University
Congregational United
When I was in seminary it was taught that a preacher should not give personal illustrations. Even if you mentioned something personal, you preface it, I was told, with some sort of disclaimer. So the joke was if you told a personal story, you should start by saying, “An old preacher once said . . .” Of course it was funny when we were young. These days, however, when I say “An old preacher once said . . .’ as preface, it is really true.
My experience with personal illustrations actually has been the opposite of what I was advised in seminary. Yes, one must be careful always that the sermon is not about one’s self. And yet, the sermon is always, if it is to be deeply true, about one’s self, and the ways the personal story touches the whole story. And if the story is deeply true for me, then it has a chance of being deeply true for you as well.
So a few years ago I took a chance. I told you about my love of chocolate and my tendency to hoard it. And you responded, not only with gifts of chocolate with the single admonition not to hoard it, but to eat it up and to share it too, and also with your own stories of holding on and letting go.
So let me tell you another story, in the same lighthearted way I told you about chocolate and me. This is something I actually didn’t think I would ever use in a sermon, but here goes. An old preacher I knew told me that when she has trouble sleeping at night, and she gets to the desperate point when soft music hasn’t worked and counting sheep has only led to thoughts of what bad things might be happening out in the barn, she thinks about her sermon. If it is early in the writing process, she thinks about the broad outline she has started to develop. If the sermon is moving along, she thinks about the tough transition points. If the sermon is written, she tries to go over it in her mind, to see how much she can remember. And inevitably, and she told me this always works, she quickly falls asleep.
Now the reason I have hesitated to tell you that story is quite obvious. This preacher always hopes her sermons don’t have the same effect on her congregation as they do on her. But let me take you just a little further in the process. There is something about that moment of letting go, holding the sermon in my mind and thinking of the next point, and then relaxing, that I think deepens the sermon. Sometimes it only deepens it in me, as I rest my way into it. And sometimes some point I have been wrestling with in the sermon’s development suddenly becomes clear, and when I next return to my sermon work, thoughts just flow.
Today we as a congregation join the rest of the Christian world in entering the new church year, beginning with the season of Advent. You see that turning of the seasons in the new paraments Kris Garratt has made for us; in our new stoles and the antependium on the communion table, the pulpit and the lectern. You see it in the changing of the seasons, fall into winter, and the changing of the light. Advent, like winter, is a season of waiting.
Today we, as a congregation, also move in our study of the Ten Commandments into Commandment Four: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. This too is a turning. The first three commandments have focused us on our relationship with God. The commandments that come later focus on our relationship with one another. And this commandment holds the turning.
If commandments were measured in importance by their length, then this commandment is number one. It is the longest one in the text. If commandments were measured in their importance by which came first in time, this one would win that contest too. In six days God created heaven, earth, and all that is in them we are told. Then on the seventh day, God rested. Even God keeps the Sabbath. It is as if into the very fabric of existence, God has woven a rhythm. No effort, not even creation itself, is complete without a resting- like the rest you give to bread to let it rise; like the pause between breathing in and breathing out- the absolute conviction that after we have done everything we can, there must be a resting before there is completion.
It
is truly amazing to me that at a time in human history when life meant working
as hard as one could as long as one could just to survive,
a group of people got it. They
recognized the rhythm of life and built into the very core of their life
together the concept of Sabbath.
Perhaps
it was their experience as slaves in
And Sabbath became the foundation of justice in Jewish law. It was equally applied- everyone got to rest- the people and the slaves and the strangers- even the work animals. Sabbath was applied to all of creation, so that a Sabbath rest for the land was intended to be a part of agricultural practice, and the seventh Sabbath, the Year of Jubilee, was a time of release of all debts and return of all accumulation, so that all of society could breath in and breath out.
By the time of the exile, though, some interesting things had happened to the idea of Sabbath. First of all, it had become privatized. The prophets spoke out against this sense that Sabbath was only for the individual, pointing to the lack of justice in the land as a lack of Sabbath keeping. And in the privatization of the Sabbath, arguments arose over what constituted rest. In attempt to put a “fence around the law,” it was suggested by the religious elite that anything that produced more than a thimbleful of sweat was too much work. And suddenly it seemed as if people were created just to keep the Sabbath, rather than understanding that the Sabbath was created for the benefit of all of us.
“Prepare the way of the Lord,” we are told. And an important part of that preparation is resting, waiting.
When I came to this church it was December first, four years ago, and you had already entered your advent Sabbath. What a wonderful way to begin a job. I knew I was in a congregation that got it- that understood that this journey is not just about us and all that we can do. It is also about resting in God’s presence, waiting, trusting.
We do not do it all by ourselves.
In our very active church, which preaches and practices a very active faith, I know that the waiting can be tough. As much as we want to believe in the rhythm of Sabbath, it is hard to rest when it seems that there is so much work to be done.
One of my favorite singers, Joan Baez, saw this same energy in herself and in her son. Most especially, she saw her son deeply discouraged when he felt all of his hard work for change, for peace and justice for humanity and for the earth, was just not making the difference he wanted it to make. Like any mother she wanted to encourage him, speak words of comfort and strength and hope. Like any human being who has lived long enough and thoughtfully enough, she knew as well that some things take time, and waiting, and rest, and more time. So she sang these words, written by John Hiatt:
(There’s) an angel bending down
To wrap you in her warmest cloak
And you ask "What am I not doing?"
She says "Your voice cannot command"
She says, "In time you will move mountains
And it will come through your hands"
. . .
So whatever your hands find to
do
You must do with all your heart
. . .
And don't worry what you are not doing
'Cause your voice cannot command
And in time you will move mountains
And it will come through your hands
As we approach this season of Advent; as we live into the meaning of keeping the Sabbath, may we too continue to learn the wisdom of waiting and resting. May we learn the faith lesson of trusting that the work we do finds its completion not in a never-ending cycle of more work but in doing with all our heart, and then resting and trusting.
As we prepare ourselves for the journey ahead with our building completed, and with Dave’s leaving; as we prepare ourselves for our own spiritual journeys; as we strengthen ourselves for the work God has called us to. First, we wait. First, we trust. First we remember. Then with God’s help we move mountains.
In Advent, to expand the birth
metaphor, we rest in preparation for labor.
We wait in the hope of new life.
And we call ourselves to the gifts, which are freely given, which come
with this season. The bread and the cup,
the feast we did not initiate yet the one we enjoy together, offered to
everyone who will come.