“An invitation to the future”
The 7th Sunday of Easter, April 27, 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.
I’ve always thought of myself as being a bit different from most people, maybe even a little odd.
(I expect that doesn’t come as a surprise to most of you.)
Growing up with two athletic brothers, in a totally sports-minded family, I’m the one who played right field.
That’s where I learned to pray, pray that a ball would not come my way.
I’ve always argued about everything.
If my mother asked me to do something, I’d argue with her about it, first.
Then I’d do it.
My brother, Jack, was just the opposite.
He’d agree to do anything.
Might not ever do it.
But he’d agree to do it.
I’ve always been critical of whatever was considered conventional, always taking the other side.
When I was a young parent, I started a rap group for fathers.
There were half a dozen of us who met once a week to talk about fatherhood and relationship issues.
We hired a professional therapist to facilitate the group.
In that group, the therapist labeled my behavior for me.
I was not particularly thankful for that.
She called my problem an “oppositional disorder.”
It was my protesting, my rebelliousness, my general criticism and contrariness that she identified as dysfunctional.
That was me.
Still is, to a great extent.
I’d rather be on the edge than be in the middle.
Being a nonconformist comes naturally to me!
And I’m thinking that in some ways, being a nonconformist is what all of us are called to be as Jesus-followers in the world today.
THE CONCLUSION OF OUR STORIES OF JESUS
Seems like just yesterday it was Advent.
The liturgical calendar has taken us very quickly, faster than usual, from the birth of the baby in December, and recognition that that infant would somehow be the messiah, the chosen one, to the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, and certain death just weeks later, and then the recognition that Jesus’ death wasn’t the end after all, but instead was a new beginning.
And now we’re up to the Feast of the Ascension.
It was celebrated by the church on Thursday.
Marking the 40th day after Easter, the feast observes the story of Christ’s return to the God above the sky through a miracle of a cosmic ascension.
The point of this feast day is not about a miracle.
Actually, the point is that it’s the start of a time when we begin to shift our thinking.
The Christ has returned to its source, and we now begin to shift our thinking to an awareness that God is present with us in a different way.
It’s a new beginning, where any dream will do.
God present within us, providing the energy and the life that will lead us into new territory, an energy for coping with unexpected challenges, an energy, possibly, for living as nonconformists in the world, a new beginning where any dream will do.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
She was a pioneer in the field of caring for the terminally ill.
She had this to say:
“Our concern must be to live while we are alive, to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade….”
The facade she was talking about is a facade of conformity to society’s definitions of who we ought to be and how we ought to act.
PAUL ENDORSED NONCONFORMITY
One of the most dangerous verses in all the Bible just might be the one in Romans 12 where Paul writes:
Be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.
Paul was suggesting to people in the church they do whatever feels really natural to them, really honest to them, really True to them.
It’s not an accidental nonconformity that Paul was talking about, like when you show up at a formal occasion wearing jeans and a t-shirt, or when you accidentally drive the wrong way down a one-way street.
It’s not my so-called “oppositional disorder” that Paul was talking about.
It’s intentional nonconformity that he was talking about.
It’s nonconformity that results from an inner transformation.
In a culture such as ours, in which conformity is so highly valued, it’s nonconformity that’s very likely to get you into trouble!
In theological circles, nonconformity will likely result in heresy.
But I suggest that Paul commended nonconformity, commended dissent, and even commended heresy in the face of what the world values and approves of.
CONFORMING TO SCRIPTURE?
I think that most people read the bible to confirm their own convictions.
I certainly do.
In spite of the fact that people in the Bible have usually been people on the margins of society…
the Bible is used most of the time to preserve the status quo, rather than to challenge or change it.
The objections to Jesus that led to his execution were that he was stirring things up.
Nonetheless, conformity rather than nonconformity has generally been the greater characteristic of Christians.
So-called “godly conduct” is really just whatever the people of God say it is at any given time.
You don’t have to look back very far in history to list the horrors of war, and slavery, and treatment of women and other minorities, all of which were thought to be “Godly conduct”, then.
The faith heroes of the Bible, however, including Jesus of course, are generally ones whose faithfulness did not conform, put them on the outside of the prevailing culture, looking in.
THE GOOD NEWS: YET TO BE EXPERIENCED?
Jesus central message, you know, was that the Kingdom of God was “at hand”, in the air, just around the corner.
But he got it wrong, wrong at least in terms of what his listeners would have understood.
The “kingdom” they were expecting didn’t come.
Still hasn’t.
But here’s an idea.
Let me suggest that the good news that Jesus announced may never come.
The whole point may be that the kingdom will always be just a bit beyond us, just out of reach, leading us, as Christ leads us, in the story of the ascension of Christ into heaven.
Billy Graham once said this at the beginning of a sermon.
He was visibly suffering from Parkinson’s disease at the time.
Here’s what he said:
“I know I am going to die, but I’m not worried. Are you?”
At the heart of Billy Graham’s style of preaching always was an invitation, an invitation to the future, an invitation to new opportunity, an invitation to an unknown land where the spirit of God will move us, move us to try what we’ve maybe never tried before.
You don’t have to conform to the expectations of this world.
Instead, fix your attention on God.
It can change you from the inside out.
It can provide a new beginning, where any dream will do.
I’d like you to listen with me to Michael Crawford singing the final song from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, “Any Dream Will Do.”
I printed the words for you.
They’re in your service booklet.
ANY DREAM WILL DO
I closed my eyes, drew back the curtain
To see for certain what I thought I knew
Far far away, someone was weeping
But the world was sleeping
Any dream will do
I wore my coat, with golden lining
Bright colors shining, wonderful and new
And in the east, the dawn was breaking
And the world was waking
Any dream will do
A crash of drums, a flash of light
My golden coat flew out of sight
The colors faded into darkness
I was left alone
May I return to the beginning
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do
A crash of drums, a flash of light
My golden coat flew out of sight
The colors faded into darkness
I was left alone
May I return to the beginning
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do
Give me my coloured coat,
my amazing coloured coat!!
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
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