Friday, September 26, 2014
Kansas-Oklahoma
Conference of the United Church of Christ
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
If your church happens to follow the lectionary,
you may have been traveling with Moses and the Israelites this past month. Our
congregation has been working its way through Exodus. We held our breath in
anxiety as Moses’s mother placed that tiny basket in the water and prayed for
her infant son’s well-being. We stared, stunned, with a grown-up Moses at the
bush that was on fire, yet not consumed. We sat in grief and anguish with the
Egyptian people as they suffered blow after blow at the hand of an angry God.
We listened alongside the Israelites as God gave the odd instructions to
slaughter a lamb and paint the doorway with its blood. We crouched in fear at
the sea’s edge as the wind blew, and the waves crashed, and the water rose up
like two walls – one on our right and one on our left – and we stepped out with
trepidation onto the dry land to cross the sea.
Even if you haven’t been following these stories
these past few months, you know them. These are the stories from the coloring
book pages of our childhood. The moments of great drama from the silver screen.
These are the stories that have inspired spirituals, art, prayer.
These are our stories. God instructed our faith
ancestors to remember them and teach them to our children. And we have done so.
I have heard these stories time and again, but a
few weeks ago a clergy colleague of mine opened my vision and helped me see
something I had never seen before.[1]
You may recall that after the Israelites cross over to the other side of the
sea, they spontaneously break into song. It is a song of praise and wonder. A
song of salvation. A song of deliverance. And Miriam – Moses’s sister – perhaps
the one who ran alongside his tiny basket as he floated down the river in his
infancy – Miriam is there. She takes out her tambourine and begins to play. And
the other women – they also take out tambourines. And they dance, and they
sing, and they lift their voices in praise for God’s great works.
None of this is strange. Of course they would celebrate.
But one thing seems odd. What’s odd is that these women have tambourines.
They left Egypt in haste. They were told to take
just the bare necessities. They packed so quickly that they didn’t even have
time for their bread to rise. They packed for a trip into the unknown. I don’t
know about you, but I would probably pack the essentials – toiletries, clothes
for all seasons, emergency supplies to keep my family safe, maybe a few family
heirlooms or photographs if there was room. But I probably wouldn’t think to
take along a tambourine.
And yet, Miriam did. And so did the other women.
They brought their tambourines because they had faith that a time for singing
and dancing – a time for celebration – was to come. In the midst of leaving
behind all that they had known – in the midst of this terrifying, unsettling
time of transition – they packed their tambourines and hoped to sing and dance
in the near future.
I love it. I love that they had faith in a
Still-speaking, Still-moving, Still-creating, Still-blessing, Still-saving God.
It’s sounds to me like the God I know. And it sounds to me like the God that
Isaiah knows, too.
This evening’s passage from Isaiah begins with a
recognition of God’s presence in the midst of times of great transition. The
prophet introduces this God by calling to mind the mighty deeds of Yahweh in
the Exodus:
“Thus says the LORD,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,”
Isaiah’s hearers – they knew these stories about God, just as we
know these stories about God. But
then Isaiah says something surprising,
“Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
After introducing God by reminding us of the things God has
already done, Isaiah tells us, “Forget about it. Don’t remember the old things.
God is about to do something new.”
And then, like whiplash, Isaiah continues, “I will make a way in
the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.” But, wait. Aren’t those the same
things God did for the Israelites in their wanderings? A path through the
wilderness? Water from a stone?
Which is it?
Are we supposed to remember the things of old or forget them?
Are we to trust in who has God has been in the past or expect God to do
something new?
Yes. The answer is yes.
We are called to sit in the tension of old and new, memories of
the past and hope for the future, “they way we’ve always done it” and “they way
it could be.” We, the people of Christ’s Church, are called to sit in the midst
of those tensions and give honor to both.
What does this look like? Is it even possible? How can we honor
who we have been in the past while making room for transformation?
These past few weeks I’ve been reading a book by Stephen Chapin
Garner, who is a UCC pastor in Massachusetts at the United Church of Christ
Norwell. The title of the book is Scattering
Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality and that title alone begins to hold
together that tension of old and new.
The cover of the book is a picture of a beautiful stained glass
window – a famer scattering seeds. It’s quite traditional, as you might expect
since the stained glass depicts a story that is over 2,000 years old. This is
the story, of course, of the farmer who went out to sow seeds in the Gospel of
Matthew.
As Jesus tells it, this farmer was kind of a weird guy. He
didn’t seem to know that much about farming and I’m pretty sure that if he went
down to the co-op in any of our towns, some farmers in Kansas and Oklahoma
would be happy to give him a few tips. This farmer’s technique is just to sow
seeds all over the place. Haphazard. Willy-nilly. He doesn’t really plan. He
doesn’t check the soil or the weather. He just scatters seed all over.
A lot of the seeds don’t take. They land in rocky soil, or in
the weeds. Birds gobble them up. But some of the seeds find their home in good,
rich, fertile soil. And those seeds grow and the yields are amazing.
It’s astounding, really. This farmer who scatters seeds has an
unconventional method, but his fields do just fine. Better than fine.
Garner weaves this story – this ancient story of a farmer
scattering seeds – throughout his book about 21st century church
life. This is a book about church vitality and all that you might expect in a
book about vitality….change, growth, risk, transformation. But it is centered
in a story that was told by Jesus over 2,000 years ago.
Old and new. Memories of the past and hope for the future. “The
way we’ve always done it” and “the way it could be.”
These tensions are held together at UCC Norwell, just as I’m
sure they are at many of our churches. We do our best to trust that the One who
leads us into the wilderness, the One who tells us to pack our bags in haste,
the One who says, “I am about to do a new thing” – we do our best to trust that
this God can lead us through the wilderness.
It’s not easy, am I right?
When change comes a-knocking, when we realize we’ve got to let
go of “the way we’ve always done it” – well, sometimes we’d rather just stay
put. Or if we do get the courage to go, we might pack things like extra
flashlights, waterproof matches, and first aid kits. We rarely think to bring
along our tambourines. We don’t trust that a party – a time to sing songs of
celebration – is just around the corner.
One of my favorite things that Garner shares in his book is how
he and the people of UCC Norwell have continually been surprised by the
Spirit’s movement in their lives and in their community of faith.
He writes, “As we attempted to follow the Spirit’s lead…our own
carefully formulated plans often didn’t have the results we intended.” He
speaks of “plans going wonderfully awry.” The leaders of UCC Norwell have begun
to notice a predictable pattern: they pull folks together to work on a particular
issue, they meet, they vision, they make plans, they meet some more, they
implement new strategies…and then they notice that they’ve missed the mark and
growth is happening in a different area altogether.
Garner tells the story of working with the church’s leadership
to prepare them for a new era without an ordained pastor.
Garner had noticed national trends with the numbers of
seminarians declining and church budgets shrinking. He had come to believe that
his church, and many others, would need to prepare themselves for a future
without ordained clergy.
And so the leaders began to work on preparing the laity to take
on key tasks currently handled by clergy. And as they implemented these plans,
a strange thing happened. They began to notice an astonishing number of their
members were feeling called to ordained ministry. In a period of four years,
they sent seven people to seminary.
This was not at all the plan! It was, instead, an unexpected,
unintended outcome…and it was wonderful. It was the Spirit at work – doing a
new thing.
It seems to me that sometimes we church-folk tend to dig in and
choose sides. Sometimes we say, “God is like THIS!” or “I remember when it was
THIS way and I don’t want it to change!” On the other side, some of us may say
things like, “We have to change or DIE!” or “I’m tired of the same-old,
same-old. Let’s change it ALL!”
For me, the beauty of this passage from Isaiah is in its
ambiguity – the tensions. Isaiah reminds us of who God has been in the past.
But in the same breath, Isaiah tells us to stop focusing so much on the past
and look for a God who will do a new thing. And then, we discover that these
new things that God is going to do? Turns out they look an awful lot like the
things God has done before.
I come away from this passage uncertain – am I supposed to throw
out the old and rejoice in the new? I don’t think it’s that simple. I think we
are called to be a people who can sit comfortably in the tension, in the
in-between. We are a people called to tell the stories of old and remember them
faithfully. But we are also called to proclaim a Still-speaking, Still-saving,
Still-creating God. We are a people called to look with hope to the future – to
believe that God can do a new thing in our midst. But we are also called to
honor the past and ask careful questions before throwing away our traditions.
This is no easy task. And so I find myself hanging on to that
image of Miriam and her band of sisters there at the water’s edge. In the midst
of great turmoil and transition, they brought their tambourines with them. They
sang songs of remembrance – giving praise for God’s mighty acts. And they did
so with an eye on the future, trusting that there was still more light and
truth to break forth from this Still-surprising God. They played those
tambourines for the old and the new, the memories of the past and the hope for
the future, “the way it’s always been” and “the way it could be.”
It seems to me that we are called to follow their lead and
strive to do the same.
[1] A thank you to my friend and colleague, the Rev. Liddy Gerchman
Barlow for this teaching.
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