Sermon for November 5, 2017 Remembrance Sunday “No Longer Unaware”
When Nicholas was in Middle school he came home all excited about a book the English teacher had suggested. It was the Hobbit and he was thrilled to tell me the adventures of these smallish people. I was excited too as I had had the stories and thoroughly enjoyed them. So when I told him I had the book, actually the 50th anniversary edition, he was perplexed and thrilled.
Perplexed because he thought they were new stories and thrilled because no one else had the 50th anniversary edition and that we could talk about the same books. If you know the stories great. It is about the Hobbits of the Shire. Their town is one of joy and energy and hope. It is the place where they are restored and renewed. And no Hobbit can imagine leaving. Until one day one of the Hobbits does leave and is thrust in worlds he never could imagine in his wildest dreams. No matter where the journey led, there was always the Shire that was the anchor, the place he could go back to, even in his mind, and find joy and peace and hope.
There was a time when home and community and church were the places that nourished me and brought hope and joy. But then, as I was encouraged to do, I left. At first I did not go far but then I ventured further and further. And each time I arrived hope there was hope and joy but it was different.
This St. Mark’s is a safe place and a place of hope and joy. And as I said a few weeks ago it is a place where we are filled to overflowing with hope and joy so that we might be able to be about the work Jesus has invited us into and give all the hope and joy away. But each time we leave we learn more about the need, the ways of the world, the demands placed on us as people of faith and the tugs to just abandon faith and join the ranks of the social or the blissfully unaware.
Each time we spend a week in the world, we discover that the language of our parents and grandparents is not working so good. Even the ways of being church that worked so well in the 60’s and 70’s do not resonate and are sort of like a clanging gong in the ears of many.
Jesus talks about the Pharisees. They were in the history of the Hebrew people the ‘freedom fighter separatists’ the ones who could see the need for change and did change the way the people viewed and knew God. But after a while they became mainstream and were just a bunch of older men retelling the stories of the good ole days. Jesus implores us to listen but also to move past what they do. Listen to the lessons they teach but please, please do not do what they do. Just sitting around telling by gone tales does nothing for the kingdom right now.
We leave here so that we might experience the world, to learn the language, to discover the need and bring that back so that what we offer is relevant and spoken in a way that makes sense. I have a sense that Jesus knew the challenge and the need to be great. So there is this caution: when you the church feel that you are right and great and above all…then you will be least and you will be inconsequential. The message and root place of hope, joy and peace do not change, they ground us and keep us focused on Jesus. What changes is our awareness of the world in which we live and the ever changing language we need to learn to share the message so that it can be heard in new and fresh ways for others and most importantly for ourselves.