{"id":1308,"date":"2012-07-17T16:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=778"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:28","slug":"by-lory-unger-july-15-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1308","title":{"rendered":"A time to be born and a time to die – Lori Unger – Jul 15, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

See Archived Sermons<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to this Sermon\u00a0<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
A time to be born and a time to die…<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

July 15, 2012<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/h3>\n

I have in this bag some potatoes.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Actually, they\u2019re really old potatoes, rummaged out from the back recesses of my potato cupboard last weekend.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I know you don\u2019t have any like this at your house.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>They had to finally come out because of a leaky sink \u2013 that\u2019s a longer and completely unrelated story.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>These potatoes were in a paper bag, half disintegrated and torn.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>They\u2019re too soft to use well for cooking, and have begun to shrivel.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>I threw them in the compost bin, but later fished them out thinking they might be good to plant for a fall potato crop.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Evidently they haven\u2019t been sprayed with any kind of sprouting inhibitor, as many store-bought potatoes are.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>These potatoes have sprouted vigourously in the warm, moist air of the potato bin under my sink.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Seed potatoes are remarkable.\u00a0 Actually, they\u2019re not seeds at all, they\u2019re just potatoes that have been left in the bin too long (or long enough, depending on your perspective).\u00a0 Cut them, put them in the earth, and a new plant grows.\u00a0 Interestingly, unbeknownst to many, potato plants do actually flower and produce a seed pod, and producing potatoes from actual seed is something of a genetic marvel, with each seed producing potatoes that are utterly disease free, and genetically unique from the parent plant, every time \u2013 you should look into it if you\u2019re interested.\u00a0 At any rate, that\u2019s not how most of us \u2013 those of us who grew up with our fingers in the dirt, at any rate – \u00a0learned to grow potatoes. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Most potatoes are grown from seed potatoes like these.\u00a0 A seed potato isn\u2019t a pod containing the germ, as peas or beans have, there\u2019s no pit to protect the seed until it\u2019s ready to germinate, it has nothing attached to help it to take flight, the way maple keys or dandelions do.\u00a0 It\u2019s just the potato, the same potato we slice and dice, peel, mash, fry, boil, unheralded source of vitamin C.\u00a0 The secret is in the eyes \u2013 those bits you have to cut out when you\u2019re peeling.\u00a0 Each new potato plant needs only one eye, which will sprout and grow, and produce a whole new potato plant, a crop of new potatoes.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Have you ever dug up a potato plant at the end of a season?\u00a0 Best to start about a foot and a half out, maybe with a pitch fork or maybe a spade so as not to damage the new potatoes.\u00a0 So exciting to discover them there \u2013 big and little, 5 or 10 to a plant.\u00a0 Some still attached to the roots, others buried in the dirt, revealing themselves only with a wide sweep of your hand through the surrounding earth.\u00a0 Of the original cutting, there remains almost nothing at all, nothing except a spent and empty husk from which the whole plant has rooted itself.\u00a0\u00a0 A successful potato harvest always requires the utter disintegration of the potato that gave it life, spending its own life force in order to bring forth greater abundance.\u00a0 There is no other way.<\/span><\/p>\n

The theme for the summer\u2019s series is \u201cFor everything a season…\u201d It\u2019s a theme that recognizes and names life\u2019s transitions and changes, claiming with Ecclesiastes 3, there is a time for everything.\u00a0 Last week JD walked us through our chronic and frenetic timeliness, asking, But when is it God\u2019s time?\u00a0 Marilyn, the week before, wondered with us, when is the time for silence, and when is the time for speech?\u00a0 Ecclesiastes 3 is a litany of opposites, a list of diametrically opposed sets, claiming with each one, a time for both.\u00a0 Time for weeping and laughing, seeking and losing, tearing, sewing, keeping and throwing away.\u00a0 This morning I would like to consider the first pairing in verse 2: a time to be born, and a time to die.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Living and dying, life and death.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Our culture places high value on life.\u00a0 Sustaining life, resisting death is the highest good.\u00a0 We do anything to keep things alive.\u00a0 We live in these bodies that are aggravatingly mortal.\u00a0 We work hard toward a dream and when its time has passed, letting them go is sometimes unbearably hard.\u00a0 Staying young is our culture\u2019s holy grail, resisting the aging of our skin, the graying of our hair.\u00a0 Whole industries have sprung up in the interest of resisting the aging of our bodies.\u00a0 By one estimate, the global market for cosmetic surgery will exceed $40 billion in 2013.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Heroic measures, miracles of modern medicine, pulling people from the brink of death at all costs, miraculous machines breathing life into the body of a barely formed little one, born too soon<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Life and its definition is the fulcrum of today\u2019s culture wars \u2013 abortion and end of life debates.<\/span><\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>When does life begin?<\/span><\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Who gets to end it?<\/span><\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>sustaining life even when the living is a living death<\/span><\/p>\n

o\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>ending life, when life has barely begun<\/span><\/p>\n

When we do participate in death, our participation is generally tidied up of any unpleasant reminders that we do so.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Our meat comes neatly packaged, boneless, skinless, pre-cut, and we hardly have to think of the person who did the killing for us.\u00a0 What a gift not to have to get our hands dirtied…bloodied…and yet we\u2019re hardly even grateful. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Our elders become invisible to us, uncomfortable reminders of our own mortality<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>We in the 1\/3 world have the luxury of pretending it doesn\u2019t exist.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

And so when death touches us, we are unprepared.\u00a0 As though we didn\u2019t know it was coming.\u00a0\u00a0 As though we didn\u2019t think it was possible.\u00a0 As though in the dying something has been betrayed.\u00a0 I once went fishing, caught a fish and killed it, and when it had died I felt like I had killed God.\u00a0 We know that life is sacred.\u00a0 And yet so is dying.\u00a0 A time to be born, and a time to die.\u00a0 For everything a season.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to pause for a moment to acknowledge that this sermon, as every sermon should be in my opinion, is gauged to this time and place, a sermon for you, predominantly 1st<\/sup> world folks for whom death and destruction are not constant companions.\u00a0\u00a0 One commentator I read suggested that the power of Jesus\u2019 proclamation was that he was a symbol of abundant life in a world that only knew death and suffering.\u00a0 I contend that in our culture, in our time and place, we have the opposite problem.\u00a0 We feel entitled to life, so we hardly recognize the value of the abundance Jesus has to offer.\u00a0 You can see how a different sermon would be required in a different time and place.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I should also acknowledge that I myself have not been touched intimately with death\u2019s most devastating effects, as many of you have been.\u00a0 \u00a0And some of you are closer to the end of your life than others.\u00a0 Several of you have indeed experienced death and suffering on a scale that is unthinkable to the rest of us in cultures and contexts far from here.\u00a0 I would like to honour and privilege your journey when it comes to the question of living and dying, and welcome your reflections afterward, either in the context of the sharing time or afterward in more private conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0In the Christian tradition, life and death have resonances, apart from our physical living and dying.\u00a0 If any of you were baptized by full immersion, living and dying were likely key metaphors.\u00a0 Dying to sin, and rising to new life in Christ, putting to death the old self symbolically by being immersed in the waters, and rising again as a new creation.\u00a0 That\u2019s from Romans 6:3 where it says, \u201cwe have been buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.\u201d And Jesus words about life and death have echoed through our tradition, particularly through the gospel of John.\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cNo one can see the kingdom of God without being born anew (or from above)\u201d (John 3:3).\u00a0 \u201cFor God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.\u201d And again, \u201cWhoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God\u2019s wrath (John 3:36).\u00a0 And the text read this morning from John 10, \u201cThe thief comes only to steal and destroy.\u00a0 I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.\u201d Later still, \u201cMy sheep hear my voice.\u00a0 I know them and they follow me.\u00a0 I give them eternal life and they will never perish\u201d (John 10:27-28). <\/span><\/p>\n

The requirements for living and dying would have been well rehearsed among the Jewish Christian community whom John addressed.\u00a0 Indeed, these texts from the gospel of John have resonances from the Torah, the guiding texts for the people of Israel.\u00a0 The Deuteronomy text is clear about the relationship between living and dying.\u00a0 The text is set up with one dualism set against another in an easy, almost mathematical equation.\u00a0\u00a0 The choice is yours, says Yahweh in the text, whether you live and prosper or die amid adversity and suffering.\u00a0 Obey and you will live; turn your heart away and you shall perish.\u00a0 Follow my commands and serve me and you shall prosper with many descendants in a land that I will give you; disobey and you will die.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.\u00a0 Choose life so that you and your descendants may live\u201d (Deut. 30:19).<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps, as a people of the book, it is not surprising that we have thought that we have choice when it comes to our living and our dying.\u00a0 It seems to me that this Deuteronomy text is the one by which we have lived.\u00a0 We set up systems of do\u2019s and don\u2019ts, lists of what\u2019s appropriate and what\u2019s inappropriate, tomes and volumes explicating right belief, codes of conduct, spoken and unspoken, sometimes written and sometimes merely mutually understood (putting newcomers among us at a distinct disadvantage, I might add.)\u00a0 As though if we do everything properly, according to what\u2019s right and good, and in keeping with commonly accepted standards of normalcy , and in line with community expectations we can purchase clemency for ourselves\u00a0 As if we can, by our own muscle and merit first of all determine and then codify God\u2019s purposes in the world, and then carry it out, earning for ourselves God\u2019s promise of life and prosperity; fend off this thing that we fear \u2013 death itself..<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, it didn\u2019t work for Job, did it?\u00a0 You remember Job \u2013 \u201cblameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.\u201d He was unfailingly faithful and observant, careful in all things and even offered extra sacrifices in case his children would sin and turn away from God (Job1:1-5).\u00a0 By Deuteronomy\u2019s equation, he should have prospered all his days without suffering; God should have blessed him as God promised to do in return for faithful service.\u00a0 But instead Job suffered \u2013 his children died, one after another, his vast property and livestock were destroyed.\u00a0 He was left with nothing, and he sat with his friends in ashes, tearing his clothes in despair.\u00a0 Still working within Deuteronomy\u2019s paradigm, he questioned God \u2013 \u201cWhy have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity?\u201d (Job 7:20).\u00a0 Do you rememb
\ner God\u2019s answer?\u00a0 \u201cWhere were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?\u00a0 Tell me, if you have understanding.\u00a0 Who determined its measurements?\u00a0 Surely you know!\u00a0 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?\u00a0 Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?\u201d (Job 38:4-8).\u00a0 God\u2019s questions continue through chapter 38 and into the next!\u00a0 Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you give the horse its might? Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I am God, Job, and you are not.\u00a0 Your understanding is but a fraction of my own.\u00a0 And none of your formulaic efforts to preserve your own life encapsulates the truth of the universe.\u00a0 I am God, and you are not.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is surprising to me, then, that John returns to what seems to be another simple equation, albeit with a new twist. \u00a0\u00a0In a reworking of Deuteronomy\u2019s equation, Obey God\u2019s commandments and live, John\u2019s seems to be: Believe, and live. My own tradition has taken that mathematical formula and made hay \u2013 believing in Jesus is it\u2019s own guarantee of life everlasting, whatever that means.\u00a0 Our understanding of right belief, despite our tremendous disagreements about what that might mean, has given Christians everywhere the permission to display our entrance card to heaven proudly and prominently, with the sometimes tacit implication that those whose belief and practice doesn\u2019t line up to ours are sunk.\u00a0 People who don\u2019t believe.\u00a0 People who do, but believe wrongly (however we define that).\u00a0 People who seem to believe rightly but interpret things differently.\u00a0 Or live differently. Or make different choices on the basis of what they believe.\u00a0 And sometimes we feel free to tell them, like Job\u2019s friends told him, that they obviously fall outside of God\u2019s intentions and as such are doomed.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think such simple equations make God tired.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s something else that we might have missed here in John\u2019s gospel, something that doesn\u2019t quite add up.\u00a0 I think John\u2019s on to something that we haven\u2019t always picked up on, probably because it\u2019s confusing.\u00a0 In John 11:25, John writes, \u201cJesus said, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life.\u00a0 Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.\u201d\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Wait a minute. \u00a0It\u2019s almost like he got the equation wrong \u2013 let me read it again. \u00a0Those who believe will die, but actually they will live.\u00a0 AND everyone who lives and believes will never die.\u00a0 Living and dying are all mixed up here, and they\u2019re in the wrong order.\u00a0 But notice that this kind of life is all couched from the beginning in the resurrection.\u00a0 And resurrection, by definition, requires death before there can be new life.\u00a0 The way of Christ is the way of death on the way to new life.\u00a0 Like the seed potato, that needs to give of itself, in order for newness and life to burst forth.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the life that Jesus calls us to.\u00a0 It is not a life spent putting off death, but a willingness to die and to let die in order that we can truly live.\u00a0 \u00a0But the calling is not a calling to death for its own sake, it\u2019s not about becoming constricted and sacrificed (though that might sometimes be required) on the altar of God\u2019s will so that our living is like death even as we breathe.\u00a0 On the contrary, it\u2019s a calling to a life abundant, a life overflowing with God\u2019s goodness and mercy, a life that responds to the movement of the Spirit in the new work that God will do in and through us.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Our refusal to allow the cycle of death and life to take its natural course interrupts God\u2019s intention to do a new thing among us.\u00a0 It\u2019s like putting new wine into old wineskins \u2013 what God will bring into being no longer fits into what was.\u00a0 And we end up like a root bound plant \u2013 beautiful and bursting with potential for fullness, yet hampered and hindered from new growth, confined in a too-small space where there is no room to breathe, much less grow.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

What in your life may have to die in order for new life to emerge?\u00a0 What convictions, what grudges, what bitterness or arrogance, what ego, what plans, what conflicts, what self-centredness or best intentions are alive in you that are preventing you or the people around you from coming into fullness?\u00a0 For Job, it was his earnest belief that he could understand the scope of God\u2019s working in the world.\u00a0 For his friends it was their need to talk when they should have been listening.\u00a0 For some of us it might mean setting aside our grievances, or our pride.\u00a0 For some it may mean stepping out of our need for power and influence to notice how our voice silences others.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s not about following rules but about a quality of living, about fullness and love, and about having your feet on the ground, standing side by side in unity, and solidarity.\u00a0 What God-breathed potential do you feel burgeoning inside, and what it standing in the way of its emergence?\u00a0 What is waiting to be born?<\/span><\/p>\n

Resurrection can happen in church communities too.\u00a0 Jon and I went to a little city church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania called Laurel Street Mennonite.\u00a0 Laurel Street had begun as a mission church \u2013 a church on a hill in the midst of a Christ-less city, they said.\u00a0 For much of its 50-year history, Lancaster Mennonites had faithfully come into the city from the safety of their rural homes every Sunday in order to reach people for Christ.\u00a0 And while the ministry never completely died, it was ever and always an uphill battle, and the leaders struggled to encourage community members to attend and commit, bring their children.\u00a0 The story goes that the Mennonite leaders had a tough time trusting its community members in leadership positions, with the community always being seen as the \u201cneedy\u201d and the \u201cministered to\u201d and the communting Mennonites as the \u201chelpers\u201d \u201cleaders\u201d \u201cministers.\u201d About three years before we arrived, the lead pastor had submitted his resignation, and 75% of the supporting members, most of whom lived outside of the neighbourhood, went with him, along with the dream to evangelize the city. What remained was the leftovers, a handful of community people, a hodge podge of people who had never quite been trusted with leadership or vision.\u00a0 A new pastor, a handful of energized and willing people, and a new vision to be a church in <\/em>\u00a0the city, and the church has been resurrected.\u00a0 God did a new thing once the old thing was allowed to die.<\/span><\/p>\n

How can we at TUMC open our hands to the movement of the spirit?\u00a0 I wonder \u2013 though I confess I know nothing about it or its history \u2013 what needs to die in the original vision for 6 Lark in order for that dream to come to fullness?\u00a0 What needs to be composted in us in order for us to be more welcoming of the stranger and open to difference?\u00a0 There is a time to be born and a time to die.\u00a0 Like the seed potato, giving of its own substance in order for new life to emerge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus promises new life, eternal life, abundant life.\u00a0 But not without death.\u00a0 \u00a0God, through your Son, enable us to open our hands from our clasping to life.
\n\u00a0 Enable us to receive your resurrection and to overflow with your abundance.\u00a0 Amen.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon\u00a0 A time to be born and a time to die… July 15, 2012 I have in this bag some potatoes.\u00a0\u00a0 Actually, they\u2019re really old potatoes, rummaged out from the back recesses of my potato cupboard last weekend.\u00a0 I know you don\u2019t have any like this at your house.\u00a0 They had to finally come out because of a leaky sink \u2013 that\u2019s a longer and completely unrelated story.\u00a0 These potatoes were in a paper…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3930,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions\/3930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}