Aug 30, 2020 Montevallo "We Didn't Start the Fire"

 

“We Didn’t Start the Fire”     

Wayne McLaughlin

August 30, 2020 

Montevallo Presbyterian Church

_________________

(All readings from the Common English Bible [CEB] unless noted otherwise)

Exodus 3.1-15

1 Moses was taking care of the flock for his father-in-law Jethro,[a] Midian’s priest. He led his flock out to the edge of the desert, and he came to God’s mountain called Horeb. 2 The Lord’s messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire in the middle of a bush. Moses saw that the bush was in flames, but it didn’t burn up. 3 Then Moses said to himself, Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up. 4 When the Lord saw that he was coming to look, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

Moses said, “I’m here.” 5 Then the Lord said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground.” 6 He continued, “I am the God of your father, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.

7 Then the LORD said, “I’ve clearly seen my people oppressed in Egypt. I’ve heard their cry of injustice because of their slave masters. I know about their pain. 8 I’ve come down to rescue them from the Egyptians in order to take them out of that land and bring them to a good and broad land, a land that’s full of milk and honey, a place where the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites all live. 9 Now the Israelites’ cries of injustice have reached me. I’ve seen just how much the Egyptians have oppressed them. 10 So get going. I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I to go to Pharaoh and to bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 God said, “I’ll be with you. And this will show you that I’m the one who sent you. After you bring the people out of Egypt, you will come back here and worship God on this mountain.” 13 But Moses said to God, “If I now come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they are going to ask me, ‘What’s this God’s name?’ What am I supposed to say to them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. [a] So say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” 15 God continued, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how all generations will remember me.”

       [a.  Exodus 3:14 Or I Will Be Who I Will Be.]

Romans 12.9-21

9 Love should be shown without pretending. Hate evil, and hold on to what is good. 10 Love each other like the members of your family. Be the best at showing honor to each other. 11 Don’t hesitate to be enthusiastic—be on fire in the Spirit as you serve the Lord! 12 Be happy in your hope, stand your ground when you’re in trouble, and devote yourselves to prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of God’s people, and welcome strangers into your home. 14 Bless people who harass you—bless and don’t curse them. 15 Be happy with those who are happy, and cry with those who are crying. 16 Consider everyone as equal, and don’t think that you’re better than anyone else. Instead, associate with people who have no status. Don’t think that you’re so smart. 17 Don’t pay back anyone for their evil actions with evil actions, but show respect for what everyone else believes is good.

18 If possible, to the best of your ability, live at peace with all people. 19 Don’t try to get revenge for yourselves, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. It is written, Revenge belongs to me; I will pay it back, says the Lord.[a] 20 Instead, If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. By doing this, you will pile burning coals of fire upon his head.[b] 21 Don’t be defeated by evil, but defeat evil with good.

[a. Romans 12:19 Deut 32:35]

[b. Romans 12:20 Prov 25:21-22]

SERMON TEXT:

Flaring up

In Exodus 3 we read the story of the Burning Bush. God’s voice is in the fire. Or maybe God is the fire—the fire that never goes out—the Eternal Fire. 

I recently read a novel titled The Wanting Life by Mark Rader. [1]  There is a passage that speaks of God as “fire,” using the image of a lit candle. The narrator is telling the reader something about the background of the character named Maura. Maura’s uncle is a priest, Father Paul:

Until high school, she’d gone to Catholic school—at [her father’s] insistence—and considered herself Catholic. But freshman year of high school she’d arrived at her mother’s position—that the Church was a sexist crock, unnecessary to her development as a female human. She started telling people she was agnostic, though secretly she was an atheist. Except that sometimes she thought, Maybe I’m not. God, the judge up in heaven, didn’t do it for her, but there was one conception of God she’d always liked, something her uncle Paul had shared during an Easter vigil service,… the one at which candles had been passed out to everyone in the pews, the wicks of which you lit with the candle flame of the person beside you, before passing on your flame to the person on the other side of you—the operation like a reverent assembly line. [Her uncle Paul—Father Paul—had asked the congregation], Do you notice how the flame flares for a moment, when you touch it to the wick of another candle? I like to imagine God like this, flaring higher for a moment whenever we deeply connect with another person or God’s creation. Yes, she’d often thought, that was a God she might believe in. (p. 94)

Isn’t that a nice image? God as fire, flaring up—when two people connect on a deep level; or when you connect deeply with some part of God’s creation, say, a tree or a fossil or the stars at night.

God flares up in interpersonal relationships. The Holy Spirit flares up in the presence of beauty or wonder.

Interlude:

As Moses approached the burning bush, God told him to take off his shoes. So, right now I’m going to take off my shoes for the rest of this sermon. I invite you to take your shoes off too if you want to, as a sign of reverence. But you don’t have to.

Limitless Love

Lev Gillet, is a monk in the Orthodox Church. Here is what he says about today’s reading from Exodus 3:

God is fire. God is love. God is a self-propagating emotional power, a fire that shares itself…God is a fire of love, burning the bush without destroying it. God can set fire to me also without destroying me…O Lord, prepare me to enter into the Burning Bush itself! [2]

Brother Gillet goes on to say that just like the fire at the bush—the fire that never goes out—God is the Gift that never ceases to give itself. To put it another way, God is Limitless Love. And this Limitless Love has a face—the person Jesus Christ. In Jesus, the Limitless Love has walked the earth. 

Boiling Over    

In Romans 12 (verse 11), St. Paul says be on fire in the Spirit. Don’t let the circumstances get you down. Don’t just read your kindle—be kindling for the fire of the Holy Spirit. Get up and get with it! Some English translations say “be ardent” or “be fervent” or “be enthusiastic.” But the Common English Bible is more accurate by saying “be on fire in the Spirit.” The Greek word is zeo which literally means “to boil” or “to be hot.” 

It is like saying, enter into the Burning Bush so that your love will boil over into the world. Let your love boil over into all of your relationships. Let the God of the Burning Bush, the God of Limitless Love, flow through you like loving lava from the heart of God.

But that’s not all. At the end of our passage from Romans 12, Paul quotes the 25th chapter of Proverbs:

If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. By doing this, you will pile burning coals of fire upon his head. (v. 20)

Now, that’s a strange verse that Paul quotes from Proverbs. What does it mean? To cause pain to your enemy? I don’t think so; that would be out of character in this passage. Perhaps other translations will help. The translation known as The Message says this:

If you see your enemy hungry, go buy him lunch;  if he’s thirsty, bring him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness, and God will look after you.

The element of surprise. Well, throwing burning coals on someone’s head would surely wake him up! So, maybe the “burning coals” language is a metaphor for a kind of surprising goodness that startles someone into paying attention to the presence of a loving God.

I think that since Paul speaks of being on fire in the Spirit at the beginning of this passage, the burning coals at the end must have something to do with love. The fire of the Burning Bush is a fire of love—of Limitless Love.

Revolution

Jesus himself spoke about fire. In Luke 12 (v. 49) Jesus says, I came to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish that it was already ablaze! What kind of fire is he talking about? Well, he goes on to say: 

51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, I have come instead to bring division. 52 From now on, a household of five will be divided—three against two and two against three. 53 Father will square off against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

That sounds like the Jesus who took a whip into the Temple and drove out the animals and overturned tables. Jesus is saying: My revolutionary love will cause trouble—division. Good trouble, as John Lewis called it. Fire purifies and purges. 

Let me repeat what Jesus says: I came to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish that it was already ablaze! I like the way John Henson translates that verse: 

My mission in life is to bring about a revolution, and I’m longing to see the sparks fly! (Lk. 12.49) [3] 

Make no mistake about it—God’s fiery, Limitless Love is not sentimental mush; it comes with revolutionary force if necessary. Public protests for justice sometimes carry centuries of repressed rage that breaks windows and destroys property. Sometimes love has to overturn tables in order to get peoples’ attention.

Billy Joel sang, “we didn’t start the fire.” No, we didn’t. God did. Because wherever God goes, the fire goes. Where there’s sacred smoke, there’s God. We didn’t start it, but we have been called to keep it going. The fire of love; the fire of restorative justice; the fire of mercy.

Fire in my bones

Let’s back up again to the Hebrew Scriptures and listen to the prophet Jeremiah, who had an existential run-in with the fire:

The Lord’s word has made me the object of insults

    and contempt all day long.

I think to myself, “I can forget the Lord

    and no longer speak his name.”

But his word is inside me like a burning fire shut up in my bones.

    I wear myself out holding it in, but I can’t do it any longer. 

              (20.8-9. Good News Translation)

Poor Jeremiah. That fire in his bones would not let him rest. We might say he had “a fire in his belly.” Have you ever felt that way? Have you experienced the inner drive to help people who are less fortunate? To go out into the street and protest with others about injustice? To call or email your Representative about a matter of inequality?

Have you ever known that little fire in your heart that tells us you that you have to do something to help children who don’t have the privileges that your children have? Have you ever had a burning feeling that the lives of non-Americans are just as important as ours? 

Or, do you have a fire in your belly for learning to play that instrument, or write that play, or paint that painting, or express yourself through poetry? The fire of the Burning Bush is not only a fire for justice, but also the creative fire implanted in us by the Creator of all things. 

There are moments in history when the fires of creativity or the fires of justice “flame out, like shook foil.” Perhaps we are living in such a time. 

The truth is that at all times and places we are called to take off our shoes and get down to earth…

To approach the fire with reverence

To listen to the Voice

To enter the Bush

To be on fire in the Spirit

To pour the fire of love 

upon the heads of adversaries

To live lives of Limitless Love.

To be part of the Revolution of Reconciliation

To resist injustice

To insist on the dignity of every person

To persist with courage 

And to watch the fire flare up as we connect deeply

with one another.

May the Fire be with you!

____________________________

NOTES:

[1]  The Unnamed Press, 2020. (Yes, that's what it's called: The Unnamed Press.)

[2] Archimandrite Lev Gillet, The Burning Bush (Springfield, IL: Templegate Publishers, 1976), 12-13.

[3] John Henson, Radical Retelling of the Scriptures (New York: O Books, 2204).

sermon = 1666 words

time = 13:20

Possibility -- sermon given at Leeds

Sermon: “Possibility”

wayne mclaughlin

Leeds Presbyterian Church

August 2, 2020 – worship through Zoom

_________________

Kings 4.42-44 2nd   CEV

42 A man from the town of Baal-Shalishah brought Elisha some freshly cut grain and twenty loaves of bread made from the first barley that was harvested. Elisha said, “Give it to the people so they can eat.”

43 “There’s not enough here for a hundred people,” his servant said.

“Just give it to them,” Elisha replied. “The Lord has promised there will be more than enough.”

44 So the servant served the bread and grain to the people. They ate and still had some left over, just as the Lord had promised.

Matthew 14.13-21   CEB

13 When Jesus heard about John, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. When the crowds learned this, they followed him on foot from the cities. 14 When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion for them and healed those who were sick. 15 That evening his disciples came and said to him, “This is an isolated place and it’s getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

16 But Jesus said to them, “There’s no need to send them away. You give them something to eat.”

17 They replied, “We have nothing here except five loaves of bread and two fish.”

18 He said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them and broke the loaves apart and gave them to his disciples. Then the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 Everyone ate until they were full, and they filled twelve baskets with the leftovers. 21 About five thousand men plus women and children had eaten.

SERMON TEXT:

        DICKINSON

In 1862 Emily Dickinson wrote this poem:

I dwell in Possibility—

A fairer House than Prose—

More numerous of Windows—

Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—

Impregnable of Eye—

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—

For Occupation—This—

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise— [1]

“I dwell in Possibility” says Dickinson. Emily Dickinson grew up just before the Civil War. Her family was part of the Calvinist tradition, but held to the newer, updated Calvinism of the New England Congregationalist families. They were “Whiggish” in their politics. The party known as the Whigs stressed social order. In the words of historian Louise Stevenson, “Whiggery stood for the triumph of the cosmopolitan and national over the provincial and local, of rational order over irrational spontaneity, of school-based learning over tradition folkways and custom, and of self-control over self-expression.” [2]

You might remember that Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Whig Party when he was elected to the House of Representatives. But the Whig Party began to splitter over disagreements about how to handle the slavery issue, and in 1856 Lincoln identified with the new Republican Party as he ran for the Senate.

There was a revival meeting in Dickinson’ town in 1850. Many young people were converted—saved, and she saw the peace in their faces. But she refused to take part in the meetings. As we would say today, it “wasn’t her thing.” She felt a deep desire in her heart for spiritual sustenance, but the “churchy” form of faith was not what she chose. Instead of living in the House of Creeds she chose to dwell in the House of Possibility—

A fairer House than Prose—

More numerous of Windows—

Superior—for Doors—

Emily Dickinson chose to dwell in poetry rather than prose. She chose possibility over the Whiggish tradition of order and custom and coloring inside the lines. Her spirituality took on a new form of poetry—with dashes everywhere—the short, stabbing lines of enigmatic phrases, not always clear to the reader, but packed full of meaning. She was a doubting believer, and a believing doubter. She chose to dwell in possibility.

        JESUS THE MAGICIAN

In today’s reading from Matthew 14 Jesus invites us to dwell in Possibility. There are 5000 people, not counting women and children. (There’s a whole sermon in that little phrase—“not counting women and children.” But that’s for another day.) Commentators on this passage guess that when we add the women and children to the statistic, there was probably 10,000 people in the crowd. 

Stop and think about that number. Have you ever been to a gathering of 10,000 people? A concert? A political convention? A protest? I know it’s nothing compared to a full Bryant-Denny Stadium, but it’s a lot of people. The disciples were concerned about the crowd. Someone, I don’t know if it was Andrew or John or Nathaniel or Judas, but someone went to Jesus and suggested that the people be sent away to the surrounding villages to buy food for supper. The disciples didn’t want hundreds of people fainting because of hunger or low blood sugar. They were concerned.

And that’s when Jesus shocked them: 

You give them something to eat!

Can you imagine standing there close to Jesus and seeing him turn toward you and point his finger at you and say, You! You fix this problem. You solve this crisis. You find a vaccine for Covid-19. You dismantle the systemic racism in America. You feed the poor. You build the church back up. You get young people interested in Christianity. You give health care to everybody. You get people to love one another. You! Yeah, you.

You put your hands up and say, I’m sorry Jesus, I don’t have enough food to feed all of those people. 

Jesus says, Where do you live? You point over there and say, That’s my house over there.

Jesus says, Oh, I see. You live in the House of Prose. You got to move out of there and move into a House of Possibility.

I’ll tell you what you do, he says. Find out what you have to work with. Go out and search among the crowd. See what food you can find. Do an inventory of resources. Then come back and bring me what you got.

The disciples do as he says. They find only five loaves of bread and two pieces of salted fish. They present them to Jesus.

Now. What happens next seems magical, doesn’t it? It’s like those magicians we have all seen who reach into a hat and pull out a rabbit. And we all say, How did he do that?

Elisha fed 100 people with twenty loaves of bread. That’s more doable. Twenty loaves for one hundred people. You give each group of five people a loaf of bread. Each person will get a chunk of bread. But 10,000 people and five loaves. That’s one loaf for every 2,000 people. Each person might get a tiny crumb, if that.

How did he do it? Was Jesus a magician?

        PROTESTS

When George Floyd was murdered by a police officer, and everyone saw the video, it couldn’t be denied. Immediately a few people in his neighborhood went to the streets in protest. They were joined by others from all over town. Then people of other cities took to the streets in protest of such cruel injustice. Then people in cities across Europe and Asia and all over the world marched on behalf of George Floyd. What began as a local protest grew into a global protest. 

How did it happen? Can we explain it? Yes. 

The spirit of Amos and Hosea and Isaiah and Jeremiah was in the bones of good people, and suddenly the ankle bone connected to the leg bone, and the leg bone connected to the hip bone got to moving, and a movement sprang to life. The Spirit of the prophets, and the Spirit of Jesus swept through the world, and the Voice from the Burning Bush was heard throughout the land—Let my people go!

        VACCINE

People are dying at a scary rate from a tiny, little virus. There is no vaccine yet. But scientists and researchers working at UAB and laboratories all over this nation, and all over the world are hard at work to find the right combination of little pieces of God’s creation to put together to make the medicine to stop the pandemic. God has given us the answer. It’s right there somewhere in nature. God has given the vaccine. It’s up to the researchers to discover the natural materials and the right combination to make the cure. And it will be found. 

And it will be called a miracle. Not magic, but a miracle. Not just 10,000, but hundreds of thousands of people will be cured or saved from death when the scientists who dwell in the House of Possibility put their fingers on it.

        ENOUGH

When we live in the House of Prose we keep telling ourselves, It can’t be done. No way. But when we dwell in Possibility we have more windows to look through; we have more doors to open; we are able to gaze up at the vast sky and see possibilities.

Followers of Jesus do not dwell in prose. We look around to discover our resources. We don’t overlook anything, even if it’s small. Then we take what we have and offer it to Jesus. We give it up to the creative power of the Holy Spirit. 

Then Jesus gives it back to us. Jesus blesses it, breaks it, and gives it back to us. And magical things happen. People are fed. Children are healed. Women are seen as equal to men in value and worth. Skin color is made relative. The one human race is recognized for what it is. Hatred is converted to love and respect. Privilege is recognized and renounced.

Like the disciples we look around and say We don’t have enough. There is not enough. And sometimes we look within ourselves and say, I am not enough. Because someone has told us we are not enough. That we don’t measure up. That we are somehow inferior. But Jesus says to us, 

Bring me yourself. 

Offer yourself up to me. 

And I will give yourself back to you. 

And you will know deep in your heart 

that you are enough. 

That you are not inferior.

That you are precious and worthy.

That you are loved with an everlasting love.

Don’t put yourself down anymore.

You belong to me.

 

        PARADISE

Emily Dickinson begins her poet this way:

I dwell in Possibility— / A fairer House than Prose— / More numerous of Windows— / Superior—for Doors—

The last two lines say:

The spreading wide my narrow Hands / To gather Paradise—

Paradise is all around us. 

Heaven can be seen if you look through the right windows.

The spreading wide my narrow Hands / To gather Paradise—

If we take our narrow hands, not narrow minds—

and spread them wide, being broad-minded,

we can scoop up some of Heaven for ourselves.

Jesus took the bread,

gave thanks,

broke the bread,

and gave it to them

to distribute.

They ate the Lord’s Supper.

All were filled.

All were satisfied.

And there were twelve baskets

of leftovers.

One basket for each of the twelve Apostles

to take home and put in the microwave.

And the Apostles’ families had fish sandwiches 

for at least five days.

__________________

1. The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. R. W. Franklin (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), no. 466, p. 215.

2.   Roger Lundin, Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 12-13.