ThisWeeksSermon, The Second Sunday in Lent, February 17

A "footnote" to your reading of this sermon:

This is not one of my best sermons by any means. But it was my best delivery! It was the first time ever that I felt really comfortable and at ease with myself and the congregation and, I suppose, with the Spirit. There were giggles and there was laughter and in the end, a message. I was so excited to have set up my computer in the sacristy to record the whole thing. Wanted you to be able to hear it here, not just read it. Appropriately, however, that spirit bumped up against me once again. Because I wasn't used to the software and pressed the wrong button, there's no audio this week—of all weeks. I say "appropriately" because it's a fitting footnote to the sermon.—jerry

“The spirit that bumps up against us from time to time.”
The Second Sunday in Lent, February 17, 2008

May I speak only the truth, and may only the truth be heard by you. In the name of God our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier. Amen.

+All was not well at Grand Central Station
A week ago, on Thursday morning, I got up early.
It was going to be the beginning of a long day of traveling for me…
heading out to California to revisit baby Amelia, Jenn, and José.
I was really well organized, I have to tell you.
I had gone online and gotten a travel itinerary from New York City Transit.
I filled in the information on their website.
I would leave Poughkeepsie at 9:33.
Arrive at Grand Central Station at 11:17.
Destination: JFK International Airport.
Directions were very precise.
Take the number 7 train from Grand Central at 11:48 a.m.
Get off 7 minutes later at the Court House Square station.
Walk north 5/100 mile to the E train.
Wait 7 minutes for the E train which runs out to the JFK/Airtrain terminal.
Start to finish…
from Poughkeepsie to JetBlue in 3 hours and 2 minutes.
I was feeling pretty smug about having worked all this out in such detail.
The ride down from Poughkeepsie actually turned out to be “quality time with my computer.”
In New York, I easily followed the signs to the subway…
and I want you to know that number 7 train is way underground.
Three layers of subway tracks below Lexington Avenue.
Three long flights of stairs, altogether.
The number 7 train runs on the lowest tracks.
Made it all the way down there acting…
and I think looking…
like native New Yorker…
looking as though I knew exactly where I was going.
Checking my watch periodically…
I waited for that 11:48 train.
At 11:38…
I looked down at my feet…
and I realized that I didn’t have my overnight bag.
I’d left it on the train…
in the overhead rack!
Nothing valuable in it.
But I needed my stuff!
I ran up those three flights of stairs…
worked my way back into the Station…
realized I had no idea which track we’d come in on…
got directions at the information booth…
and then found my train parked where it had stopped…
shut off and locked up tight.
Not a person in sight…
except one…
a MetroNorth guy pushing a handcart on the platform.
My heart was racing by this time…
partly from the aerobic sprint…
and partly from panic.
“Can you get me into the third car?,” I asked the guy on the platform.
“Left my bag on the train.”
“I’m not supposed to do this,” he said.
But he did.
Thank God he did.
I pulled a $20 bill out of my wallet and gave it to him.
“Bless you, sir,” he said.
He gave me his blessing.
And I needed a blessing at that point
It felt good!
As I was sprinting back through the maze of corridors and stairwells…
hoping to catch that 11:47 subway…
my pulse rate on the upswing again…
setting off a lightning storm of frenzied thoughts and impulses in my brain.
Zap!
A bolt of lightning:
How careless!
Zap!
Another bolt!
How stupid could I be!
Zap!
Thank God that guy was on the platform.
Still running, I imagined arriving in California with nothing but my computer.
How embarrassing!
Can I make it back to the subway in time to catch that number 7 train?
Thank God that guy was on the platform.
Working my way through the stair-climbers…
another thought occurred to me.
What if I hadn’t remembered the missing bag until after I was on the subway?
And then, again:
Thank God that guy was on the platform.
Then…
coming down the last flight of stairs…
I slowed down.
On the platform…
waiting for the subway a second time…
the fireworks in my head fizzling to barely a twinkle…
the rational part of my brain was kicking back in.
“Wait a minute,” I thought.
What am I thanking God for anyway.
What does God have to do with experiences like this?
Where the heck was God when I left the bag on the train in the first place?
Not looking out for me then.
Does God really intervene in the world from time to time…
whenever God feels like it?
Seems rather whimsical!
And why does that cry of thanksgiving spontaneously rise from within when everything goes out of control?
Thank God that guy was on the platform!
No particular answer to those questions.
By the time the number 7 train arrived…
the emotional response had fully morphed into this intellectual…
theological argument in my head.
+We become philosophers
Little crises like this one…
little shocks like this one…
interruptive but not devastating…
they make philosophers out of all of us.
Those venerable puzzles about chance…
about fate…
about causality…
and about providence…
they suddenly take on new meaning.
Did an angel cause me to look down at my feet and notice that my bag wasn’t resting there?
Or did an angel distract me as I was getting off the train…
so I’d have this story to tell?
Did a devil trip me up?
Did an angel catch me?
Did God want me to learn something about the consequences of not paying attention to what I’m doing?
The mystery is that the lost-and-then-found overnight bag looks from one angle like a case of lawful cause and effect.
But from another angle…
it looks like mere chance.
It looks from a third angle like a disposition of Divine protective care.
+Somehow, the Spirit
Unexpected thumps of all sorts are like catastrophes in a teacup.
They may not reveal interstellar secrets.
But they do remind us of what we already know…
that we are fragile creatures.
We look for explanations for unexplainable things that happen.
We are creatures that can be transformed…
transformed in a moment…
in the twinkling of an eye…
by this Spirit…
a Spirit that bumps up against us from time to time.
+The Spirit blows where it chooses
Jesus said it in this morning gospel reading.
“The Spirit of God blows where it chooses.
You feel it…
you know it…
but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes.
Our part in all this is to wait upon God with gratitude and trust…
and occasionally thank God for that guy on the platform!
+Prayer
Let us pray.
Eternal God, the Great Mystery that is outside everything and yet at the same time inside, keep alive in each one of us the search for a faith that is real, a faith that helps us to live happier lives, a faith that gives us a fuller meaning to life and the events of life. Bring us to know the goodness that flows from the heart of the universe and may we be expanded in heart and soul by that goodness.
This is our prayer. Amen.
Jerry Brooks