Guardian of Your Souls

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Easter 5A

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

1 Peter 2:18-25

¹⁸Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. ¹⁹For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. ²⁰If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. ²¹For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ²²“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” ²³When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. ²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

On Friday I made a quick run to the grocery store in town to pick up a package of chicken, thinking I was maybe going to cook it for supper.  I bought it, but ended up storing it in the refrigerator until today.  I didn’t think twice about storing it rather than cooking it.  Didn’t think there was a real chance that it could go bad and be wasted before I had a chance to cook it.  

I was in Mechanicsville yesterday afternoon, meeting with a couple for the initial plans for their wedding.  We met at a restaurant, and after our meeting, I stayed and had a late lunch.  As I drove back, I drove by a department store that we tend to frequent to buy our clothes and shoes and such.  I debated on whether or not to stop in and see if I could pick up something, but decided against it. After all, we have all the clothes we need, and in fact, we have MORE than we need.  I went through my closet last weekend and bagged close to twenty shirts which I could not remember when I wore last, and gave them away to some friends. 

Last night, rather than cooking, I went online and placed an order for two medium pizzas from Domino’s, and made a quick run to pick them up.  It was sprinkling as I headed out, and I got to the parking lot in front of the store just as the storm got really bad.  I only hesitated a moment before opening the car door and running across the parking lot and stepping inside to pick up the pizzas and head back. 

According to the GPS we have in the car, it was a 10-mile trip in each direction.  I traveled at or below the speed limit, and made it there and back in something under an hour … maybe even less than 45 minutes.  Through the heavy downpour, across the river, listening to podcasts of religion stories that had been broadcast on NPR over the last few months. 

There was one moment coming back through town, as I passed St. John’s, where it seemed like lightning struck the new communication tower beside the Northern Neck Electric Co-Op complex, it was a momentarily blinding flash of light with an accompanying loud BANG of thunder, but all it did was startle me.  

Aside from that, it was a completely uneventful trip.

And it struck me that we have managed to engineer any sense of dependency on something other than ourselves nearly out of existence. 

The mark of modern technology is that we have begun to master our environment.  Whether it is cooling the hot air of summer or heating the cold air of winter, or constructing a bridge across what would otherwise be a serious impediment to travel – a river – with a few obvious exceptions, we go about our scheduled activities regardless of the weather or our physical surroundings. 

Most of us don’t give a second thought to getting in our cars or onto an airplane and traveling across considerable distances through the air and over geographical regions at speeds that would astonish our grandparents and great grandparents, to say nothing of our ancestors from further back than that.

Before I go on:  I am not a Luddite.  I am not opposed to advances in technology.  I believe improvements in agriculture, food production and energy supplies hold the key to ensuring a more just and equitable society as we move into the future.

 

But …

There is a downside to those advances.  We can very easily forget just how vulnerable we are. 

As I have watched the price of gasoline rise over the last few weeks and months, the thought has crossed my mind as to what it would be like to get around on bikes rather than in automobiles.  I know Hunter and Gwen could give me a really good idea of what it would feel like to ride these roads around here, and I know I could use the exercise… but that part of our ministry that calls for giving people rides to and from places – either school or the doctor or the airport – that would be the exception rather than the norm.  And what would happen on a night like last night?  We would definitely be eating leftovers or a home cooked meal.  A trip to Mechanicsville would also be an event – a once a month or maybe even a once a quarter trip, rather than a once or twice a week errand run. 

It is a seductive draw for us, so subtle that we’re not even aware of it.  We seldom stop to consider or even wonder about the risks in what is inherent in our daily activities until something tragic happens. 

Earlier this week, friends of ours whose daughter has also recently gotten her driver’s permit were out on the road, the daughter was driving, and an oncoming driver, who was apparently in need of some serious rest, nodded off as she was driving, and drifted across the center line into oncoming traffic.  Our friends’ daughter was able to swerve away from a head-on collision, but wasn’t able to miss the other driver entirely.  The other car clipped the back end of the car they were in and they spun out, spinning several times before coming to a stop – shaken, but thankfully unharmed.  If not for quick reactions and a low center of gravity, this story could be coming out tragically different.

We live in a part of the world and at a time in history when we don’t give a second thought to flipping a switch to be able to see at night, or to turning a valve to get hot or cold clean running water for our wash, our hygiene, or for our food.  Some of us can remember a time when getting clean water involved either a trip to an outside pump or a trip to a stream, but it is a distant memory for the most part.

Sometimes circumstances remind us – in harsh ways.  Hurricane Isabel did it for us here eight years ago.  Hurricane Katrina did it for folks in New Orleans and along the gulf coast six years ago.  A magnitude 9 earthquake and a horrendous Tsunami did it for folks in Japan a few weeks ago.  A storm system that tore across the southern states did it for millions of people here just a couple of weeks ago.

At times like those, it is common to hear cries for God’s help and presence, for strength and patience, for protection. 

But when things are good, when there is no threatening wave, no storm, no earth rumbling beneath our feet, how readily do we find ourselves crying out to God for that same help, that same presence, or strength, patience, and protection?

The same can be said for times when we are sick over and against times when we are healthy.  Why is it that we so readily call to God in times of distress rather than times of plenty? 

I think what we have to struggle against is this idea that we don’t need help when things seem to be okay.  That it is only necessary to look for help when things are not okay. 

C. S. Lewis wrote, “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”

It does seem to hold true, that we just don’t learn something in theory as completely as we do when we learn it in practice. 

So with a few notable and significant exceptions across the world, we have been the beneficiaries of an extended period of freedom in the practice and sharing of our faith.  There are few instances that any of US can recall when we were attacked – and by that I mean physically assaulted – for doing or saying something that indicated that we were followers of Jesus.  In fact, I think it would be almost a safe assumption that if I were to ask for a show of hands of people who had experienced intense persecution for what they believed, I would be surprised to see any hand go up. 

On the one hand, part of me wants to celebrate that.  To know that we live in a time and a place where we don’t have to face persecution and are free to share our faith and to live it without any hindrance is an unmitigated blessing. 

On the other hand, part of me is uneasy about that.  Insofar as we are prone to be lulled into a sense of complacency, and we easily forget the more radical nature of Christ’s call on our lives.  Because is really is a call to radical discipleship, to radical commitment, to radically reimagining what the world could look like if all those who claim Jesus as Lord let him actually BE Lord of their lives. 

How much injustice would be corrected?  How much hunger and poverty would be eradicated?  How much justice and compassion would be evident where it is now absent?  How many would truly act as brothers and sisters rather than pay lip service only, but make no move in the practice of daily living?

Can we really see what that world would look like?  Can we really trust God to the point where we actually take the steps that Jesus calls us to in following him?   

Do we really trust God like we say we do?

  

Hannah Whitehall Smith, a Quaker from New Jersey who lived and worked and preached at the turn of the last century, believed and staked her entire life on this idea that we are to really, truly, completely trust God; with our souls, with our lives, with our all. She wrote a prayer that speaks to the awareness of what it truly means to give up our idea of self-sufficiency and self-reliance and live in that radical faith that relies ultimately and solely on God through Jesus Christ.

Pray her prayer with me:

"Lord Jesus, I believe that Thou art able and willing to deliver me from all the care and unrest and bondage of my life. I believe that Thou didst die to set me free, not only in the future, but here and now.

I believe that Thou art stronger than my sin, and that Thou canst keep me, even me, in my weakness, from falling....

"So Lord, I am going to trust Thee to keep me. I have tried keeping myself and I have failed…. So now I will trust Thee. I give myself to Thee. I keep back no reserves. Body, soul and spirit, I present myself to Thee....

"And I believe Thou doest accept that which I present to Thee ... That this poor, weak and foolish heart has been taken possession of by Thee, and that Thou hast even at this very moment begun to work in me to will and to do Thy good pleasure. So I trust Thee completely, O God, and I trust Thee now." In Jesus’ name. Amen.