Ready for 2013?

...in case it wasn't obvious from my previous post, I kinda am.  Even though 2012 was, in fact, a wonderful year for my congregation--our worship attendance grew by over 45%, we began a new children's Sunday School class, we started participating in a new mission program for our neighbors at Kessler Elementary School, and we repainted the entire freakin' building.  God has provided an abundance of will and energy to do great things here.

So, not bad for a year's work!

But I also wanted to give y'all a heads-up for some of the material I've got rolling around in my noggin for 2013...

First and foremost, I'll continue posting all of my sermons and columns here.  That part won't change.

What will, however, is an attempt by me to try to build a bit more continuity on the blog.  I've noticed that I preach better within larger arcs of continuity--hence why I preach almost entirely in sermon series throughout the year.  I've wondered if that might hold true for my blogging as well as for my preaching.

In that vein, I'm considering different options of what might make for a good series of blog posts.  I have thought about interviews with other young pastors in the Pacific Northwest who are, like me, engaging in building and rebuilding ministries with their churches.  I have also thought about making our Bible studies here at FCC partly accessible online, in that I would post a series of reflections based on what came out of those studies--questions, struggles, commentary, my own notes, etc.--for you to follow along and contribute to with your own discussion.

My own posts will likely continue in similar veins, though--a mixture of commentary on current affairs from a progressive Christian perspective and behind-the-scenes reflections on what ministry is truly, astoundingly, like.

Regardless of what I end up writing for the blog this year, I am very excited--and optimistic--for the prospects the year holds for my ministry here.

Which almost certainly means I need to go knock on wood immediately.

What are you most looking forward to in 2013?  What are you most hoping for?  What would you most like to see here at the Project in terms of posts, series, and content?

PS: Pasted below is also my preaching schedule for January, so that you can follow along with the new sermon series that begins on January 13.  It will be the first explicitly vision-casting sermon series I've done since the "Ashes to Sunlight" series when I first arrived here in 2011.  It will be based on the "to everything, there is a season" poem in Ecclesiastes 3, and I am really looking forward to it!

Yours in Christ,
Eric

January 2013 Worship Messages

January 6 (Epiphany Sunday): “As Dreamers Do,” Matthew 2:1-11

Post-Epiphany 2013: “A Time to Be Church: Envisioning a Promising Future”

January 13: “A Time to Break Down, a Time to Build Up,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

January 20: “A Time to Seek, a Time to Lose,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-6

January 27: “A Time to Tear, a Time to Sew,” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Letters from the Soul: This Month's Newsletter Column

"From Darkness Into Light"

Dear Church,

I’ll be honest—I don’t think I’m emotionally ready for 2013.

It isn’t because I don’t want to be—I’m quite ready to say good riddance to how 2012 turned out.  Between our break-in and the shootings in Clackamas, Oregon and Newtown, Connecticut, December 2012 was one of the darkest months of my life.

But I’m still working on the moving on part.  There are no New Year’s Resolutions.  There is no new diet.  I’m still working on processing and remembering 2012, both the good and the bad.

Because truly, there was plenty of good, too—we had baptisms, weddings, birthday celebrations, and more as our church grew in both size and spirit last year.  Even after the break-in, I was humbled and heartened by how quickly so many of you stepped forward to help us restore our historic building.  To all of you who volunteered as a part of that effort, thank you.

I think what I regret in my case is allowing the good to be lost in, and overshadowed by, the bad. It’s something that Scripture always cautions me against.  It reminds me that there is light in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5).  But just like you, I sometimes have to remind myself just how bright and lovely the light of God really is.

So, that’s my hope for 2013—for a brighter light shining in whatever darkness is in my life, and in your lives, than perhaps what existed when 2012 ended.

After all, God is still here.  We just have to keep the hurts and pains of the world from interfering with our ability to see and search for Him and for His love, which is for each of us.

I wish all of you a blessed, safe, and happy 2013!

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Eric

Christmas Eve Sermon: "In the City of David"

(A programming note: I will be away on vacation for the rest of the calendar year, so look for new entries here starting just after the New Year!  I wish you and yours a merry and safe Christmas!  -E.A.)

Luke 2:1-20

In those days Caesar Augustus declared that everyone throughout the empire should be enrolled in the tax lists. 2 This first enrollment occurred when Quirinius governed Syria. 3 Everyone went to their own cities to be enrolled. 4 Since Joseph belonged to David’s house and family line, he went up from the city of Nazareth in Galilee to David’s city, called Bethlehem, in Judea. 5 He went to be enrolled together with Mary, who was promised to him in marriage and who was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom.

8 Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night. 9 The Lord’s angel stood before them, the Lord’s glory shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 The angel said, “Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good news to you—wonderful, joyous news for all people. 11 Your savior is born today in David’s city. He is Christ the Lord. 12 This is a sign for you: you will find a newborn baby wrapped snugly and lying in a manger.” 13 Suddenly a great assembly of the heavenly forces was with the angel praising God. They said, 14 “Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.” 15 When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go right now to Bethlehem and see what’s happened. Let’s confirm what the Lord has revealed to us.” 16 They went quickly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they reported what they had been told about this child. 18 Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully. 20 The shepherds returned home, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. Everything happened just as they had been told. (CEB)

"In the City of David"

We had warned the teenagers whom we had chaperoned on a mission trip across the United States-Mexico border to Tijuana.  We instructed them that when we reached the border crossing, they were to give their passports to the customs officer, to take off their hats and sunglasses, to sit absolutely still, and to not speak unless spoken to.  Over-protective of us?  Perhaps a bit.

But then, amidst the long line of cars, vans, and trucks waiting to cross over the border, we saw several street vendors wending their way through the automobiles, selling churros—those finger-shaped sticks of dough rolled in cinnamon sugar.

We bought six bags.  Because, you know, what better strategy for a road trip with a van full of teenagers than to imbibe everybody with massive amounts of sugar?

But that also broke any tension, any inner fear, however tiny, that we would not cross the border.  And, at the end of the mission trip, we heard the same words from the American customs agent that you hear whenever you return to the States—“Welcome home.”

There probably was nobody there to say that to Mary and Joseph.  Not the least of which was that it wasn’t their current home—Luke writes that they lived in Nazareth, and had to register for Quirinius’ census because Joseph himself came from Bethlehem.

For Joseph, at least, this is a coming home story--he's returning to his hometown, even if he misses out on visiting his old high school and favorite hangout spots.  Yet in Luke’s Gospel, it’s the closest we get to learning much of anything of Jesus’ earthly stepfather.  The protagonist in Luke’s birth story is not Joseph, but, wonderfully, Mary—she is visited by the archangel Gabriel, she visits her relative Elizabeth, and she sings that amazing, wonderful song, the Magnificat, which begins with the words, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.”

Joseph?  Well, if Mary is the lead singer, Joseph is one of the awkward backup dancers whose face you can’t really make out unless you pause the music video at the exact right moment.

So this is big, that this story, Jesus’ birth, is playing out not in Mary’s home, where all the action had been previously, but on Joseph’s home turf.  And it’s appropriate—just as Joseph is a descendant of King David (as an aside—since Joseph was a carpenter, do you think he ever thought to himself, “gee, where’s my crown and scepter?”), Bethlehem was David’s birthplace just as it is Joseph’s, and just as it becomes Jesus’.  These days, we might ask if there was something in the water there, but really, it is nothing more and nothing less than how God works.

So Joseph, with Mary, returns home.  Initially, it is only to register for the census.  There is no indication that Jesus’ birth was planned this way, for Him to be born in Bethlehem, except by God.  You sort of have to think that Mary and Joseph weren’t expecting it, because otherwise they would have at least tried to find a way to adjust their travel plans accordingly.

And so Bethlehem becomes Jesus’ home as well, at least for a little while…because it HAD to happen this way.  For born unto us, this day, in the city of David, is a savior, Christ the Lord.

It HAD to happen this way.  For, when Jesus is born, the heavenly hosts appear to the shepherds—a people whose lives and work are wrapped up in being nomadic wanderers, off from place to place in search of land for their flocks to forage on.

And the angels say to these wanderers, “For born unto you, this day, in the city of David…”  They are saying to these men with no permanent house, “Welcome home.”

From there, the birth ripples out even wider.  In Matthew’s Gospel, there is the story of the wise men who came far from the East to worship Christ the King.  They were led by a star, and the star settled over Bethlehem, over the city of David, and beckoned the wise men forth.  The star was saying these men as well, these journeyers far from their towns, “Welcome home.”

And Jesus’ birth ripples out even wider and further today.  Because we gather here.  Amidst the cold, we gather in warmth.  Amidst the dark, we gather in light.  And amidst the winter, we gather in the promise of a new season of God’s love for us.

We have gathered in God’s house to worship the newborn Savior.  And if you look back on how you came to be here, on this night—not just the car ride here, but what brought you here: a sense of belonging, the embrace of a community, the longing to hear the story told…any of those things means that you were called here.

Like the wise men, like the shepherds, like Joseph the father of Jesus, God calls to you as well from His house to say, “Welcome home.”

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus came to Bethlehem because it was, and is, the city of David.

You came here tonight, a half a world away from Bethlehem, but not at all that far away from the city of David after all.

For, just as Jesus’ birth echoes out far and wide to all areas of the world, so too does this mean that the city of David is no longer limited to the town of Bethlehem.  With Christ’s birth, the city of David represents whatever it takes to bring God’s love into this world.  Even if it means saddling up a very pregnant Mary, her worried husband Joseph, and sending them off to be present for the coming of God’s own Son, made flesh and bone with a tongue and lips to speak our language, so that we might one day hear the Gospel.

And for that to happen, they had to be called to their home in the city of David. 

Just as we, too, are called.

You…me…all of us, we have been called here, to a home—God’s home.  On this night.  Called to the city of David.  For born unto us this night is a savior, which is Christ the Lord.  Amen.

Rev. Eric Atcheson

Longview, Washington

December 24, 2012

This Week's Sermon: "The Meek Inherit the Earth"

Isaiah 9:2-7

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in a pitch-dark land, light has dawned. 3 You have made the nation great; you have increased its joy. They rejoiced before you as with joy at the harvest, as those who divide plunder rejoice. 4 As on the day of Midian, you’ve shattered the yoke that burdened them, the staff on their shoulders, and the rod of their oppressor. 5 Because every boot of the thundering warriors, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned, fuel for the fire. 6 A child is born to us, a son is given to us, and authority will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 7 There will be vast authority and endless peace for David’s throne and for his kingdom, establishing and sustaining it with justice and righteousness now and forever. The zeal of the Lord of heavenly forces will do this. (CEB)

“How Much is Enough?  Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture”: Week Four

The author Jon Krakauer had been writing literally for decades—and in the process had survived some harrowing adventures, including a near-death experience on Mount Everest made famous in his account, Into Thin Air.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, his next book tackled issues of religion, accountability, and persecution, when he came out with Under the Banner of Heaven as an examination of Mormonism and American religious culture.  At the end of Under the Banner, he appended an epilogue, in which he explained that because he was writing on matters of the soul, he felt ethically compelled to disclose what his own take on God was.  This is what he wrote:

“I do not know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion.  In fact, I do not know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty…in the absence of conviction, I’ve come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life.  An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain—which does not strike me as something to lament…and if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few more modest truths: Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why—which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator.  And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.”

This sermon still bears the original title I had planned, and it still nominally occupies a place in the sermon series I had planned for this season of Advent, based on the book by Arthur Simon entitled “How Much Is Enough?”  But after three Sundays of Advent, I have preached on this original series but once.  The first Sunday of Advent was the Sunday immediately after our break-in.  Last Sunday, of course, the third Sunday of Advent, was the Sunday immediately after the Sandy Hook mass murder.  In both cases I abandoned my original planned sermon, and I am very glad I did in both cases.  But it does make it difficult to preach a sequel when there hasn’t really been an original.  You can't have The Empire Strikes Back without A New Hope, you know?

So, instead, I  thought that I would just talk with you today.  About Isaiah.  About Christmas.  About where we are as a church family right now.  This is just you, me, and God right now.

Because like Jon Krakauer, I think that many of us feel, even if we have seen the proverbial light and are leading lives of spiritual richness, we still feel in the dark this Christmas season, perhaps more so than usual.  I know I do.  And I know it is a nagging spiritual burden to have to bear.

Isaiah says we will break our yokes and our burdens.  And, over the past nearly year and a half that you and I have been church together, we have indeed unshackled ourselves from many a weight upon our shoulders.  It has been truly wonderful to see, and I am as thrilled to be here as the pastor of First Christian Church as I was the day I started.  We are actually going to keep with that theme a little bit, about what it is like to be church now, rather than when I first arrived, in January—it will be a sermon series centered around the “a time for every purpose under the sun” poem in Ecclesiastes 3.

But there is a time for burdens.  And that time seems to always be after that initial joy begins to wear off.  We know that Jesus knew there would be burdens to bear.  In almost the same breath as He said, “my burden is easy and my yoke is light,” He also said in the Sermon on the Mount, “blessed are those who are poor spirit, who are grieving, and who are persecuting for doing what God asks.  And, of course, He said, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

But honestly, sometimes I think this earth isn’t what I want my inheritance to be.

But then I stop.  And I remember what Isaiah says.  A people walking in darkness has seen a great light, and that we have, in fact, shattered the yoke that has burdened us.

It is simple enough to say that we each have our own yokes and burdens to bear and to shatter.  Tougher to explain is how the great light gets us to that point of freeing ourselves from them.

In Genesis, it is written that in the beginning, God said, “Let there be light.”  And there was light.  And God saw that the light was good.  In His unknowable wisdom and understanding, God saw that the light was not simply acceptable, or serviceable, or adequate.  It was good.  It is one of those phrases that you can savor as you speak it, a phrase that really does roll off the tongue.

It was good.

Now, if you’re like me and are prone to questioning and prodding with a stick anything placed before you, you may ask, what does it mean for an abstract phenomenon such as light to be “good”?  The closest I have ever come to an answer was during my seminary training, when I read an answer to that question by Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, who said that light is good because it gives of itself freely.  It does not seek anything in return.  It does not ask whether you are friend or foe before lighting your path.  It fundamentally and unconditionally gives of itself, and thus, it is never, ever diminished.

We see this goodness of the light in the prophecy of Isaiah, for it shines for the people who had previously walked only in the pitch darkness.  It shines to protect and guide the people of God, pilgrims like ourselves who are well along now in our way of preparing for the birth of our Lord and Savior.  In creating the light, God has created an unending source of constant, unconditional lavishing of warmth and sight for His creation.

Because that is what Christmas is in the end, right?  It is part of proving to us that God will offer sight to the us who are blind and warmth to us who are cold, no matter what, even if it means giving over His Son to human parents, to human disciples, and ultimately to human persecutors.

It’s about God, in all His power and splendor, making Himself vulnerable as well.

It’s why Christ came to earth not as a fully grown man, but as a baby.

And it’s where we find ourselves today—feeling vulnerable, raw, and probably more than a bit exhausted by everything the past four weeks have thrown at us.

And so I stare into the light, longing to become the light.  It is through this light that I can, in fact, begin to see love.  I can reach out sense it, feel its warmth.  That mysterious yet awe-inspiring feeling that somehow in this imperfect world, where people kill one another by the bucketful, where thousands of children die by the day not only from gunfire but from starvation and neglect, where we look around and at times feel so much despair and see so much darkness, that this is, still, in the end, a world worth living for.  Because, like it or not, it is our inheritance.

The meek shall inherit the earth.

Lucky us, right?

But we are fortunate.  The earth, for all its ills, for all its sins, for all its fragility and brokenness, is still divinely made.

In the beginning, the earth was without form and void.  And God said, “Let there be light.”

And there was light.

For God, in the end, wants us to see.

He wants us to see His love for us.

And believe me, His love still lives.  I see it.  I see it in the great light of God, shining in our darkness.

And so I stare into the light.  Amen.

Rev. Eric Atcheson

Longview, Washington

December 23, 2012

Beating Swords Into Plows, and Spears Into Pruning Hooks

God will judge between the nations, and settle disputes of mighty nations. Then they will beat their swords into iron plows and their spears into pruning tools. Nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war.

-Isaiah 2:4 (CEB)

I'm a huge fan of the Worst Case Scenario Survival series--the combination of quirky humor and learning interesting trivia has proven irresistible to me over the years, and I now own quite a few of the books.

In one of my favorites, their History Almanac, is the story of when Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1752.

Now, back then, the tallest point of many towns was the church--especially if the church had a steeple.  But many church leaders "believed that lightning was sent by God as a punishment for sins--and Franklin's redirection of this tool of God's wrath was seen as an affront to God's will."

We know who won that particular debate--lightning rods became an important part of architecture, and many churches, in fact, serve as emergency shelters for severe weather precisely because they could withstand, among other things, lightning strikes.

But what I find interesting about that anecdote is the reluctance some churches had to challenging what they believed to be God's judgment (expressed via the destructiveness of lightning).

I've already talked about, in my entry from Tuesday, the idea that God was somehow executing or allowing judgment upon America during the Sandy Hooks tragedy last Friday.  In a sentence, I'm not too keen on it.

I'm similarly not too keen on how folks have suggested we react as a result of this massacre.  On a tree next to the elementary school which neighbors my church, somebody nailed this message: "One child shot is too much, allow teachers to defend them.  Make it a requirement for schoolteachers to have guns."

As one of my congregants succinctly observed, "I don't think that's the answer."

Neither do I.

But there's some odd theology at play here.

Clearly, some folks (however many) are seeing the loss of life in Newtown as a result of us turning away from God in some fashion or another (marriage equality, prayer in schools, take your pick).

But we're also saying that we should actively--and, in the case of this anonymous sign, violently--prevent this expression of God's judgment.

Which begs the question...if we believe in God and in His judgment, why are we--like Ben Franklin--trying to manipulate it?

The likely answer is, of course, that it is not God's judgment we are thwarting by asking ourselves how we can prevent another Sandy Hooks from happening.

We're working on thwarting our own evil instead.  As we should.  But my vote tends to be, as Isaiah puts it, for us beating our swords into plows and our spears into pruning hooks.

In an NPR story about the tragedy, and about how or why a good God allows such evil, Rabbi Steven Folberg talked about a bumper sticker he saw once.  It said: "God is good.  Evil is real.  God is all-powerful.  Pick two."

And that's about the size of the dilemma.

What if God is not all-powerful?

Would that be okay?

Would your faith be changed?

Or...maybe, would your faith be strengthened by the idea that a God who was NOT all-powerful, who did not have infinite stores of ability to draw upon, instead used some of His love and energy to create you?

It's just a thought.

But it's one that keeps returning to me after Sandy Hook.

Yours in Christ,
Eric

God's Everywhere: A Response to Mike Huckabee and James Dobson

I'll confess: I have very little patience with the notion that we can "kick God out" of anywhere.

As Robert De Niro says in my mother's favorite comedy ever, Meet the Fockers: "I'm everywhere, Focker."

(God, in this case, is Robert De Niro.  Who would make an interesting choice to play God in a movie sometime.  But I digress.)

More to the point, if we believe that God can be anywhere and/or everywhere, then to say we can methodically kick Him out the way a landlord evicts a tenant implies that we can manipulate God.

Which is a notion that I am very much not okay with.

So...it was hard for me to stomach the comments of Christian heavyweights Mike Huckabee and James Dobson in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

I alluded to this in my sermon on Sunday, but it is impossible to use God's presence or lack thereof as a barometer for bad things happening to someone or to somewhere.  For one, some of the most loving, faithful, compassionate Christians I know are people who have been kicked to the curb time and time again by the world we live in.  They have not, by any standard, been protected the way, say, I would want to be protected.  But they are some of the best people I know.

So that can't be it.

Nor can it be that God has simply picked up His ball and gone home.  After all, dispelling precisely that notion is the point of so many of the nevi'im--the Old Testament prophets.  They prophesy of a God who remains faithful to us DESPITE our derelictions, who will, always come back for His children (or His bride, if you're reading Hosea).

More to the point, though, I serve a congregation I absolutely love for their commitment to mission.  We just finished our holiday donation drive for the Cowlitz County Emergency Support Shelter, which houses women and children escaping abusive households.  We donate both necessities (clothes, diapers, toiletries) and Christmas gifts (toys, makeup, etc) for the families there, and we offer food to create a Christmas dinner for them.  It's one of the greatest and best things we do all year.

But in the midst of that particular mission, we were invaded, vandalized, and our walls, floors, and hymnals set on fire.

That cannot be because we are somehow unworthy of divine protection--after all, my church consists of loving, Bible-believing, and compassionate Christians.

More importantly, though, we are God's children.

Just like the people who were shot and killed in Clackamas.

Just like the children and their teachers who were murdered in Newtown.

Just like the victims in so many other gun-related massacres this year, both in America and abroad.

Regardless of the version of the Bible we use, or whether we believe in predestination or free will, or whether we believe in God at all, as Ecclesiastes says, time and chance happens to us all.

Time and chance happens to us all.

Time and chance.  Not wrath.

After all, even Jesus says that the person who hears His words but does not follow them is not judged until the end times (John 12:48, though, granted, if you believe the Mayans, the end times may just be upon us, but that's another can of tuna).

God executing immediate judgment?  Sorry, but I'm reserving judgment on that one.  Not only because it is a Biblically murky question, but because honestly, when you do what James Dobson did and blame the gays for the Newtown massacre, and you say that the massacre represents God allowing judgment to come upon us, you sound an awful lot like Fred Phelps and his hateful Westboro Baptist Church (yes, the "God Hates F*gs" church).

I'm not exaggerating here.  If there is a substantive difference between what the Westboro hatemongers preach (that dead soldiers are God's judgment for us being inclusive of gays and lesbians) and what James Dobson just said (that dead children are God's judgment on us for legalizing marriage equality), I cannot see it.

I wasn't originally planning for my initial post after the Newtown massacre to be a theological takedown like this--I'm still praying, reflecting, and trying to process all of the evil that has taken place.

But what these two guys are saying amounts to theological malpractice.  And far be it for me to criticize fellow ministers, but that may be the only way to expose the flaws in their logic and in their theology in this instance.

There's a lot of people saying a lot of things about this tragedy.  You owe it to yourself, and to your faith, to examine those things critically.

Please continue to pray for all of those affected by the plague of mass murders in 2012.

Yours in Christ,
Eric

This Week's Sermon: "Saying "Yes" to Life"

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple. 2 Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about. 3 They shouted to each other, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!” 4 The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!” 6 Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.” 8 Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?” I said, “I’m here; send me.”  (CEB)

“How Much is Enough? Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture,” Week Three

 She is a friend of mine from college, has been a mother now for nearly five years. We have always lived on opposite ends of the country, but thanks to things like Facebook, we can weigh in on each other’s lives pretty regularly. Her daughter, Ava, starts school next year, and judging from all of the pictures of her my friend Lauren (her mother) has put on Facebook—of Ava smiling ear-to-ear wearing a princess dress, or of them getting spa facials together—Ava has become a delightful little girl. With Lauren’s permission, I want to share just a tiny bit of her story of when she found out about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut:

"Ava walked out of her room and saw me sitting teary-eyed on the couch as images from catastrophe scrolled across the TV. She came over and wiped my face, with a look of raw, honest, visceral concern and compassion sparkling in her eyes and tweaking the corners of her mouth upwards. She put a finger on each end of my mouth and attempted to contort my face into a grin. “Smile, Mommy,” she said. “Everything is a-o-k. Right?” 

Here’s the thing. Everything is not ok. There is nothing ok about 20 children having their lives snuffed out before they’ve even had a chance to live them. It is not ok that hundreds of parents in Connecticut tonight are having to explain to their children why they won’t see their friends or teachers anymore. It is not ok that there are families in Colorado that fear movie theaters, and loved ones in Oregon who are skittish about making their holiday purchases at shopping malls. It is not ok by any stretch of the imagination, and unless something changes, it’s never going to be. These things are going to keep happening." 

I confess, I worry the exact same thing. This is the sinful world we have made for ourselves—not the world God has created for us: a world where, rather than having faith that we will learn and act from such a tragedy, we are resigned to it happening again in another time, in another place, with other people. And this cannot be our way forward. This cannot be our way to God.

This is a new sermon series for us as a church, as well as a new year. This Sunday marks the first Sunday of the new church year, which doesn’t quite adhere to our January-through-December calendar—it usually runs November-through-November, and it begins with this first season that we call Advent. It is a time of, as John the Baptist preached to us, preparing the way for the Lord who is to come to us on Christmas Day. And we’ll be doing so this Christmas season by reading together one of the great forerunners in the Old Testament to Jesus, the prophet Isaiah. He is the one who prophesied the coming of a virgin who would give birth to a child called Emmanuel, but Isaiah has so much more to share with us than that. And we’ll be looking at what he had to say early in his prophetic career in light of the book “How Much is Enough? Hungering for God in an Affluent Culture,” by Arthur Simon, who founded the Christian nonprofit organization Bread for the World. We’ll be juxtaposing a passage from Isaiah with a chapter from “How Much Is Enough?” each Sunday. We began with the chapter entitled, “Fat Wallets, Empty Lives.” Last Sunday was the chapter “Rushing to Nowhere.” This Sunday, the chapter is entitled, appropriately and tragically enough, “Saying “Yes” to Life.”

This is the second sermon in just three so far in this series where I am veering far away from what was originally intended when I created this series many weeks ago. So be it.

But there is one story of Arthur Simon’s that I do want to share with you this week. He writes: 

(Angsar) Sovik has had a long and distinguished career as professor of religion and Asian history at St. Olaf College…in retirement, one of his activities was to make bookends from the timber of old buildings being renovated at St. Olaf and give the bookends away before Christmas to anyone who agreed to contribute twenty-five dollars to world relief or advocacy against hunger…When I expressed amazement at what he had done with his (then) eighty-five years, Sovik told me how blessed he has been from childhood on. He said that from the time he was a young boy, his father always greeted him (in Norwegian) with the words, “Are you saying ‘yes’ to life, my son?” 

In Arthur Simon’s retelling, “are you saying “yes” to life” is a greeting. It is incomplete, meant only as a beginning for a conversation, a get-together, an encounter of any degree of importance. And, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, there is, I think, a way to complete it. In a culture of death, are you saying “yes” to life? In a culture of death, are WE saying “yes” to life?

We are all scrambling, I am sure, to seek answers as to what has just happened in Newtown, Connecticut. We want to know how. We want to know why. And those answers may well come in time. But for the moment, there is a more important answer God wants us to seek: the answer to, “In a culture of death, are we saying “yes to life?” Because it is, in a sentence, the dilemma that Isaiah faces here today.

This is one of my absolute favorite stories in all of Scripture—the calling of Isaiah. It is mystical, inspirational, otherworldly, and awe-inspiring all at the same time. It elicits the best possible action from Isaiah: he says “yes” to God’s calling, he says “yes” to offering God’s word to us, he says “yes” to life in every possible sense.

Yet it is a story that begins in death. It begins in the year that King Uzziah died.

And in case you were wondering, Scripture tells us that Uzziah was an excellent monarch. Both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles vouch not only for the prosperity that occurred under his watch, but also for, at least at first, his willingness to stay true to the ways of Yahweh.

So even though any death is a time for mourning for someone, this isn’t a case of “well, maybe they’ll be better off under the next guy.” This was the loss of a king who was the genuine article.

Yet still Isaiah writes, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.”

In the year that he and his countrymen experienced the loss of their leader, Isaiah saw the Lord. He heard the Lord. God asked him, “Who shall I send?” And Isaiah said, “Here I am, send me.”

Isaiah said yes.

In this year of loss, can you still bring yourself to say, “I saw the Lord?” I know the answer to that question may not always be “yes,” but…God is not a fair-weather friend. God is ever here.

In the year that I have had to bury three people—two of whom died too young—I saw the Lord.

In the year when our church was invaded, desecrated, and at the mercies of fire, I saw the Lord.

In the year when our brothers and sisters in humanity fell to the fire of gunmen in Clackamas, Oregon, in Aurora, Colorado, and at the Sikh temple at Oak Creek, Wisconsin, I saw the Lord.

And in the year when twenty kindergarten-aged children and their teachers were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut, I saw the Lord.

Honestly, it is not shocking that the Lord is still visible. For God knows, just as we do, that anything can happen, but that in the end, only one thing will. And when that one outcome which does occur also happens to be God’s will, He rejoices in heaven that all is well in that moment.

But when what happens is not what He wills, God is visible. He makes His presence known. God makes His presence known to David as he mourns his son Absalom. God makes His presence known to Jeremiah as the prophet mourns his exile. God made His presence known to each of us by not only sending us His Son, but by resurrecting Him whilst we grieved Him.

Which means that I have no appetite for the belief that God was not there in the school because we have somehow kicked God out of school, or that we have somehow told God we no longer need or want Him. After all, only a few short weeks ago, an act of violence was committed against His house—against THIS house—and it surely was not because God had left this place.

 No, God was present. God has never left the temple. Nor must we. We are still called here. Because out of all of the things that can happen, this is the one thing God wishes to happen: for us to hear His call. To accept it. To say “yes” to life in a culture of death.

It is not easy, saying “yes” to life. The way of death and destruction is much quicker. It is, sadly, far easier to use ourselves as weapons to destroy, rather than as tools to build.

But with his vision, Isaiah learned that the ease of the task does not matter. Not when it is God who wills it. So while saying “yes” to life might be harder for us now, the difficulty does not matter. It is, out of anything that can happen, the one thing that must happen.

Amen.

Rev. Eric Atcheson
Longview, Washington
December 16, 2012