The Bigger They Are… 10/18/1998

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: I Samuel 17:1-11, 31-40, 48-51

Last Wednesday evening, shortly after darkness descended on the cradle of the Confederacy, the San Diego Padres (great name….“Padres”) adjourned to the clubhouse to celebrate their first National League Pennant in fourteen years, having just achieved it by dispatching the talent-loaded, heavily-favored and seemingly-all-but-invincible Atlanta Braves. Directly ahead, however, waited an even more ominous foe, the Bronx Bombers from the Big Apple (which sounds a whole lot better than merely saying “The New York Yankees”).

But if they were frightened, the Padres weren’t showing it. For in addition to momentum and Tony Gwynn, they had biblical precedent on their side, which surfaced in the words of their champagne-soaked president, Larry Lucchino. Said Larry (from beneath a shower of bubbly): “We feel a little like David going in, ready to sling a few stones at Goliath.”

Well, as a lifelong student of The Book, I appreciated his reference. And as a lifelong hater of the Yankees, I hope he’s right. So let the stones fly. Let the Giant fall. And let the San Diegoans, who already enjoy the best weather in North America, have (at long last) a championship to go along with it.

Interesting, isn’t it, that a baseball executive can evoke images of David and Goliath and all of us know what he is talking about. Jews know. Christians know. Agnostics know. Illiterates know. For the story transcends its setting and transplants a culture which is ignorant of….and (in some cases) hostile to….its origin. Which gives me pause when I consider that I have never preached it. But, better late than never.

The story is a heroic tale, featuring an underdog (who is as unlikely as he is undersized), going up against a foe (who is as fearsome as he is formidable). No way can the underdog win. Except he does. Which doesn’t happen very often. After all, the surest way to go broke is to buck the odds rather than bet them. But when the mini rise up to smite the mighty, how sweet it is.

The story, of course, comes out of Israel in that period where the issue was nothing less than the creation of a monarchy. “Can we find a king? Can we stand a king, once we find him? And if we find a king we can stand, can the king stand?” As you know, there were only three great kings of the monarchy….Saul, David and Solomon. And this is the story of how public sentiment began to slip away from Saul and swing toward David.

For Saul was up against it. Or, more to the point, Saul was up against the Philistines. There they were….fourteen miles west of Bethlehem….poised on one hill. And there Saul’s troops were…. looking across a valley….trembling on another hill. Whereupon a very large warrior emerged from the ranks of the Philistines and shouted across the valley:

Look, let’s save a whole lot of time and spare a whole lot of blood. Let’s go man-to-man instead of army-to-army. I’ll come from this side. You send someone from your side. We’ll meet in the middle. One of us dies. One of us lives. And the winner takes it all.

Which sounded good, until Saul’s army looked more closely at “Mr. Big Mouth.” Which wasn’t his name, of course. His name was Goliath. And he was one big dude. How big? Well, it’s hard to say. Biblical measurements (at least in this narrative) are far from precise. They range from cubits (which represent the distance between the elbow and the tip of the index finger), to spans (which represent the distance between the thumb and the little finger of the extended palm). Depending upon who’s doing the measuring, cubits and spans vary greatly. I’ll go into that more fully on Wednesday night. But for now, let the record show that Goliath had girth to match his mouth. I’ve got a trio of commentaries on my desk that put him at 9’6”. And I’ve got a fourth commentary on my desk that puts him at 6’9”. Ironically, I think the latter commentary is correct….which puts Goliath in the same league with Grant Hill (albeit a bigger, meaner, and better padded 6’9” than Grant Hill).

Much of the padding was body armor, which (if we translate the word “shekels” correctly) weighed in at 125 pounds, 15 ounces. But who’s counting? What is important about the description of Goliath’s armor is not how thickly it covered how much, but what it failed to cover at all. Meaning that the one part of Goliath’s body lacking armor was his forehead. But the text doesn’t tell you that. You have to read between the lines to figure it out.

But on with the story. Goliath thundered. Saul’s army trembled. And everybody tried to figure out how to keep from volunteering or getting volunteered. You know how that works. Lots of you are masters at it. But then David saved everybody’s day (and everybody’s hide) by saying: “David, here….reporting for duty.” Which blew everybody away. Because he wasn’t very old. He wasn’t very big. He wasn’t very experienced. And he wasn’t even a member of the regular army. What he was, was a lute-playing, lullaby-singing shepherd….whose only previous military experience was as a sandwich carrier and message bearer (linking his daddy at home with his brothers at the front).

“You are just a lad,” Saul said (when David volunteered). And, indeed, he was. Which troubled Saul. And which embarrassed Goliath, once he saw who Saul was sending. I mean, if you are figuring to kill somebody, it kind of taints your victory if the kill comes too quickly….or too easily. After all, if all that stood between the Yankees and a World Series title were the Tigers, they might not even show up.

But Goliath showed up….insulted everybody in sight (including David, Saul, Israel and Israel’s God)….and then waited for his opponent. Who came, in time. But when David arrived, he came totally without soldier suit, spear, sword, snub-nosed revolver, or sub-machine gun….because (well, we will return to that in a moment). But he did have a slingshot, five smooth stones and a good aim. Which he used to stun the Giant….knocking him down….knocking him out….but not necessarily knocking him dead. Which shows how much you know (or don’t know) about the story. David didn’t kill Goliath with a slingshot. David killed Goliath with a sword. What he did with his sword is called decapitation. Which was not very nice. But which was very final. Ironically, in the original version of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, the Giant did not die when Jack cut the beanstalk out from under him, but when Jack cut his head clean off him.

So there you have it. A story for the ages. And a story for the sages. Was it true? Sort of. But who requires absolute accuracy? Still, for the historical purists among us, it is twice suggested (II Samuel 21:19 and I Chronicles 20:5) that a Jewish warrior named Elhanan (one of David’s heroes) slew Goliath. Which means that there were either multiple Goliaths (which was unlikely), or that David’s tribal name was Elhanan (again, unlikely), or that followers of David may have borrowed a story belonging to another Jewish warrior and applied it, retroactively, to their king (considerably more likely).

But don’t get all worked up about that. Israel certainly didn’t. While he was still a young man, David looked heroic and performed heroically. So whether he did this deed….or someone else did this deed….once the deed was done it seemed David-like. And so it has been attributed to him ever since.

What interests me today is neither the “who” of the story, nor the “how” of the story, but the meaning of the story. Which changes, I think, from place to place and from people to people. So what I want to do in the time remaining is address a trio of questions:

            1. Why does Israel love this story?

            2. Why do children love this story?

            3. Why might you love this story?

Israel loves this story because it depicts her experience as a nation. Israel, the underdog. Israel, the undersized. Israel, the nation which has no business being here, but is. Meaning that Israel must have been watched over….or watched out for. By God. Or by somebody. Time after time, Israel was broken into….broken up….broken off….broken in pieces. The quintessential Israeli question begins: “How close did we come to not being here?”  And the answer always begins: “Well let me tell you a story.”

Just when we thought there was no hope (and no way), God delivered us from the deluge….from the famine….from the Pharaoh….from the waters of the sea and the sands of the Sinai….from the Canaanites, the Ammonites, the Jebusites, the Hittites, and the Girgishites….from the giants….from the Germans….and from the Jordanians. Against all odds, God made a way for us through the waters (and through the wall) so that we might claim, conquer, inhabit and rule a good land…. a broad land….a land flowing with milk and honey (albeit the only piece of land in the entire Middle East with nary a hint of oil beneath it).

But we almost blew it….almost lost it….almost forgot it….almost turned our back on it….almost had it taken away from us. Which would have happened, were it not for a slew of unlikely heroes, including a man on Social Security named Abraham, a man on the lam from the law named Moses, or a man one step removed from puberty named David.

You get the picture? Of course you get the picture. Israel loves this story because Israel has lived this story. And lives it still….to this very day. What is impossible for Israel to conceive (in 1998) is that, to many parts of the world, Israel is beginning to look more-and-more like Goliath and less-and-less like David.

In a related passage we will examine Wednesday night, Israel is out wandering in the desert. As a people, she has not yet reached the Promised Land. But she is close….close enough to send spies. Which she does. And the spies come back, saying: “Wow, it’s wonderful there. It’s fruitful there. Grapes grow as big as watermelons there. But don’t get your hopes up, ‘cause we’ll never be able to go there. For the land is full of giants. Compared to them, we look like grasshoppers” (Numbers 13:33). At least that’s what ten of them said. But two others issued a minority report, saying (in effect): “Grasshoppers or not, we’ve got a chance.” Which they did. Which they took. And which paid off.

So much for Israel. Let’s turn to the kids. Why do kids love stories like this one….featuring great big giants and little boys who fell them? Because kids live this story, too….that’s why. To be a kid is to live in a land of giants. Kids walk around undersized, trying to fill roles that are too big for them (in a world that is too big for them).

In that vein, I love the little subtlety in the story wherein David tries to walk in Saul’s armor. But he can’t. The stuff is too big and too cumbersome. The suit doesn’t fit him….because the responsibility doesn’t fit him. And notice what David says next. He doesn’t say: “I am too small.” Instead, he says: “I have never practiced”….meaning: “I have no experience at this.” Which is lovely, don’t you see? Because who among us has not, on occasion, been thrust into a role for which we have had no experience. It’s happened to me. And every time it happens, I find myself saying: “What am I doing here? I don’t belong here. Nothing I’ve ever done….ever tried….ever learned….has equipped me to be here.” Which is when I either run like holy hell or pray to holy heaven (which is what David did….at least as I read it).

Even though I am 58 years old, there is still a child in me that feels like a pigmy in a giant-infested world. To this day, I have occasional nightmares which find me waking in a cold sweat because of a great weight sitting on my chest….which I cannot outrun, overthrow, shake off or otherwise subdue. There are giants in my life. And not all of them are friendly. Which brings the matter home to those of us who are neither children nor Israelis, but adults (more or less). What does this little tale have to do with us? I suspect it depends on where we place ourselves in the story.

Some of us identify with Goliath. At least we should. For most of us are “the giant” in somebody else’s world….to whom we seem bigger than life and more ominous than death. We are oversized. They are undersized. Our desires control their destinies. Our actions shape their futures. Our words manipulate their emotions. When we smile, they sing. When we frown, they tremble. When we jerk, they dance. When we sneeze, they run for cover.

It both surprises and undoes me whenever I discover that somebody is afraid of me. Because I don’t have it in me to hurt a fly. But it doesn’t have to “be in me”….you see….if it’s in them. Sometimes people create Goliaths where none exist, and I become the product of their imagination.

Last Wednesday night, I had dinner in Colorado Springs with a colleague from Texas. In the fourth year of his present assignment, he still feels uncomfortable….uneasy….unable to change anything. He believes that little will improve (in his church) until he preaches three funerals…. for three men….all of them, over the age of 75….and each of them named Goliath. They’re out there. Or at least he thinks they’re out there.

Which means that he identifies with David. As others of us do. Undersized. Underarmed. Yet finding a way to use some unique gift.…some unrecognized talent….some “fruit of the spirit”…. to level the playing field. If I can’t subdue you with five smooth stones, perhaps I can subdue you with five stunning sermons (or with something else that I can sling under your skin or into your heart). If I can’t outbox you, outlast you, outshout you or outspend you, maybe I can outlove you….which is how several of my heroes have brought giants to their knees.

But most days, none of this fits. I am neither Goliath nor David….neither giant nor hero. Who am I? I am a buck private in Saul’s army, cowering on yonder hill….hoping that it won’t be me….knowing why it can’t be me….slipping deeper into the crowd….all the while saying: “Would that there was someone who would go in my place….fight in my place….and (if need be) die in my place.” Which sounds cowardly, I know. But it’s also honest….and Christian.

For there was one, wasn’t there, who once went forth for me….lonesomely (as the song says) into that valley, where the shadow is longer than that cast by Goliath, or by Grant Hill for that matter. He, too, went without arms or armor, while I watched from the safety of an adjacent hill.

And he emerged victorious, although I scarcely knew it at the time. Or understand it, even now. But had he not gone where he went….had he not done what he did….I’d still be camped with the cowards, sleeping with the grasshoppers….with the giants calling out during the day, and crushing me by night.

Note:  Readers of the text may quarrel with my assertion that Goliath died from decapitation (by a sword) rather than concussion (by a stone). After all, verse 50 of chapter 17 suggests that the stone was sufficient, even though verse 51 adds: “Then David ran and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him.” The issue is resolvable only when one understands that there were two narratives stitched together to form the present story….one early and one late. The early narrative includes verses 1-11, verses 32-40, verses 42-48a, verse 49, and verses 51-54. Later additions include verses 12-31, verse 41, verse 48b, verse 50, and verses 55-58. Most everyone agrees that verse 50 (supporting death by stoning) belongs with the latter source….meaning that death by decapitation was clearly the position of the earlier narrative.

Going Through Home 11/22/1998

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:5-11

In the odd years, when we didn’t go to Aunt Marion’s for Thanksgiving dinner, we went to Grandmother’s house. At least, insofar as I remember, we did. It wasn’t over the river or through the woods. And we never took a sleigh to get there. Good thing, too, because I only remember it snowing once in 50-plus years of Thanksgiving days. I think it was in 1949. I was young then, because Frank Tripucka was still the Lions’ quarterback. That was in the days before Bobby Layne came riding out of Texas to rescue the Honolulu Blue and Silver.

Grandma always had to have a late dinner because we sometimes went to the football game…. my father and me. Other years, we bundled up and went downtown to see the parade….the one where the real Santa Claus used to ride down Woodward Avenue before climbing up on the marquee of the J.L. Hudson Company. Until they closed the J.L. Hudson Company. Then, just the other day, they imploded it. Twenty-seven seconds and it was one big pile of rubble. I guess the real Santa moved. Nobody told me where.

Somehow Santa, Grandma and Bobby Layne get all mixed up together in my memory of those early Thanksgivings. Or maybe it’s me who gets all mixed up. It all runs together now. Pleasantly so. Thanksgiving has a way of doing that to you. It makes you want to go home again. Or it makes you think about going home again. More gratitude gets lost in nostalgia than in any other forest I know. From our pilgrim fathers to our present fathers, Thanksgiving generates thoughts of home….places we have been….people we have been with….events and experiences that have shaped us….and mis-shaped us.

Our past comes tumbling out in those stories. For there is not one of us who does not understand that the was-ness of our lives powerfully affects the is-ness of our lives. So much has gone into our making, that we occasionally need to sort the building blocks from the stumbling blocks that are stashed in the basements of our souls.

Both are present, of course. For our past is not simple. There is both dark and light there….good and evil there….beauty and horror there. And the mixture tends to bother us, to the point that we conveniently rid ourselves of half of it. Some of us remember only the good stuff. We remember things as being better than they were. All the bad slipped out somewhere. Meanwhile, others of us remember only the bad stuff. We remember things as being worse than they were. When we weren’t paying attention, all the good slipped out somewhere. Both are oversimplifications. And clinging too tightly to an oversimplification is one of the better ways I know of becoming emotionally ill.

If you look at the past and say, “It was wonderful….there was no darkness there,” then you can’t help but wonder why the present never quite measures up. Why can’t my turkey ever taste like Mom’s? Why can’t our family table look like the one Norman Rockwell used to paint? Why do we have to sit here listening to Ritter on Thanksgiving Sunday….when, in years gone by, we could have listened to Thomas, Wright or Ward?

But if you look at the past and say, “It was terrible…there was no light back there,” then you are going to spend a disproportionate amount of time nursing old wounds, squeezing fresh pus from old abscesses, while downing two-for-one cocktails of shame and remorse. Eventually you end up as one of those people who never go outside without an upper-body sash, the one on which you pin your collection of injustices, hurts and grievances….positioned on the sash by date of occurrence or date of remembrance.

Both groups want to go home again. But each group remembers only half the directions. John Claypool writes: “To look exclusively at either the good or the bad is to have partial vision. Instead, we must come to terms with the fact that both dimensions exist, and accept them accordingly.” Claypool then goes on to suggest that Thanksgiving, as a season, can be of particular help to us here. For Thanksgiving involves looking back, with a sense of gratitude for all that is behind us. The danger, of course, is to reserve our gratitude for only those things that are pleasantly behind us.

For a number of years, I had reason to be concerned with a young woman who was feeling an intense amount of pain. Very little in her life was going well. Almost everything in her life was going poorly. Her story would have confounded Robert Schuller. On more than one occasion she cried out, usually to me, that she had experienced enough hell to know that she would rather not experience any more. But in an effort to address her problems, she tried one quick-fix method after another. None of which worked for very long. Occasionally she tried the slow-fix method known as therapy. Which might have worked, had she stayed with it. But she never did. Three or four weeks into each program, she would get a pretty good inkling as to where the process was going and what she would soon be facing. To which she would say: “I’m afraid to look at it. Twice before I tried and had to quit.”

So she never saw it through. And whatever it was she couldn’t face in the past, ultimately consumed her in the present. Which explains why she died.

Contrast her story with that of a girl named Alice, about whom Keith Miller writes in a book appropriately titled Habitation of Dragons.

When I was a little girl, I was put in an orphanage. It wasn’t pretty. But, then, I wasn’t pretty. No one wanted me. I can recall longing to be adopted by a family. I thought about it day and night. I even got close a couple of times. But something always seemed to go wrong. My social worker said I was trying too hard. People would come to look me over and, without meaning to, I would say or do something to drive them away. Then, one day, I was told that a family was coming to take me home. I was so excited that I jumped up and down and cried. My social worker told me it might not be permanent, but there was no way I was able to hear that.

One day, a few months later, I skipped home from school to the big, old house where we lived. I saw my battered suitcase sitting by the door. One look at the suitcase and I knew. They didn’t want me. This happened to me seven times before I was 13 years old.

As Keith Miller described it, the group reached out to her, trying to do whatever they could for her. Finally she said: “Look, don’t feel sorry for me. You see, I needed my past. It’s part of what led me to God.”

Putting his finger on Alice’s point is an old North Carolina hero of mine by the name of Carlyle Marney. He, too, talked about the need to tell the darker truths of one’s own story. Except that Marney did not stop with that grim prospect. He suggested that if this is all one does, one may very well drown in the dirty waters of self-deprecation. “Instead,” he said, “what is needed alongside an awareness of original sin, is an equally-powerfully awareness of original love.”

I like that. I’m not entirely sure what it means. I suppose it means that we need to give equal time to the good things that have happened to us. For we have been loved and looked after throughout our lives. From the beginning to the present….when we have been naked and bloody, dirty and of little apparent beauty….we have been picked up, cleaned up, washed up and held. For all the slights and cruelties that we have endured, there have also been ways….equally real and equally tangible….that “goodness and mercy have followed us all the days of our lives.” And at this point in his argument, Marney’s words become beautiful indeed.

It is from this point….if we can get to this point….that we begin to make peace with a culture that spawned us, with a mommy and daddy who shaped and mis-shaped us, and with the institutions which blessed and distorted us. We can go through home again. And we can accept whatever stuff God had at his disposal in making us.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong. We can go back home again. Not to stay. But to visit….so that we can leave on better terms than we left before. We pass through home, the better to see it with what the Bible calls “second sight.”

Every family tree has flawed fruit. And yet the Psalmist writes (16:6): “Welcome, indeed, is the heritage that falls to me.” Which is not an easy admission to make. For there is much of that heritage we’d just as soon deny….and branches of that tree we’d just as soon prune.

Kathleen Norris, whose book is alternately informing us and moving us each Tuesday morning at 9:30, writes: “When I see teenagers in public with their families….holding back….refusing to walk with Mom and Dad….ashamed to be seen as part of a family….I have to admit that I acted that way once, both with regard to my family of origin and my family of faith.” Meaning that the churches we remember weren’t perfect either….alternately doing wonderful things for us and terrible things to us. But that, too, can be dealt with, so that we finally come to a point of gratitude for what was there, without requiring “what was there” to have been perfect.

Every so often I meet someone, even in Birmingham, who says: “You want to know why I don’t come to church? I’ll tell you why I don’t come to church. Because my parents made me go to church when I was a little kid and I hated it.” At which point I always want to laugh. Because, as an answer, it’s so pathetic. But I stifle my laughter, figuring that it would be rude. Then I want to say: “How old do you think you are going to have to be in order to get over this….get beyond this….get through this ‘thing’ with your parents?” But I don’t ask that either, because it would come off as intrusive.

I am a man of moderate passions. But I hate the Chicago Bulls. Still, I think I would like Phil Jackson. He’s the guy who just took a hike as their coach. Phil Jackson is a deeply philosophical man, who chose for the title of his biography Sacred Hoops. Jackson knows what it means to come to terms with a religious heritage that was both blessing and curse. He was raised in North Dakota by parents who were both Pentecostal preachers. It quickly became clear to him that their way was never going to be his way. His parents were deeply disappointed in him (spiritually), not because of anything “wrong” he did, but because of something “right” he couldn’t do. He couldn’t speak in tongues. The gift never came to him. So the fullness of their blessing never came to him either.

Painful is his recollection of the day he came home from school to find his mother gone. Apparently, her failure to be there….or to leave a note….was so rare as to put him into a panic. He was certain that what the Pentecostals call “the rapture” had happened, and that Jesus had reappeared for the purpose of whisking his mother off to heaven….leaving him behind. Apparently, she had given him reason to believe that one day, when he least expected it, such a thing might just occur.

But now, as a grown-up, Jackson has come to terms with all of that. Pain has been healed. And he can respect and appreciate the faith of his parents, without feeling that it should necessarily be his. Coming back to his Christian roots through the back door known as Buddhism, he has reassembled a faith that he can call his own, comfortably and without apology.

He could have spent the rest of his life counting his bruises. But, in the same place he got the bruises, he also found some blessings. So he figured he better count them too. And when he did, he found that God was working through it all….helping him fashion a life out of the things that had blessed him and the things that had bruised him (given that many of those things were one and the same).

That’s the point to all this remembering. Not just to get it clear….to get it right….or to get it comfortable. The point is to bring us to the recognition that we have survived, you and I. Some of us have made it twenty years. Some of us forty. Some of us sixty. And a few of us, eighty years or more. We have made it to this day. We need not have, you know. There were times we didn’t think we would. And almost didn’t. There were times we went down the wrong road and got royally lost. There were times we followed the devices and desires of our own hearts and found ourselves going in circles. And there were times then the road was clearly marked. But we sat down beside and refused to go down it at all.

But we are here. We didn’t go under. Not because we are brilliant (let’s not give ourselves that much credit). Not because we are buoyant. But because a strength beyond our strength has pulled us through. Don’t you see it? What we are trying to remember is God himself. That’s what Israel remembered. Israel’s theology was built upon a communal rehearsal of the mighty acts of God. Every time the people got distressed, depressed, defeated or down, someone would gather them around the fire in order to count the bruises and the blessings, threaded with the story of what God had done for his people.

A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O Lord, has given me. And you shall set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God. And you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

Deuteronomy 26:5-11

It was the sharing of that memory, coupled with the telling of that story, that gave people the courage to go on. For the one thing they could discern in their past….even though it was seldom clear in their present….was the leading of God. They believed, not in spite of their past, but because of their past. They believed that there had been times…..often the most unlikely times….when they could trace a thread of holiness through the horror. And the thread was nothing less than the leading of God.

So remember.

            Remember it all.

                        Remember it as honestly as you can.

                                    Remember, and be glad.

For God was in it. God is in it. God will be in it. It is God who is bringing you through…. bringing you out….bringing you home. So count your many bruises. Then count your many blessings. One by one by one. Not to impress anybody. Not to impress yourself. But so you can see what God has done. Which is the only real source of courage that I know.

Note: I am indebted to Keith Miller’s Habitation of Dragons, John Claypool’s Opening Blind Eyes and Kathleen Norris’ Amazing Grace. Frederick Buechner also plows some of the same ground in his book The Longing for Home. And I have long since lost the source of Carlyle Marney’s observation, even though I have never misplaced my affection for Carlyle Marney.

The Near Edge of God 12/13/1998

First United Methodist Church

Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: John 1:1-3, 14

When I was three years old, I used to think that the true measure of things was how big they were in comparison to how big I was. There were Billy-sized things. And there were bigger things. But when I was three, almost everything fell into the category of “bigger things.”  Most everything was huge when I was small, but seems to have shrunk, now that I have become huge.

Whenever I go back to the house in which I previously lived….the school in which I previously studied….the fields in which I previously played….and the woods in which I previously roamed….I am amazed at how common, how ordinary, and (yes) how tiny they seem compared to the way I remember them. I find myself wondering: “How did it happen that (after I left it) they came along and downsized my entire neighborhood?”

But it wasn’t just my neighborhood, don’t you see? The world got smaller as Billy got bigger. When I wasn’t allowed to cross the street, there was no end of mystery about what was on the other side. Much of which has now disappeared, given the number of times I have crossed the Atlantic. Albion (on the day I went there to start college….which, ironically, was the first time I ever laid eyes upon the place) might just as easily have been the end of the universe. Given a car and a map, I was far from certain that I would have known how to get home to Detroit. Which changed quickly….not because Albion moved, but because I did.

When first I sang, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” I really did wonder. And still do….sort of. But an introductory course on astronomy (coupled with seven Star Trek movies) have reduced my reverence. And every time I tilt back my head and belt, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made,” it occurs to me how little I consider such things at all. Until people I respect say: “Hey, take a look at this. It’s going to blow your mind.” So once in awhile I do. And once in awhile it does.

Just the other day, while reading to keep ahead of my Wednesday morning study group, I stumbled upon Leonard Sweet telling me that physicists are currently dismantling every boundary that separates us from the universe, meaning that we are learning more….drawing closer….and sensing connections that we never saw before. But the more we learn, the less we seem to know. For each step of science opens the door to several hundred miles of history. Speaking of the inability of science to measure the “blackness” of matter in space, University of Washington astrophysicist, Bruce Margon, confesses: “It’s a fairly embarrassing situation to admit that we can’t find 90 percent of the universe.” Which I can’t comprehend. Here I am, worrying about a clothes dryer that eats every seventh sock. And there he is, looking for 90 percent of the universe. (“Now slow down, Bruce. Think of where you last saw it.”)

We live in a galaxy so big, that a light ray (traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second) takes 100,000 years to go from one side of the galaxy to the other. And how many galaxies did God create? More than one, they tell me. But I’ve never seen ‘em. Which is not God’s fault….that I haven’t seen ‘em, I mean. Physicist Charles Misner believes this is why Albert Einstein had so little use for the church (even though he said a lot of things that seemed friendly to religion). He must have listened to preachers like me….talking about subjects like God….and figured that he (Einstein) had seen far more majesty than I’d ever imagined.

Still, there is Sweet’s suggestion that the old distinctions between out-there and in-here are breaking down…..meaning that we are connected to the totality of the universe (including the 90 percent of it we can’t find) in more ways than we previously expected, and that we are connected to the God of the universe in more ways than we previously believed.

Let me try and explain, knowing that in doing so, I am skating at the naked edge of my knowledge zone, and (quite possibly) your comfort zone. It all has to do with what the scientists call “Chaos Theory”…..which is anything but what the name would seem to suggest. So work with me, here.

Until very recently, we believed in a world that could be understood and managed. In fact, we believed that way since 1686 when Sir Isaac Newton wrote a startling book entitled Principia. In that book, Newton suggested that the earth circled the sun (rather than vice versa), and that the atom was the basic building block of the universe. He also suggested that the solar system worked like a vast machine, operating on a series of fixed laws. He summed up these laws in four relatively simple algebraic formulas, thereby putting the question of “how things worked” to bed, where it stayed nicely tucked in for some 300 years.

But now Newton’s model has come apart….the covers have become untucked….and mystery is once again loose in the cosmos. With the work being done in quantum physics, we are discovering a sub-atomic world that does not behave (at all) in the ways that Newton said it did. Things are impossible to pin down, what with particles turning into waves and waves turning into particles. Things that have shape and mass one minute, become pure energy the next. And nobody knows when such changes will occur….and why.

Which makes it hard to predict anything in the universe. Or study anything in the universe. In fact, the very act of attempting to study a particle, changes it (meaning that scientists can no longer stand outside of anything and observe it). Because the very particles and waves that are responding to each other, will end up responding to the watcher as well.

Picture a teacher saying to her class (at the beginning of the morning): “Class, that big guy sitting in the back corner is from the Board of Education. He has come to observe us today. But we will just go on with our work like we always do. So forget he’s here and open your books to page 132.” But they won’t “forget he’s here.” And very little will “go on like it always does.” Because his presence will have changed everything, don’t you see? I suppose he could observe the class through a two-way mirror so that nobody in the room would be able to see him. But the quantum physicists tell us that, in the universe, there is no two-way mirror behind which to hide. So every act of trying to chart something, changes it. Which means that everything reacts to everything else, and there is no such thing as pure scientific activity.

What this also means is that it is no longer helpful to think of the world as a machine. For machines are full of little parts….all doing what they were made to do….always have done…. always will do….until they wear out and (in order to keep the machine running) someone replaces the worn out part with another, to do exactly the same thing. Which is how machines work. But not universes.

A better image for the universe is that of a living body, in which no part operates independently from the rest, and where every change in one part of the body is noted, recorded, and adapted to by changes in every other part of the body.

For those of you who don’t like physics, consider economics. It used to be said….and probably still is….that every time Tokyo catches a cold, Wall Street sneezes. Which occurs not only because we are world-connected economically, but because we are world-connected informationally. Wall Street knows (or learns) of Tokyo’s troubles, almost instantaneously. And you and I understand the role of technology in the information-sharing process….meaning that we know how we know.

But when such connections are spotted in the universe, we don’t know how we know. A few of you may be familiar with the “butterfly effect,” first brought to our attention in 1961 by a research meteorologist named Edward Lorenz. Interested in why he could not come up with foolproof weather forecasts, he found that every weather pattern is acutely sensitive to conditions present at its creation. Meaning that when a butterfly beats its wings in Beijing, it affects the weather (weeks later) here in Birmingham. We are that connected.

But that’s not all. We have found that two particles separated by whole galaxies (you remember that I said there are more than one) seem to know what each other is doing. Change the spin on one, and the other reverses its spin….wherever it is….at the same instant. We don’t know how it knows to do that, since it happens faster than the speed of light. It probably has something to do with what is now being called “Field Theory,” which is more than I can explain and more than you need to consider (given my sense that your eyes are moments removed from glazing over).

All of this is related to what we call “Chaos Theory.” Which is a term I have recoiled against for years, because it sounded like reality was random, purposeless and wildly-out-of-control (all of which seem like synonyms for Godless). Perhaps “chaos” is a bad choice of words, but it doesn’t mean what it sounds like. It simply means that the universe is a giant web. Any place you touch it, everything else will feel it. All is connected. Meaning that we are all connected. And while there is an ultimate order to the chaos (in the sense of boundaries beyond which the web will not go and patterns to which the web will inevitably return), within the web, everything is alive, acting, adapting, participating, exchanging, relating, giving and taking, impacting and sharing.

So what? So plenty. But I will settle for raising a pair of implications in the time I have left. First, I would suggest that God is bigger than we ever thought God to be. And that God is more intimate than we ever thought him to be.

Let’s start with “bigger.” Much of the church’s theology has contented itself with declarations “of the wonderful works that God has done.” But can we declare what God has done, without shutting down a consideration of what God may do next? Chaos Theory is incredibly alive. Meaning that, within certain prescribed boundaries, every part of God’s web tingles….whether we be the tingler….or God. Which is most biblical, although we tend to gloss over such texts as Isaiah 43:18-19: “Do not remember the former things. I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”

All of which means that while we should love God, praise God, adore and revere God, we should not sit too comfortably in the saddle of familiarity with God….assuming that we know everything there is to know about God. Almost everybody who is anybody in theology is now talking about “the re-enchantment of the universe.” But the theologians did not invent this term. They borrowed it from the scientists. What does it mean? It means that the scientists and the theologians are presiding over a rebirth of mystery, wonder and awe. Science has been humbled, learning that it does not know….cannot predict….and therefore is no longer able to dominate the universe, as was once thought possible. Dominion belongs to God alone.

Which leads Barbara Brown Taylor to suggest that perhaps (just perhaps) some of us have gotten a little too chummy with God. Tune in many sermons on Sunday morning and you will hear preachers speaking of God as they would a pet lion: “Oh, he was fierce once, but there is nothing to be afraid of now. You can climb up on his back if you want to. We’ve had all his teeth and claws pulled.”

Now, I am not suggesting that we should necessarily fear God (although the Bible is not afraid to offer that admonition). But I am suggesting that we should respect God. When a sailboat skipper tells me that he is doing this or that….or not doing this or that….because of the healthy respect he has for Lake Michigan, he is not saying that sailing is no longer fulfilling or fun. Indeed, he may believe that he is never happier, more alive, or at greater peace, than when he is five miles out on the open water. But by “respecting the lake,” he is acknowledging that the waters are cold, deep, challenging and (from time to time) utterly unpredictable. As a seasoned sailor, what he knows is wonderful. But he does not know it all. And what he does not know could change his life in an instant. Sailing begins in reverence. As does theology.

But if theology begins in reverence, it ends in intimacy. If, indeed, everything in the universe relates to (and is affected by) everything else….if, indeed, God is both the spinner of the web and the tingler of the web….if, indeed, it is impossible to know how any one thing works, but only that all things are connected….doesn’t it stand to reason that God (himself, herself, Godself) would want to be known in the most intimate, web-tingling, life-touching way possible?

And isn’t it possible that if the body (rather than the machine) is now the paradigm by which we understand the universe, doesn’t it stand to reason that God would want to become a body….so that through that relationship we might become somebody (and, collectively, God’s body). For this, in all of its mystery, is what the church means by the word “incarnation.”

* * * * *

Oh, God is so big. And yet God is so near.

Go back to the sea. I’ve told you this before, but let me tell you again. The first time I saw the sea, I didn’t so much see it as hear it. And it scared me half to death. I was eight or nine and on a vacation trip with my parents. Late at night, we reached the New England shore with no place to lay our weary heads. No reservations had been made….with mother and father carping at each other about whose fault that was. “No Vacancy” signs (in blinking red neon) dotted every hamlet of the landscape. No moon. No stars. Just the sound of wave after wave smacking the seawall, to the point of spraying the windshield. And although the sea was just being the sea….being true to its nature….doing what seas do….I was very much afraid.

Then in 1981….July….Honolulu.…Waikiki Beach….Kris and I took a taxi to a wonderful restaurant at the base of Diamond Head, where we ate our fill, spent our wad, foreswore the taxi and walked home along the shore. Taking off our shoes, we danced the line where the water quietly kissed the sand (except for those moments, of course, when we stopped to quietly kiss each other). And we were thankful that the sea….also true to its nature….was making itself known to us in this way.

* * * * *

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And, apart from him, was not anything made that was made.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Full of grace. Full of truth. And we beheld….not comprehended, beheld….his glory.

Note:  I am indebted to Leonard Sweet’s book The Jesus Prescription for a Healthy Life and Barbara Brown Taylor’s essay “Preaching Into the Next Millennium,” found in a collection of essays entitled Exilic Preaching: Testimony for Christian Exiles in an Increasingly Hostile Culture.

In a post-sermon conversation with Bob Pierce, I learned that, as a result of the Hubble space telescope, astronomers now estimate the number of galaxies in the universe to be at least 50 billion (and, with some 200 billion stars, the Milky Way is pretty much “an average player” as galaxies go). Larger galaxies are said to contain a trillion or more stars. Not that I’ve counted them.

Were You Born in a Barn? 12/24/1998

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Christmas Eve, 1998

Earlier this December, a preacher from “way up north” was traveling “way down south,” when he stopped for lunch at an out-of-the-way diner. Mounting a stool at the counter, and anticipating his first forkful of ham and redeye gravy, he summoned the waitress and asked if she could answer a question about the nativity set out front….which, he said, was lovely….just lovely…. save for one small thing. “What’s that?” she said (rocking back on her heels). “Well,” he began, “I just found myself wondering why your wise men….which look splendid on their camels, don’t you know….are all wearing firemen’s hats.”

“That’s because the wise men were firemen,” she answered.

“Were not,” he said.

“Were so,” she responded.

“Prove it,” he challenged.

“I will,” she countered.

Whereupon she took a well-thumbed Bible from under the counter….muttered something about “Yankees knowing nothing about the Word of God”….thumbed until she came to the second chapter of Matthew….announced, “It says so right here”….and proceeded to read: “And in those days, three wise men came from afar.”

Well, maybe they did. The Bible doesn’t say where their trip originated. From the East, says the book. From the Orient, says the carol. From Persia, says modern scholarship (meaning Iraq…. according to today’s atlas….and, if true, isn’t that just shot through and dripping with irony).

I once had a friend who said (concerning the three kings) that they came in a Honda….because the Bible says that “they were of one accord.” But when I looked it up, it was the disciples who were “of one accord” (Acts 1:14)….meaning that it was they who traveled by Honda, if anybody traveled by Honda.

But I find myself less interested in where the kings (wise men, magi, Iraqi astrologers, whatever) came from, as where they went. Meaning Bethlehem. Or, more to the point, to a barn in Bethlehem….at least a place with animals in Bethlehem.

Like I said a few weeks ago, I know next-to-nothing about animals, and (therefore) next-to-nothing about barns. But I do remember my father asking me, from time to time, if I was born in one. I figured if anybody should know, he should know. I mean, he was there, wasn’t he?

I wasn’t far into my childhood before I learned that when my father said, “Were you born in a barn,” he wasn’t referring to the place I was delivered, so much as the door I’d left opened. Which is why his rebuke, voiced in its entirety, read: “Shut the door. Were you born in a barn?”

Just so you will know, I wasn’t. And Jesus probably wasn’t either. Biblical scholar, Kenneth Bailey, points out that the word in our Bible translated as “inn,” is (in the original Greek) “kataluma.” Which does not mean “inn”….or “hotel”….so much as it means “guest room.” In the typical Mid-Eastern home, there is a room designated for out-of-town visitors….the “kataluma”….or the “guest room.” So the place where Mary and Joseph took respite probably wasn’t an inn at all, but a private home (perhaps even the home of a relative).

But with the “kataluma” (guest room) already filled….by Uncle Oscar and Aunt Mildred from Dubuque, most likely….Mary and Joseph were given the next best place in the house to stay, which was probably the outer room (front room) of the house. It was to this room that livestock were brought on winter nights, only to be ushered out in the morning so as to allow for other family activities. Those of you who go to sleep, this Christmas Eve, on somebody’s hide-a-bed….because Uncle Oscar and Aunt Mildred beat you to the queen-sized bed in the kataluma….will know whereof I speak.

But if there were animals there, it probably felt like a barn. So a barn, we’ll let it be. Why? Because it will preach better that way. That’s why.

If this child is a gift from God….and if this child (in ways you can’t begin to imagine and I can’t begin to explain) somehow is God….I suppose it can be said that God was born in a barn. Which sounds appropriate, given that God’s first appearance to humankind was in a garden. Now, 1200 pages later, God’s come indoors.

And could it be that God….growing out of his desire to tinker with creation on a daily basis….might be more at home in a barn than anyplace else? For God is more farmer than field general….more farmer than watchmaker….more farmer than (say) artist, architect, or even astrophysicist….more farmer (certainly) than Supreme Court judge or slum landlord.

            For what does a farmer do?

                        He does his chores, that’s what he does.

And when does a farmer do them?

                        He does them daily, that’s when he does them.

            And what happens when the farmer misses a few days?

                        Things go to hell in a hand basket, that’s what happens.

Farmers not only sow it and reap it, farmers also have to keep after it, stay on top of it, and seldom (if ever) get to leave it....especially if the “it” is not corn and carrots, but cows and chickens. Farming is daily work. Barns are symbols of where such work is done. Chores are the nature of that work. And we are God’s chores.

As for barn doors being open, I suppose that such is a good thing. For it means that anybody can come there. And it means that everybody belongs there. Which includes both shepherds and kings….who can be readily distinguished by their feet. That’s because kings ride about the “stuff” of earth, while shepherds walk through it. But it doesn’t matter in a barn. Because everything smells a little bit in a barn. Sort of like in here….if the unperfumed truth be told.

In this December’s issue of New York Magazine, there is a half-page ad for Marble Collegiate Church….Norman Vincent Peale’s old church…..where (as they proclaim) “good things happen.” And what do they say in their Christmas Eve ad? They say, in big block letters:
“WE DON’T ASK IF YOU’VE BEEN NAUGHTY OR NICE.” Well, neither do I. Because I already know, don’t you see. I already know.

And God doesn’t care. At least for tonight.

Marilyn Monroe has become a pop icon of our time. Arthur Miller, in his autobiography Timebends, tells of his marriage to her. During the filming of The Misfits, Miller watched Marilyn descend into the depths of depression and despair. Fearing for her life, he watched her estrangement, her paranoia and her increasing dependence on barbiturates. One evening, after a doctor had been persuaded to give Marilyn yet another shot, she was sleeping. Arthur Miller stood watching her, reflecting:

I found myself straining to imagine miracles. What if she were to wake and I were able to say: “God loves you, darling.” And what if she were able to believe it? How I wish I still had my religion and she, hers.

I don’t know what brought you here tonight….or how you got from home to church. I only hope that you are “straining to imagine miracles.” For it is nothing less than the miracle Arthur wanted for Marilyn that I proclaim to you in the midst of the Christmas Eve darkness.

Remember the kid who was afraid to go from the house to the barn at night because, as he put it, “it was so dark.” So his daddy handed him a lantern. But the kid said: “Even with this light in my hand, I can’t see the barn.” So his daddy said: “You don’t have to see the barn right now. Just walk to the end of your light.”

Well, you’ve come to the barn. And we’ve handed you a light. Maybe not all the light you wanted. But all the light you need.

And maybe you don’t need much. Maybe you are among those who swallowed a Franklin Planner for breakfast and have the next 20 years of your life all planned out. Hey, that’s great…. smart….and very resourceful.

But maybe you are here tonight, not knowing where you are going to be 20 months, 20 days or 20 hours from now….not knowing whether you’re going to have a job, a spouse, a happy home, or any home (for that matter). Things change so fast, don’t you know. At 7:30 this morning, I was in line for croissants and brioche at the Petit Prince Bakery. The lady in front of me spotted a lady in back of me. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen you,” she said. “How are you?” “I’m homeless,” said her friend. “I’ve been out of my house since December 7 when a tree fell on our roof.” Now I know there is a mild incongruity between “being homeless” and standing in line at the most expensive French bakery in Birmingham. Still, on the morning of December 7, there was no entry in her Franklin Planner that said: “Roof caves in.”

Nor in yours. So what I want you to do this night is take as much light as you can grab….from this old barn of a place….and from this old farmer of a God….and then walk to the end of it. Knowing that it will be enough….even more than enough….for the living of your days.

* * * * *

Christmas Eve, 1998….“chilling the body, but not the soul.” For along about 1:00 this morning, the house waits….the fire waits….the lobster bisque waits….the chilled shrimp waits….the presents wait….the peace waits….and two wonderful women wait.

Life is not meager. Love is not wanting. Friends are not scarce. Memories are still mixed (most of them sweet, but some of them, incredibly sad….given that a full table does not always disguise an empty chair).

But you still come. Words still come. The Word still comes. And with it, the fire.

For I was born in a barn, don’t you see? And I have yet to reach the end of its light. So Merry Christmas. And peace to all who are within the house.

Note:  Let me share my appreciation with Lloyd Heussner for passing along the ad from New York Magazine featuring Marble Collegiate Church.