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Stay Tuned |
Hebrews 11: 29 - 12: 2
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© John Ewing Roberts |
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INTRODUCTION Someone commented that things surely are getting tougher, since a "Have a nice day" is no longer enough. The woman at the post office, the man at the dry cleaners, and the vendor selling a sesame bagel all on the same morning told a New York Times correspondent, "Have a wonderful day."[1] "I'll do my best," the woman answered, thereby transforming the wish, "Have a wonderful day," into an order, an assignment: "Have a wonderful day." Come on now - can wonder be a chore to add to our to-do list? No, it's not something we program into our Day-Timer or punch into our electronic schedules. "Genuine wonder stops your heart, sucks away your breath, robs you of your speech, freezes you in your tracks. Genuine wonder strikes your psyche without warning and flattens your cool consciousness with a sucker punch."[2] AIDS FOR WONDER We may well need help in recovering our capacity to wonder. A puppy can remind us what it is like to wonder. It has to stop and pounce on every leaf on the side walk, check out every stick on the way, and sniff every bug that crawls by because everything is new and wonderful. When I was a graduate student in Princeton, I had a part time job walking two dogs, Peter and Jemimah. Each must have had a strong sense of wonder; they usually pulled in opposite directions. Our daily walks took us past the house where Einstein had lived and onto the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study where he worked. I think he would have liked Peter and Jemimah for their sense of wonder. He once said, "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed."[3] In the 16th and 17th centuries the well-to-do had "wonder cabinets," shelves crammed with knickknacks, displays of collected wonders, beautiful mounted butterflies, cracked geodes with marvelously colored minerals, remarkable sea shells, an ancient piece of pottery, etc. Have you a sense of wonder? Have you a wonder cabinet, in fact or in your mind? Do you long for a renewal of a sense of wonder you knew in times past? In the cartoon Kudzu the theme this week has been 1960's re-enactors. If we can have Civil War re-enactors, reminders of that bloody time, why can't we have '60's re-enactors, wearing beads, passing out flowers, and making the peace sign? There must be something to this revival of the '60's. San Francisco has just declared Lawrence Ferlinghetti to be the official poet laureate of the City by the Bay. One of his finest poems deals with wonder. I Am Waiting has as its refrain, "I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder." Ferlinghetti wrote that he was waiting among other things "for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley to exchange roles..." In the climax of the poem he cries, "and I am perpetually waiting for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn to catch each other up at last and embrace and I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder."[4] When Cortes and his party first saw the Aztec capital, one of his men wrote, "Gazing on such wonderful sights, we did not know what to say, or whether what appeared before us was real."[5] WONDER AND FAITH IN HEBREWS 11-12 Hebrews 11 is a wonder cabinet of people of faith: - the wonders God accomplished through people of faith cited in Chapter 11, people like Moses, Joshua and Rahab; - the wonders of the faith kept by those who were persecuted, tortured and martyred. Hebrews 11 wonders at people with courage and stamina in the face of persecution, people who can stand up and stand alone, people who can endure pain because it is less real than "the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen."[6] Faith and wonder go together; faith and hope go together; faith and patience go together. I see wonder and hope and patience not as abstract virtues but as the stuff of real life for the faithful. WONDER AND FAITH AMONG US This wonderful union of wonder and hope and patience has worked for so many of you: - for students working for years for an advanced degrees in graduate or law or medical school; - for couples waiting for the right time for their marriage; [remember that the right sequence is first to graduate, second to get a job, next to get married, and finally to have a baby; get any of those out of order, and your life will be less than happy][remember Clyde Atkins and Sarah Lee writing each other every day while waiting through three years of seminary and his call to a church before they were married] This wonderful union of wonder and hope and patience is a work in progress for so many of you: - there are people waiting for children and grandchildren to be born; - there are parents hoping their grown kids will turn out sooner or later with the values with which they were nurtured. This very place where now we worship [debt free!] is a result of wonder and hope and patience over decades. WHAT TO DO WHILE WE WAIT - STAY TUNED TO THE CHEERS FROM THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES While we wonder, hope and wait patiently, be aware of the cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews 12: 2. Just knowing that they are there will help you and me stay tuned for future communications from our Lord while we run life's race. The cloud of witnesses refers to the spectators in the stadium who cheer us on while we run the race. The traditional interpretation suggests that we picture in the grandstand the crowd of well-dressed Hellenistic stadium-goers, decked out in white togas, a cloud of witnesses. But the late Carlyle Marney, former pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, offered another image, that of people sitting on a balcony or a veranda. Marney used to say that our personhood, our personality, our personas were like a house, a fairly elaborate and complex structure. Each has a number of rooms: a formal parlor for greeting guests, a family room, a bedroom, a kitchen, a basement with plumbing, washing machine and storage of trash.[7] But don't stay there, don't act like that's all there is to your life, don't obsess on the dark stuff, the dirty stuff, the stored up refuse. Come up and out into the sunshine! If you do, and step out on the lawn and look up, you'll discover that your house has a balcony, white wrought iron railing, wicker rocking chairs. These people on your balcony are your cloud of witnesses, the strong, positive influences in your life, your heroes and heroines, models and mentors. Who's on your balcony? Let me tell you about who's on mine. Marney suggests we picture them sitting up there in the rocking chairs, sipping iced tea or in the case of some of my Kentucky forbears, mint juleps. Mother and Dad are there; so is my maternal grandmother. Clyde and Sarah Lee and Marjorie Allen are there, too. My great-uncle, Robert Hocker, Sr., and his son, Robert Jr. are there. So is my piano teacher, Ethel Fisher, and my scoutmaster, Edmund Bottomley. Charles Maddrey, who baptized me, and Hank Parker, who officiated at our wedding, are on the balcony of my house, as is Claude Roebuck, a young philosophy professor who died much too soon. Tom Frank, a college and divinity school friend, is on the balcony. Jesus of Nazareth is there to be sure, encouraging me to delight in his presence and power through study and prayer. These people cheer me on at all sorts of moments. You heard from Claude Roebuck in this morning's invocation, the part about the power that transformed the cross from a sign of shame and darkness into a symbol of goodness and light. A few weeks ago at the production at Bryn Mawr of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore, I could hear Ethel Fisher chuckling as she tried to teach me to punch out on the piano the Pinafore medley, "We Sail the Ocean Blue," "I Am the Captain of the Pinafore," and "I'm Called Little Buttercup." And when we were at Watson's recently trying to tie an oversized purchase into the trunk of the car, Edmund Bottomley surely laughed out loud on the veranda when Marylynn challenged me to "tie that thing in there safe and sound with one of those fancy Scout knots." Many of you know exactly what I am talking about. You too have wonderful people on the veranda of your spiritual house. But others may be thinking, "I'm glad you all have such good people in your past, but I don't. What about me? What am I to do?" You have a choice - you can resent not having had such persons; you can feel sorry for yourself; you can stay in the basement where it is dark and useless stuff is stored away. Or, you can come out into the sunlight and adopt some people for your veranda; you can pick some people to join your cloud of witnesses and to root for you, people of faith and courage, people of radiance and brilliance. Let them be your cheering section; let them occupy your balcony; let them visit your veranda. In fact, all of us should adopt some folks to cheer us on. We need all the help we can get! Let me tell you about some of the people I've invited to my balcony: Richard Fuller, Thomas More, and Erasmus. When I'm tempted to respond in kind to mean spirited intrusions, I remember that they were gentlemen of gracious temperament, and I feel cheered on. When I grow weary in study and am tempted to put aside the book and turn from word processing to a computer game, I remember that they were men of persistent learning whose purpose in study was not to delight in erudition, but to put their learning at the service of word of God for the sake of those who would hear or read their words. It's a funny lot up there on the veranda. I hope they are enjoying each other's company. I wonder if Ethel Fisher has discussed Gilbert and Sullivan with Erasmus. Now I know that anyone with Psychology 101 under your belt is thinking, "Your veranda is just your conscience; your balcony is merely your super-ego, what transactional analysis calls your "adult." Maybe so, but I think there's all that and more going on here. The cloud of witnesses have a spiritual reality that transcends the sum total of my past. I'll go with the cloud of witnesses concept because it includes the Holy Spirit who gets into the mix of our past life experiences with forgiveness and healing, encouragement and empowerment. HEAR THE CHEER? And what is the first thing that they all are cheering us on to do? Listen again to Hebrews 12: 1-2. "Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God." They're cheering for us to lay aside that weight! My father once came home carrying a five pound bag of sugar. Mother asked him why he had picked up sugar at the store when we didn't need any and when he was supposed to have been at the doctor's. "I didn't get it at the store," he said. "The doctor gave it to me. He said I should carry it around all day to see just how tiring extra weight is. It was his way of telling me to drop a few pounds and enjoy some extra energy." That doctor must have known Hebrews 12 - lay aside the extra weight and run the race. I have here on the communion table a travel tote bag. It's much too heavy for easy travel, much too weighty to lift up and put into the overhead luggage carrier on an airplane. I'd better unpack it and get rid of the weight inside it. As I take these heavy bricks out of my bag, let them represent some of the sins that weigh us down. Some of these sins are mine; some are yours; many are ours: Let me take out the weight of the sin of wasting time and money. Let me take out the weight of the sin of listening passively to gossip and back biting. Let me take out the weight of the sin of phoney excuses for holding back money I(we) should give to the church. Let me take out the weight of the sin of sexual fantasies that don't belong in anyone's head. Let me take out the weight of the sin of hating Democrats. Let me take out the weight of the sin of hating Republicans. Let me take out the weight of the sin of eating too much and of eating unhealthy food. CONCLUSION There is much more to unpack, more weight to shed, but already we can walk and not faint, run and not be weary, mount up on eagle's wings for the race that is set before us because we are looking toward, and cheered on by, the One who endured the cross and despised the shame for the sake of the joy that was set before Him, the same joy that is set before you and me.[8] [This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.] Notes: [1] Ron Alexander, "Metropolitan Diary," New York Times, December 17, 1997, B3, cited in Homiletics, August 1998, p. 59 [2] "Have a Wonder-full Life," Homiletics, op. cit. [3] Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, [New York: Crown] 1954, p. 11, cited in Homiletics, op. cit., p. 61 [4] Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind [New York: New Directions Boos] 1958, pp.49-53 [5] Lawrence Weschler, Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder [New York: Pantheon] 1995, pp. 80-81, cited in Homiletics, op. cit., p. 60 [6] Hebrews 11: 1 [7] Cited by John M. Buchanan, "For All the Saints," Chicago, IL, November 2, 1997, and quoted in Homiletics, op. cit., pp. 62-63 [8] Isaiah 40: 31; Hebrews 12: 1-2 |