{"id":1333,"date":"2013-02-26T16:15:08","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T16:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=811"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:28","slug":"what-to-do-when-there-is-no-peace-sermon-by-marilyn-zehr-february-24-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1333","title":{"rendered":"What to do when there is no peace – Sermon by Marilyn Zehr – February 24, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Second Sunday of Lent
<\/span>February 24, 2013<\/h3>\n

What to do when there is no peace<\/span><\/h3>\n

by Marilyn Zehr<\/span><\/h3>\n
Texts: Genesis 15, Luke 13, Philippians 3<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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We have great scripture texts this week and in some ways I call them great because they stretch me in ways I don\u2019t always like to be stretched.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The texts for this week include passages from Genesis, Philippians and Luke, besides Psalm 27.<\/span><\/div>\n
In Genesis 15: Abram complains to God that despite God\u2019s promise that he will be the father of many generations he has yet to have a son and that a slave in his household will inherit his land and God\u2019s blessing and promises.<\/span><\/div>\n
Philippians 3: 17 and following, Paul is in fine form, harshly warning the Philippians about those who mutilate the flesh (early in the chapter), and in the verses we are assigned today, with tears he warns them of the enemies of the cross whose end is destruction, their god is the belly; \u00a0and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. \u00a0It\u2019s hard to avoid the directness of his concern. He\u2019s not mincing words.<\/span><\/div>\n

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And moving on to Luke: 13<\/span><\/div>\n
The Pharisees warn Jesus about Herod, knowing that Jesus\u2019 life might be in danger. \u00a0Jesus response is also direct. \u00a0He also doesn\u2019t mince words. \u00a0 He calls Herod a fox and says, \u201cDon\u2019t you know that a prophet is not killed outside of Jerusalem? \u00a0I have work to do \u2013 casting out demons and healing. \u00a0I\u2019ll get to Jerusalem where I already know I will be killed.\u201d \u00a0And then we hear one of the most plaintive cries of Jesus that we hear in the gospels outside of his words in the garden and on the cross. <\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cJerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! \u00a0How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n

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Plaintive cry after plaintive cry, each of these texts remind us that all is not right with the world.<\/span><\/div>\n
First, Abram: My God, I don\u2019t have an heir \u2013 how will your promises be fulfilled?<\/span><\/div>\n
Second, Paul: \u00a0See these enemies of the cross. \u00a0They should be ashamed of their thoughts and actions and are not.<\/span><\/div>\n
And finally, Jesus: \u00a0Oh children of Jerusalem, you participate in the work of the fox by killing the prophets who are sent to you instead of recognizing the safety that you could have if you come to me.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Why do these texts stretch me? \u00a0They stretch me because I wish they could be softened. \u00a0And I would love to say peace, peace when in each of these examples the primary speakers, Abram, Paul and Jesus are not experiencing peace. \u00a0I want to say, \u201cPeace, peace where there is no peace,\u201d to quote a famous passage in Jeremiah. (6:14). <\/span><\/div>\n

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It reminds me of the times when my three sons would get into a fight and I\u2019d say, take it downstairs or outside to settle it. \u00a0I don\u2019t want to witness the mess as you work it out. \u00a0In the case of their fights, of course, I wasn\u2019t necessarily trying to impose peace, but I also didn\u2019t want to witness the strife. \u00a0But as I let these texts work in me this week they wanted me to witness to their strident voices and not to be afraid of the mess. \u00a0In fact the strident complaint and deep longing expressed in them made it difficult for me to hear the \u201cPeace, peace,\u201d that our Lenten worship resources were trying to promote. \u00a0As I read the Lenten worship resources I heard them say, \u00a0\u201cJust wait, trust God, be patient and everything will work out.\u201d \u00a0And while all of that is ultimately true we shouldn\u2019t go there too quickly. \u00a0We should not say, \u201cPeace, peace where there is no peace.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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What does it mean to take seriously the voice in each of these texts that cries out into a world that is not all right, that is not at peace? \u00a0What benefit is there in doing this? \u00a0I invite us to try it and see.<\/span><\/div>\n

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So let\u2019s pause to hear the longing in these voices and their accurate observation of all that is not right with the world.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Beginning with Abram, what is the gist of his complaint? \u00a0He and Sari are barren. \u00a0They are unable to have children in a world where fruitfulness ensures survival of your family, your clan and your name, <\/span><\/div>\n
and where fruitfulness is viewed even as a command of God. \u00a0 And God blessed them and said to them, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it\u2026\u201d (Genesis 28a) \u00a0In addition to that Abram has heard more than once by now the assurance of God and promises of God that he will in fact become a father of many nations. \u00a0The lack of evidence that this will be so, must have caused him to begin to doubt the very goodness and faithfulness of God. \u00a0In contemporary terms we could say that Abram was in the midst of a deeply personal spiritual crises. The kind of crises that asks, \u201cGod, if your promises are real than why are things the way they are?\u201d \u00a0Beyond complaint, this is a deep and Holy Longing. \u00a0God, if your promises are real why are things the way they are? \u00a0Why can\u2019t I participate in your promises of fruitfulness, even as you have commanded me? \u00a0I suspect that many among us have asked this same question at various times and in varying ways.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Let\u2019s move on to Paul. In Philippians 3 Paul is at his passionate best. \u00a0At the beginning of the chapter he slams those who promote circumcision as dogs and evil workers who mutilate the flesh. \u00a0Then he launches into a defense of his own qualifications, \u201cIf anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: \u00a0circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. \u00a0Yet, whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ\u2026(Philippians3:2-7) \u00a0He goes on and as his rhetoric continues to build by the time we get to the verses for today he is at the point of tears for those who are enemies of the cross, \u201ctheir end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n
What is Paul\u2019s deep and holy longing \u2013 this longing that is way beyond complaint? That those who have something to be ashamed about might feel some shame and that his own humiliation, verse 21, because of the message he preached, would be transformed by Christ in the new creation. \u00a0In case we doubt the source and reason for Paul\u2019s passionate longing, 4:1 reads: \u201cTherefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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And now turning to Jesus\u2019 plaintive cry for Jerusalem and her children \u201cwho kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to it.\u201d \u00a0It is hard to miss the Holy Longing. \u00a0It is hard to miss the compassionate longing. \u00a0\u201cHow often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!\u201d \u00a0Jesus\u2019 compassion will soon lead to his death. \u00a0If we truly hear the depth of this cry it is almost impossible to say, \u201cpeace, peace.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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These are the stories in this book that are part of the foundational narrative for our own journey and our own longings. \u00a0These are the ones in whose light we need to hear our own holy longings \u2013 sometimes stridently expressed among us. \u00a0And if we don\u2019t deliberately find ways to express our holy longings, they will find ways of getting our attention and at the same time the attention of others around us.<\/span><\/div>\n
For those of you who have been participating in the Adult Ed class right now, Walter Bruegemann reminds us we need the strident poetic voice of the prophet. We need this voice to break through our denial \u2013 the denial that wants to send the mess downstairs or outside to resolve itself because we can\u2019t deal with it. <\/span><\/div>\n

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I would like to read a poem from a modern day prophet\/poet entitled, \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d by Drew Dellinger.<\/span><\/div>\n

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It is 3:23 in the morning and I\u2019m awake <\/span><\/div>\n
because my great great grandchildren, won\u2019t let me sleep. <\/span><\/div>\n
Because my great great grand children ask me in dreams, <\/span><\/div>\n
what did you do while the planet was plundered? <\/span><\/div>\n
What did you do when the earth was unraveling? <\/span><\/div>\n
Surely you did something when the seasons started failing, <\/span><\/div>\n
as the mammals, reptiles, \u00a0birds were all dying.<\/span><\/div>\n
Did you fill the streets with protests when democracy was stolen?<\/span><\/div>\n
What did you do once you knew?<\/span><\/div>\n

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And like the apostle Paul who wants those who should feel shame to feel ashamed, Drew Dillenger\u2019s prophet like poetic voice has the potential to make us feel ashamed. \u00a0We might feel ashamed and for good reasons as we imagine the questions of our great great grandchildren who wonder what we did or could have done to change the course of our plundered planet. But the experience of shame for sins of commission and omission is not where we can stay. \u00a0After we have allowed our contemporary prophet poet\u2019s wedge like voice to penetrate any denial we might have about our complicity in the current state of things we need to wonder how to respond. \u00a0One of the problems with shame in and of itself, even if it is warranted, is that it can be demoralizing and paralyzing. \u00a0So, how are we freed to move beyond shame? <\/span><\/div>\n

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The narrative reflected in this book has something to say to us about shame and release from shame. \u00a0Stories like Abram\u2019s crises of faith, Paul\u2019s passionate cry and Jesus\u2019 compassionate longing can help us.<\/span><\/div>\n

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I would like to read another poem because in it another contemporary prophet\/poet whose life and musings have marinated in this biblical narrative helps us to see how to cross the bridge between shame and release from shame. \u00a0He starts where Drew Dillenger starts and then goes farther. \u00a0This poem is by Wendell Berry. <\/span><\/div>\n

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When despair for the world grows in me <\/span><\/div>\n
and I wake in the night at the least sound <\/span><\/div>\n
in fear of what my life and my children\u2019s lives may be, <\/span><\/div>\n
I go and lie down where the wood drake <\/span><\/div>\n
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. <\/span><\/div>\n
I come into the peace of wild things <\/span><\/div>\n
who do not tax their lives with forethought \u2028of grief. <\/span><\/div>\n
I come into the presence of still water. <\/span><\/div>\n
And I feel above me the day-blind stars <\/span><\/div>\n
waiting with their light. <\/span><\/div>\n
For a time <\/span><\/div>\n
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
Wendell Berry does not gloss over his temptation to despair for his own life and the lives of his children \u2013 the things we can all feel implicit in or shame about, but moves quickly to what he does about it. \u00a0He goes to a place within God\u2019s good creation where his peace is restored, where wood drakes rest and the great heron feeds.<\/span><\/div>\n
And you can hear within his description of this place, \u201cI come into the presence of still water,\u201d an allusion to Psalm 23, that he knows something of the creator behind the creation.<\/span><\/div>\n
and with his description<\/span><\/div>\n
of the day-blind stars waiting with their light<\/span><\/div>\n
he shows us that at the heart of things <\/span><\/div>\n
there is waiting <\/span><\/div>\n
with his \u201cpeace of wild things\u201d he reminds us that <\/span><\/div>\n
there is peace,<\/span><\/div>\n
and with his \u201cfor a time, I rest in the grace of the world,\u201d he reminds us that there is grace.<\/span><\/div>\n

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As a prophet and poet, Wendell Berry can do what the Biblical narrative can do: \u00a0point to all that is wrong and all that is right \u2013 sometimes in the same breath.<\/span><\/div>\n

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And so getting back to the texts for today, Abram\u2019s spiritual crises, Paul\u2019s passionate cry and Jesus\u2019 compassionate longing – this book, our bible, is a real story of longing and of shame and of resisting the wings that long to gather us in, but it doesn\u2019t leave us there. \u00a0God meets Abram over and over again regularly renewing the covenant; Paul is confident that God transforms shame and humiliation into a new creation, and Jesus does go to Jerusalem and embraces all of humanity with his self-gi
\nving love. \u00a0\u201cFor a time we can rest in this grace and be free.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n
So, what to do when there is no peace? \u00a0Immerse ourselves in the whole story, let it in, let it resonate with every part of our lives. \u00a0There\u2019s nowhere that we\u2019ve been that this text hasn\u2019t also gone.<\/span><\/div>\n
There is despair, there is waiting,<\/span><\/div>\n
There is shame and there is freedom from shame <\/span><\/div>\n
there is unrest and there is peace <\/span><\/div>\n
and most of all there is grace.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 View Archived Sermons Listen to this Sermon \u00a0 Second Sunday of LentFebruary 24, 2013 What to do when there is no peace by Marilyn Zehr Texts: Genesis 15, Luke 13, Philippians 3 We have great scripture texts this week and in some ways I call them great because they stretch me in ways I don\u2019t always like to be stretched. The texts for this week include passages from Genesis, Philippians and Luke, besides Psalm 27. In Genesis 15: Abram…<\/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-1333","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\/1333","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=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3920,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/3920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}