LEADING CAUSES OF LIFE
September 27, 2009
Who knew? Twister is still being played! This silly game from my youth is still popular in some circles. Last week while I was attending a meeting in Evanston, Illinois I took the opportunity each evening to walk along the miles of parkway on the shore of Lake Michigan. On Friday evening a group of youth was gathered for a picnic and, along with volleyball they were playing Twister.
Ask any of the youth in our church youth group and you will discover that they have Twister competitions and, as far as I know, much to Cameron and Jacob’s dismay, Jackie is still the reigning champion. Her dancing skills translate well to the Twister playing field.
I have witnessed several of these Twister competitions. Oh, the kids usually invite me to participate but I know better. I would rather volunteer to spin the dial and call out the instructions, since I am way more comfortable when it is “right foot red and left foot green” than right foot yellow, left hand red, right hand green, and left foot blue. Somehow being all “twisted up” with my hands and feet going in too many opposite directions just doesn’t work anymore for my 58 year-old body!
But isn’t that true for most of us? Aren’t we most comfortable when we are not doing contortions? Aren’t we most comfortable, to quote an old Shaker folk song, “when we come ‘round right?”
These September and October Sundays, we are affirming together not the leading causes of death, but the leading causes of life. Last week, we received our first lifeline – connection. (HOLD UP RED CORD) We are made for connection. Connections are like the breath of air on which our very lives depend.”* “Life comes and is sustained, through our connections.”*
This week we receive our second lifeline – coherence. (HOLD UP YELLOW CORD) Simply put, coherence is the “sense that life makes sense.”* Sometimes it is hard to find coherence in an incoherent world but when we do we find that we have purpose and hope. Coherence is knowing not just in our heads but in our bones… in our hearts… in our souls that we are doing what God created us to do… that we are being who God created us to be. Coherence is getting ourselves untwisted and coming around right.
This is no small task. Even the most successful, most faithful, most together people can and will find ourselves all twisted up. But as people of faith, we are handed a lifeline. Through God’s love and with God’s grace, time and time again, we are offered the chance to come ‘round right.
In this morning’s scripture reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus announced his purpose and proclaimed the hope that would sustain his life and ministry. He stood up in his home synagogue and read from the prophet Isaiah, announcing his call to ministry and proclaiming that his life would have meaning. The words are very familiar… “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And according to Luke’s story, the people in the synagogue were amazed by his words but they were jealous of his claim and doubted authenticity of his call.
We really shouldn’t be all that surprised by their response. The way the story is told, Jesus would have been thirty years old at the time – young by today’s standards but more mature by the standards of his day. He would have already lived almost a lifetime, possibly at his father’s side – a peasant carpenter with no claim on the knowledge of God. But there he stood, announcing his intentions to live as an instrument of God’s grace for others. To use the words of the authors of The Leading Causes of Life, Jesus was called “beyond [himself] to the lives of others.”*
It is as if Jesus had asked himself how his life could be lived better and found his answer as a person of faith. It is as if he had discovered what God had created him to do and who God had created him to be and he was challenged to look beyond himself to others.. There in the synagogue, surrounded by those who knew him best, Jesus announced his intention to live his life with new purpose and meaning. Coherence.
Coherence is all about living our lives with purpose and meaning… about discovering how out lives can be lived better… about looking beyond ourselves to others.
But do you ever find yourself at loose ends? You know, not wanting to get up in the morning and face the day because nothing seems right with your life? I do. The authors of The Leading Causes of Life suggest that “the loss of coherence is an unmistakable signal that something is amiss in the fundamental health of an individual.” It can be a painful and scary and uncertain time of life and I believe it happens to all of us.
Several years ago, this congregation graciously allowed John and me time for a three-month renewal leave. Through a grant provided by the Lily Foundation, we were able to take time away from here to regroup. What many of you didn’t know at the time was that I was struggling with the purpose and meaning of my life. I was questioning my call to ministry. I was getting pretty incoherent! Through that three-month period I was reaching for a lifeline. I needed to sense that my life was making sense. I felt all twisted up and wasn’t sure that I could ever come “round right.
I will not share with you all of the details of what happened during that time away except to say that through the care and feeding of my soul and through connection with some God-given friends, I was able to return from that leave with a brand new sense of purpose and meaning. I came to know again that that God’s sense of community is bigger than mine and that I can find again the energy and commitment to try to live my life as an instrument of God’s grace for others. At a time when I didn’t know if or how I would ever be able to feel the breadth of God’s love in my life, getting outside of myself was the only way to hold on to that lifeline. You gave me the gift of time and God reminded me of who I am and what I am to do with my life.
Do you remember on Confirmation Sunday, as the youth who were joining the church were leaving the sanctuary, I gave them each a lifeline and told them the story of a doctor who worked with severely developmentally challenged children. These kids were so withdrawn that they couldn’t interact in any way. They couldn’t even stand up. Experimenting with a rope, the doctor strung it across the room and ever so slowly the kids began to hold on to the rope and stand up. Step by step by step, they walked. The doctor, sensing that this lifeline was necessary in their lives, kept using a thinner and thinner rope to stretch across the room until it was just fishing line. Finally, he cut the fishing line into pieces and gave a piece to each child. They still walked.
This is the lifeline of coherence. Knowing we belong to God and finding God’s meaning in our lives is so important to us. We are able to stand up and walk. As people of faith, this has everything to do with moving beyond ourselves to the lives of others, as we become instruments of God’s grace. It won’t always be easy. We will get twisted up. We won’t always be consistent. There will be times when we find ourselves at loose ends. But with God loving us beyond measure and filling us with God’s Spirit, we can stand with right foot blue and left foot yellow, leading lives of hope and purpose and meaning for God’s world.