Call & Response

Fran Angelico, The Virgin of the Annunciation, 1450.

Luke 1:26-38

Second Sunday of Advent/ 7^th December 2014

Put yourself in Mary’s sandals (as it were).  Place your sense of self within hers and then imagine what it must have felt like to encounter a messenger of the Living God. Try to enter into Mary’s world.  Imagine her astonishment and surprise.  She didn’t go searching for this encounter.  She didn’t wake up one morning, bored with life in Nazareth, and say, “I need to do something different with my life.  How about giving birth to the Messiah?  How about giving birth to the Son of God?”  I don’t think it was like that.

No, Mary didn’t go searching after an encountering with Gabriel.  My guess is that Mary probably wanted an ordinary life in Nazareth, as ordinary as possible living under the crushing oppression and brutal violence of the Roman Empire.  She probably just wanted to survive.  She probably dreamed of a normal life—safety, security, shelter, family, someone to love and appreciate her, like Joseph, someone to love in return, and children—children born in a world with a better future than hers, children of promise.

“Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you.” You, Mary—favored one.  Mary wasn’t expected this.  She was perplexed and curious about this visitation.  Mary didn’t go searching after the life that was eventually given to her.  That life was announced to her from out of nowhere.  The annunciation came without warning.  It broke into her life; it erupted deep within her ordinary existence and summoned her toward a different life.  Sometimes the life we’re really supposed to have within God’s providence is not the life we’ve been searching for or planning for or hoping for.  We all have our individual hopes and dreams for our lives, but God often (usually) has different plans for us.  It’s been said that one way to make God laugh is to tell God your plans.  Sometimes the life we’re meant to have, by God’s grace, is not what we expect.

It’s striking that Mary is not completely passive here.  On the one hand she didn’t really have a choice about the direction her life was about to take.  I guess Gabriel could have given her a choice.  I’ll be back in twenty-four hours, Mary; you can let me know then.  Gabriel didn’t give her some kind of exit clause.  He never gives her the option to say, “No.” Not me.  Choose a different Mary.  Choose someone more favored than me.  

Mary doesn’t reject the offer outright, but neither does she immediately accept it.  She’s confused by the visit, “ponders” the meaning of the greeting.  She allows Gabriel to speak. (Although, encountering an angel, I’m told, is a terrifying thing. I don’t think I would ever not allow an angel to speak.)  Mary listens to the plan, she hears that she will bear a son whose name will be Jesus.  He will be great, the Son of the Most High.  She discovers that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and bring Jesus to life within her.  She learns that Elizabeth, her cousin, will also have a role in this plan. 

Mary had to be full of doubt, overwhelmed by the entire experience.  How does one begin to process news such as this?  How does one find a frame of meaning for something like this, how can it even make sense without a frame of reference, something to compare it to, to help you receive it, understand it.  But she has nothing.  All she has is trust in the faithfulness of God—and that’s all she really means.  “For nothing will be impossible with God,” Gabriel says.  And it’s then, and only then, that Mary consents and yields.  Actively passive, she says:  “Here am I.  Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And with that acknowledgement Gabriel was on his way.

Since the early centuries of the Church, countless artists have rendered this text, this encounter.  

Annunciation, Priscilla Catacomb, Rome, 2nd century CE.

One of the earliest images of the annunciation comes from the second century and can be found in the Priscilla Catacomb on the Via Salaria in Rome.  

The annunciation was a favored subject in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.  Among the most arresting depictions of this story is Fra Angelico’s (1395-1455), The Virgin of the Annunciation. He painted several versions of this text, but it’s the one in Florence, at the convent of San Marco, which is particularly stunning.  There is something striking about this painting.  The Gabriel arrives on the left side of the canvass in all his glory; Mary is seated on the right, with her head slightly bowed.  But if you look carefully at the painting you’ll see that not only is Mary seated, she’s leaning forward toward Gabriel, leaning in toward the announcement.  Don’t you do the same thing when you’re in a serious conversation, when you’re actively listening?  You lean your body forward, into what is being said to you. It’s this “‘bending toward’ of spirit, intellect, and ear”—all that she is, that allowed Mary to become Mary.[1]

It’s that posture, the posture of actively listening, of being actively passive, receptive to the divine summons that captures so beautifully the full reach and depth of the religious life.  It’s easy to think that Mary was special—and she was.  What was asked of her was certainly unique—and it was. Her life and the life she carried into the world were isolated events in the history of the world.  Absolutely.  Therefore, “Hail, Mary. Blessed art thou among women.” As our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers say, “Hail, Mary, full of grace.” 

But we have to be very careful that our adoration of her and attention to her favored, unique status exempts us from a comparable summons to serve God with our lives.  Not in exactly the same way, to be sure, but something comparable.  There was only one Mary and there’s only one Jesus.  However, implicit in this extraordinary birth story is the notion that something comparable could—probably is—being asked of us.

The medieval German philosopher, theologian, mystic Meister Eckhart (c.1260–c.1328) once made this provocative claim, “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”  It’s true, whether female or male, we’re all meant to be mothers of God, giving birth through our lives to the very life of God.  And in this sense you and I are being equally summoned and called.  God is always asking something of us.  Mary shows us how to answer that call.

It’s true for all of us.  God demands something from us.  God demands from our lives something that will bring life and light and healing to the world!  This is why you exist.  It’s why you’ve come into the world.  It’s the reason for your very existence.

And God is always advent-ing toward us—coming toward us, speaking, like Gabriel, summoning us to fulfill the purpose of our lives—and, like Mary, we must lean forward, lean into what is being said, be attentive, and listen to the divine voice, the summons calling you to life. 

And God is looking for your response, a response from us.  Response will then usher in responsibility—which may be why we’re often reluctant or even fearful to respond because responding could possibly mess up the life that we have so carefully prepared for ourselves.  Mary knows, however, that she is not the center of her life; she’s not the center of her universe.  Instead, she knows that her existence is grounded in the larger life and mission of God and it is to that larger Life that Mary knows she is ultimately in service.  Acknowledging this, she listens, she yields to God’s demand on her life, she responds.  Listening and responding.  Call and response.  It’s a liturgical act.  Indeed, our lives are shaped by this liturgical act.  Existence is grounded in this liturgical dance. Call and response.  The contemporary literary critic and philosopher George Steiner once said, “Man is only a privileged listener and respondent to existence.”[2] 

Will we attend to the voice of God?  

What is being announced to you?

What is trying to be born through you? 

Will we tend, nurture what God is birthing in us through Christ?

What will be your response?

In time, this too might be our response:

Here am I. 

All of me:

here's my body,

here's my mind,

here's my spirit,

here's my soul.

All of me. 

Here I am, the servant of the Lord.

Let it be with me according to your word.

---

[1] I’m grateful for George Steiner’s comment on Fra Angelico’s Virgin of the Annunciation, which became the basis for this reflection on the text.  It’s found in Steiner's study of the thought of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Martin Heidegger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 130.  See also Iain McGilchrist, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (New Have: Yale University Press, 2009), 152.

[2] George Steiner, 32.

Active Waiting

Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:2-4; 3:7-19

First Sunday in Advent/ 30^th November 2014

It’s a dangerous book, Habakkuk. Written at an enormously traumatic time in Israel’s history.  In years before its writing, the mighty Assyrian army destroyed one city after the other, brutally murdering countless people.  And not long after Habakkuk was written, the Babylonians, under King Nebuchadnezzar, attacked Jerusalem three times, sending the leaders and skilled citizens into exile.  Finally, in 587 BCE—one of the most significant years in ancient history, witnessing one of the most critical events in the history of the Israelites—the city of Jerusalem was conquered and the temple, the dwelling place of Yahweh, completely destroyed.  The landscape was covered in violence.

The prophet Habakkuk—with the sensitivity, vision, and the voice of a poet—gives expression to the plight of God’s people.  He hears the cries of suffering.  He witnesses the anger and frustration and fear in the streets.  All that they considered “normal,” all that they considered safe and secure and even sacred, is now lost.  He sees desolation and destruction all around him.  He searches with God’s people for justice, but sees none.  He prays to God for help, but God is nowhere to be found.  Prayer after prayer ascends to the heavens and the response is sheer silence.

“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen, and you will not listen?”  How long shall I cry to “Violence!” [–violence is all around us—] “and you will not save?” (Hab. 1:2).  Why, O LORD?  The prophet holds God accountable, “Why do you make see wrongdoing and look at trouble?  Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contentions arise” (Hab. 1:3).  Even the things we used to count on, a reliance on the courts of law and justice to order society and help save a people have now gone into exile.  “So the law becomes slack,” Habakkuk writes,” and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted” (Hab. 1:4).  The world has become unhinged from its axis and swirls off into chaos.

I chose this text for the first Sunday in Advent several weeks ago, before the grand jury made its decision last week in Ferguson, MO.  It’s not the traditional lectionary reading for today; it’s the selection from the Narrative Lectionary. Yet, it speaks to where we are as a nation.  I chose it, most significantly, because it says something about waiting and Advent is, of course, all about waiting—waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus, waiting for Jesus’ final return, waiting for that day the English mystic Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) saw in a vision and later wrote, “And all shall be well, and all shall be well and every many of thing shall be well.”[1]

That’s the promise. But how long does one wait?  It’s easy to wait when everything is going our way, when life is good and there are plenty of things to distract us from all the injustices in the world. It’s easy to wait when the balance of justice weighs in your favor, serves your purposes and ends, satisfies your needs for food, shelter, employment, safety.  It’s easy to wait for that better day when most days are lived from a position of privilege or power or influence. 

It’s another thing entirely to wait when you feel like everything is against you, when you feel like you can never get ahead no matter how hard you strive, when life is not so good and you have nothing to distract you from all the injustices in the world—because you wake up every day surrounded by injustice.  It’s another thing entirely to wait when the balance of justice is weighing against you, obstructs your purposes and ends and hinders your dreams, impedes your ability to eat three meals a day, have a warm bed, a job that pays the bills or to know what it feels like to go to sleep feeling safe.  What does it feel like to wait without privilege, power, security, or influence?

This is one of the reasons Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail.  Even though this text has become part of the “scripture” of American history (and rightly so), it’s often overlooked (and sometimes omitted from various versions of the letter itself) that the letter was addressed to clergy.  King was exasperated by religious leaders—Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish leaders of white congregations— who all begged King to slow down his movement, who said he was moving too fast, expecting too much.  King wrote in his letter that, "justice too long delayed is justice denied."[2] 

King didn’t come up with this phrase. It’s a vision that has its origins in scripture. Justice delayed is justice denied.  In the Mishnah, a Jewish commentary on scripture itself, written around the first century CE, we find these words: "Our Rabbis taught: ...The sword comes into the world, because of justice delayed and justice denied...."[3] The Quaker William Penn (164-1718) said, "to delay Justice is Injustice."

How can you say to someone who is bearing the weight of injustice, the victim of injustice, to slow down?  Wait.  Put yourself in their shoes.  How does it feel to hear that?  Have you ever been the victim of injustice?  Have you ever felt the weight of privilege or power bearing down on you?  “How long, O Lord?  How long will I cry for help, and you will not listen?” When has that been your cry?  When have you cried “how long”?  If you’ve never made this cry, then at least name the children or adults who have made it their cry and continue to make that cry.  Put yourself in their shoes.

It’s easy to understand why people become impatient and refuse to wait and take matters into their own hands, force something to happen, anything to happen, often in anger and frustration.  These are actions that in the end are counterproductive, that hurt the cause, which will probably further hinder justice.  It’s the sick fruit that frustrated justice tends to produce.

And yet scripture tells us to wait.  Eventually Yahweh speaks to Habakkuk and says, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it” (Hab. 2:2).  Even in the midst of all your activity and hustle and bustle, look and see the vision that God has placed before you.  Don’t miss it!  “For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, it does not lie.  If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay” (Hab. 2:3).  Wait for it.

There are, at least, two different types of waiting. There’s passive waiting and there’s active waiting.

Passive waiting is a kind of resignation or indifference.  “I can’t do anything about it, so why try.”  I’ll just sit here and wait for things to change.  The bus will arrive eventually, it always does, so relax, don’t stress.

Active waiting is different. We’re waiting, but never indifferent. We’re engaged, alert, expectant, vigilant, actively looking for what is coming.  It’s like being on a platform eagerly waiting for a train arrival. 

As I shared in the December Messenger, ever since I was a boy I had a great love for trains.  I had toy trains, I used to set up the train under my grandmother’s Christmas tree most years, and then I commuted to college by train, from Newark to New Brunswick, NJ.  Just last week I was on a train from Savannah to Fayetteville, NC, where I celebrated Thanksgiving.  What has always fascinated me and continues to fascinate me is the experience of waiting, actively waiting for a train to arrive.  You can stand on a platform, face forward and passively wait for it.  Or you can stand on the platform and turn to the left (or, if you’re in Britain, say at Waverly Station in Edinburgh, you turn to the right) and look for some sign of what is coming toward you.  You look for the lights of the train coming toward you, approaching out of the future, on its way toward you, on its way, and you get to witness the process its arrival, eventually arriving there before you.  And as you wait and strain your neck to see you’re actively participating in its arrival.  You’re sharing in the experience.

That experience—that’s an Advent-thing.  It’s a Habakkuk-thing.  It’s a God-thing.  We’re called to actively wait, to search for, anticipate the new thing that even now God is preparing for God’s children. And you have to be vigilant about this, look deep and hard into reality because you could miss it; keep awake for the signs of the time. But don’t be discouraged if you can’t see it now.  Seeing is not always believing.  Everything might be going to hell in a hand basket all around you, you might be surrounded by injustice, the land might be full of destruction and devastation and violence.  Even if you have no evidence to believe otherwise “wait, it will surely come,” God says.

This is one of the reasons why Habakkuk is a dangerous book—especially for those who profit from or are perpetrators of injustice.  In 1940, a church newspaper in Basel, Switzerland published a column with the title: “Word on the (Current) Situation,” which included an excerpt from Habakkuk.  The military censors across the border in Germany banned the newspaper because they viewed the text as a critique of the Nazi regime. This unflinching belief in God’s ability to make an end to violence is precisely the reason why the book Habakkuk was banned in Nazi Germany.  The idea that God will end unjust power was considered too dangerous to be tolerated.[4]

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of the deer, and makes me tread upon the heights” (Hab. 3:17-19).

Devastation and violence and injustice might be all around us—and they are—but God will have the last word.  God is our strength who allows us to approach the future with confidence, not fear.

Remember, it was into a world of injustice that Jesus was born.  Jesus was born at a time of brutal Roman oppression when people cried “How long, O God, how long?”  It’s for a world such as ours that Jesus was born, a world broken and torn apart by sin. It’s for a world such as ours, where we are still called to wait—actively, eagerly—for some sign that salvation, the birth of a child, the promise of redemption, hope for the hopeless, justice, true justice, restorative, healing justice for every victim of injustice.

The poet/writer Walter Wangerin wrote:

"God is coming! God is coming!

All the element we swim in, this existence,

Echoes ahead the advent.


God is coming! Can’t you feel it?”[5]

God is coming! 

And nothing can stop that train.

---

[1]From Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love.

[2] Letter from Birmingham, 16 April 1963.

[3] Mishnah, Pirkei Avot (Chapters to the Father) 5:8.

[4] As told by Ulrike Bail, cited by Juliana Claassens at Working Preacher.

[5] Walter Wangerin, Jr., “The Signs of the Times,” The Manger is Empty (Harper San Francisco, 1994).

Nibblers No More!

Revelation 3:14-22

23^rd Sunday after Pentecost/ 16^th November 2014

“It was the deciding game of the Divisional Series between the [Nationals] and the St. Louis Cardinals [in 2012]; the winner would play in the National League Championship Series.  The Nats got off to an amazing start, building a 6 to 0 lead in just the first few innings. But then the Cardinals slowly chipped away at that lead. Even so, the Nats could have won the game with just one more out in the ninth inning.  In fact, all that they needed was one pitch, the right pitch, to get a final out.  But they couldn’t get it.  The Cardinals got strategic hits to get on base, the Nats walked too many batters and couldn’t get that last strike, that last out; and thus they lost the game.”  After that painful loss that ended the season, Nats manager Davey Johnson had this to say about his pitchers.  “They were nibbling, and it was painful to watch.”  “By nibbling he meant that the Nats pitchers weren’t challenging the batters with their best stuff: they were nibbling around the edge of the strike zone and throwing too many balls.”  Toward the end of the game, the pitching coach said to the pitchers as they made their way to the mound each time:  “Stop nibbling!”[1]

What did he mean by “nibbling”?   The word “nibble” has its origins in Low German and emerged around 1800.  It means, “to show cautious interest in a project or proposal.”  “Nibbling is when our efforts are half-baked, lackluster, ill-conceived, and insufficient—when we’re not putting forth our best stuff.”[2]  We nibble when we hold something back, hold something in reserve, fail to give it our all.  We’re cautious, suspicious, dubious, perhaps fearful about an outcome, so we pull back.  When our hearts aren’t in what we’re doing, we’re nibbling.  It’s “halfhearted devotion.”[3]

The church in Laodicea was a congregation full of nibblers.  You won’t find that word in the text, of course, but it’s a good word to describe a word that is: “lukewarm.”  That’s Christ’s chief complaint with the Laodiceans, one of the seven churches in Asia Minor. Of the seven churches—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea—Christ has the strongest words for the church in Laodicea.  By contrast, the churches in Ephesus and in Philadelphia are affirmed for their faithfulness. Not the Laodiceans. Christ can’t find anything to praise in them. Christ still loves the church there, but they have issues.  Lots of issues.  What was going on there?

Laodicea, first colonized by the Greeks in the third century BC was the richest city in the region of Phrygia.  It was so wealthy that after a devastating earthquake in 60 AD, the city proudly refused imperial disaster assistance from Rome and rebuilt the city with its own resources.  Laodicea was located six miles south of the major Roman city of Hierapolis, ten miles northwest of Colossae, and a hundred miles east of Ephesus, which was along the coast.  Laodicea was situated at a major intersection along many trade routes, especially the east-west route from port at Ephesus in the west to remote regions of Asia Minor in the east.  The city was well known and well endowed by its textile, banking, and medical industries.  It was particularly known for its signature commercial items: shiny black wool and Phrygian powder, used in the making of an eye salve. 

The city also had a major water problem.  It had no water source of its own, so it had to pipe in water down from the hot medicinal springs in Hierapolis. (The springs are still there today. On the tour I led to Turkey and Greece, back in 2011, we spent an afternoon in Hierapolis and even played in the medicinal springs.)

Mineral springs of Pammukkale (Hierapolis), Turkey.

As a result, “by the time [the water] arrived [in Laodicea], its tepidness and mineral content made the water nauseating.”[4]  People were prone to spit it from their mouths.

 “I know your works,” Christ says, “you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish that you were either cold or hot.  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16).   “Spit” is too mild here.  “Vomit” is better.  “I am about to vomit you out of my mouth.”  It’s what the Laodiceans often did after drinking water piped in from Hierapolis. 

Neither hot nor cold.  Nibblers. Half-hearted.  Lackluster in their commitment.  The adjectives “hot” and “cold” should not be used to describe different kinds of Christians.  “Christ opposes the hot and the cold to the lukewarm.”  If you’re going to be hot, then be hot; if you’re going to be cold, then be cold.  But you can’t be lukewarm, indecisive, in the middle.  Take a stand!  “Declare yourselves!  Be hot or cold!  Be clear!” Be a witness!

Take a stand for Christ where you live, in the world: a world that demands undying allegiance to its twisted values, a world that demands tribute to its gods, a world that demands authority to principalities and powers and imperial Caesars.  In such a world, declare your devotion. 

This won’t be easy.  Why?  Because the Laodiceans think they’re self-sufficient.  They’re so wealthy they don’t need financial assistance from Rome.  They’re full of themselves.  They’re the opposite of the Smyrna church, which was materially destitute but rich in witness (Rev. 2:9).  Not the Laodiceans.  They’re sophisticated, cultured.  They’ve thoroughly accommodated themselves to the values of Greco-Roman society and their profiting from it.  They sold out. Christ mimics what Laodiceans often said about themselves, “You say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing’” (Rev. 3:17).  But, Christ says to them, “You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17).

“This city of wealthy bankers would feel [annoyed] at being labeled poor. This city of medical schools that pioneered pharmaceuticals for the betterment of sight would not appreciate an insult that labeled their entire municipality blind.  This city full of merchants who outfitted the Greco-Roman world in the finest textiles, particularly their famous black wool, would be amused to hear someone call them naked.”[5]  As far as Christ is concerned, they are fooling themselves.  They think they have it all, but they actually have nothing.

Christ offers them a different way to live.  He invites them to become “rich” in other ways.  “Buy gold from me refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes that you may see” (Rev. 3:18).  In other words, step out, take a stand, declare who is Lord of your life: commit!  “Their blindness is their lukewarmness, their accommodation to the values of the Greco-Roman world.”[6]  The salve that Christ offers will really cure their blindness.

And so he gives them an opportunity to take a stand.  “Repent,” Christ says.  Metanoison.  Repent.  Change your mind.  Change the way you’re thinking.  Change the way you’re living.  Be earnest about it.  Not half-hearted.  Stop nibbling.  Throw yourself into it.  Repent.  And then, listen for that knock on the door—“Listen!  I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Rev. 3:20). 

Can you hear his voice?  Do you hear his knock on the door of your live?  Then open it, open the door—not just a little, not just a crack to see who’s on the other side, but without caution, without suspicion, open it wide!

Christ wants our commitment.  And, I believe, deep down in our hearts, we want to be fully committed to him.  But we all know how difficult this is at times.  There are so many things vying for our attention, our focus, our energy, and our resources.  And then there’s the fear and anxiety that always come with commitment.  We’re afraid of being disappointed.  We’re afraid of betrayal.  We’re afraid of failure and so we never try.  We’re anxious about where that level of commitment might lead us.  What might be required of us?  Asked of us?  Do we have the courage for that kind of commitment?  It’s easier to be lukewarm, non-committal, halfhearted—one half of the heart engaged in action, the other half reserved, held back, protecting itself from getting hurt (or getting hurt again).

How’s this for a motto: Nibblers no more!   No more half-heartedness.  Instead, let us throw ourselves more fully into the work that Christ has called us to do.  Let us invest ourselves completely—all our heart, soul, strength, and mind (Luke 10:27)—to God’s call in our lives.  Let us take some risks and open the door and allow Christ to enter our lives, let us invite Christ to enter this church in new ways!  Let us give our very best to the Lord and to our neighbors.  

On this Mission Sunday we celebrate and give thanks for the work of our mission partners.  I’m grateful, as I know you are too, for the mission support this church provides.  And yet we all know there’s so much more to be done.  We’re only scratching the surface.  We are grateful for what we are doing, but we know the needs are great and deep.  We can’t settle and say what we’re doing is good enough.  Something more is needed.  The church’s mission work is more than charity and it has to be more than offering Band-Aid solutions to the wounds of the work.  This is one of the major reasons why mission needs to be linked with advocacy; that is, working to remove the conditions in society that create hunger and homeless and suffering and violence.  I’m looking forward to seeing the ways our new Envision Fund will support current and new mission endeavors, but also peace and justice and advocacy issues. 

Nibblers no more!  We can walk a thousand miles in a CROP Walk, but if we’re not addressing the reasons for widespread hunger in society, we’re nibbling.  How can we say we’re passionate about feeding the hungry when we’re not eradicating the reasons why they’re hungry?  And how can we say we’re concerned about homelessness when we’re not addressing the societal structures and economic injustices that cause people to lose their homes and their jobs? 

Nibblers no more!  Full-heartedness in all that we do.  Giving our best to God and to our neighbors and to ourselves.  This is what we’re committing to next Sunday when we make our pledge to CPC.  It’s not called Pledge Sunday or Stewardship Sunday (every Sunday is really stewardship Sunday), but Commitment Sunday—and your financial pledge to CPC is a demonstration of your commitment to Christ’s work in the world.  It’s not the only measure of your commitment, but it’s a major one.  And we are being to asked to pledge to “even greater works” (John 14:12) with full hearts to God’s work among us.

Last summer, I had a chance to play golf with my brother, Craig, in Savannah.  He’s an amazing golfer, very gifted.  I’m not very good at it.  I don’t play that often—which is why I’m not very good at it.  He’s a good teacher and I’m not always the best student.  This time I heard Craig say something that really struck me, it was advice regarding my swing.  As you probably know, swinging a golf club at a ball is no guarantee that one will actually hit the ball.  It’s possible to swing and soon realize that the ball is still sitting there on the tee, staring at you—laughing at you.  Craig said, “Commit to the ball.  Then swing.”  Golf is mostly a head and heart game, you know.  Commit, then swing.  You can’t be lukewarm about it.  Commit.  (I can tell you this made a noticeable difference in my score!)   

Sir Edmund Hillary ascending Mt. Everest in 1953.

Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008) knew something about commitment.  He was the first to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, in 1953.   He once said, “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness, concerning all acts of initiative [and creation]. There is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.”   He’s right: the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

“Listen.  I am standing at the door, knocking if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.”  May it be so.

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[1] I’m grateful for Roger Gench’s telling of this story and his reflection on the phenomenon of “nibbling,” found in his recent work Theology From the Trenches: Reflections on Urban Ministry (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), 64.

[2] Gench, 65.

[3] Gench, 65.

[4] Cited in Brian Blount, Revelation: A Commentary (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 80.

[5] Blount, 82.

[6] Blount, 83.