Sermon for Sunday, January 24, 2010
Third Sunday After the Epiphany
Nehemiah 8
Luke 4:14-21

Experience of driving the northern California Coast with one of the brothers

1. Friend:  “You’ve got to rent a convertible.  I’ll pay for the difference”
2. Drove coast highway north of San Francisco toward Mendocino
3. In and out, up and down, sometimes in chilly fog, suddenly giving way to brilliant sun, then around the next corner, returning to the cold fog

Our spiritual life is like our drive on the California coast:  can be going along with everything sunny and fine, and then… come around the bend and get plunged into chilly cold.

1. Can be having a great day, then something pops our balloon
2. Sometimes down, then something – a small kindness? – can fix us instantly
3. Like Psalmist:  “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (13) gives way in a few verses to “I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt with me richly.”

In today’s lessons, we see the “sunshine” of spiritual life.

1. Nehemiah:  people have been in exile, finally return to Jerusalem and find temple in ruins, finally rebuild the city wall and the temple, and today we see the first worship taking place in the temple since before the exile, ____ years ago. 
2. If ever there was a “sunshine” moment for the popele of Israel, this is it.
3. Luke:  Another “sunshine” moment; Jesus in temple, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at his gracious words.”
4. (But, as we will see next week, today’s text is about to turn a corner and plunge into the fog:  “When they heard [what he said next], they were all filled with rage,” and wanted to through him off the cliff on which his town was built.

To vacillate between “sunshine” and “fog” is normal in the spiritual life

1. sign that we are healthy and are making progress
2. Ignatius of Loyola had names for these two states between which we vacillate:  Consolation, and Desolation
3. Consolation:  When we experience the presence of God, the goodness of God, God working to draw us closer
4. Desolation:  When we don’t know where God is, when we can’t see where God is leading, when we are in the fog and chilly and cold
5. If we did not vacillate between these two states – if we were always one or the other – we are missing something

Ignatius has advice for what we can do when we are in time of consolation

1. Notice it and thank God for it; it is a gift and not your own doing
2. Remember that it will not last; desolation will come
3. As we look ahead to desolation, determine how we are going to act when we get there
4. Persevere in our disciplines:  worship, prayer, service (The Evil One tempts us to drop these, in times of desolation)
5. Recall our time of consolation, remembering God’s gifts (Keep a journal, so that you can look back on your times of consolation, what you were feeling then)

Close:  How story ended, invitation

1. Old, penny-pinching curmudgeon brother, who had served as bursary, was working up a head of steam.  “You guys rented a convertible?!?”  Without missing a beat, “Yes, of course, Father; it’s the poverty model, without a roof.”
2. If you are in a time of consolation, I invite you to notice, to thank God for it, to remember that desolation is ahead, and to make plans now as to how you will move through desolation
3. If you are in a time of desolation, I invite you to recall the consolations from a previous time, and to trust that they will come again.  And I invite you to come next week to hear more about what to do in time of desolation
4. To all of us:  invite to remember that this rhythm of consolation / desolation is normal, a healthy sign that in our spiritual life we are entering more deeply into the mystery of God

 

Sermon for Sunday, January 17, 2010

Second Sunday After the Epiphany

I Corinthians 12:1-11 

“I hear hope in today’s passages” 

• Isaiah 62, “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight is in Her, and your land Married… For as a young man rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
• John 2.  Jesus’ ministry begins with symbols of hope:  a wedding, and wine:  (“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, and well-aged wine strained clear.  He will destroy…. The shroud that is cast over all peoples… he will swallow up death forever.”) 

 

• I am glad these texts are about hope.  I need of word of hope as I read about the earthquake in Haiti. 

 

• The best word of hope comes from today’s passage from I Corinthians, a passage that answers the question, “Where is hope?”  Hope is within us. (Not that hope is of ourselves or that we have generated hope; hope is a gift – along with faith and love, one of the greatest spiritual gifts.)  And Paul tells us that these gifts are within us, among us; we the baptized, thanks to the Holy Spirit, already possess them.

 

• That hope is in us is at once a great blessing, and a great challenge

1. Blessing:  Hope is near at hand

2. Challenge:  If hope is so close, why don’t we feel it more often? 

 

“If hope is so close, why don’t I feel it more often?” 

To answer, “If hope is so close, why don’t we feel it more often?” I look to Prodigal Son.

• Recall the story…
• It was hope that took the son back to his father
• What did he need first?

1. Suffering
2. Remembrance of the goodness of Father in the face of suffering

• Suffering as necessary precursor to hope makes sense: “Suffering produces endurance… and hope will not disappoint us.”  (Romans 5)

• Remembrance of the goodness of God we see in Paul, e.g., letter to Philippians:  In imprisonment: “I will continue to rejoice…  For it is my hope… that Christ will be exalted now as always in my body, whether by life or by death… I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  I Thess, “Rejoice always… give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
• If we wish to experience hope, two things needed

1. Suffering (no lack of it)
2. Remembrance of the goodness of the Father in the face of suffering.  Difficult!

• Can we remember the goodness of God in the face of suffering?  Can we, like Paul, give thanks and rejoice?

• As we remember the goodness of God in the face of suffering, we will have hope.
• Can access hope for ourselves, and – because hope is contagious – will spill over to others

 

Close:  Image, and Invitation 

Newspaper clip, Haitians singing, “Blessed be the Lord” in the hours after the earthquake struck. 

In this great suffering, there – there where people are remembering the goodness of the Lord, where they are praising the Lord – there is hope.  It is difficult to do, to give thanks in all circumstances.  I invite you to do two things:  1)  Pray for the people of Haiti, and send money to help them.  2)  Ask Jesus to help you remember the goodness of the Lord in all circumstances.  To remember God’s goodness in suffering is difficult; we cannot do it on our own, but need Jesus’ help!  If the Haitians who were singing can yet have hope, what is stopping us from having hope?  And if together we have hope, extraordinary things can happen.