WITH EYES WIDE OPEN

February 3, 2008

            I don’t know if it was the thought of writing this sermon on the plane trip home from Ft. Worth or the strong, cold Texas wind against my face when I went out for a walk…  I don’t know if it was the words of the street-corner preacher ranting about the wages of sin and death or the maybe even the Holy Spirit… all I know is that I sat down to write this late Friday night, these words came pouring out. 

            Many of you know that we will be welcoming Diana Butler Bass to our church next month.  We have been reading her book Christianity for the Rest of Us and we are finding her ideas to be calling us in a new and hopeful direction as a congregation.  What I share with you now are my beginnings reflections on her ideas, using many of her thoughts and words and findings from her research as the framework for this message.

            It will come as no surprise to some of you that I want to start with a brief story from Anne Lamott.  In her book Traveling Mercies, she tells the story of her pastor Veronica at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church.  “When she was about seven, her best friend got lost one day.  The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark.  She was very frightened.  Finally, a policeman stopped to help her.  He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church.  She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, ‘You can let me out now.  This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.’”  I hope and I pray that we will continue to be a church that helps each and every one of us find our home in God’s love, God’s challenge, and God’s grace.

            I believe we must be a church with eyes wide open to God, to each other, and to the world.  I believe we must embody spirituality, growing deeper in our relationship with God and with each other.

            We are the Body of Christ brought together by God’s love.  As the song we sang a few minutes ago affirms, “God is the still-point of the circle.”  God must be at the center of all we say and do.  Growing deeper in our relationship with God, is central to our experience here.  How do we… how will we… sense God’s spirit working in our lives?  I believe we must learn to pay attention to God’s presence… really pay attention.  What would happen if every time we come together as a church family – for meetings, for worship, for education, in the choir, in our C-groups – what would happen if we made sure to share with each other where or how or in whom we have experienced the presence of God since we were together last?  What if we, to borrow another’s words, “looked for God like a person whose head is on fire looks for water?”

            Growing closer to God doesn’t happen all at once.  It takes practice and patience and paying attention.  It means spending time in prayerful reflection… becoming aware of God’s spirit.  We must stop long enough and often enough to connect with the heart of God.

            It has been my experience that as we grow deeper in our relationship with God we will deepen our relationships with each other.  As we come together and share in the search for meaning and growth without saying it has to be one way or another, we will grow in our understanding that we are children of God together.  We will bear one another’s burdens and share one another’s joys.

            I believe with our eyes wide open to God, to each other, and to the world we will continue to be an inclusive church where everyone is welcome at God’s table.  We will recognize the God spark that is in each one of God’s beloved children – all ages and races, all cultures and customs, all abilities and ideologies, gay or straight, rich or poor, male or female.  With God’s love in our hearts and Christ’s claim on our lives, we will be an inclusive church, welcoming all into this community of grace.  Our hearts, our minds, and our doors will truly be open.

            With eyes wide open to God, to each other, and to the world, we will take Christianity seriously as a way of life and live as if our lives depended on it.  Simply put, we need to act like Christians, mirroring the Gospel and not the culture.

            It is a slogan, a bumper sticker, a bracelet, and it is overused.  So overused in fact, that I really, really don’t like it.  But it is the right question.  What would Jesus do?  He would love, forgive, accept, challenge, love again, forgive again, accept again, and challenge again.  He turned the established order upside down.  He loved the unlovable.  He embodied grace.

            From the earliest days of the Christian faith, Jesus’ followers were recognized not by what they said but by what they did, practicing hospitality and forgiveness in an inhospitable and unforgiving world. 

We must ask ourselves “Who would Jesus love?” Or maybe the better question is “Who would Jesus hate or kill or ignore or abuse or bomb?”  We must ask ourselves, “Where would Jesus place his trust and faith… in the government, in political parties, in the economy, or in God?”  We must ask ourselves “Who would Jesus welcome through the doors of this church… everyone or just those who look and act and believe like us?”  We must ask ourselves “Would Jesus recognize his Gospel in us?”

If we take Christianity seriously as a way of life…  if we act like Christians by joining in Christian practices, by following Christian ways, we may someday become Christian.  Becoming Christian is not a one-moment miracle of salvation.  It takes practices, living as if our lives depended on it… because they do!

With eyes wide open to God, to each other, and to the world we will find our voice as individuals and as a gathered community.  I believe that God is not silent.  I hope and I pray that God is still speaking in our world and I hope and I pray that God is not just speaking to me.

We… as individuals and as this part of the Body of Christ… must learn to speak what is in our hearts… in our souls.  We must find our voices and speak up and speak out.  Not just about this church – although that couldn’t hurt – but about our experiences of faith.  We must tell our stories.

If we believe – and I think we do – that the power of God can and will and must change the world… if we believe that the love and grace of Jesus Christ changes lives… then why don’t we talk about what we believe?

Now, I am not suggesting that you badger the person standing in front of you at the grocery store or the attendant at the gas station.  But why don’t we talk about our faith to the people we know?  Are we afraid that we don’t know enough?  Do we think it is impolite?  Are we concerned about the possibility of disagreement or controversy?  Do we think we need to have answers instead of embracing the spiritual practice of living the questions?

Sharing our faith – simply telling our stories of God’s unconditional love and grace in our lives – has been a part of the American religious experience since the birth of our nation.  It is called testimony… telling our stories.  I believe that God has not suddenly become silent.  We have!  God is counting on us to find our voices as people of faith in the world today.

I believe, with our eyes wide open to God, to each other, and to the world, we must relocate ourselves in the larger public practices of faith and politics. 

No, no, not that!  Church should be about worshiping God not talking politics!  What ever happened to the separation of church and state?  This is a tough one for us to accept.

But this week I was reminded of an alternative definition of politics.  Politics doesn’t have to be about Republicans and Democrats, about presidential primaries and ballot measures.  It can be understood instead, as the intersection of power and conscience.  As followers of Christ, I believe we belong at that intersection.

At our baptisms, we made a promise to stand against injustice.  This Gospel claim on our lives is both personal and prophetic.  I believe God does have something to say about the way we treat our neighbors, the environment, and those who are different from ourselves… God has something to say about our economic practices and our international relationships… all those things we would like to consider political.

Somewhere along the way, Christianity became about being polite and not about the creation of God’s beloved community.  I believe God is calling us back into a hurting world and counting on us to engage in the politics of God. 

It may be hard for many of us to live justly in our world today because so many of us are so comfortable and our comfort stands in the way of ending poverty and war and environmental destruction and hunger and homelessness and more.  But God did not come in the person of Jesus Christ so we could be comfortable.

As people of the Cross, we belong at the intersection of power and conscience.  We must use the faith we found to reshape the world that is all around us.

With eyes wide open to God, to each other, and to the world we will live with passion and with purpose, reaching toward the future we cannot yet see.  Our church has a wonderful, rich, and faith filled history.  But our church is not perfect.  Still I believe God is calling us to a bright future.  It will take courage, creativity, and imagination to follow that call.

It is hard not to wax eloquent about the good old days.  When it comes to our families, our church, our community, our nation, even our world, it is hard not to play the “remember-when-everything-was-so-much-better” game.  But the good old days are gone, and, truth be told, they might not have always been so good.  The world was a world of boundaries, rules, and roles.  Social class, race, ethnicity, birth order, gender, and the like determined everything and we believed that God made it that way.

But God is doing a new thing.  Everyday this new world is continually being born.  If we are going to welcome the new creation, we need to stop looking back.  The old ways don’t always apply to new situations.  We must reach for the future we cannot yet see and live with hope and expectancy.  We must believe that God is in the middle of this birthing process, pointing us as individuals and as the Body of Christ in new, right, and creative directions.

Finally, we are called to live with our eyes wide open to God, to each other and to the world as we celebrate the possibility and promise of this congregation where two or three or three hundred can gather in Christ’s name and touch this world with the amazing good news that somebody cares and through God’s spirit will be loved into wholeness.  We must celebrate the possibility and promise of this congregation where we will say yes in the face of all the no’s that come our way and stand up and follow even when it costs us something as precious as our hearts.  We must celebrate the possibility and promise of this church where we are called to commitment to God who challenges us to open our eyes and change our direction and find a new way of life filled with hope and grace.  We must celebrate the possibility and the promise of this congregation where every child of God who sees us – this building, our ministry, and all of us – where every child who sees us will be able to find their way home.