Alpha and Omega and Living Everyday
Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37
November 22, 2009
Any Sunday on which you get to read from Revelation is a good Sunday! If for no other reason than it’s always a good excuse for some Judgment Day tale.
Like the one about the old school preacher describing the end times.
"Oh, my friends," he said, "imagine the suffering of the sinners as they find themselves cast into the outer darkness, removed from the presence of the Lord and given to eternal flames. My friends, at such a time there will be weeping, wailing and a great gnashing of teeth!"
At this point, one of the elders of the congregation interrupted.
"But Reverend," she said, "what if one of those hopeless sinners has no teeth?"
The preacher crashed his fist on the pulpit, "My friends, the Lord is not put out by details. Rest assured ... teeth will be provided!"
Ah yes, teeth will be provided.
I suppose, however, that I would prefer William Sloan Coffin’s observation: “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
We really do have all that we need: teeth; wings – for this time and the next. While I obviously would depart a great deal from the old-time preacher’s eschatology, I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly on one implication: God is not put out by details; indeed, God is in the details.
God is in the small moments of living day to day.
If we are to say that Christ is King, or, in the oldest, simplest of Christian confessions – Christ is Lord – if we are to proclaim that faith, then we are proclaiming that Christ is lord of all the moments of our day.
For it does us little good to say that we notice God in the beautiful sunset if we do not also perceive God’s presence in the grittiness of an unemployment line. Moreover, it does us little good to note God’s presence if we are not able to derive meaning from the noticing, and if we are not able to live in response.
As Christians we interpret the presence of God through the life of Jesus. In other words, we trust that if we take ourselves into the places that Jesus would go, we know that God will be present there, and we will understand how God’s presence is meaningful and powerful in our lives because we know the stories of how Jesus responded to God in his life.
With this in mind, I set out to spend a week being mindful, being particularly aware of God moments. It’s not always easy to do. We get so busy and distracted by so much every day. Phone calls interrupt prayer time. Someone else’s needs push into the midst of our meditations. Our own concerns – illness, lousy sleep, dull gray skies, job stress, family tension – pull at us.
But the truth is, God is in the midst of all of this. So last Sunday, when I had to drive down to Richmond for a People of Faith for Equality Virginia fundraiser – because I’m a board member – I wasn’t sure if I had enough attention left for God.
Then Mel White, founder of Soulforce, told us a story about an African-American church musician in a southern congregation who, one Sunday morning, got tired of the steady drumbeat of condemnation of gays and lesbians pounded out from the pulpit. So he stood up in the middle of the sermon and said, “there will be no more music today,” and walked down the center aisle and out the door. The choir followed him out, and then – one by one – much of the congregation. The next day, the pastor asked the musician what had happened, what was the problem.
“I’m tired of the hateful talk about gays,” the musician told him.
The pastor replied, “but we don’t have any here.”
I should add, that when Mel told this story he repeated the musician’s response with flair, and noted that the man had sashayed down the aisle.
“But we don’t have any here.”
I felt the presence of God in that moment of storytelling, and I was reminded that the place of Jesus – and therefore my place – was right there with my sisters and brothers working tirelessly for a church as generous and just as God.
When we are working that justice might roll down like a mighty water, Christ is lord.
Monday morning rolled around and I began the week with the Post in hand. There on the front page was the story about the USDA report on hunger in America. Food insecurity – in that wonderfully bland and bureaucratic phrase – is at the highest point since the agriculture department began measuring a generation ago.
Then Monday evening 15 of us filled 501 bags with groceries at AFAC. Penn filled the last one and put it on the shelf. A new CPC record: 501! And once more I felt the presence of God and knew I was in the right place, lending a hand to help feed the least of these, my sisters and brothers. When we are tending his sheep, Christ is lord.
Tuesday rolled around, and I planned to get a lot of writing done, but God got in the way.
This time, in the presence of a middle-aged Columbian immigrant who needs a job. Maria – and she just had to be named Maria – came into my office looking for help. I wish I could tell you that we performed some kind of miracle and solved the crisis that she is in. That did not happen, though it might still.
But I felt God’s presence – the Christ in her – as we spoke, and then prayed together. She put a very human face on the immense economic crisis we are living through, and reminded me that our call to be the church is a call to be out in the world to bind up the broken.
I thought about Maria’s presence here on Wednesday when a colleague shared a 9-11 story I had never heard. It concerns St. Paul’s chapel in Lower Manhattan. Some of you may have watched the slide show on their pew project that I linked in the e-news this week.
St. Paul’s was the only structure in the interior part of the Trade Center complex that was not destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed. By all rights it should have imploded from the shock wave that ripped through the area under the pressure of millions of tons of falling debris.
Months after the tragedy, engineers concluded that the chapel was saved because its windows were open that morning and the energy of the collapse was dissipated. The windows were not supposed to be open that morning, but the night before it was a bit warm and stuffy in the chapel and so the homeless men who were sheltered there opened the windows and neglected to close them that morning.
Sometimes we entertain angels unaware. Sometimes they are smelly and homeless. Sometimes they are unemployed and desperate. Sometimes they are sick and dying. When our lives are touched by them, Christ is lord.
Thursday, by a series of coincidences that I could trace back to sticking flowers in the rifles of soldiers at the Armed Forces Day parade in Chattanooga in 1978, I found myself sitting in an off-the-record White House briefing and listening session on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I will be more than happy to talk about that experience with any of you at any point, but for now, suffice it to say that there in the White House complex, in the company of a remarkable array of religious leaders, I could feel the presence of God, and I understood clearly that when we are trying to be the blessed peacemakers, Christ is lord.
Thursday evening, we supported that work by playing host, again, to wayfaring members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, who crashed on the floor of Wilson Hall on their way to this weekend’s witness at the School of the Americas, or whatever they are calling that place now.
Friday all I really wanted to do was write a fool sermon on Jesus – the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, king of kings and lord of lords and all of that.
But a colleague came in to talk with me about our CALL program. She’d heard about it, and was fascinated that a congregation would trouble themselves to build an institutional capacity to help its members and people in the community listen for the presence of God in their lives, and for the call and claim of God on their vocation.
So I didn’t get anything written, and we talked straight on through lunch so I was starved and due on a conference call, and the sermon was not going to get written, and the e-mail was not going to be finished, and the copier was acting up, and the bulletins were not ready, and the stewardship letter was not going to go out, and I was stressed and not feeling remotely connected to the presence of God.
So I picked up the phone and called Jean Ensminger in the hospital to check on her and see how she was feeling just a couple of days after suffering what she calls a “very mild heart attack.”
I don’t know about you, but the words “very mild” do not seem to belong in the same sentence with the phrase “heart attack.”
But Jean was so cheerful, and sounded so strong and full of life, and talked about looking forward to our next book group lunch and trying to get back with us for worship soon.
When I got off the phone with her, her energy had rubbed off on me. She had ministered well to me – more so than the other way around I’m sure. And it dawned on me that when we allow others to be as Christ to us, truly, Christ is lord.
Alpha and omega then – at every step along the way. Whether we are lending a hand or taking a hand, whether we are feeding or being fed, whether healing or being healed – when we are living it is in Christ Jesus and when we’re dying it is in the lord.
Christ is lord. Hallelujah. Amen.
November 22, 2009
Any Sunday on which you get to read from Revelation is a good Sunday! If for no other reason than it’s always a good excuse for some Judgment Day tale.
Like the one about the old school preacher describing the end times.
"Oh, my friends," he said, "imagine the suffering of the sinners as they find themselves cast into the outer darkness, removed from the presence of the Lord and given to eternal flames. My friends, at such a time there will be weeping, wailing and a great gnashing of teeth!"
At this point, one of the elders of the congregation interrupted.
"But Reverend," she said, "what if one of those hopeless sinners has no teeth?"
The preacher crashed his fist on the pulpit, "My friends, the Lord is not put out by details. Rest assured ... teeth will be provided!"
Ah yes, teeth will be provided.
I suppose, however, that I would prefer William Sloan Coffin’s observation: “I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
We really do have all that we need: teeth; wings – for this time and the next. While I obviously would depart a great deal from the old-time preacher’s eschatology, I find myself agreeing whole-heartedly on one implication: God is not put out by details; indeed, God is in the details.
God is in the small moments of living day to day.
If we are to say that Christ is King, or, in the oldest, simplest of Christian confessions – Christ is Lord – if we are to proclaim that faith, then we are proclaiming that Christ is lord of all the moments of our day.
For it does us little good to say that we notice God in the beautiful sunset if we do not also perceive God’s presence in the grittiness of an unemployment line. Moreover, it does us little good to note God’s presence if we are not able to derive meaning from the noticing, and if we are not able to live in response.
As Christians we interpret the presence of God through the life of Jesus. In other words, we trust that if we take ourselves into the places that Jesus would go, we know that God will be present there, and we will understand how God’s presence is meaningful and powerful in our lives because we know the stories of how Jesus responded to God in his life.
With this in mind, I set out to spend a week being mindful, being particularly aware of God moments. It’s not always easy to do. We get so busy and distracted by so much every day. Phone calls interrupt prayer time. Someone else’s needs push into the midst of our meditations. Our own concerns – illness, lousy sleep, dull gray skies, job stress, family tension – pull at us.
But the truth is, God is in the midst of all of this. So last Sunday, when I had to drive down to Richmond for a People of Faith for Equality Virginia fundraiser – because I’m a board member – I wasn’t sure if I had enough attention left for God.
Then Mel White, founder of Soulforce, told us a story about an African-American church musician in a southern congregation who, one Sunday morning, got tired of the steady drumbeat of condemnation of gays and lesbians pounded out from the pulpit. So he stood up in the middle of the sermon and said, “there will be no more music today,” and walked down the center aisle and out the door. The choir followed him out, and then – one by one – much of the congregation. The next day, the pastor asked the musician what had happened, what was the problem.
“I’m tired of the hateful talk about gays,” the musician told him.
The pastor replied, “but we don’t have any here.”
I should add, that when Mel told this story he repeated the musician’s response with flair, and noted that the man had sashayed down the aisle.
“But we don’t have any here.”
I felt the presence of God in that moment of storytelling, and I was reminded that the place of Jesus – and therefore my place – was right there with my sisters and brothers working tirelessly for a church as generous and just as God.
When we are working that justice might roll down like a mighty water, Christ is lord.
Monday morning rolled around and I began the week with the Post in hand. There on the front page was the story about the USDA report on hunger in America. Food insecurity – in that wonderfully bland and bureaucratic phrase – is at the highest point since the agriculture department began measuring a generation ago.
Then Monday evening 15 of us filled 501 bags with groceries at AFAC. Penn filled the last one and put it on the shelf. A new CPC record: 501! And once more I felt the presence of God and knew I was in the right place, lending a hand to help feed the least of these, my sisters and brothers. When we are tending his sheep, Christ is lord.
Tuesday rolled around, and I planned to get a lot of writing done, but God got in the way.
This time, in the presence of a middle-aged Columbian immigrant who needs a job. Maria – and she just had to be named Maria – came into my office looking for help. I wish I could tell you that we performed some kind of miracle and solved the crisis that she is in. That did not happen, though it might still.
But I felt God’s presence – the Christ in her – as we spoke, and then prayed together. She put a very human face on the immense economic crisis we are living through, and reminded me that our call to be the church is a call to be out in the world to bind up the broken.
I thought about Maria’s presence here on Wednesday when a colleague shared a 9-11 story I had never heard. It concerns St. Paul’s chapel in Lower Manhattan. Some of you may have watched the slide show on their pew project that I linked in the e-news this week.
St. Paul’s was the only structure in the interior part of the Trade Center complex that was not destroyed when the Twin Towers collapsed. By all rights it should have imploded from the shock wave that ripped through the area under the pressure of millions of tons of falling debris.
Months after the tragedy, engineers concluded that the chapel was saved because its windows were open that morning and the energy of the collapse was dissipated. The windows were not supposed to be open that morning, but the night before it was a bit warm and stuffy in the chapel and so the homeless men who were sheltered there opened the windows and neglected to close them that morning.
Sometimes we entertain angels unaware. Sometimes they are smelly and homeless. Sometimes they are unemployed and desperate. Sometimes they are sick and dying. When our lives are touched by them, Christ is lord.
Thursday, by a series of coincidences that I could trace back to sticking flowers in the rifles of soldiers at the Armed Forces Day parade in Chattanooga in 1978, I found myself sitting in an off-the-record White House briefing and listening session on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I will be more than happy to talk about that experience with any of you at any point, but for now, suffice it to say that there in the White House complex, in the company of a remarkable array of religious leaders, I could feel the presence of God, and I understood clearly that when we are trying to be the blessed peacemakers, Christ is lord.
Thursday evening, we supported that work by playing host, again, to wayfaring members of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, who crashed on the floor of Wilson Hall on their way to this weekend’s witness at the School of the Americas, or whatever they are calling that place now.
Friday all I really wanted to do was write a fool sermon on Jesus – the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, king of kings and lord of lords and all of that.
But a colleague came in to talk with me about our CALL program. She’d heard about it, and was fascinated that a congregation would trouble themselves to build an institutional capacity to help its members and people in the community listen for the presence of God in their lives, and for the call and claim of God on their vocation.
So I didn’t get anything written, and we talked straight on through lunch so I was starved and due on a conference call, and the sermon was not going to get written, and the e-mail was not going to be finished, and the copier was acting up, and the bulletins were not ready, and the stewardship letter was not going to go out, and I was stressed and not feeling remotely connected to the presence of God.
So I picked up the phone and called Jean Ensminger in the hospital to check on her and see how she was feeling just a couple of days after suffering what she calls a “very mild heart attack.”
I don’t know about you, but the words “very mild” do not seem to belong in the same sentence with the phrase “heart attack.”
But Jean was so cheerful, and sounded so strong and full of life, and talked about looking forward to our next book group lunch and trying to get back with us for worship soon.
When I got off the phone with her, her energy had rubbed off on me. She had ministered well to me – more so than the other way around I’m sure. And it dawned on me that when we allow others to be as Christ to us, truly, Christ is lord.
Alpha and omega then – at every step along the way. Whether we are lending a hand or taking a hand, whether we are feeding or being fed, whether healing or being healed – when we are living it is in Christ Jesus and when we’re dying it is in the lord.
Christ is lord. Hallelujah. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
9:24 AM
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