 |
||||||||
| ||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
 |
|||
Bathed in LightJanuary 27, 2008 Third Sunday after Epiphany About fifteen or so minutes from now we will ritually welcome new friends into our family. A few will receive the mark and gift of baptism. Others will reconfirm ancient vows that had been made in years past. Several come to us from vital congregations in other parts of our nation. More report they have only recently chosen to step through church doors. They represent a wide variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, nationalities and traditional religious affiliations. They’re mostly on the near side of forty years of age. Lots of children are represented…our ranks seem to be exploding with children these days. In short, these new friends are a lot like the rest of us here, which means they have not all been cut from the same cloth - one of the wondrous hallmarks of our expanding family. Sometimes I’m asked by visitors how we came to be forming such a vitally diverse congregation, and I generally respond that I’m hard pressed to identify exactly how that happened. It certainly wasn’t because of some clever marketing strategy or church growth ploy learned at a conference, not that we don’t have plenty of things to learn, of course. A couple of folks in our new member class yesterday said they were surprised to discover what they found here - they had a different set of expectations for experiencing a supposed Park Avenue congregation. In part, think that meant they anticipated a more homogenous and less friendly experience. Sometimes I’ve wanted to take credit for this astonishing diversity, but in my most sober moments I know it would be a foolish arrogance to travel very far down that path. I mean, all you have to do is look at me and listen to me for a minute to see the limits of that logic. Then perhaps various colleagues on staff and church leaders have made the difference with this phenomenon - God knows we have had some really talented people show up here sharing all sorts of giftedness. But as much as I’ve grown to love and admire so many wonderfully talented people here, I know that their combined abilities don’t fully account for what’s going on, why we’ve all shown up and why we sense that others are fast on our heels; others, by the way, who will surely surprise us, even challenge us in dynamic ways. I’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to answer the question yourself, especially those who’ve been around for a while and have witnessed our evolution. I mean, how do we make sense of it, really? I suppose we could come up with some deeper analysis born of systems thinking, chaos theory and whatnot, and speak of various synergies - that I bring my thing and you bring yours and together they add up to more than simple sums would predict. You might point to one thing that trips your trigger and your pew-mate might point to something else. Like every other class of new members, some who join our ranks today reported their surprise at discovering they felt oddly at home when they walked through our doors. We’ve talked about this phenomenon before - the strange synchronicity of this shared experience, despite the astonishing diversity of background. How is it that a person from Ghana, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Germany, India, let alone Nebraska, Texas, Georgia and Delaware can walk in here and on their first visit leave feeling as though they’ve found something they refer to as “home”? And this, despite their economic, personal or professional situation. Imagine finding home on the corner of Park Avenue and 60th Street in New York City, of all places…. That’s not everyone, of course. Don’t feel excluded if that does not describe your experience. You’re in good company as well, I imagine. But enough have said such a thing over the years that it does present an on-going and somewhat baffling conundrum. I periodically return to this theme in here so we don’t take it for granted - so I don’t take it for granted - and turn our experience into some sort of exclusive preciousness instead of acknowledging it for the gift it is. Because at the end of the day that’s what I think: our collective presence here is given to us as a gift. Not something that we have manufactured, but something offered and received. An unusual gift. I suppose if there is one thing we might take credit for, we could affirm that so far, for the most part, we’ve had our minds, hearts, and hands held open to receive this gift, one that doesn’t often come easily to humans. Aren’t we more generally prone to seeking out people just like ourselves and then erecting fences to establish boundaries of affinity to secure what we now hold tightly as belonging to us alone? That’s the more natural human tendency. We don’t have to look very far to see evidence for this, even within our own individual lived experience, if we’re honest. You can feel the powerful tides and eddies of this propensity within our current presidential campaign slicing across the entire political spectrum on multiple levels of social, cultural, and religious fields. And glancing abroad, we see this virulent tendency writ large, wreaking havoc across large swaths of the globe. Two weeks ago I returned from an interfaith trip to Jerusalem. This was not a typical Christian pilgrimage. Instead, our little band made a point of visiting with people representing a broad range of religious, ethnic, cultural and political backgrounds. Among the sites we toured was the snaking fence now separating Palestinian lands from Israel - powerful testimony to divisive, even deadly, human tendencies. Jerusalem is an astonishingly complex place that defies standard definitions and methodologies for honoring the essential wholeness of the human family. To cross into Bethlehem one must now pierce this high wall through a well-defended gate which I found strangely and jarringly poignant testimony to our on-going struggle for human community. In Jesus’ day the situation wasn’t very much different. The environs of Jerusalem held an international melting pot simmering with sectarian animosities and competitions across social, cultural and religious fields. There were Jews who espoused a rigid conservatism and others enamored with Greek philosophy. Some were dedicated to the violent overthrow of the oppressive imperial government. Gentiles practiced a wide variety of paganisms; there were many mystics, ascetics and prophets, not to mention those worshiping in the cult of the emperor. Roman legions swarmed the territory threatening violence at the least provocation. As remains the case today, Jerusalem was a crucible in which all the disparate elements of society dwelled in very close and very uneasy proximity. When Jesus announced to his disciples that he would make them fishers of men and women, he was teaching a new concept of universal appeal. For Matthew, he was the light promised by Isaiah centuries earlier, but this light was so bright that anyone and everyone could find their lives illumined by its shining. As a result, Jesus drew together a hodge-podge of humanity, which was part of the reason he became suspect by the power-brokers of his day. How did he summarize his message? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” Do this and you will have a life worth living and the world can hold true human community. Love God above all things and hold your neighbor close. I’ve seen it a hundred times and more. Unsuspecting persons find themselves walking into this home bathed in that golden light and, after a while, discover their lives seem clearer, brighter, lighter, more integrated, less concerned with self, more concerned for others, and far more hopeful despite the uncertainty they experience in their fragile humanity. Don’t be surprised if others then ask where they might find such light. You may be shy to say so, but for their sake, and for your own, invite them to come and see for themselves. Previous sermon: The Rev. Dr. Richard Lischer, guest preacher • Next sermon: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord All past sermons |
| ||
|
|