“In God We Live”

Acts 17: 22-28 and Exodus 12: 1-3, 11-4

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Ordinary Time – Season of Creation

First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

Last week, I took a day and went on retreat at Waycross Camp out in Brown County. If you haven’t been to this Episcopal retreat center just 20 miles from here, you should really go sometime. They have a variety of lovely overnight accommodations, lounge and study areas, and a delicious food service. Of course, being in Brown County, none of those things are the highlight of Waycross. The main reason you go there is to explore the grounds. Acres and acres of opportunity to convene with God in nature.

There is a labyrinth. There is an outdoor chapel area. There are easy paths for wandering and a couple of lakes and creeks. And there are hiking trails galore.

I’ve been to Waycross many times in the six years I’ve lived in Bloomington, but never had a chance to explore the trails until last week. The staff at Waycross makes it so easy to get out there! There are easy-to-follow trail maps, bug spray, backpacks and water bottles to borrow. I had no excuses left so I hit the trails for a few hours.

One thing I’ve noticed about Waycross is that someone is always mowing. I mean always. Every single time I’ve been there. Last week was no different.

As I started up the steep hill on the far side of the creek bed, I was distracted by the sound of the mower in the distance. As I climbed higher and higher, the sound receded, and – suddenly – I noticed I couldn’t hear it any more. I couldn’t hear any of the sounds I am accustomed to hearing in every day life. No toddler babbling or playing with electronic toys. No hum of a refrigerator or washing machine. No cell phones ringing. No cars zooming past.

One thing that did seem to get a little louder was the chattering inside my head. You know, that voice that never shuts up? The one that’s constantly telling you about all the things you need to be doing or should have done? Or maybe it’s only me that has that voice.

I started to hear sounds I’m not used to noticing. Birds chirping. Crickets cricketing. Leaves and small sticks crunching. As the hill got steeper I found myself searching for a good walking stick and was exceedingly grateful when I found one. My breathing became labored and as I began to pay attention to the sound of my breath among all the forest sounds I noticed that the running-on voices in my head started to slow and dissipate a bit.

In short, I started to notice my place in the world.

In all honesty, I walk around most days at the center of my own universe. Sure, I think I’m fairly courteous of other’s needs. I don’t typically cut people off in traffic. I open doors for people. I smile at strangers. But the voices in my head are usually talking about me. My life. My needs. My feelings. My shortcomings. Me.

I need to wake up sometimes. I need to put myself in a place that’s unusual so I can be smacked upside the head and realize it’s actually not all about me. I am just one small soul in a whole giant world. And this whole giant world is pulsing and moving with holiness.

This whole giant world – birds and sticks and running water and chirping crickets and even worn out, panting pregnant hikers – this whole giant world bears testimony to the beauty of God.

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Paul’s speech to the Athenians in Acts is a thing of beauty. In a few short sentences, he manages to succinctly explain to a group of skeptics why they should listen to anything he’s got to say about his foreign God. And one of the ways he does this is by quoting one of their own philosophers, Epimenides – “In God we live and move and have our being.”

Huh. I always thought Paul said that. I guess Epimenides said it about 700 years before he did. Regardless, it seems like a pretty solid statement to me.

God is at the center. God is the one in whole we live. God is the one in whom all of our movements take place. God is the one who makes it possible for us to be. Nothing happens outside of God. Not one single thing.

Of course, the trick is remembering this. I honestly don’t think the reality of God’s centrality ever changes. I think the thing that varies from person to person, culture to culture, and time to time is our awareness of this fact.

Sometimes it takes getting out there in the middle of nowhere – heart pounding, breath panting, birds singing – to be reminded of this fact. Sometimes we are reminded by a sudden catch in our belly when something terrible happens to a loved one. Sometimes it’s a smile from a stranger, a glance from a lover, a sloppy kiss from a child.

We are reminded in different ways, but we are reminded all the same.

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One of the ways religious people force themselves to remember is by creating rituals. At the Jewish preschool just down the street from here, the kids bake challah bread and gather together to welcome the Sabbath on Fridays.

They sing songs about Shabbat. They recite the prayers in Hebrew. They share the bread and juice. In short, they take a few moments each week to pause and remember who they are and whose they are. They take time to remember that it is God in whom they live and move and have their being.

I have to say, one of many lovely things we Christians inherited from our Jewish forbearers was the commandment to remember.

In the passage from Exodus today, we see God’s intricate instructions for the first Passover meal. There is no way to gloss over the stark fact that the Passover feast initially celebrated the wrath of an angry God against some very helpless people. This is not God at her best, in my humble opinion.

Of course, what you think of God is often a matter of perspective. And if you were a member of the Hebrew community – if you were counting on a very powerful God to swoop down from on high and save your people – well, then, I can certainly see why God’s decision to kill your enemies would be good news. I don’t begrudge these enslaved people their right to celebrate this story.

And, for an oppressed people, it was good news. And for many groups of oppressed people since the stories of Moses were first set down, it has continued to be good news.

The Moses story is one of many stories in our scriptures that remind us of the centrality of God. It reminds us that – no matter whether we remember it or not – God is always present. God is in and around us at all times. God does not leave us or forsake us. God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being.

And the Jews, over the centuries, have remembered this story well. To this day, the story of Passover is celebrated by those who find meaning in the faith of Judaism. Passover is arguably the most celebrated of the Jewish holy days. Even Jews who are mostly secular often still celebrate the Passover feast. I would say it’s akin to the way those folks who are “culturally Christian” still remember who Jesus is at Christmastime.

But the Jews, I think, do a better job of telling their story when they gather to celebrate the story of Passover. Many Christians who gather around a Christmas tree to unwrap gifts seem to have forgotten the reason for the holiday. But Jews who celebrate Passover have no choice but to remember the story of the Exodus. The telling of that story is an integral part of the celebration.

One of the things I love about Passover is that children play an integral role.

It is the job of the children to do what they do best: ask questions. The first question is “why is this night different than all other nights?” The adults answer their questions, and, in doing so, gently remind them who they are and whose they are. The purpose of Passover is to remember that it is always God in whom we live and move and have our being. There is nothing outside of God. God is central to who we are.

Of course, we Christians have strengths in this area, too! We gather together weekly to celebrate the centrality of God in our lives. We share our sacred stories. We sing songs of celebration and remembrance. And we gather together at the Table of Christ to remember Jesus’s final meal with his own disciples – which, of course was the Passover meal.

Jesus gathered with his friends and loved ones during a time of bitter crisis.

Someone present there must have asked, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” And stories were shared about the God that they loved. Stories were shared around that table which helped a group of very needy people remember who they were and whose they were. Stories were shared that helped them remember that it is God in whom they live and move and have their being.

Two thousand years later, we are all – Jews and Christians – still gathering at the Passover feast to remember who we are and who God is. We are still hunkering down with each other in moments of silence and awe to share words of encouragement and hope. We still have needs and we still find that Paul’s borrowed words center us and give us hope.

Of course, the purpose of gathering together to be reminded that God is central is not just so we can feel all warm and fuzzy and re-emerge energized to enjoy the rest of our day.

The purpose of this time of renewal is to give us strength for the work we must do in the world. The House of Israel was blessed so that they might be a blessing to all other nations. As they gathered with Jesus for the Passover feast, disciples of Christ surely recalled those times where they had broken a small amount of bread and used it to feed many thousands of hungry people.

We come together to be reminded so we can go out from this place and remind others.

I know, I know, this is where it starts to sound scary, right? You might be feeling squirmy now – wondering if this preacher is going to tell you that God wants you to do some evangelism or some crazy stuff like that.

The answer is yes. Absolutely. We are absolutely called to be evangelists. We are called to share the good news about God that we have found through Christ.

We are not all called to do it in the same way, thank heavens. I can promise you that my style is not to visit spring break hot spots handing out scary repent-or-go-to-hell booklets to scantily clad college students. And, quite honestly, I don’t believe God is calling you to do that either. I think God is fairly weary of Christians telling everyone we’re better than they are. I think God is pretty exhausted by watching some Christians resort to scare tactics to get people to pay attention to the goodness of God.

God doesn’t want us to scare people into finding religion. In fact, if you look at what Paul does with the folks in Athens, that’s not what he does there.

Paul simply meets a group of people who have spiritual needs where they are. He speaks to them in words they can understand about the God he has come to know. He reminds them that God is central – whether they remember it or not. He invites them to explore with him what it might mean to recall that they are living and moving within this God.

Paul does this because he has found that remembering who he is and whose he is adds meaning to his life. He has discovered a community of people who take the time to remind him of the centrality of God – and living within this community has made him a better person. Stronger, more loving, more fully aware of the holy beauty of each passing moment on earth.

I truly believe God wishes this for each of us.

God hopes that we will find a faith system that helps us make meaning of our place in the world. God hopes that we will find a community of people that support us on this journey. God wants us to be reminded – daily – that he is absolutely central to each and every moment of our lives.

And, when we find that, God wants us to share it with others.