Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons

Seasons of Now

Ciona Rouse

Philippians 4:11-13 & John 17:20-23

Seasons Yet to Come

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Rev. Dean Snyder Ecclesiastes 3:11-16 I have not quoted my favorite Reinhold Niebuhr quote in some time. Reinhold Niebuhr may be the best American theologian who ever lived. So let me repeat my favorite Reinhold Niebuhr quote this morning. It has three parts. Here it is -- Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

Listen to it again:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

We live for only a season. History is long. We are here for only a short time.

If history began with the big bang, it began 15 billion years ago. If history began with the formation of the earth, that was 4.5 billion years ago. If history began with the beginning of life on earth, that was 3.4 billion years ago. If history began when vertebrates crawled out of water onto land, that was 375 million years ago. If history began when hominids started to walk upright, that was 7 million years ago. If history began with the emergence of homo sapiens, that was 200,000 years ago. If history began when homo sapiens invented agriculture, that was 10,000 years ago. If history began when homo sapiens invented writing, that was 5,000 years ago. History is long. Your and my lives are short. So here is a question I ask myself -- How did it happen that I entered into history at the time and place I did? How is it that I was born into the particular family and people I was born into? How is it that I was born into the body with the particular abilities and disabilities and gender and orientation and oddities of my body? With the particular mind that I was given? Anybody else ever ask questions like this? Or am I just weird? We get dropped into the world and then we get taken out of the world, and we can live only in the particular season that we are given to live in. You can reenact the Civil War but you can not live in the time of the Civil War. You can spend a lifetime studying ancient history but you can not live in ancient times. Jane and I had the opportunity to visit Paris a few years ago. The place I wanted to visit the most in France was the grave of Blasé Pascal. I wanted to stand by his grave to honor his memory. Very few books have moved me as much as Pascal's Pensees. Pascal, a 17th century mathematician and scientist, wrote these words: When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been alloted to me? … How many kingdoms know us not! Why is my knowledge limited? Why my stature? Why [is] my life [limited] to one hundred years rather than to a thousand? What reason has nature had for giving me such, and for choosing this number rather than another in the infinity of those from which there is no more reason to choose one than another, trying nothing else? … The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me. You ever wonder why you were born into the time and place you were born in? Is there a reason or is it all accidental? Why am I here? Why now rather than some other time? Why this place rather than some other place? So far as we know, this is the only life we have. I know of only one Methodist theologian who believed in reincarnation.  Leslie Weatherhead wrote a little book called "The Case for Reincarnation." As much as the idea of reincarnation appeals to me, that we would live again and again in different bodies until we fully learn the lessons life on earth has to teach us, I personally find the idea improbable ... appealing but unlikely. I assume this is my one life on earth. I assume this is your one life on earth. We live in only one season of history. We don't get to choose the season. We started out this series of talks with the Book of Ecclesiastes. I want us to return today to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes which is about seasons and times. Ecclesiastes was written by someone they called "the Preacher" The Preacher says: [God] has made everything suitable for its time; moreover [God] has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Eccl 3:11) The Preacher believed God put us in the season of history where God wants us. The Preacher believed that God has put a sense of past and future in our minds. That we have a sense of what has been and what might be ... should be. We can have a sense of how time is moving. We can not absolutely know what God has done from the beginning to the end. There is still mystery. There is still a need for faith. But we can have a sense of what has and, more importantly, what might be. What God wills to be. We can align our lives in such a way as to connect God's past and God's desired future. We can only live in the season we are given. But we can align our lives with what God has done and is doing next. We can live eschatologically. Our lives can share in eternity. We live in time but we can share in what God who lives in eternity has been doing in the past and intends to do in the future. Our lives can have eternal meaning. You and I can share in eternity. For Christians the number one purpose of the Bible is to give us a sense of what God has done in the past. What does God do in the Bible? The biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann says God does three great things in the Bible. He says biblically God is the "1. Freedom-Giver." God leads slaves out of slavery to a promised land of freedom. Second, God is the "2. Exile-Ender and Home-Bringer." God restores people who have lost their homes, lost their place home. Third, God is the "3. Life-Bringer." God resurrects. God brings to life those who have been crucified. Let me add a fourth. God is the "4. Reconciler." God takes people who have been separated and alienated and restores them to fellowship and community so that in God there is neither slave nor free, Greek nor Jew, male nor female, straight nor gay. What God has done in the past God is doing right now and will do tomorrow and eternally. And we can be part of God's purpose. Sometimes I wonder how anybody could miss it. All this past week I've been thinking about the verse from the book of First Peter in the New Testament. Peter wrote it to the Gentile Christians. Gentiles were once considered dirty, unclean, sinful, lost, beyond salvation, disdainful. But in Jesus Christ God reconciled Jew and Gentile. And Peter writes to the Gentile Christians these words – You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10) Some of you here, once you were no people. Your name could not be spoken. Your love could not named. Now the President of the United States is naming your name, affirming your marriages, holding you up as a model of commitment and love. You have become a royal priesthood. How could the General Conference of the United Methodist Church read the Bible and see what God has done and not be able to see what God is doing? How is this possible? Tomorrow a group of us here at Foundry will join other Methodists to talk with Michele Alexander who wrote the book The New Jim Crow. I believe Michele Alexander's book will change the course of history. If we have seen what God has done in the past, how can we not have a sense of what God is doing here and now? I don't know why you and I have been dropped into this particular season of history. I don't know. But I do know it is the only season in which we can live. And I believe that –with the help of those who have gone before us and those who have written down their faith into the Bible—we can see the footprints of where God has been and the direction where the footprints of God are leading. I believe that God did not stop speaking when they sewed the back cover on the Bible. God did not stop acting when they sewed the back cover on the Bible. God did not stop moving … God did not stop being God. God is still doing the sort of things today and tomorrow that God did back then. We can't know everything. But we can know enough. God has put into our minds a sense of the past and a sense of the future. And we can participate in what the eternal God is doing in creation and history. We have that capacity. We are given enough imagination that if we will only see what God has done in the past we can imagine what God is intending to do here and now. And we can be part of it. We can share in eternity. Reinhold Niebuhr said it. Let me paraphrase him Our lives can be part of something large than our lifetimes --  therefore we are saved by hope. Our lives are part of something bigger than we can fully understand here and now -- therefore we are saved by faith. We are not alone because we are part of the saints of God who went before us and who will follow us -- therefore, we are saved by love.

Seasons of Change

Rev. Dean Snyder Luke 12:51-57

Seasons of Trouble

Rev. Dean Snyder Psalms 10:1

Season of Growth

Rev. Dean Snyder

I Corinthians 13:8-13

Seasons of Growth

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. We do not live our lives on earth in this lifetime in eternity. We live in times and seasons. Just about the only constant we are promised is change. Tomorrow will not be the same as today. I believe that the purpose of change is to give each of us and all of us the opportunity to grow. To become smarter. To become wiser. To become better. God created a world characterized by change, evolution and revolution so that we might not live stagnant lives but so that we will always be growing until the day we die…and my personal plan is to keep growing even after that happens. Nothing can happen to us, no change can happen in our lives, that is not an opportunity for growth. No success is a success unless we grow as a result of it. No victory is a victory unless we grow from it. No defeat is a defeat if we grow from it. No failure is a failure if we grow from it. Now, I want to talk today about a fascinating idea that the Apostle Paul teaches in the 13th Chapter of First Corinthians. In this chapter he talks about three important qualities of Christian life – faith, hope and love. Each of these is an important aspect of being a follower of Jesus. However, only one of these three is eternal. Ony one of these three never ends. Only one of these three never fails. Faith is very important. The Book of Hebrews says:  "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach God must believe that God exists." (Heb 11:6) Without faith it is impossible to please God. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews says. (Heb 11:1) Faith is to believe and trust that God is active in creation and human history and that God is drawing us toward a world of justice, inclusion and peace. And in a very personal sense, faith is to believe and trust that if we offer ourselves to God, God will use us as instruments to help build through and in our lives the world God envisions and longs for us so that our lives will have eternal meaning and value. Faith is not certainty. If we had certainty, we would not need faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Unless we are willing to trust that God is working in our world on behalf of a vision of the Kingdom of God, it is impossible to please God. This is not to say that God won't love us. I love my children even when I am not totally pleased with them. Faith is not what causes God to love us, but it does please God, according to Hebrews. But ….But ….faith is not eternal. If we are normal, we will have seasons in our lives when our faith is strong and we will have seasons in our lives when our faith is weal and puny. Faith is seasonal. It is not eternal. The way Paul puts this is that he says someday when we know fully, we will not need faith. It will end. So while faith is important, it is not eternal. It ebbs and wanes, if we are normal. Faith is seasonal. Times of doubt and difficulty in trusting God and trusting life are important seasons of life for us in our spiritual growth. Faith is seasonal in our personal lives. Faith is also seasonal in human history. There are seasons in human history where faith thrives and other seasons when faith is rare. The story of Samuel in First Samuel in the Old Testament says: "Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread." (1 Sam. 3:1) The prophet Amos prophesies: "The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. (Amos 8:11) There are times when the word of God is rare and people stop having visions of a better world. There are times when there is a famine or a drought of faith and people stop believing in the Kingdom of God. There are seasons in human history when faith is strong and seasons when faith is weak. There is a wonderful book by historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht entitled Doubt: A History. She argues that there has been no deepening of religious and theological understanding that did not begin with a time of doubt. All reformation begins in doubt. Faith is seasonal. It is meant to be seasonal; because faith is facile and childish unless it is tested by doubt. *** Faith is important but it is not eternal. It is seasonal for the sake of our spiritual growth. Hope is important. Hope is very similar to faith. Faith is the content of what we hope for. We believe in a God who loves us and wants for us a world of justice, inclusion and peace where we can all thrive. Hope is the act of investing ourselves in that world, in that kingdom. The Apostle Paul says in Romans: "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Rom 8:24-5) Hope is to invest ourselves in a world we do not yet see in the faith that God is working with us on behalf of that kingdom. The Apostle Paul goes so far in the Book of Romans as to call God a "God of hope." Romans 25:13, he goes so far as to write: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Rom 25:13) The Bible doesn't say it specifically but I would say that if we cannot please God without faith, we also cannot please God without hope. Hope is to invest ourselves in the kingdom God is shaping in our world. Hope is trusting that our giving of ourselves for this kingdom will make a difference; that our lives will matter in the kingdom; that we are and will be a part of a kingdom we can not see yet and will not see fully in this lifetime. Hope is essential but it is not eternal. Hope is seasonal. We will have seasons in our lives when hoping is easy and we are full of hope, and we will have seasons when hope is hard and rare. There is a very troubling passage in the book of Second Kings when Israel was under siege and they were starving and they turned to cannibalism, and they were eating their children. The king of Israel came to the prophet Elisha and said:  "This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I hope in the Lord any longer?" (2 Kings 6:33) There are times when hope is hard and rare. If we are normal there will be seasons of near hopelessness in our lives, because hope –like faith-- is not eternal. *** Faith is important but seasonal. Hope is important but seasonal. The Apostle Paul says this because of the next point he wants to make. The next and final point he wants to make is that love is different from faith and hope. Love never ends. Love is eternal. Love never ends. Love is required of us in season and out of season. Love is greater than faith and hope. Love is not seasonal. Love is eternal. The Apostle Paul is writing to a divided, conflicted community. The congregation in Corinth was very divided. They had different convictions. Each was claiming their own truth. Each believed that God spoke to them directly. Paul was writing to a conflicted church. It is good to remember this as we Methodists prepare for General Conference. Members of the church at Corinth were competitive and arrogant. Those who had strong faith distained those who struggled with doubt. Those who had a strong sense of hope looked down on those who struggled with despair. The apostle Paul says these things will change. There will be seasons of faith and seasons of doubt in all of our lives. There will be seasons of hope and seasons of struggle in all of our lives. Faith and hope do not make you superior. But love needs to be constant. Love needs to be constant in and out of season. Of course, there will be times and seasons when we feel more or less loving. But that does not matter. Whether we feel more loving or less loving, our actions toward one another need to be loving. Love can not be seasonal. If we hate, it never makes us or anything else better. If we hate, it never makes anything better. Whatever season of life we are in, whatever season of history we are in, we are called by Christ to figure out how to make our actions loving. Love never ends. There is no season for hate. Some of us are preparing to go to General Conference. Some of us will be leaving this week. Others of us will be going next week. Dawn and Matt are going this week. I'll be leavening after Sunday morning services next week. Kevin Wright, the new kid on the block, will be preaching next Sunday evening by the way. General Conference will be an interesting test for some of us. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus raught: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?" (Matt. 5:43-46) General Conference will be an interesting test for us. All of life actually is an interesting test for us. When we go through a season of doubt, we can say to ourselves, Great. I am going to really grow from this. When we go through a season of struggle and suffering, we can say to ourselves, Great. I am going to become stronger as a result of this season. When we feel ourselves beginning to hate, we can never say that. Hate will not make us smarter, wiser, better. Because we can only grow in relationship with others. Hate ends relationship. Love is not seasonal. It is eternal. It must never end.