“Sold!” to the one who says “yes” – Marilyn Zehr – June 14/09

“Sold!” to the one who says “yes”

June 14, 2009
Marilyn Zehr

 

 

In the beginning, in Genesis, we are invited to hear God speak a Word.  When God speaks a Word – the whole universe and everything in it is called into existence.

In John chapter 1 – we hear the same Word, present at the beginning with God, become flesh in Jesus.  Something very powerful and effective is happening with this Divine Word.  But let’s begin by considering both words and speech in general terms for a moment:  If you’ve ever wondered how ubiquitous words are in our lives and society, just ask yourselves how often a day, or a week you open a Word Document on your computer or send a text message or email someone.  Quite obviously, not only do we speak words, we type words, we send words, we read words, we hear words.  We also might sing, or shout, or whisper words, and sometimes we even swallow words.  Words and speech, like the air we breathe, are so prevalent that sometimes we forget about their power.

 

This morning I want us to remember in particular the power and effectiveness of the Divine Word.  As I wondered about the power of words I thought of my recent experience at the New Hamburg Mennonite relief sale at the quilt auction.  Many of you here have experienced, witnessed, or participated in an auction? Maybe you also watched or participated in this Mennonite quilt auction, or the one at Black Creek Pioneer village in September?  The auctioneer, as you know, uses many words – often stringing them all together so that you can hardly make them out.  I’m not going to try to imitate an auctioneer here – though I wish that I could.  The auctioneer’s voice is loud and clear and insistent and persistent.  “Do I have 800.00 dollars, who will give me 800.00? 800.00?  How about 500.00?  Someone get me started….”  The invitation rolls on … both insistent and persistent until there is a response… The auctioneer gets the first bid or bids and the process picks up momentum. On this occasion I was one of the bidders who said, or nodded, “yes, I’m in”, and the rest of the process was both fascinating and a little frightening (especially since I was quite new to the process).  

The adrenalin started to pump, I had a heightened sense of alertness because I needed to keep track of where the bid was.  In a very short space of time I had to ask myself questions like, how many other bidders are bidding, how high has it gone now, will I nod my head one more time, where is my comfort zone,…oh, there it goes,… am I out of my comfort zone, will it be mine, when do I let go, am I the only one left?     Sold! – to bidder number 254.  And it was mine.  It’s beautiful by the way – a real work of art.

 

Ah, the power of a Word. When did the auctioneer’s words become powerful? – When I said, “Yes, I’m in.”  As soon as I nodded “yes”, an implicit and well-understood relationship began.  As soon as the auctioneer spots your “yes”, he has no interest in letting you go very easily. He keeps his eye on you, as well as others, he comes back often, he asks, he smiles, he cajoles, sometimes he even pleads – but he is also respectful. – If you shake your head “no”, and he knows you mean it, he will move on.

 

The power of a Word:  In Genesis God spoke:

Let there be light.

Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it be named sky.

Let the waters be gathered into one place so that dry land appears. (someone get me started here)

Let there be lights in that sky (who’s in, who will say yes?)

Let there be vegetation, seed bearing plants and fruit trees. (Good, now we’re rolling)

Let the waters swarm with living creatures and let the birds of the air fly across the expanse of the sky.

And let the earth bring forth every living creature.

And Let us create human beings – in our likeness, male and female – in the image of God let us create them. 

 

God spoke and the very act of speech implies, or at the very least, invites a listener.  The very act of speech hopes for, longs for someone or something to respond.  The Word of God – both insistent and persistent – waits expectantly for a response.  And in Genesis Chapter 1, the whole creation, the whole universe replied, even human beings replied – “yes, we’re in!”  The whole universe said yes to existence itself.  And what happens next?  A relationship has begun.  And what is a relationship but a potentially marvelous and powerful, sometimes adrenalin producing, and certainly unpredictable adventure.

 

The rest of the Book of Genesis is a record of the beginning of God’s adventure with humanity and the entire universe.  In the book of Genesis, already in the garden of Eden in the stories of Adam and Eve and their life-altering choice to eat the fruit of a certain tree – through the tragic story of their two sons Cain and Abel – through the story of humanity’s attempt to build a great tower, known to us as the tower of Babel – the relationship of humanity with God begins to unfold.  And we read in Genesis 6:5 a verse that to me has always seemed surprising.  It says, “And when God saw how great was the wickedness of human beings in the earth, and that the direction of their thoughts was nothing but wicked all the time, God regretted having made human beings on earth and was heartsick.”  The Word of God, in Genesis, tells us something about the capacity of God’s heart.  In this Word, in Genesis, we hear that God has the capacity to feel regret and be heartsick.  Sounds like a sure sign of relationship to me.  When everything had been created to be so good, so intrinsically good, what has happened?

 

After, Noah and the flood story, when the wicked choices that human beings are capable of making were not really actually washed away, this Word of God in Genesis and beyond continues to reveal the unpredictability of God’s relationship with humanity.  Despite human choices to the contrary, God does not forget the goodness of creation.

As the stories continue to unfold through the stories of Abraham and Sarah and all their sons and daughters, God’s Word continues to come to them, but after the story of Noah it becomes a Word of promise instead of regret.  This is maybe not what we expected.  God will be God: faithful, steadfast, compassionate, slow to anger and abiding in steadfast love – forever, and to all generations. And humanity will be humanity – sometimes faithful, sometimes difficult, sometimes wicked, sometimes compassionate, sometimes remorseful, sometimes resourceful, sometimes  ……… I invite you to fill in your own word.

 

On and on through our scriptures, the Divine word speaks.  It speaks over and over again with clarity and boldness.  And in Isaiah we read (or hear) another promise specifically related to the effectiveness of God’s Word:

For the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

And do not return there until they have watered the earth,

Making it bring forth and sprout,

Giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

And succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”  (Isaiah 55:10,11)

 

The word of God is insistent and persistent and as we hear in these words – effective.  Much more could be said about the unfolding word of God in the story of the Israelites and in our Old Testament, but I will move on now to the gospel reading for today in John, chapter 1.  And the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.  In case we human creatures were missing the connection between the Word of God and it’s invitation to relationship as revealed to us in the Hebrew sacred texts, that we also call our Old Testament, in the Gospel of John we are invited to hear that The Word or Logos of God becomes flesh in the person of Jesus.

 

Here in my sermon, I’m going to take a brief Greek philosophical met side-trip.  Please bear with me. And not being a trained Greek philosopher this might get interesting.

The Greek word Logos – has many possible meanings depending on the context.  It generally and simply means, a meaningful word, and it is generally agreed upon that here in John 1 there are deliberate links with the Genesis understanding that God’s spoken word brought the universe into orderly existence. The Word brings light and life both in Genesis and here in John. “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. Understood metaphysically, Logos, is a meaningful word that brings order.  It can be thought of as an ordering principle for the universe, or said slightly differently, the Logos is “the divine logic that gives order to the universe”.  This idea comes from the Stoics.  Human beings who are created within the divine image are said to be ordered by this same principle. They are said to possess logos, both inwardly with reason (logos endiathetos), and outwardly with speech (logos prophorikos.)  So, according to the Stoics, human beings, with reason and speech and ordered according to a divine principle, were supposed to be able to live in harmony with the order of the universe. It followed for them that, persons whose behaviour was more ordered by passions and emotions were thought to have moved away from the ordering principle of logos or the divine word.  That marks the end of my philosophical side-trip.

 

Back on track now:

There is no question that we honour and value speech and reason, but when in John 1 we hear that the divine Logos or Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, I do not hear that that means only that Jesus as Christ is a human manifestation of divine order – the most perfect example of reason and speech. He may have been that, but reason and speech are not the only way of knowing and understanding and aren’t the only way Jesus knew and understood himself and so I think it means more.  When I hear that Jesus is the Word made flesh, I hear that the Divine word has chosen to make the biggest and most unpredictable relational choice of all possible relational choices.  Put simply, for the sake of relationship with God’s creation, God took a big risk. The divine Word became flesh in Jesus, and by doing so, entered into the very heart of the messiness of the adventure of humanity with all that being human entails; including reason and speech, ideas, imagination, emotions and passions.  I’m not sure the stoics would have approved of this messy definition of theLogos become flesh.

 

When God’s Word entered humanity in Jesus, the loud and clear and insistent and persistent and powerful and effective Word became even more so.  The only question that follows this big risk is what will be the response.  In John 1:12 we are invited to hear that for those who received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God.  Children – the most beautiful and probably the least neat and tidy relationship of them all. 

 

In the adventure that has been your life and relationship with God can you remember the first time that you responded with, “yes, I’m in?”  Can you remember when you heard a divine word?  Maybe you heard it through reason and speech, maybe you heard it through someone’s example, maybe you heard it through the Scriptures themselves, maybe you heard it through the emotions or passions or artistry of someone you respected and admired, or maybe you heard the Divine word speak through ideas or imagination or through observation of the details of the complex and intricate universe all around you.  But wherever you heard it, you will probably hear it again, for the Divine word insists on being heard, for it continues to speak and it will not return to God empty, but will accomplish that which God purposes and succeed in the thing for which God sent it.  It may even cajole and plead, for like the word of the auctioneer the Word of God has no interest in easily releasing you from the relationship until it accomplishes its purpose, but it will also always be respectful – we are always free to say no.  But if we are saying yes in an ongoing way, then we will also continue to be in for the time of our lives also in an on-going way.

 

Before I conclude, I want to say one thing about how the Word might be heard and responded to in concrete ways in our world today.  As I prepared this sermon I thought of Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo last week.  I’m sure that many of you heard it or heard about it. Very few would question that Barack Obama spoke powerful words that day as he has done many times before.  He does not shy away from tensions and fears.  He names them as accurately as he can and then responds to them boldly.  With his words, and actions when he is free to do so, Barack Obama is attempting to build bridges between nations and religions where in the past there has been enmity and bloody wars.  One does not need to always agree with everything that he says.  He is still a strongly patriotic American who at times will agree to the use of force in a difficult world.  Of necessity and circumstance he is a leader very much in and part of this very concrete and messy world, but there is also a powerful truthfulness working in him and through him.  And for those of us who take our own Christ-life seriously we can hear that Truth.

 

In response to his speech, I heard a CBC reporter say, “whether or not he can lift his words off the page and make them a reality remains to be seen.”  He said himself in his speech, and I quote, “No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust.”  He also said and I quote, “words alone cannot meet the needs of our people (our people was a reference to our common humanity among nations and religions), he continued, “these needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead.” And finally he also said, “We must say openly to each other what we hold in our hearts, we must be willing to listen to each other” and quoting the Qu’ran he said, “we must be conscious of  God and speak always the Truth”.  These were just some of his powerful words. And it is the words of Truth with a capital “T” when we hear them that we are invited to be in relationship with.

 

We are not being invited to be in relationship with Barack Obama.   Barack Obama is not Jesus Christ, nor is he claiming to be, but as with all Truth we are being invited into a relationship with the Truth of his words when he speaks them.  Will the best of his words be lifted off the page and become a reality?  We can hope that the answer to this question will be “yes,” but it will only be “yes” when those who listen to them choose to respond in concrete ways that make sense for them.  There might be very little we can do directly about the concerns and tensions he raised.  He addressed violent extremism.  He addressed the situation in Iraq.  He addressed the Israeli and Palestinian situation.  I found this particularly powerful when he acknowledged directly their separate but mutually painful past and also told each of them that “violence is a dead-end”.  And he laid out a vision of Hope that the Holy Land of the three great faiths will someday be the place of peace God intended it to be.”

 

What can we do directly when we hear such powerful words of truth, we can say “yes”, to the truth and we can respond by supporting any of the efforts at bridge-building and peacemaking that are already occurring at many grass-roots levels around the world (which I know many of you already do) and as Mennonites we can speak boldly about our conviction that Jesus meant it when he said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  We can support calls for dialogue and better understanding between religions. And In this way we enter a relationship with the power and truth of the Divine Word wherever we hear it.  The Divine Word continues to speak and continues to insist and persist with a compelling invitation to be part of the unpredictable adventure of Life – A life and light that darkness will not overcome.  God saw the light and pronounced it good.  May each of us in an on-going way be granted the grace and courage to respond!  Amen.