Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 5.6-10 (11-13) 14-17; Mark 4.26-34.
Other readings for the day are: I Samuel 15.34-16.13 and Psalm 20
Father's Day, 18 Jun 06
In western culture it is common to think we freely chose our life's path; yet this scriptural text speaks of something else altogether, of our constantly "being chosen."
Jesus said to his disciples: "You did not choose me, I chose you," which is a curious thing to say in first century Palestine. For, then, it was the customary task of disciples or students to find a teacher or rabbi, and not the other way around.
The I Samuel passage recounts the strange choosing or "anointing" of David as king, not looking at outward appearances, and then these words: "this is the one"; "the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward."
The Psalm lesson reminds us that: "The Lord will answer you in the day of trouble! ... And will "grant your heart's desire, and fulfill all your plans" ... for "the Lord will help his chosen and anointed."
"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (2 Corinthians 5.17)
In the Gospel reading we see what God is doing in the world, already, mysteriously and in small measure. With seeds planted, and yet "the earth produces of itself," without "our knowing how."
Could it be that when we think we are living out our own plans, it is actually the case, as the Old Calvinists would remind us, that "God has a plan for your life"...that while we may believe we are choosing, we are actually being chosen?
This is tricky business here, for as today's text also reminds us: "Jesus did not speak to them except in parables or 'riddles.'" (Mark 4.33)
Growing up as the son of a minister, I remember thinking that this clergy profession was the furthest thing from my mind. Yet here I am. Did I choose; was I chosen?
Today is "Father's day." And I am wearing my Fathers preaching robe. Is this a coincidence, or did I intend to "wrap myself up in as much of my father as I could find," when facing the world, or even going into dangerous territory.
Since 1990 the poet, Robert Bly (Iron John and The Sibling Society) has spoken passionately and eloquently of the "absence of fathers" from the lives of their sons and daughters, and the consequences we now face, especially in a new generation of adult men who have been acculturated by this tangle of emotions.
How is "church" to help our fathers to spend time in a new kind of conversation with their sons and daughters?
(Bly comments that fathers, on average, spend no more than 10 minutes a day in conversation with their sons or daughters, and that there can be no change in values without this kind of extended time in conversation).
Well, for starters, as "church," we can see our vital role as "re-parenting" those who come to this "family." We have a chance here, for this is as safe as it is going to get, to "make up a new family" (this insight is owed to Mary Pipher, Psychologist and Writer), and an inter-generational experience of family at that, when our family of origin may have been lousy. (Of course the opposite is also true. We can bring the "dysfunctional" family experiences from our past, and without really being aware, play them out at church).
So how can you tell if you really have 'church," or not? We might try a 2:00 am in the morning experiment. Say it is your "dark night of the soul," 2:00 am in the morning, and you "really need to talk to someone." If you can think of a half-dozen people "in the church" you could call, then you have "church." If not, well...
The new testament church called this kind of care, "one-anothering" -- (which sounds like a "made up word" but it is really there in the original Greek (allelon) -- literally meaning "one anothering/each other": "Love one another, encourage one another, instruct one another, bear one another's burdens, confess to one another..."
Walking in the spirit has to do with Christian Practices, or actual, concrete "behaviors" within everyday life. Christian togetherness, or the experience of church as "family," is to be a distinctive, alternative, accountable and "peculiar" community.
Robert Bellah's landmark work summarizes this: "We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutions but through them. We never get to the bottom of our selves on our own. We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love, and learning. All of our activity goes on in relationships, groups, associations, and communities ordered by institutional structures and interpreted by cultural patterns of meaning" (Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Community in American Life, 1983, pp. 30-31, quoted by Inagrace Dietterich, "Missional Community: Cultivating Communities of he Holy Spirit," in Missional Church: A vision for the sending of the church in North America, Darrell L. Guder, Ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, pp. 142ff.).
And being "church" involves "accountability." The "binding and loosing" metaphor mentioned in Matthew 18 means to hold someone accountable or to free them from obligation.
After one of my father's sermons, in which he remarked that he had "never told his father that he loved him," there was a taste of this kind of accountability. At the end of the worship service, someone was waiting for him.
"How far of a drive is it to your father?"
"Not too far, why?
"I'm going with you and you are going to tell your father you love him."
"But, it was just a sermon."
Now, at the time, my father's father (and my grandfather) was 101 years old. He was named "Robert Lee" (after 'you know who."). He was a farmer and "carpenter" all of his life and he sent three sons into the ministry. Carpenter/minister/choices/choosing?
So what are we afraid of? Why does it take so long, and how is it that someone needs to dynamite us out of our patterns?
To be a part of a faith community as "church" is dangerous, to be sure. To deal in the business of "transformed lives" means to live as if we are chosen, even when we think we are choosing.
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