the power to answer yes, responding to love with love, or to say no.  The theologian John Cobb said it this way, “God is not coercive; God is persuasive.”[4] God does not force us into a decision to follow Christ, but since God’s nature is love, and God wants willing disciples not robots, God chooses to love us while we better learn to love God and each other.

Finally, without coming to see, there is no opportunity to make a choice to follow.  You have to shop to know what is available.  And only when we have tried it will we know if we like it. Then, if our experience of being a Christian does not deepen our love and joy of life, doesn’t continually transform us into Jesus like persons of rich faith, generous compassion and a passion for justice, then like the unnamed disciple, we can go another way and move on to something else.  But before we go our own way we must first come and see.

And so I invite you to again listen for the call of God to you.  It is an invitation to test loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength; to test loving our neighbor as ourselves; to test being a disciple of Jesus who trusts that God’s care for us conquers even death.  We are invited to come to Jesus to see what happens to us and the world around us.

St. John and the millions of others who follow Jesus are convinced, as I am also convinced, that most of  those who come to give Jesus a good look and see; who give following Jesus a fair try, will have lives change for the better.  I am convinced that following Jesus is the way to real, full and joyful living in this life and in the life to come.  And as God changes my life God changes the world.

So that’s it.  God calls us all the time.  How is our answering machine working?  Do we make God push all kinds of buttons to meet our conditions before we listen?  And when the call finally gets through to us, how do we answer?  Will we be students and followers of Jesus?  And will we offer ourselves as God’s instrument for calling in our relationships with others?  It is ours to answer.

Shalom and Amen.

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[1] Mark 3:16-19, Matthew 10:2-4, Luke 6:13-16, Acts 1:13.  Notice that Mark and Matthew have Thaddeus as a disciple.  Luke doesn’t have Thaddeus but adds instead Judas, the son of James.  Luke makes his list in both his gospel and his history of the church in Acts.

[2] Matthew and Mark essentially agree on how each disciple was called, Luke and John vary a great deal from them and from each other even though they knew what Mark (the oldest gospel) had to say.  As we so often see, the lesson is more important than the history.

[3] Just to highlight how John differs from the other gospels, Matthew and Mark have Peter, Andrew, James and John all called directly by Jesus.  Luke has Peter called directly, James and John through Peter their business partner, and doesn’t tell us anything about how Andrew got called.  God’s call for us to follow Jesus can, evidently, come to us in a variety of ways.

[4] paraphrase

 

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David Orendorff         Isaiah 60:1-6   January 1, 2012

Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

and his glory will appear over you.

Nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

As a junior in college I agreed to be a guinea pig in an experiment of the psychology department. A grad assistant gave me a pair of glasses to wear, led me into a room, sat me in a chair and closed the door. Everything went pitch-black. The room was absolutely dark. And it was also apparently soundproof because I couldn’t hear anything. I sat still waiting; hoping my eyes would adjust and hoping for some further instruction. But the room never got any lighter and no instructions came.

After what seemed a long time, a very small light appeared in front of me. It was so dim I wasn’t sure if I was seeing it or imagining it. After a time the light began to move like it was floating in front of me up and down, from side to side, in an irregular pattern. Then it faded out. I watched and waited in the darkness. Again the light appeared. This time it was off to the side, wandered around for a while and disappeared. And again I sat in darkness waiting. A third time the light appeared, wandered in front of me and disappeared.

The grad student came back. I asked if there had been a light and he acknowledged that there had been. I asked if it had floated around and was told that the light was on the lens of the glasses and had remained stationary. Turns out the experiment was about how I (and others) respond to the disorientation of absolute darkness and that almost everyone becomes so disoriented that they lose track of what is up, down and sideways.

I later learned that is not just the eyes but the whole body that, without light, becomes disoriented. Folks who walk around in dark rooms report inclines that don’t exist, odd-shaped wall patterns, and so on. Some folks become so disoriented they think the chair is moving, even tilting.

You can get a sense of this if you have ever flown in thick fog. Pilots must trust their instruments because they cannot trust their own senses. Or if you have ever spent a couple of days on a boat and then tried to walk on land, or even just stand still with your eyes closed. The body has lost track of which way is up and sways side to side. In time the blind can, for the most part, adjust to a world without light. But even the blind, once disoriented, have a dickens of a time getting right with the world again.

Perhaps this is why light is such a powerful metaphor for us. Without some light in front of us we lose track of not only our bodies but our lives, our hope and our future.

The Isaiah passage we read today comes from a time of great darkness for the people of God. In the sixth century B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah and deported King Jehoiakim and his family to Babylon. When Jehoiakim’s Uncle Zedekiah later led a revolt against Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar lay siege to Jerusalem, destroyed the city and the temple, and deported the survivors to Babylonia as slaves.

Isaiah 56-66 is written 60 years, or two generations, later. Those who lived in Jerusalem and had worshipped the Lord in the temple are dead. The prayers, songs and rituals are being forgotten. One of our great Psalms from that time is a lament of the Judeans in Babylon:

By the rivers of Babylon -

there we sat down and there we wept

when we remembered Zion[1]

On the willows there

we hung up our harps.

For our captors asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”[2]

Isaiah calls God’s people to remember their history and to remember their faith. He reminds the people in great darkness that the light of the Lord has always come. The Light came to Abraham and Sara in their great darkness being old and childless. God promised to make them a great nation and now, though in a foreign land, they are a great people, for they are God’s people. The Light came to the children of Judah, when living as slaves in Egypt, to set them free and lead them to the Promised Land. God, the Light, has always come in the darkness and will always come.

Perhaps the darkest day of human history was when God was hung to die on a cross. From the cross God sings Psalm 22, which begins with a lament which most of us have at one time or another cried:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me,

from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

and by night, but find no rest.

God knows exactly our fears and cries in the darkness, for God chose to experience that fear in dying. However, the remarkable thing about Psalm 22 is not its profound portrayal of our fear of being abandoned in the darkness by God, but how the Psalm turns from a woeful lament to a praise of God’s deliverance:

²⁴For the Lord did not despise or abhor

the affliction of the afflicted;

he did not hide his face from me,

but heard when I cried to him.

²⁶The poor shall eat and be satisfied;

those who seek him shall praise the Lord;

may your hearts lie forever!

³⁰All the children to come will serve the Lord;

future generations will be told about the Lord,

and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,

saying that he has done it.

Our faith is built upon our memory that God delivers. The Bible is a book whose primary theme is that God delivers. Five thousand years of history have tested this promise. Now more than half of the living population, some 3.75 billion people, witness that, when in great darkness, the people have seen a great light and that light is God. The success of this promise is not in a good PR campaign because false advertising is soon found out. Its success is in the truth that it works. Whenever the people have been in darkness, the light of Yahweh has come to lead them to a new and better land, to a Promised Land of both milk and honey.

Rodgers and Hammerstein knew this promise and wrote it into their musical “Carousel,” which was written during World War II, a time of great darkness for the world. In the musical, when Julie loses her husband, Billy, and her hope for the future of their child, her cousin Nettie sings to her of the Light.

When you walk through a storm

Keep your chin up high

And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm

      is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song

      of a lark

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Tho' your dreams

Be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone

You'll never walk alone

The song comes again in the final scene as a spirit, Billy, watches the graduation of his and Julie's daughter from high school. You never walk alone. You are never left to darkness.

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

Shalom, Amen and Merry Christmas.

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[1] the hill upon which Jerusalem is built

[2] Psalm 137