Sermon: "Stirrings"
(This is one of those sermons that comes along every now and then that is somehow still-born -- written by Friday, and then after a few anxious days, pushed aside by the preacher in favour of a new, second sermon written with hopefully-divine inspiration on Sunday morning just hours before the worship service. The abandoned sermon is posted here to give it at least some breath of life, and in honour of whatever inspiration gave rise to it in the first place.)
According to the Gospel, “the people
were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts
concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah…” I wonder what made them so expectant? What raised and stirred their hopes that much,
at that time?
We read in Genesis that in the
beginning all that is, is without shape and meaning. Darkness covers the face of the deep, and a
wind from God broods and sweeps over the face of the waters of life – rippling,
stirring and troubling them. Into that troubling
movement God says, “Let there be light” and there is. God sees the light is good and separates it
from the dark. And so there is deep
night and dawning morning – the first day.
It seems to be all about brooding
spirit and sweeping wind. Stirring of
the deep, and rippling and troubling of the water. And the speaking of a Word.
When I was 12 I was baptized in the
water of believer’s baptism into a Baptist church. Twelve is a turbulent time for everyone, and
I was no different. Puberty was part of
it, because all through our life at whatever stage we are, the natural rhythms
of our bodies and of life always affect our souls in some way, and stir up deep
spiritual issues. There was also weekly judgemental
preaching in church, parental discipline at home, and my own emerging
conscience and new awarenesses of the ambiguities of life that all together helped
stir up significant interior storms of wondering and anxiety about who I was
and where I was going.
I believe there was also some presence
of Spirit within that turmoil – maybe brooding over it, dropping and nurturing
seeds of some holy Word into the roiling waters, maybe also helping to stir
things up in particular ways, because it wasn’t long until I was making what
was called “a decision for Christ,” followed by baptism into membership in the
church.
The night of the baptism there were 10
or 12 of us. It was an evening service
with all the church present. One by one
we entered the tank, felt the water swirl and grab at us as we waded slowly towards
the minister waiting for us at the far side.
Standing beside him, each of us heard him ask a few basic questions of
our faith and commitment, and heard ourselves speak the answers we had
learned. Felt one of his hands holding
ours clasped in front of us, his other hand supporting our back as he dipped us
down, deep down into the water, and brought us back up brand new.
We waded out as the next waded in,
then dried off, changed into dry clothes, and went back to the sanctuary. Then the minister welcomed us one by one into
membership. As he stood in front of each
of us, he called us by name, spoke a word of God’s love to us, welcomed us into
the congregation and spoke a word of blessing over us – a unique and
distinctive word for each one, blessing each one of our lives with deep and
personal meaning that we had not known in quite that way before.
That was not the end of it, of course. For all of us it was really just the
beginning of a lifetime of stirrings and troublings in the rhythms and
unfoldings of our lives, of a variety of passages and questions to be answered along
the way, different leavings and new welcomings, more deaths and new births than
some us thought there would be – and even now, at this stage of my life, more darknesses
yet still waiting for light to come, and so much deep water still needing to be
stirred to good order.
That night of our baptism was not the
end of the journey – not for any of us.
As sure as we were about things at that moment, it was not the
once-for-all resolution and answer to every question and issue. There never is such a thing.
All of which I’m sure you have known as
well in the course of your own life since your baptism, however it was done, or
even without baptism – because it’s not so much the water as it is the Spirit
brooding over our life and our soul, the wind from God stirring up and troubling
things within us, the breath and the quiet voice of God encouraging us to wade
just a little bit deeper into the holy mysteries, into the opportunities and
ambiguities of life, to find our way to the other side even as we fear we may
fall and not be able to get up again.
Where I’ve come to now is quite a ways
from where I was then, and I wonder sometimes how that’s happened. How does the stirring begin each time? How is the water that seems so calm and
settled, suddenly start to ripple and be troubled? How is the passage from old to new, accomplished
at different times in any of our lives?
The time in which Jesus was baptized
into the meaning of his life, was not all that different from any other time. It was a time of haves and have-nots. Of rich and poor, and of powerful and
powerless. Of people speaking out
against what is wrong, promising the coming of a brand new day, and being put
away and silenced for it. Of people
longing and hoping for something better, and their hopes and dreams not always
coming true. Of people wanting to be
able to live God’s will in the world – sometimes managing it, sometimes not.
So what made this time so special and
different from others?
Was it brooding spirit? Sweeping wind? A particular stirring of the deep? A distinctive rippling and troubling of the
water of life by God? The speaking of a
Word heard in not quite that way before?
Really, though, the question is: how
we know this in our time, how we feel this in our own life.
The baptism of John in which Jesus
participates and into which he calls us to follow, is in part a baptism of
personal cleansing – the sign of a troubled and penitent heart praying for a
fresh start in knowing God’s grace, and for a new way of following God’s
unfolding good will. It’s the act of a
person asking for a blessing and for new meaning in their life.
So is there anything you are sorry for
at this point in your life, that makes you pray for cleansing and new meaning
and direction, as scary – and maybe even impossible, as that may seem?
And the baptism was also a shared
communal act of re-commitment. It was the
people responding together to the call to be renewed as a holy people together
in the world. The Jordan River separates
the Promised Land on one side and the wilderness on the other, so entering into
it for baptism was a symbolic re-enactment of different journeys through water
in the olden days: the journey from slavery to freedom through the Red Sea, the
first crossing of the Jordan from the wilderness to the promised land, the
re-crossing of the same river centuries later as the people returned to the
land after generations of exile in Babylon.
So what crossing or passage is ahead
of us at this moment in our life as a community of faith? What new hope or way are we being called
to? What are we being asked to leave behind? And how can we open ourselves – individually
and together, to God’s promise to lead us through, and not let us drown in the
turmoil and the stirring of the deep?
It usually begins when we find
ourselves again without shape and meaning.
We can no longer see what’s deep down inside us, when a wind from God
begins to brood and sweep over the water of our lives – rippling, stirring and
troubling us. God says, “Let there be
light” and there is. The new light is
good, God separates it from the dark, and in the change from dark night to
dawning light there is a new day.
And so, do you sense it – the brooding
of God over you – over us as a congregation?
Do you feel the rippling and stirring of life – your own, or maybe all
of ours together? And do you trust it
and give yourself to it – to the troubling of what used to be, for the sake of
whatever new thing God is calling to life within us, whatever new way we are
being called to follow, whatever new blessing and meaning of our life is being
spoken over us by God even now?
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