sermons

INTRODUCTION: Four years ago, if you had a copy of our February 2004 Umbrella newsletter, and if you looked for the title of my sermon for Sunday, Feb. 29^th of that month, it was listed as: “Serendipity: The unexpected good things God gives us.”

As some of you may know, I never got around to giving that sermon. Instead, on Thursday, Feb. 26^th – three days beforehand – while working out at the health club on the treadmill at 6:30 in the morning, I experienced what I thought was excessive heartburn. I followed that by spending too much time in the steam room, passed out in the shower stall, hit my head hard against the wall when I fell, and when I came to, cleaned up my mess and went to the snack bar for a bite to eat. Someone I didn’t know, said, “Man, you look awful. You should see a doctor.” So because I knew it was heartburn, I called Dr. Evelyn Kessel, my Gastro-Enterologist. Fortunately, she said come on out and she would work me in. When I go there, she very busy, but someone didn’t show up for an appointment with her husband, Dr. Brent Myers. He did an EKG, and immediately called an ambulance to take me to the emergency room at Health Park, where they diagnosed myocardial infarction and performed a triple bypass surgery.

So much for the “unexpected good things God gives us.” Right? It reminds me of the saying we have in Texas, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

I’m sure you’ve seen the poster requesting help in finding a very special lost dog. The description of this animal read as follows:

Has only three legs…blind in one eye…deaf in right ear…both ears torn from dog fights…several scars…answers to the name of “Lucky.”

So how do we respond when the unexpected bad thing happens? How do we react when life is going so well and suddenly not only is the wind knocked out of our sails, but our boat is overturned? How do we respond when despite doing what we thought were the right things, the end result is a very wrong thing?

I think that’s one of the ways to look at Jesus. He was a prophet of Judaism who preached what he thought was a course correction to the faith he loved and practiced. He was a committed Jew, and would have been absolutely horrified to learn that after his death people declared he was a God. And if he had claimed it while alive, the Jews would have stoned him on the spot.

Unfortunately, his very brief public ministry of maybe six months at most, was during a time of war, with the Roman Army occupying the nation. As we know in our own nation, the powers that be are not willing to hear anything that might upset the boat and complicate the status quo.

But the people – poor people, sick people, hungry people – they heard his words of hope and hung on for dear life. They listened to the promises he proclaimed and found new meaning beyond their destitution.

And they took courage. They cheered his chasing the money changers out of the temple. They told stories of those who had been healed by his healing touch. They dreamed that this is the one who will change our nation, change our people, and change our future.

Then he died…like a criminal…on a cross…between two thieves…we’re told.

But what about his message that there is nothing more important than love: love for God, love for our neighbor, and love for ourselves? Can that ever be re-enacted?

It has been. In fact, in our own nation: In the midst of the civil rights battle to awaken America to its brutal racism, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote to those seeking to destroy him, which included our own FBI:

“Do to us what you will and we shall continue to love you….Throw us in jail, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send the Ku Klux Klan into our community at midnight and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will overcome.

Like Jesus, they killed him too. But does that in any way discount the truth, the power, and the viability of love mixed with courage?

One of the characteristics of what I choose to call unfaith can be defined as “discontent with the present,” no matter how good it might be. Someone once described an acquaintance of mine as, “Paul doesn’t know when the sun is shining.”

In fact, dissatisfaction with the present is a constant strain in Western literature. It drove Odysseus in Homer’s ancient Greek epic. It caused Abraham to strike out for the “promised land.”[2] It’s the presupposition of Horace Greeley’s, “Go West! young man.” It’s the constant need to search for “utopia,” where the grass is greener, where things will be different, which we’re certain will be better. To unfaith, whether it’s a new job, a new relationship, or a new home, the present is not enough.

Remember when you were still in high school and couldn’t wait to get out, not realizing that those well might have been some of your happiest days. Or remember how impatient you were to graduate from college, to get your masters or doctorate, to get that new house, to move to that new city, to change surroundings.

The meaning of “unfaith” is being filled with discontent about the present, always looking to tomorrow, tomorrow, to the new and different. But one of things “faith,” not “unfaith” says is:

2. REGARDLESS OF WHERE WE ARE, WHAT WE’RE DOING IN LIFE, AND WITH WHOM WE’RE DOING IT, ADDRESSING OUR INNER LIFE IS ALWAYS AT THE TOP OF THE AGENDA.

It’s not the greener grass, the better job, the bigger salary, the newer car and the more expensive home. Rather, faith is an “inside job.” It begins with an understanding of who we are and why we’re here and what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives. It’s something deep within the soul that enables us to keep on even when we lose someone so dear that our very soul aches. It’s a flame that keeps burning even when ashes seem to be all that are left to burn. It’s getting up when there seems no reason to get up…when it’s a matter of pure will to put one foot in front of the other. It’s a confidence within that despite the storm clouds all around, the sun will come out tomorrow.

It’s knowing that when you’re lying flat on your back, despite the need for oxygen, and ventilators, despite your shoulder and chest hurting so badly because of the paddles they had to use to revive you, that down in the deepest part of deep and the lowest part of low, life is not what’s on the outside, but the inside.

When you can’t speak, can’t write, can’t move, you still know that you know that you know that life is more than the external limitations we place on it. That’s love mixed with courage. That’s what Jesus had. That’s what Dr. King had. That’s what you and I can have. It’s what many of you have had.

3. THE TASK OF FAITH IS TO TRANSFORM THE UNEXPECTED BAD THINGS INTO THE BEST POSSIBLE SITUATION.

Back in 1913, Eleanor Porter wrote a novel entitled, Pollyanna, which became a national phenomenon. It was made into a Broadway play. Pollyanna Clubs even sprouted up all across America. It was an irrepressible optimism that saw good in everything.

One editorial cartoon of that era showed Pollyanna having being run over by a car. She looks up from the pavement and says, “I’m so glad it was a Cadillac and not a Ford that ran over me.”

Rather than pollyanna, faith is a matter of transformation, of making the best of every situation. That’s not a matter of resignation, but commitment. It’s a matter of the way one looks at life, the lens through which one sees.

For Christians, this time of year is a very holy time leading up to Easter. As I’ve said so many times, I’ve always loved John’s story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. His treasurer has betrayed him, his closest disciples denied they ever knew him, and none of them have even been able to stay awake and to pray with him in his hour of need. In a short time, Roman soldiers will come and arrest him, he’ll be stripped naked, brutally whipped, given a crown of thorns to wear, and executed in an incredibly cruel manner on a cross.

The Gospel writers portray Jesus as knowing all of this is going to happen. And only moments before this series of unexpected bad things happens, here’s what he says to his disciples, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

Is this pollyanna, pie in the sky, a disconnect from reality? I think not. What the earliest writers of the Gospels hoped to communicate to us about the faith they had experienced was that it’s never what happens outside, but what happens inside. It’s that spirit within that rises up to proclaim that indeed we are more than…we are more than muscle and blood and skin and bones. We are people of faith who know that in every situation, we have been given a spirit of faith, hope, and love that enables us to face every situation regardless. And even when we fail, we are not failures. We can try again and again and again.

First, we can’t allow tomorrow to drain today. Sometimes, the hoped-for promotion doesn’t come. The diagnosis comes back different than we had hoped. The anticipated transfer doesn’t go through. It hurts. It’s disappointing. But we don’t stop living because of a reversal in relationship, in income, in our work, or in our health.

Amanda shared with me a sermon she heard at a funeral last week. A 16 year old boy’s girl-friend had broken up with him. In a moment of pique, he hung himself from the tree in the front yard of his home. She said the preacher offered some very wise words. He said very pointedly to the young people present, “What Jonathan did was a long term solution to a short term problem.”

Sure, loss can hurt. It can even seem overpowering. But that’s short term. The future looms before us. We have life to life.

Second, nothing helps more than to re-plan for the future. I’ve observed through the years that when something really bad happens to us, one of the first responses is a feeling of being terribly alone. We’re devastated. But what eventually helps is when we finally are able to begin to make a plan for our future…to envision ourselves continuing on despite everything that’s happened to the contrary. And when that happens it helps us to overcome the fear of the future.

I love that statement someone wrote, which says, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well-preserved body, but rather skidding in sideways, chocolate in one hand and wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, screaming ‘Waa-hoo!!! What a ride!”

We will pause now for 7½ minutes of brief questions as a part of our Conversation Café. The Service and Support Council will provide microphones for you to speak into.

[1] A sermon presented on March 09, 2008, as the second in a series of four, followed by the Conversation Café of All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1904 Park Meadows, Ft. Myers, FL, between the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.

[2] Which creates one of my favorite verses of Christian scripture, “And Abraham went out, not knowing whither he went.” (Hebrews 11:08)