Greetings, friends and family! Here is this Sunday’s sermon for you, as we wrap up our “Death by Suburb” sermon series. Has this series been perfect? No way! And that’s exactly what this sermon addresses. I pray it is a blessing to you!

SCRIPTURE Matthew 5:43-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

SERMON
Death by Suburb sermon series
8 – Imperfection: The Curse of the Unmowed Lawn
Nov. 11, 2007

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Oh good, I thought this “being a Christian” thing was going to be hard. If that’s all it takes, I’ve got it made.

Why in the world would Jesus say this? He’s preaching to a crowd of people that included his disciples, whom he knew very well were anything but perfect. He’d already seen first-hand the fallibility of the human condition. Telling this crowd to be perfect is like putting a plate of Krispy Kremes in front of me and saying, “Don’t touch that!”

To understand what Jesus is getting at here I think we need to step back and look at what he means by perfect, because I believe his definition and the world’s definition are two very different things. In fact, being perfect in Christ’s eyes may be directly antithetical to the world’s call to perfection.

We finish our “Death by Suburb” sermon series today, and I hope God has spoken to you at some point through it. I know God has held a mirror up to my life through these sermons. After one of them, a congregation member going through the line after church looked at me and simply said, “Ouch.” I would echo that sentiment. Whenever God shines a light into the dark places in our lives, we often respond with an “ouch.”

That really gets at the heart of today’s sermon, as well, because I think so few of us are willing to say “ouch” in our lives, at least out loud. What I mean by that is that there is something at work in our suburban culture and our lives that tells us it’s bad to let on that you are hurt or vulnerable or less than perfect.

Here’s an example. Our house sits on a corner lot, and I’ve found that we tend to get a lot of dandelions in our yard, many more than the neighbor’s. It’s like we run dandelion interference for the rest of the neighborhood. And I noticed that a neighbor across the street who also has a corner lot never has as many dandelions as us. I saw him outside one time and was tempted to go over and ask him what he does to his yard to keep the weeds out, but I didn’t, because doing so would reveal that I didn’t know how to take care of it myself. And I didn’t want him or anyone else in my neighborhood to know that I didn’t know something, even though they could figure that out just by looking at all the dandelions in my yard.

Now, I know I don’t know everything. And I’m sure my neighbor knows I don’t know everything. And I know that you all know I don’t know everything. Even my kids are finding that out. But there’s something in us that is hesitant to admit the undeniable fact that we are all human. So we mow our lawns and wash our cars and put on nice clothes to cover up the hurt and the pain of what’s on the inside.

This becomes especially true when our humanity shows through in less acceptable ways. I talked a few weeks ago about image management, how we suburbanites work hard to maintain a certain image, and will go out of our way to keep up that appearance. We hate the idea of dandelions in our lawn and what it says about us, so we water it and fertilize it and manicure it and spray chemicals on it to keep up its appearance. And we do the same thing with our lives; we hide what hurts or what we consider socially unacceptable in order to keep up the exterior we present to others.

Therefore, perfection, as defined by the world, means a life where nothing is broken, out of place, or damaged. The marriage is fine, the kids are fine, the finances are fine, our health is fine. Eric Sandras says, “Life in suburbia encourages us to hide the ugly or uncomfortable or painful parts of our lives from others and from God. After all, no one else seems broken.”

Sandras says this destructive mindset carries over into our faith. We don’t want anyone to think that we aren’t secure in what we believe, so we pretend to have a great relationship with Christ, even when we are wracked with doubt or discouragement. Sandras says, “It is easy for us to drift toward simply acting as if we are intimate with Christ, when the truth is that we are simply functioning out of a sense of duty, just as we might with a business partner.” It’s Cotton Candy spirituality, taking a little substance and puffing it up in order to make it look like there’s more there to impress others.

This whole demand on our lives that we be perfect is enough to drive you crazy. We easily fall into the trap of envy, like I did with my neighbor’s dandelion-free lawn. Now, I don’t know this guy; he might secretly chew with his mouth open or forward chain letter emails. I’m sure if I went digging through is garbage I’d find at least one or two recyclables that he threw away. But all I saw, when looking at his lawn, was the stark reminder than I’m not perfect enough. Winston Churchill said, “They say nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they would make up their minds.”

I think we need to redefine perfection. I think we need to get off the hamster wheel that is the suburban pursuit of the perfect life, to admit that we have places in our lives that are broken. Our culture finds no value in broken things, but God finds redemptive value in them. Maybe we’re pursuing the wrong kind of perfection.

In our passage today, Jesus talks about loving your enemies and extending compassion to those whom the world has forgotten. And then he says, “Be perfect.” The irony, of course, is that by ourselves, we can’t. We don’t have the power to achieve perfection alone. We absolutely need God’s help.

I think that’s exactly what Jesus is saying here. “Be perfect” means being willing to invite others – including God – into our lives, past the shiny façade and into the dusty crawlspaces. What we’ll likely find is that not only does everyone have baggage, but some of it may even match ours. Like I said a few weeks ago, C.S. Lewis says the mark of true friendship is when one person says to another, “What? You, too? I thought I was the only one.” Being perfect means opening yourself up to relationships with others at a deep, human level, and being willing to discuss doubt, discouragement, and dandelions.

Not only will we grow in our relationships with each other, but also in our relationship with God. The pursuit of perfection in this world contaminates our spirituality, because we seem to believe we have to be achieve certain prerequisites – be clean enough or respectable enough or religious enough – before we can come to God. Some people believe it is possible to sin too much, wander too far, and blow it too big to come to God, that our lives have to be dust bunny-free before we can invite God over.

But I believe the opposite is true. God loves us not in spite of who we are, but because of it. Jesus, God’s only son, wasn’t born in a hospital or a palace, but in the brokenness of poverty, in a manger. God is drawn to people who invite him into their brokenness.

Here’s the truth, as I see it and experience it. Perfect lawns don’t mean perfect people. Clean houses don’t mean clean lives. Big homes don’t mean close family relationships, it only creates more room for family members to hide from each other. Fish stickers and Christian bumper stickers don’t mean a faithful, Christ-like life. But somehow perpetuating the image of authenticity has become more important than being authentic. So we busy ourselves pursuing perfection on the outside so as not to have to face what’s inside, the damaged relationships or failing health or nagging doubts.

But God loves you because of those things. God created you, so he knows you better than anyone else, even better than yourself. He’s knows where your dandelions are. And what I believe God wants is for us to drop any pretense that we’re anything other than who we are, and then to simply ask, “God, make me perfect.”

What does that mean for us? We may think it means removing the dandelions, but it doesn’t. We pray for God to take away the things that keep us from being perfect, and instead God gives us the strength to endure those things, or the grace to live with them. I pray for God to take away my controlling nature, and instead God gives me the humility to ask for forgiveness when I step on someone’s toes. I pray for God to take away the dandelions, and instead God gives me a new appreciation for having a lawn to call my own.

As I understand Jesus, in his teachings and his life, being perfect simply means being faithful. Sometimes that means living against the grain of our suburban culture, which has a numbing effect on our spirituality. It takes work not to lose your soul amidst the traps of suburbia. But with Christ’s help, we can strive each day to be a little more faithful than we were yesterday, loving each other and caring for each other and serving each other because of who we were created to be. Perfection is not a destination; it is in the journey itself. If we are faithful in our love and service, then we can trust that God will make us perfect.

QUESTIONS
1 – What area of your life do you work hardest to keep as perfect as possible (e.g., the lawn, the house, etc.)?

2 – In what ways does our world encourage us to “be perfect”?

3 – Pause a moment to invite God into a place of brokenness for you and ask God to bring healing.

Greetings, everyone! I hope you have a good week coming up, and that you find some time for rest in the midst of it. Here is this past Sunday’s sermon on the importance of the Sabbath. Have a blessed week! 

SCRIPTURE

Exodus 31:12-17 - Then the LORD said to Moses, ”Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. ” ‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death. The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.’ “

 Matthew 12:1-14 – At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
     Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

SERMON
Death by Suburb sermon series
7 – Sabbath: You’re Doing a Timeout!
Nov. 4, 2007

What was your parents’ preferred method of punishment? I know you remember. When you acted up, how did your parents choose to administer justice? For some it was a good ol’ fashioned spanking. Like the cartoon where the father is about to spank his son and says, “Son, doing this hurts me more than it hurts you.” To which the son replies, “Then let’s spare us both the pain and call it off.”

For others, their punishment was a lecture or grounding. A particularly effective one used against me was no dessert. Leigh still does that from time to time. But nothing would strike fear in my heart like my grandfather’s yardstick. If one of us grandchildren would get out of line, he would simply say, “I’m going to get the yardstick.” Now, that usually was enough to make us cool our jets, but if we continued to goof off, he’d stand up, walk slowly over to the closet, open the door, and pull out the aforementioned instrument of torture. I know it was only a yardstick, but to us little kids it must have looked at least three feet long! He would walk slowly back over to his chair and lay the yardstick across his lap, and peace would once again reign in the kingdom. Now I have to tell you that in a million years my grandfather would have never hit one of us; the point was he never needed to.

Today, corporal punishment is usually frowned upon, so the chosen method of discipline has become the timeout. Had such a thing existed when I was a kid I would have spent more time in timeout than in timein, but it didn’t. Leigh and I used the timeout quite effectively with our older daughter Sydney, but our younger daughter Molly doesn’t quite get the concept. When we say, “If you don’t behave, you’re going to do a timeout!” she says, “Okay!” and runs to her timeout chair. I’m considering buying a yardstick.

Why is the timeout so effective? Here’s the philosophy behind it. To make our children stop their destructive behavior, we take them out of their comfortable area and put them in an isolated place that forces them to slow down, be quiet, stop their activity, and reflect on how they are behaving. The goal is, of course, transformation, a change in behavior.

Now, what if I made this invitation to you? In order to help you put a halt to some of the chaos in life, I would like to invite you to take a break from your daily routine, to find a quiet spot in your house or neighborhood, to turn off all your electronic devices and means of communication, and simply slow down, be still, and reflect on the life God has given you to live. How does a short time away from the demands of your life sound? Folks, we need a timeout.

The Bible has a word for taking a timeout: it’s called the Sabbath. A Sabbath is simply a block of time, usually a 24-hour period, which is set aside for the purpose of rest and relationship-building with God. I think we tend to think of Sabbath as a thoroughly Jewish word. After all, Jews place an emphasis on their Sabbath or Shabbat, which is Saturday. It’s woven into the fabric of their faith. But Christians, with the help of suburban culture, have lost their grip on the meaning and significance of Sabbath.

Of course, the idea of Sabbath originated in the beginning of the Bible at creation, where after six days of work God rested to enjoy what He had made. This time of rest was so important that he made it one of the Ten Commandments, instructing the Israelites to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. One day of the week is set aside for rest and worship, to allow our land, our workers, and our bodies to recover from the previous six days and rejuvenate for the week ahead.

Part of the reason this tradition has dimmed in Christianity may be Jesus’ treatment of the Sabbath. In our story from Matthew he seems to devalue the Sabbath by doing what the overstrict Pharisees considered unlawful. A closer reading shows that Jesus is only bringing a common sense understanding to observing the Sabbath, but the concept of keeping it doesn’t seem to carry as much weight with him.

If that reading is true, it certainly has carried over into our modern understanding of the Sabbath. While the Christian Sabbath day of Sunday used to be protected as sacred by Blue Laws and family traditions, our culture has encroached upon that time so egregiously that it’s unrealistic to think we’ll ever regain Sunday as a holy day on a societal level. Sundays are gone.

But instead of only pointing the finger, we can also point the thumb, because those of us living in the suburbs have contributed to the downfall of the Sabbath. As I’ve said before, in suburbia we are results-oriented. Our worth is often determined by our productivity, and this spills over into our spirituality. If we’re going to take time to be spiritual, we want results.

This causes us to find ways to move faster and be more efficient. There is a pride to our busyness, and it’s not the good kind of pride. The demands on us seem too great and the time we have to meet them in seems too short. How often do we say, “I don’t have enough time!” or “I wish there was more time in the day”?

Which makes taking a Sabbath seem strange and impractical. There’s so much to be done! Who can afford to take a day off from being productive? Who has time to just stop and reflect? We see the Sabbath as laziness, not holiness. We see resting as a sign of weakness, not a divine prerogative. We can’t afford to take a day off; that would just make the other six that much more chaotic.

So we ignore the Sabbath. It doesn’t fit into our understanding of suburban spirituality. We love the other six days, because that’s where we can pursue spiritual progress and accomplishment. We are do-something Christians. And those rare times we do take some form of Sabbath from life, we expect results. I’ll force God to bless me by obeying one of his commandments. The schedule-oriented approach to taking the Sabbath is that it will make me more efficient and blessed the other six days.

I’ve been considering trying to do “No Computer Fridays.” On my day off, I would not turn on that infernal device that takes up so much of my time and attention. My wife doesn’t think I can do it, and I’m not sure I can, because I would be worried about what I was missing. Could you go a day without your computer, your cell phone, your TV? How does the thought of that make you feel?

Here’s the truth, as I see it. We’re not too busy, too important, or too needed to take a rest. We’re too scared. Too scared to relinquish that bit of control we think we have. Too scared that the world can’t go on without us, or even worse, that it can. Too scared that if we “waste” that time, we’ll never get it back.

And yet, what are the dangers of not doing a timeout? What are the consequences of not resting on regular basis? I think we’re living them every day. The United States leads the world in a number of health-related categories, most of them not good. We are more economically successful, have the fastest pace of life, and have the highest rate of heart attacks and obesity. The unreflective life has its costs.

We claim to be so locked into our schedule that we often feel there isn’t a way out of it. We’ve been conditioned to believe that whatever we do isn’t enough, that there’s always more to be done, and that time is our most valuable commodity. We spent all kinds of money on time-saving devices to help us make our life more efficient, managed, and controlled, but then we use the time saved to do more work.

And yet, that understanding is a fallacy, because we do have power to change our schedules if it’s important enough. Take a funeral, for example. I’m amazed at how drastically people will rearrange their schedules when someone close to them dies. Meetings that used to seem so important are canceled, trips that were top priority get postponed, money that was considered necessary gets spent on airline tickets or flowers.

If we are so willing to let death rearrange our schedule, why are we not willing to give the same power to God? God has asked us to give one day, a day where we rest, enjoy life, and worship him, but we devalue the Sabbath as just another day out of seven.

I know the counterarguments are already forming in your mind. If you’re like me, you would make the argument that you take your Sabbath in week-long chunks called “vacations.” But are vacations really restful and full of worship? How often do we feel like we need a vacation from our vacations? In most cases a vacation is not equal to a Sabbath. A true Sabbath is not an amenity of the economically privileged. A true Sabbath can be measured by the question, “Could a person in poverty experience this?”

The fact of the matter is that the Sabbath is not going to elbow its way into our lives. We have to make room for it. Maybe taking a whole day isn’t realistic. I know one family that takes a Sabbath from sports and activities for one season a year, and uses that time to be together as a family. Maybe there are Sabbath moments to be found in each day, time to turn off the TV or computer, time for rest, reflection, and worship.

In our suburban existence, we have been conditioned to be busy and productive. In order to experience God, we have to fight that tendency. Abraham Heschel wrote, “Six days of the week we seek to dominate the world; on the seventh day, we try to dominate the self.” In other words, don’t just do something, stand there! Take a timeout from life and remind yourself that you are not in control. You’ll have six other days to try keep up with an overbooked schedule. But if we give that one day to God, maybe the other six will be transformed, as well.

QUESTIONS

1 – What punishment did you fear the most from your parents?

2 - What is the most restful time of your week?

3 - What keeps you from taking more timeouts in your life?

Hi friends! Sorry to be slow in posting this week; yesterday was my wife’s birthday, and a cold has knocked me flat. Here’s the sermon from Sunday, as we continued our “Death by Suburb” sermon series. It addresses the question of why we serve. Have a great week!

 SCRIPTURE – Matthew 6:1-4

“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

SERMON

Death by Suburb sermon series
#6 – Service: Volunteer of the Year
Oct. 28, 2007

I have a new business concept that I want to share with you. You can tell me if you think it’s any good or not. The idea is for a gas station, but it’s not like any gas station you’ve ever seen. When you pull up to the pump, instead of getting out of your car, a person comes from inside the gas station, asks you how much gas you want, and pumps your gas for you. I think I’ll call them “attendants.” Not only will they pump your gas, but they’ll also wash your windshield and even check your oil if you want, all while you wait inside the comfort of your vehicle. Isn’t that a novel concept?

Of course it’s not. Once upon a time, all gas stations operated that way. I can still remember pulling into gas stations in my hometown and choosing between the two islands: full-service and self-service. When’s the last time you saw a full-service gas station? Nowadays, everything is self-service, from gas stations to banks to grocery stores.

But when held up to the biblical understanding of how we are to relate to each other, the concept of self-service is an oxymoron. In the Bible, “to serve” automatically implies an outward orientation toward another person. But in the suburbs, service tends to flow back to us, even when it appears to be oriented to someone else. You could argue that all service in the suburbs is self-service.

Let me give you an example, and I hope I don’t step on any toes here. In the past few years, I’ve had several parents and youth in our church ask me to sign forms that said the youth had done a certain amount of community service. I guess there’s now a requirement in local schools that students must complete a certain amount of work in the community. And certainly, colleges are putting more and more emphasis on a young person’s philanthropic involvement in the community.

Here’s another example. This church use to have something called the Cross-Eyed Owl award. It was given at each birthday dinner to a person in the congregation who had gone above and beyond the call of duty in serving CCC. Each year someone was singled out for their contribution to the church and awarded the Cross-Eyed Owl statue.

Now, in both these examples, I don’t want anyone to think for a minute that I’m questioning the worthiness of the work or the worker. The more we can have people helping, the better. And people like to feel appreciated for the work they do. I’m not saying that Cross-Eyed Owl winners only served for the award or high school students only serve to meet a requirement. But what I want us to explore this morning is the motivation behind why we serve.

Why do we serve? That question first assumes that we do serve. I would like to think that is true of all Christians, but I can’t tell you how many people have told me they enjoy going to big churches because they can be anonymous, just sit in the pews without being asked to do anything. They’re just too busy with all their other suburban obligations to help out at the church. Jesus said he came not to be served but to serve, but I wonder if at times we don’t come to church with just the opposite way of thinking.

For those of us who do serve, I would argue that for many of us, it’s out of desire to make a difference. That’s one of the main reasons why I got into ministry. We want our lives to have meaning. That’s the whole point behind “The Purpose-Driven Life,” isn’t it? We serve so that we have a purpose, so that we feel like we’re doing something to give back and help out.

Is there anything wrong with that? Yes and no. No, because we all want to feel like our lives mean something. That’s human nature. But what’s potentially wrong with that approach to serving is that if we are serving in order to make ourselves feel better, we are engaging in self-service, and the people being helped are just a means to the end of our own self-fulfillment.

In his book “Death by Suburb,” David Goetz tells about how he volunteered for a ministry program that helped inmates transition back into the world after their incarceration. He was paired with a prisoner named Pete, who was close to his parole. Goetz met repeatedly with Pete, working with him to help smooth the difficult transition from prison to a local halfway house. Goetz said he had big dreams for Pete that included Pete marrying his girlfriend, buying a house, and settling down in suburbia.

So imagine Goetz’s anger when he found out that Pete had been arrested again after only a few months out of jail. Goetz said he was furious, because Pete had jeopardized all of Goetz’s plans for him. Goetz was using Pete in his pursuit of significance. He wanted to help a poor person become a suburbanite just like him. Forget that maybe that’s not what Pete wanted or needed.

In our performance-oriented suburban culture, we expect results from everything, even our service. If we’re going to put in the time or the money, we expect change. Last year while we were in New Orleans for our mission trip, some of us visited the house we had worked on the previous year. And it hadn’t been touched in all that time. I was furious! How could we put in all that time and effort, only to have the house look exactly the same? I was expecting to walk up a flower lined path, through a neatly mowed yard, to knock on a freshly painted door and be greeted by a smiling, grateful woman with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Never mind that there were thousands of other houses that had never been worked on. I wanted my house to be different. What’s the point in helping others if we’re not going to see some results?

But service can be messy, and doesn’t always end the way we want. That’s why Goetz says we often find ourselves mostly serving in safe or comfortable programs, where we won’t get dirty or no relationship with someone in deep need will form. There are people who need friends, who need money, who need guidance because they are in such deep poverty or despair. But why get involved in that? There’s no upside for us.

If we can’t get results from our service, then at least we should get some recognition. I think in the suburbs we often confuse prominence with significance. We think the more prominent a service is, the more important it must be. How can our lives make a difference if no one sees us making a difference? I don’t think we consciously scream “Look at me!” when we’re serving, but its human nature to want to be appreciated.

But if you’ve spent any time serving in a church, you know not all the ways we serve are going to be glamorous. Not every ministry we participate in will be recognized and applauded. But there’s a difference between prominence and significance. My nose is prominent, but I can live without it. And although my lungs aren’t prominent, I’d say they’re pretty significant. Some ways of serving are more visible than others, but that doesn’t mean they are more meaningful than others.

The challenge for us in suburbia is to make the move from self-service to full-service, where our focus is on serving others, and then to God-service, where our reason for serving is not prominence or even importance, but obedience. Goetz says, “Finding our purpose comes not from the results of service but the act of obedience. No matter what the call…inner freedom comes as I pursue truth, justice, and righteousness without needing to be seen as right or needing to see the results I want.” In other words we serve because we have been served, and are called to do the same.

Pastor David Shirey tells a story he heard about the building of the National Cathedral in Washington DC. One of the foremen on the construction crew noticed that a certain stonemason was spending a lot of time on one of the gargoyles that would adorn the very top of the cathedral. Knowing they were falling behind schedule, the foreman said to the stonemason, “Why are you spending so much time on this gargoyle? Don’t you know that it’s going to be so high up that it won’t even be visible to the people below?” And the stonemason replied, “I’m not doing this for the people below.”

What we are called to do may benefit the people here below – the kids in Sunday School, the homeless coming to St. Bart’s for a meal, our neighbors and friends – but our ultimate motivation isn’t to do it for the people below – including ourselves – but in response to God’s gift of Jesus Christ and the call to share that gift.

It all comes back to that relationship. Eric Sandras says that many of us are lured into being busy for God, while sacrificing true relationship with Him. A week full of service opportunities will never take the place of an hour spent with God. It is that hour, that time, that relationship that helps us understand why we do everything else we do. Not for ourselves. Not even for others. But for God. We are here not to be served, but to serve.

QUESTIONS

1 – What is your favorite way to serve?

2 – Why do you think some people want to go to church and remain anonymous?

3 – In reference to Jesus’ words in the passage, do you find it difficult to balance your desire to serve with the human need to be apppreciated? Why or why not? 

Hi everyone! I hope you had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend. I spent Saturday working with a Habitat for Humanity crew – and spent Sunday recovering! This week’s sermon looks at how we deal with the struggles of life. Even in the suburbs, we have little control over the cards life can deal us. What we do control is how we respond. Have a great week! 

SCRIPTURE
Romans 5:1-5 – Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Luke 9:18-24 – Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.” ”But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. nd he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

SERMON
Death by Suburb sermon series
#5 – Grace: Hiring A Cross-Bearing Service
October 21, 2007

You may or may not know the name Joni Eareckson Tada. Joni is a well-known Christian writer and speaker who has inspired millions through her books, radio programs, and her Christian outreach organization Joni and Friends.

She is also a quadriplegic. A diving accident when she was young left her paralyzed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair. Despite this tragedy, Joni has been able to use her disability as a means for reaching out and spreading the gospel to people in similar circumstances around the world.

David Goetz, in his book “Death by Suburb,” tells the story of an interview he conducted with Joni several years back. As he fumbled and stumbled with how to interact with her (at one point he handed her a magazine to look at without realizing she couldn’t hold it), he was amazed at her graciousness and willingness to accept help. He said when they discussed the meaning of suffering, one comment she made stuck with him and continues to haunt him. In an almost off-handed way, in talking about her circumstance, Joni said, “I think life is supposed to be hard.”

But that perspective doesn’t fit into our suburban existence. Today we continue our “Death by Suburb” sermon series as we look at ways we can continue to grow deeper spiritually in a culture that is at best apathetic and at worst hostile to such growth.

Back in January I preached a sermon series called “Christianity’s Dirty Words,” and one of the words we looked at was “suffering.” I made the point then that the concept of suffering in Christianity is one that we often run away from because we can’t make sense of it. Shouldn’t giving yourself to Christ make life better, not worse?

But suffering is a key part of the Bible, especially in the New Testament, where the words “suffer” or “suffering” occur 86 times. The people who were reading and hearing the New Testament when it was first being shared knew what suffering was all about. They were experiencing it on a daily basis, and it was much different than our modern definition of suffering.

Today, living in suburban America, we are in many ways disconnected from the biblical understanding of suffering. Webster’s defines “suffer” as “to undergo or feel pain or distress.” But that definition has been fudged a bit when we read that a football team suffered its first loss, or when someone says, “I had to suffer through that sermon after drinking three cups of coffee.” Hard times are when Rte. 22 is down to one lane because of construction. For us “suffering” describes anything that even slightly threatens the comfortable state of existence we’ve worked hard to create for ourselves.

In fact, you could argue that we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that to suffer is an unnecessary interruption of our normal life. We do everything in our power to reduce or eliminate suffering. We buy chairs that massage and flavored coffees and cars with heated seats until “suffering” no longer has anything to do with “undergoing or feeling pain and distress.” “Suffering” becomes sitting in a cold car seat or sitting in a boring old chair that does nothing but sits there or drinking coffee that tastes like…coffee. We’ve diluted the meaning of “suffering.” It no longer means “to undergo or feel pain or distress.” It now means “to do without an expected luxury or to have our sense of entitlement disrupted.”

And that is why I believe Joni’s quote hits us in the gut. We’ve constructed our lives in such a way that we’ve come to expect that life was meant to be easy, and when it’s not, we believe something is wrong (and it’s usually God’s fault). Instead, what Joni is saying is life that is meant to be hard, and any period of our lives that isn’t defined by struggle or adversity is a blessing.

Think about all the services we have at our disposal to remove from our lives the more mundane or difficult aspects. We can pay people to mow our lawns, watch our kids, look after our parents, pick up our dry cleaning, deliver our groceries, drive us to the airport, help our kids with their homework, and do our Christmas shopping.

And yet, we can’t hire someone to bear our crosses for us. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a service we could hire that would have cancer for us, or straighten out our children for us, or worry about paying the mortgage for us? Life would be so much easier if someone else would handle the hard parts for us so we could just enjoy it.

But I wonder if life isn’t supposed to be hard. That’s certainly the message I get from Paul this morning. He says that suffering produces character and character produces hope. Hope is the desire that things will be better than what they are. Because life is hard, we always have a reason for hope.

A more modern writer named Len Sweet says it this way: “We’ve become so used to being fed on demand with quick fixes that we’ve forgotten that it’s the hard knocks in life, those character-building moments, that help us make it through life with inner peace and joy intact.”

We better begin remembering, because as we age, life is not going to get any easier. Here’s proof: There are more replacement parts in this congregation than in a ’68 Mustang. As we get older and lose more and control over our lives, we embark on what Richard Rohr calls the journey of descent. That journey is difficult for those of us who are used to being control of who does what and when they do it.

That’s why we struggle with what we perceive to be God’s unfairness. Just when we think we are in control of life, it picks us up like a tornado and drops us in some random place of despair, like an attorney’s office or a hospital room or a wheelchair. And we think, “God, what have I done to deserve this?”

What we’ve done is we’ve dared to live. Simply being alive is a risky proposition, and every day we expose ourselves to the forces of life that threaten our livelihood, well-being, and very existence. No amount of money or comfort or stability changes the fact that, as so many of us know too well, life can change, and we have no control over it.

What we do control is our attitude about those inevitable changes. It would have been easy for Joni to trade in her hope for despair or self-pity, and I’m sure she had her moments. But she chose to see God at work in the midst of her suffering, and out of that came character, hope, and a life lived with purpose and determination.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian who was outspoken against the Nazi regime of his country, so much so that he was imprisoned and later killed for it. His writings are some of the most profound I’ve ever read, because he wrote them with a cross on his back in the shape of a swastika. When he wrote about suffering, he was writing it from prison. And here’s what he said: “God is nearer to suffering than to happiness.”

Now think about that. We work hard to create a life of happiness and to avoid suffering, and yet Bonhoeffer, who should know something about both, says we’re moving in the wrong direction. We’re looking for God in suburbia, when we’re more likely to find him in the hospice ward or the county jail.

Does that mean if we want find Jesus we should go get arrested? I don’t recommend it. But to me it says three things. First, even the most perfect life endures suffering. Something is going to get every one of us at some point. Second, when that does happen, it’s not God’s fault; that’s simply a consequence of choosing to live. And third, God is there with us during our dark times, even if it feels like He is absent. God is nearer to suffering than to happiness.

I don’t think I have to tell you that, because deep down, you already know. We’ve all suffered, and I don’t mean a cold car seat, I mean real suffering, and deep down we know that what we experienced wasn’t the punishment of a capricious God; it was life being life. The danger we face is not the suffering itself, but letting those valleys rob us of the joy of life. Because regardless of the circumstances, there is still joy to be found in life, even if it’s found from a wheelchair, or in a smaller house, or with a less-than-perfect child. We can fight and complain and wonder what we did to deserve our lot in life, or we can accept it with humility and grace, knowing that there is a deeper joy to be found, and that joy is from God.

You know what? Maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe we live and suffer and die and that’s it. Life can certainly be cruel enough to make us wonder. But as Christians, we choose to believe something else is true. What’s the alternative? A life of bitterness, hopelessness, isolation. We believe something else is true. And that is the source of our hope, a light which no darkness can extinguish, thanks be to God.

QUESTIONS

1 – What do you think of Joni’s quote: “Life is supposed to be hard”?

2 – What about Bonhoeffer’s quote: “God is closer to suffering than to happiness”?

3 – What role, if any, does suffering have in a suburban spirituality?

Hi everyone! This week we continue our sermon series called “Death by Suburb” by looking at friendships. What does it mean to have true friends, and is that the same or different than the friendships we experience in the suburbs? I pray God blesses you this week! 

SCRIPTURE – John 15:9-17

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

 SERMON

Death by Suburb sermon series
#4 – Friendship: What Can You Do for Me?
October 7, 2007

I heard about an article recently in USA Today that reported the results of a study by the American Sociological Review. The researchers concluded that American adults have fewer friends than a generation ago, and increasingly fewer confidantes. Twenty-five percent of those surveyed said they had zero close friends. For those few who do have confidantes, 80% turn to family, and are less likely to count on friends from clubs, neighborhoods, or social and religious organizations. The report said the chief causes for these trends are longer working hours, less time for socializing, and living in the suburbs.

How could living in the suburbs work against friendships? That’s what we’re going to explore today as we continue our “Death by Suburb” sermon series, in which we’re looking at ways we can continue to grow spiritually in a suburban environment which often works against us.

One of the things I regret about moving so much when I was growing up was that I never really had a chance to make true childhood friends. My wife still gets together with women she knew in grade school, but I can barely remember the names of my elementary school friends.

I hope that’s going to be different for my girls. I’m already seeing that my daughter Sydney is developing close relationships with several of the girls in our neighborhood. I see kids like Brooke and Brianna so often that I’m beginning to wonder if we didn’t adopt them while I was away at a conference.

But like all friendships, these girls go through ups and downs. Syd will come in one day after school with a pitiful look on her face and announce that she and Brianna will never be friends again because of something Brianna said. Five minutes later, the doorbell rings – guess who – and Sydney is skipping out the door to go ride bikes with Brianna.

If only making and keeping friends were so easy when we get to be adults. On the contrary, I think once you reach a certain point in life it becomes extremely difficult to make new friends, because making friends takes an investment of time, and that’s a commodity we feel we have very little of. I can certainly relate to the fact that I put so much time into my job and my family that when it comes time for developing and nurturing friendships, I don’t have much to give.

And that, I believe is the crux of the issue of friendship in the suburbs. In the Public Speaking class I teach, we talk about a way of understanding human interaction called the Transactional Model of Communication. When you think of a transaction, you think of an exchange, like giving the cashier money in exchange for your purchase. In interpersonal communication, we are exchanging information and feedback. You give me a piece of information, I give you a quizzical look or a head nod or a yawn. A transaction has taken place.

That consumer metaphor for communication extends to our suburban friendships. We exist in transactional relationships, and so often our friendships are based upon a transactional model of relating. What do I have to offer the other person? And more importantly, what do they have to offer me?

I have seen this played out time and time again since moving to this area. Here’s an example: For many of us, our adult relationships are facilitated by our kids. If our kids are on the same sports team or in the same play group, we become friends through proximity and convenience. And those friendships work fine, as long as the kids are getting along and the team is winning. But as soon as it’s your kid who strikes out to end the game, or is teaching the others how to eat paste, the nature of those relationships changes. We no longer have value to the other person.

I believe we are conditioned to look for the benefits in all our relationships. Time is such a precious commodity that we don’t want to waste it on just anybody for just any reason. If I’m going to invest time in you, I want some return on that investment, I want to know it’s going to be worth my while to be your friend.

In suburban friendships, often that return is measured in the social capital a friend adds to our lives. It feels good to have dinner or attend a party or walk with someone in the “in” crowd. And you can’t convince me that “in” crowds only exists in high school. I would argue that we often look at friendships with an eye toward what value they can add to our lives. Your economic status or nice house build me up and make me feel good about myself, so I’ll be your friend.

But I would question whether such a transaction relationship is actually friendship. There’s a difference between being friendly and being friends. One psychologist defined a friendship as “two people who demonstrate an irrational commitment to each other’s well-being.” The key is an “irrational commitment,” meaning we’ll do stupid, crazy, sacrificial things for each other. How many people in our lives would we say are irrationally committed to us?

Let me go back to the study I mentioned at the beginning that talked about the lack of confidantes. In a meeting recently I heard a man tell about a prominent friend of his who committed suicide. The man said his friend’s suicide note still haunts him to this day, because in it his friend said, “In my darkest hour, I didn’t have anyone to call.” The man said he and his friend had many dinners together, played tennis together, attended baseball games together. He thought they were friends. But maybe they were just friendly, because when it became a matter of life and death, the friend had no one to call. We can’t use relationships to position ourselves in life, then be disappointed when those relationships disintegrate the minute life starts to fall apart.

For me, that gets at the heart of the issue here. As I said a couple weeks ago, we suburbanites work very hard at image management. We don’t want anyone to know that we don’t have it all together, so we go out of our way to put on the façade of a well-adjusted, normal existence, when we know deep down in our hearts that such an existence doesn’t exist.

We are so afraid that if we get too close that people will see our weaknesses, so we keep our distance. We remain friendly. The irony is that it is often those very weaknesses we share in common that bring us close together as friends. C.S. Lewis says friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one!”

I wonder how many people in suburbia are lonely because they feel they are the only one. The only one unhappy in their marriage, the only one fighting an addiction, the only one still grieving a loss. Chances are there is a person out there right now who has absolutely nothing to offer us but loyal friendship, and it’s sad to think that we’ve been taught to believe that’s simply not enough to merit the investment of our time and our selves.

I’m so thankful God thinks differently than us. I imagine it would be easy for God to look at us and determine we have very little to offer Him. It would have been quite easy for God to leave us to our own devices instead of reaching out to us. But not only did he not turn away, he turned toward us by sending us his Son to die for us. That, my friends, is irrational commitment to our well-being. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

The risk we take in living a transactional model of friendship is that we can apply that same understanding to our relationship with Christ. Instead of accepting the gift of grace we are offered, we can begin to ask, “What can you do for me?” If I give a pledge, if I serve on the Board, if I sing all the verses of the hymn on Sunday, what do I get in return? We begin to expect some kind of return on our investment, forgetting that we’ve already been paid back 100-fold through Christ’s death and resurrection.

A 12th-century monk said, “The best companion of friendship is reverence,” which means that a characteristic of a true friendship is that each person in it realizes how lucky they are simply to be the other person’s friend. There is an indescribable joy in being with someone with whom you don’t feel compelled to add value. True friends are accepted, not for the value of what they add, but for the value of who they are. After all, that’s how we are accepted by our God.

I wonder who would be our friends – and who would no longer be our friends – if we defined our friendships that way? In the Old Testament, after Job’s life falls apart around him, his three friends come to pick him apart, telling him all the things he did wrong to bring on this disaster. I wonder, if our lives fall apart, who’ll be there to pick us apart, and who’ll be there to help us pick up the pieces? I wonder, if it came right down to it, if we’d have someone to call? It starts with the words of the Bible: “And all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Are we investing the time needed to cultivate a true friendships with Jesus, or are we just being friendly? May our friendship with Jesus continue to grow deeper and be reflected in our friendships with each other.

QUESTIONS

1 – Who do you consider your closest friend?

2 – How would you differentiate between “being friendly” and “being friends”?

3 – What is the hardest part about making new friends?

Hi everyone! I’m continuing my sermon series called ”Death by Suburb” today. In this sermon, we look at how we define ourselves in suburbia, and how that compares and contrasts with how we define ourselves in God’s kingdom. I pray it is a blessing to you! 

SCRIPTURE – Luke 9:23-27

 Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

SERMON
Death by Suburb sermon series
#3 – Self: Look at the Size of My SUV!
Sept. 23, 2007

When I was in middle school, I was browsing in the mall one day when I saw the coolest sweatshirt. It was green and said “Slippery Rock University” on it. I had never heard of that place before and had no idea where it was. I didn’t even realize it was a real school. But it was a cool name and a cool sweatshirt, so I bought it.

About a week later, when I was wearing it, a man stopped me and said, “Hey, Slippery Rock! I graduated from there. Do you know someone who goes there?” No. “Do you want to go there?” No. “Do you know where it is?” No. “Then why are you wearing the sweatshirt?” I don’t know.

Looking back now, I do know. I was wearing it because I thought it looked cool, and by extension I thought wearing it made me look cool. That sweatshirt is long gone, but I have plenty of other things that I’ve placed around me in hopes that they make me look cool, not the least of which is my wife.

As we continue our sermon series today called “Death by Suburb,” we’re going to look at another way we can combat the spirit-numbing existence we often find in the suburbs. We’re going to continue and try to move deeper into our own spiritual lives, beyond the glossy façade that suburbia puts up.

What I found as I read books on this subject and started working on these sermons was that I don’t really have a lot to say that I want to hear. There aren’t a lot of pats on the back to be found when looking at suburban spirituality, and this is especially true when we look in the mirror and examine our self-image and what defines that.

I have always fell prey to the idea that I can transform into a better version of myself through the things I put on or around me. Growing up I had a big collection of sports jerseys that I would wear almost all the time. On Monday I could be Boomer Esiason, on Tuesday I was Chris Mullin, on Wednesday I was Pete Rose, on Thursday I was Dominique Wilkins. I had all kinds of shirts I could wear that I thought were an improvement upon plain old Kory Wilcoxson.

I don’t wear the jerseys anymore, but I still have my different shirts. There’s the husband shirt and the daddy shirt and the pastor shirt (it’s actually a robe). When needed I can slip into my athlete clothes or teacher suit or handyman outfit (the family hides when I put this one on). I have all kinds of things I can put on that I believe are an improvement on the original.

Now, you could argue that these aren’t disguises; they are simply symbolic of the roles we play every day. Spouse, parent, employee homemaker, coach, book club member. This is true. But the danger is that we can have so many roles in constant rotation that we lose the center, we lose sight of the essence of who we are.

And when that happens, and I think it happens a lot, we lose the anchor for our self-definition. When we are no longer grounded in God’s reality, we start defining ourselves in two ways: (1) by what we do, and (2) by what we own.

When talking about silence last week, I talked a little bit about how we have trouble simply being because we always feel we should be doing. And this is reinforced by how we define ourselves. What’s one of the first questions we ask when we meet someone? “So, what do you do?” And doesn’t our answer always steer the direction of the conversation? If you say you’re in sales, they may ask about your product. If you say you’re a broker, they may ask about the market. If you say you’re a pastor, they may turn and run. Suburbia tells us that we are what we do.

The second way we define ourselves is over and against those around us. This is especially true in the suburbs, where we are blessed with abundance and the means to have he good life. And while we may not admit it, we begin to believe we deserve this, and we don’t want anyone have a “more good life” than us.

Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, held a workshop at a seminary with over 200 pastors in attendance. When asked why the church struggles to get the funding it needs, greed and selfishness were named as the main reasons. Fuller asked, “Raise your hand if you think it is possible for a person to build a house so large that it’s sinful in the eyes of God.” All the hands went in the air. “OK,” said Fuller, “then can you tell me at exactly what size a house becomes sinful to occupy?” The pastors were silent. Finally, a voice in the back of the room said, “When it’s bigger than mine.”

While many of us wouldn’t like to admit it, there are unwritten rules in suburbia about what it’s OK to own and to not own. Cars must either be only a few years old or of vintage model, houses must have a minimum number of bedrooms and bathrooms, vacations must be for a certain length of time and in a significantly warmer climate (unless you’re going skiing). Now, few of us would ever admit that such criteria exist. In fact, we usually only become aware of it when we fail to meet them and fall behind.

Stop for a minute and think what your first reaction is inside when you pull up next to a car that  has a little more rust than yours, or doesn’t have the flip-down DVD player like yours does, or makes a funny grinding noise that yours doesn’t. Forget that yours takes three times as much gas. How do you feel when you look at the person next to you and know you’ve got it a little better?

For all that we do and all that we own, David Goetz makes the point that our greatest status symbol is not our job or our stuff, but our children. In fact, he calls them immortality symbols. They are the things through which we will continue to live on after we die, and we don’t want to live a mediocre legacy. So we encourage our kids to be the best at everything they do, or, although we may not realize it, at least better than the neighbors’ kids. Goetz calls parenting the most competitive adult sport.

Now I admit right up front that this strikes a nerve with me. I have two bright, beautiful daughters, and while I’m not biased enough to believe they are the smartest, most beautiful girls in the entire universe, I believe they are in the top one percent. And when anyone even dare implies that they are less than the best (the teacher have the nerve to give Sydney an A- ?!?), the ego in me turns into the Incredible Hulk. There are a lot of parents in the world who wish their children were as good as average, but average isn’t enough in the suburbs. What wants to be average?

This all ties back to the Slippery Rock sweatshirt and the sports jerseys, because it’s all a function of what Goetz calls image management. We work hard to manage how people see us, because no one wants to be seen as just average, and I wonder if there isn’t a fear inside all of us that who we are by itself isn’t quite good enough. So we always are trying to make ourselves look better in every conceivable way. How else do we explain the fact that last year as a country we spent $2 billion on missions and $8 billion on weight reduction programs?

Jesus touches upon this when he talks about the thorny issues of denying ourselves and taking up his cross. Notice that he says we must do both of those things before we follow him. He knows better than anyone that one of the greatest obstacles to truly following Jesus is our own selves.

The irony is this: We are homeowners who take pride in the size and appearance of our houses, but serve a Christ who had nowhere to lay his head. We are consumers who strive to drive the best and biggest cars, yet worship a Christ who walked everywhere. We are parents who want our kids to be first-stringers instead of benchwarmers, and yet we worship a Christ who welcomed all the children, not just those on the honor roll. We are a culture that defines our value based on our performance and productivity, and yet we worship a Christ who was loved and accepted by God, not for what he did, but for who he was.

What Christ means by denying ourselves is realizing that there’s nothing about us that makes us any more special than anyone else, and that our goal shouldn’t be to stand out above the crowd, but to be one with the community. The suburbs tell you if you want to make a name for yourself, you have to be so much more than what you truly are. Christ tells us that if you want to make a name for yourself, you just have to be yourself, and leave it to God to makes you more than yourself.

Come to think of it, when we talk about how we see ourselves, we should be all about image management. Our image should be very important to us. Because the first chapter of Genesis tells us that we are made in the image of God. That’s the only image that matters. You are not defined by what you do or what you own. You are defined by who you are and Whose you are. Period.

QUESTIONS

1 – What do you think is the most prevelant status symbol in suburbia?

2 – What are some things you put around you to make yourself appear “better” than you really are?

3 – What do you think Jesus means by “deny yourself”?

I continue my sermon series “Death by Suburb” this week with a sermon on the practice of silence. Our lives are so full of noise that we have to be intentional about creating space in our lives for God. I hope you have a quiet week!

 SCRIPTURE

Psalm 46:10 - ”Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Mark 1:35-38 -  Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

SERMON

Death by Suburb sermon series
#2 – Silence: Can You Hear Me Know?
September 16, 2007

We are afraid of silence. It’s a plain and simple fact that we’d rather have some mindless TV show that we’re not even watching blaring in the background rather than face silence. Even in our everyday conversation, we avoid it. I teach in my Public Speaking class about vocalized pauses. You know what those are? “Um,” “like,” “you know.” And our brain uses those almost involuntarily to avoid leaving a gap of silence until our next thought. So instead of a noiseless pause until our next word, we break the silence with “Umm…”

I want to try an experiment. When I ask, I want you to close your eyes. I’m going to be quiet for a certain amount of time – no cheering! – and I want you to raise your hand when you think one minute has elapsed. No fair counting in your head! So I’ll shut up and turn around, we’ll have total quiet, and you should raise your hand when you think we’ve reached the one minute mark. Got it? Go!

How did that feel? It was very awkward for me. I kept waiting for someone to say something. Moments of silence feel like eternities to us, because we are so used to having noise in our lives. Somebody should be saying something! When I first started making hospital visits in seminary, I had a lot of trouble being in a room with someone without saying something. Surely there was something I could say to help. The silence, as they say, was deafening.

Why are we so afraid of silence? The irony is that it is in the silence where we are mostly likely to hear God. And yet, our lives are absolutely overflowing with noise. Here’s my theory about our fear of silence: we are afraid to be quiet because when we are, it means we are not speaking. And when we are not speaking, that means we are not in control of the conversation.

And if you’re like me, you like to be in control. There’s a name for people like us: control freaks. That sounds so negative! But I think in reality we are all control freaks. Who likes to be out of control? We all want a hand in what is going to happen. And when we’re quiet, when we create space in our lives for God to speak, we don’t have the floor.

This feels so strange to us because our world is built around control. So much control in our lives is put right at our fingertips. We control what channels we watch, the exact temperature of our surroundings, the seconds it takes to nuke our dinners, and the exact moment the sprinklers come on to water our lawn. We can pay bills, order Christmas presents, and make plans for dinner, all with the click of the mouse.

And with increasing technology, we are becoming more and more in control of our cars, houses, and through medical advances, our own bodies. We can take medicine to help us lose weight, or to put on muscle, to grow hair or to get rid of wrinkles. The prediction is that, as these advances increase, the average life span of humans will skyrocket well above 100. We are in control. We are, as David Goetz said, “The Lord of the Suburb.”

We believe we have the ability to will our world into being. We create and live in the world we want. To the finest detail, we can tailor almost every facet of our existence to our specifications. In a world we will into being, there’s not much need for mystery, because we believe nothing is outside our control. We can protect my family from burglars, offensive music, and mosquito bites. What color do you want your walls? Your hair? Do you want to know your neighbors, or have a privacy fence to keep them out? How big do you want your TV to be? What temperature do you want your side of the car? How comfy do you want your side of the mattress? We are in control.

Almost. OK, not even almost. We are not in control. We don’t like to hear that, but we aren’t. In an article about the illusion of control, the author said, “Death always drives the fastest car on the highway.” In other words, no matter how luxurious your SUV with the leather seats, DVD players, and heated cupholders, you still have to stop and wait when a funeral passes.

We are not in control. But we like to think that we are, because the alternative is too much for us to bear, so we design and insulate our lives to give us the illusion of control. We do this in order not to face reality. As Eric Sandras says, “We spend a lot of time distracting ourselves in order to keep from thinking about the things we don’t want to think about, like doubt, discouragement, and death.”

But even in our highly controlled world, we still get glimpses of the larger truths. There’s an a cappella group called the Bobs who have a song about a man who almost has it all. One of the verses goes like this: “I got Persian rugs, I got exterminated bugs, I got a house that goes from over there to here, my basement’s full of fine imported beer, but I got somethin’ — somethin’ in my ear. I got tubeless tires, I got phones without wires, I got a hundred-year-old bonsai redwood tree, I’ve had successful arthroscopic surgery (on his knee), But last Friday a pigeon pooped on me.”

In other words, we can get our MBA from Harvard, have over-achieving kids, drive cars that cost more than our first house, wear clothes that cost more than our first car, but when we walk our dog, we still have to carry a pooper scooper. We can try to trick ourselves into believing we’re in control, but in the end, we’re not in control.

If we want to go deeper spiritually, the first thing we have to do is relinquish our illusion of control and turn that over to God. David Goetz says, “In true spirituality the first act is a decision not to act, which goes against all we believe. Shouldn’t we be doing something for Jesus? But before we do, we must be: to listen and wait for God, to make space for God.”

At first, that sounds scary: listen, wait, make space. We’re used to speaking, acting, taking up space. What would it be like if we followed Jesus’ example? Mark tells us, “Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Go off alone? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be alone. When I’m with other people, I feel needed, loved, important. But when I’m alone, I’m reminded of just how small I am and how big God is. Being alone can feel so…lonely.

That’s why I think our idea of “getting away” is a walk in the Forest Preserve or a weekend in Wisconsin…with a few thousand other people who are looking for some solitude. Can we ever really get away like Jesus did? I’d love to take the morning to get away and pray, but have you seen my email inbox lately? How do we get away in suburbia?

Here’s some good news for us: Goetz makes the point that quietness is more inside space than outside space. He says, “Solitude begins with the practice of being still. For one minute, two minutes, five minutes – to rest from our pursuit of efficiency.” To paraphrase the psalmist, be still and know that I am God – and you are not. Being still reminds us that God is in control, and we are called to simply be, not do.

This is not easy. I struggle with being still. And, being the control person I am, if I’m going to take time to be still, I want results. I want something to show for it. I want a transcript of my lengthy and enlightening conversation with God. If I can will my world into being, I should be able to will my God into conversation. And if God won’t speak to me, at least I can keep talking and talking and talking to him. As long as there’s no silence.

There’s a Zen saying that goes, “Only speak if you can improve the silence.” I believe that it is only when we are truly still that we can know God most deeply. But that takes discipline. Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen says, “It’s not easy to sit and trust that in solitude God will speak to you – not as a magical voice but that he will let you know something gradually over the years.”

Years? I don’t have years! If I can have popcorn in three minutes and my clothes cleaned in an hour, I don’t want to have to wait years for anything. But it’s taken so many years to fill up our lives with noise that it’s going to take awhile to begin to empty it out, to clear some space in the clutter for God to come and abide with us.

Is it possible to live the deeper life and the noisy life? Maybe, but I doubt it. And yet our lives are so full of noise, it’s hard to imagine living any other way. The reality is that if we aren’t intentional about building quietness into our lives, it will be quickly eaten up by the 100 things we have to do.

But if we’re willing to try, the rewards can be renewing. Eric Sandras gives this advice: “In the morning, or in the evening, take five minutes and refuse to turn on any noise-making device (that can include family members). The regular exercise of silence can flush our minds clean of unwanted noise.” Just sit. Just be. Breathe. Listen. Give up your control. Be still. Look, the noise will still be waiting for you when you’re done. I promise. But for those few moments, remind yourself who is really the Lord in your life. Be still, and know that God is God – and you are not.

QUESTIONS

1 – On a scale of 1 to 10, how “noisy” is your life?

2 – Are you comfortable with silence? Why or why not?

3 – What’s one way your life could be “quieter” this week?