13. Something to Chew On

I was able to preach this sermon for my final preaching class (I believe it's more formally called "Lay Speakers Deliver Effective Sermons) as well as for the closing commitment service. I felt it went fairly well, but as always with speaking, it's a learning experience--learning myself and my own comfort zones (and how to get out of them) and learning how to be more in tune with God and the message He wants me to speak. I felt I was doing exactly what God wanted me to be doing at that moment, though, and speaking the words He wanted me to speak -- an emotional high to carry through the early week. I hope I never stop feeling this way after preaching.

INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE: Paul writes these words to the people at Corinth. In a flourishing city of approximately 500,000 merchants, sailors, professional gamblers, athletes and freed slaves, the Corinthian Church became a melting pot of the microcosm of which it was a part. Paul writes to encourage them to continue to try to live in harmony and build on their common foundation, although their national, social, economic and religious backgrounds were very different. (paraphrased from Compact Bible Dictionary, written and compiled by Ronald F. Youngblood, F.F. Bruce & R.K. Harrison)

[Read 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10]

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, you who is our rock and our redeemer. Amen

MEDITATION:


“Something to Chew On”

I.

I am the daughter of an amazing cook and baker. Just about anything my mother sets out to make turns out delicious. So, it’s only natural that I’ve grown up to countless questions of my own cooking abilities.

“Have you learned how to make your mom’s macaroni and cheese yet?”

“Oh, that pie was just delicious. What kind do you make?”

“Did you help your mother make this amazing soup?”

Well, I can tell you that I’ve set out more times than one to imitate her style—to create that rich, chocolate pudding or achieve the perfect consistency of broth in soup—but I look at her recipes and I see these cryptic directions (they may sound familiar to you)—“a pinch of salt,” “a sprinkle each of cinnamon and allspice”, “a few shakes of this and that.”

I stare transfixed at the page, wondering just how to measure a sprinkle or a shake. What if my “pinch” is bigger than my mom’s? What if it’s too small? I turn to my mother for clarification and usually receive another response you may find familiar, “Just do what feels right.”

Friends, I can tell you that I’ve had more flat cookies, crusty brownies, dry macaroni and cheese dishes, overcooked noodles and soupy rice than the rest. I’ve missed more cups of flour and sugar, more eggs. I’ve neglected to let my biscuits rise all the way. I’ve left the eggs out of pumpkin pie.

But, I can tell you that each time I have forgotten these things, I have learned how important it is that these ingredients are there. Each time I’ve overcooked pasta, I’ve learned just how to know when it’s the right time to take the heat off.

I still have this example I’m following, but I’m learning that in the absence of set recipes, I’m beginning to learn for myself how to create something new rather than simply follow what has already been done.

II.

Paul says, speaking to the Corinthians, “Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:20) We have this message to share, this “treasure in clay jars”, as we’ve heard before. ( 2 Corinthians 4:7). But God didn’t hand down the message typed in MLA format with 1-inch margins. God sent the commandments, yes. God sent the prophets. God even sent his son. We believe that God continues to speak through the Holy Spirit.

And yet, when Paul says again in the text, “This is the hour to receive God’s favor; today is the day to be saved!” I know that I begin to wonder, “Where is this message we’re supposed to give? What role do we have in all of this?”

I am just another speaker, another voice in the cacophony of others, but I believe that God is calling us to this: to stop waiting for an exact recipe, perhaps to stop trying to pass on a recipe of leadership to the next leaders following us. If God was our mothers, he would tell us to stop trying so hard to determine what the right sized sprinkle or pinch is and just do what feels right.

Just do what feels right? I can hear it now, “But that would be too hard. We need guidelines. We need order. We can’t just have chaos...and if we just do what “feels right” ...we might just come up with something NEW.”

Are you hearing what I’m hearing?

Friends, we will never be without guidelines and order. The last time I checked, we still had this book. (hold up Bible) I’m going to guess that those of you seated here today have seen this before.

Our challenge is to make this book come alive for those around us. Are we up to the challenge?

III.

In her book, Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren F. Winner captures the words of a sixth century theologian, Julianus Pomerius, encouraging readers to break a fast and “unbend one’s self” in order to practice hospitality. She shares later, “I understand why he had spoken of hospitality as unbending one’s self. The irony is that the unbending requires inviting my neighbors into the very places where I am most bent.” (pp. 46 and 53)

IV.

I know that if I wait until any place I live is “clean enough” for visitors, I’m going to be waiting a long time. I know too, and perhaps more importantly, that if I’m waiting for perfection before I allow people into the “bent” and just plain rusted areas of my life, I’m going to be waiting a long while. In fact, I just might not have to do it at all!

In allowing people into the imperfect areas of our lives, we allow two things. First, we allow that they may see that leadership and ministry is not about perfection. And, seeing imperfect leaders, they may see where they are able to lead too.

Second, when we allow people to see our faults, we are opening ourselves up to those same areas that need change. Where do we need reconciliation? Where might we need comfort?

When we allow this honesty, we open ourselves up for God’s help.

V.

A pastor tells of his own encounter with the need for this reconciliation. In preparing for Ash Wednesday, his church had entered into a rigorous debate regarding the imposition of ashes at the Ash Wednesday service.

“Some people in the congregation argued against the practice claiming that it could promote holier-than-thou attitudes amongst the faithfully smudged. Others worried that the aftermath of the ritual would look a bit too much like a public display of piety the kind that the Gospel of Matthew cautions us about. Objecting, still others claimed that they found it to be a powerful way to grapple with mortality, to participate in a sign of humility, to mark the beginning of Lent.

“What was Ash Wednesday, after all, without some soot on one's brow? Attempting to mediate, the pastor suggested a compromise. Set it up, he declared, so that individuals could decide. If people wanted ashes, they could mark themselves.

“So when it came time for the service, a liturgy which also included the Lord's Supper, the pastor stood and explained that worshippers were to come forward for the sacrament. First they would receive the wafer—‘Body of Christ.’ Next they would receive the wine—‘Blood of Christ.’ Then, the pastor gestured to an elder who was standing there holding a small saucer of ashes. If the worshippers so desired, they could self-impose ashes. So, the people stood and came. . . Decently and in order, except for one small problem, the pastor had failed to explain the meaning of a key liturgical term ‘impose.’

“He came to this realization when the first man to approach received a wafer, dipped it in wine, then turned, and dunked his sodden disk in the plate of ashes, before eating it.

“So startled was the congregation by this strange act of penitence that they were compelled to rethink their liturgy. . . Never again, remarked the pastor, will I suggest that people ‘self-impose.’ But, I wonder, as unpalatable as it might seem, if this man in tasting and swallowing ashes might actually be telling us something important about this day and this season.

“So many of us, still think of Lent as a time to give something up, a season to deny ourselves chocolate for forty days. . . as if that will somehow cultivate spiritual maturity. In eating ashes, this man may provide us with a different perspective on Lent. . . Perhaps it is not a season to give up common pleasures. Perhaps it is a time for us chew on our mortality.” (http://home.netcom.com/~jealsup/ash6e.html)

VI.

The reteller of the story continues with an explanation that “For Paul, righteousness is a human possibility.” Though we may be faced with denial and a knowledge that “we will all, eventually, fall down,” the apostle Paul “pushes us to attempt reconciling acts and rest affirmed in the integrity of God. All this because we have been marked. Not by a sign that we can put on ourselves, for really we cannot self-impose our identity.”

“So we mark each other here not merely with a thumbprint of grit hoping to commemorate our mortality, but we smear a cross on each other's foreheads to remind us that we are marked by another.

“The one who marks us all that we might no longer be slaves to mortality, but free to be God's righteousness in this world.” (see above source)

VII.

So marked, where does our hesitation lie? The wall has been beaten down. If we are no longer bound by our mortality and sin, then we have free reign to answer God’s calling on our lives.

VIII.

I would like to share The Message translation of this passage with you which shares a direct plea from Paul to the church at Corinth. Perhaps it will help to have it in contemporary language.

He writes,

“Companions as we are in this work with you, we beg you, please don’t squander one bit of this marvelous life God has given us. God reminds us, “I heard your call in the nick of time; The day you needed me, I was there to help.” Well, now is the right time to listen, the day to be helped. Don’t put it off; don’t frustrate God’s work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we’re doing. Our work as God’s servants gets validated—or not—in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly...in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we’re beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we’re telling the truth, and when God’s showing his power; when we’re doing our best setting things right; when we’re praised, and when we’re blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many, having nothing, having it all.

“Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”

IX.

Are we ready?
Are we ready to open up our lives and live fully in “this wide-open, spacious life”?
God is calling, “Are we ready?”
I know I am.
Are you?

Amen