Being Strong in the Lord

Being Strong in the Lord                            The Dover Church

August 26, 2012                                        Psalm 84, Ephesians 6: 10-20

         I get up at 5 every morning to say my prayers before the hustle and bustle of our family day begins. During the summer, I like to go out onto our back deck, where I sit and watch the light rise in the east, gradually turning from a cool lightness on the horizon, to a expanding glow rising above the trees, to finally a bright warmth on my face. I watch the clouds moving by. I watch the colors of the trees change from their pre-dawn to daytime hues. “On your left,” someone shouts. “Ah the early morning bikers are passing."

Now where was I? Ah yes, worshipping God, basking in the glory of the moment. Let’s get back to my breath. Breathing in, breathing out. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Ruach – the Hebrew word for breath, wind and spirit. The Hebrews were on to something there. Breathing in. Breathing out. There. I’m here again.”

         VROOM. VROOM. “Ah, traffic is picking up. Isn’t the texture of that tree beautiful as the sunlight starts to touch it? Look at the stars and the moon." VROOM. VROOM. VROOM.

I'm getting annoyed by the noise and volume of the traffic on Dedham Street. My mind starts planning the steps I will take to have a traffic light installed on our corner to slow everything down and keep everyone safer. VROOM. VROOM. VROOM. VROOM.

         “Oops. I'm supposed to be praying. ZZZZZZZ, hmm….the humming, whine of some insect…cicadas? Crickets? Some other bug? Funny how a fly fisherman doesn't know what insect makes that sound. Funny how I didn't notice it until now, but it's been there all along. Follow the sound, the steady hum of small but abundant life going on all around me. Where are they? Imagine how many there must be to make so much sound! I am amazed to notice the sound is there, constantly ebbing and flowing underneath all the intermittent roaring 100 feet away. The motors fade and I am in the humming, whine. I feel nature pulsating with life. And I breath. And in my breath, I start to notice the birds flitting too and fro, from our birdfeeder to the surrounding trees. Beautiful blues, grays, yellows, and whites and reds. Some stop to look at me while they eat. Others retire to their nests. Others fly off across the field to the cemetery, and my eyes follow them until they disappear from sight. Time passes, but I am lost in revery and wonder at the beauty of it all, the gift of life and how much I love every bit of it. God being love, steadfast love and mercy, abundant grace beyond our imaginations, stops being an idea and becomes a lived reality which I can actually feel in the core of my being. I am knowing God.

         SCREEECH. "Oh boy. Gotta look to see what that was…a near miss or someone jackrabbitting out into traffic? Well, they’re gone. No wreckage today. Where was I? Ah, yes, knowing God." Breathing in. Breathing out.

BOOM, BABOOM, BABOOMEDY, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. "Some teenager is up early today.” Remembering my own teen driving skills, I say a quick prayer, “God be with him or her, the parents, and whoever is on the road between here and wherever that soul is headed. Amen.”

“On your left.” BEEP. “Would ya just pull out, ya idiot.” Seeing the light sparkle on the morning dew, I settle back into my chair. My spirit is settled, has been jarred, has resettled, and I have felt the fullness of the Lord. I need this lived experience to take myself into the day, every day; a touchstone to which I return when the going gets rough, which it always does; a feeling of loving connectedness with everyone and everything, to face the brokenness and breaking up which I know is coming my way; just joy, the joy of the Holy Spirit to help me cut through the apathy, indifference, the blah, and live another day into the Resurrection of our Lord.

Change of scene. I am having a cup of coffee with a friend, catching up after the distance of summer. My soul warms with affection in his presence. We chat about family, summer, work, and then politics and currents events pop up. It is lighthearted. We're safe, just throwing ideas around when suddenly I realize that I have blown a bomb up in his face. I can see him trying to mask his horror. I believe in something he despises. He stands for something I detest. Both us can feel the electricity of danger. We are guarded and cautious now. I am "on the other side." He is secretly questioning my intelligence and sanity. How can we go forward without hiding from one another? Can we be genuine friends? Don't demonize. See the beloved child of God behind the words. Where is your friend? Remember how Jesus answered the question, "who is my neighbor?" Are we doomed to only be ourselves with people who agree with us?

Change of scene again. “Just one more thing, Max. You can do it. You can fit in one more two hour activity or task every week. Go for it. Just think how great it’ll be.” There’s that little voice again, trying to talk me into making my life a misery in the guise of making it better. It’s not just time, however. It can be that thing that I think I need but really just want, or that my family would love. It’ll make life so much more...pick you wicked good adjective.” And yet my time is just like my money. There is a finite amount which I can actually and accurately count. And there really is only so much for this, and so much for that, some left over, and then there’s supposed to be some set aside, a whole day if you listen to Moses. Once I use up the left over, then I have to start spending my survival time. And it’s usually the time I need to nurture or restore my soul which is first to go, because I don’t “have to do THAT.” And yet I know I do. But I really want to do that extra activity, or have my kids do that extra sport. But then I won’t have time to, well, sit on my deck at 5 in the morning and retune myself into God. And so it goes, push and pull.

Three lighthearted examples of spiritual warfare, just to show you that while it doesn't start out on a cosmic scale, it is a struggle. The idea of spiritual warfare in our reading this morning is foreign to most of us, off putting in a world full of self proclaimed religious warriors scaring people, threatening people, oppressing people, killing people, in the name of God. "Not our God," we cry. But what I have described this morning is true. If any of us slow down enough to actually reflect on our decisions, feel the energy of the forces pushing us this way and that, notice how caught up we are in the whirlwind of all the rush of our daily lives, then we will know what I am saying is true. It is a struggle to stay centered, to live out of our center which is Jesus, to stay centered in our convictions of love and the Resurrection, and not just get blown here and there, blown along with the winds, swirling around in confusion and frustration about how things are not what we hoped, what we aspired to.

Maybe I'm just overly introspective, melodramatic, nitpicking about the details. What's the big deal? Well, the big deal is the Kingdom of God, our highest faith hopes and aspirations, which are all to easily eroded, undermined, and eventually cast into the outermost darkness of wishful thinking, rose colored glasses, childish utopian fantasy, if we don't keep strong in the Lord. We give up without putting up a fight, relegate our faith to a shelf somewhere in the attics of our lives, where it quickly gathers dust and become peripheral through lack of daily pertinence.

There will be times in life when being strong in the Lord seems to require superhuman strength, when it looks like a scene from The Exorcist. When tragedy strikes. When nothing makes sense. When you face something for which there is no explanation that includes the God you thought you knew. When life throws you something to which there isn't an answer.

But most of the time, its training, like me in my backyard, with my friend, with my calendar and checkbook. It's about living the good news in our circumstances and not folding. It's about struggling with our decisions in the light of the Gospel, about walking with Jesus instead of going with the flow, about not settling for what's realistic or politically acceptable or what everyone around you thinks is wise, efficient, or a reasonable compromise. It's not about using the Gospel and church to comfort and anesthetize yourself against the rest of your week. It's not about twisting the Gospel to fit your worldview or latching onto one small part of the Gospel which you agree with and ignoring the rest which disturbs you. It's not about demonizing the other, us vs. them, right vs. wrong. It's about being willing to dig into the complications. It's about listening more than speaking. It's not being certain, but being confident. It's not about knowing the facts, but about seeking the truth and having a hope. It's about opening yourself to all of it and all of its implications for your real life and allowing it transform you so that you will begin transforming the world.

That's why it's called warfare. It is hard. It feels like you're getting shot at from all sides, like you're in a mine field, like you don't know what's on the other side of that hill. The other ways are so much easier. But spiritual warfare doesn't have anything to do with being hard, blunt, or any of the other typical martial and masculine adjectives associated with warfare. It is actually more like being water. Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher whose writings form the basis for Taoism, once said, "Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.” We are called to keep bubbling up, seeping, overflowing and working our way downhill to the bedrock of love upon which we can stand.