Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

The Worship of God · November 8, 2009

Litany of Praise and Invocation

From Psalm 127  

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

            Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.

It is in vain that you rise early and go late to rest,

chewing on your worry and anxiety.

            The gift of rest comes to those who love God

and know themselves loved by God.

Let us pray:

            Grant us peace, O God,

            now and at the last.  Amen.

New Testament Lesson

Philippians 4:4-13

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Message

Jail Time

Jacob Thorne

I want to share a memory with you. It is a vivid memory. It is a memory of my prison cell. It wasn’t very big. It was about five-feet wide and nine-feet long. It was cold and damp. My nose started to run from all of the mold. I was looking around, and I was feeling claustrophobic. Then I saw this tiny window that let in the smallest amount of light. Those iron bars were just so thick. I was sitting there, and I had my headphones on. I could hear the warden’s voice, “Welcome! Welcome to your new home.”

Then, after about a minute, the tour guide opened the door, and I walked out of Al Capone’s prison cell. Alcatraz. The Rock. It is not a place where you would want to spend a lot of time.

When you go on the tour of Alcatraz, the tour guide explains to you all of the rules: the loss of privileges, the invasion of privacy. Showers were only three times a week. Interestingly enough, they had to be hot showers, because they didn’t want your body to acclimate to the cold in case you might try to escape by way of the sea.

As I walked through these hallways, I thought to myself, “How could a person find any joy in prison?” Then, this week, I reread Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In our Scripture reading for this morning, Paul has come to grips with the circumstances surrounding his life. He writes, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to the riches of glory found in Jesus Christ.” 

These words sound good enough, but Paul’s words become so much more powerful when you remember the situation in which he was writing. Paul was sitting in prison. He was in Rome on a capital charge. When he wrote this letter, he had been in prison for at least two years.

In a number of his letters, but specifically in his letter to the Philippians, Paul is helpful to those who encounter the struggles of life. Whether he has plenty or little, whether he is filled or hungry, whether he is imprisoned or free, Paul is content. 

In Greek, the adjective content is translated as self-sufficient. During the time of Paul, this would have been especially popular among the cynics and the stoics. They had this notion of self-sufficiency, the notion that you are able to take whatever comes at you. But Paul has a very different understanding of what it means to be self-sufficient. Paul gave up everything in order to follow Christ. When he started to follow Christ, he found the gift of peace that comes from God and God alone. Paul had a very different type of indifference to the world around him. It is what you might call “a holy indifference.” He was not defined or overcome by the externals that were surrounding his life. 

Now, the prison that Paul was in and the prison at Alcatraz are both, in the most literal and physical sense, prisons behind bars. But what about the proverbial prison of life? Prison just isn’t about laws or locks. At times, we are all imprisoned by what surrounds us. We are imprisoned by our sins. We are imprisoned by our sorrows, by our pain, by our fears, by our depression. Sometimes it feels like we just cannot break free. We are imprisoned by what the ancient monastics, the dessert fathers and mothers, called acedia, or the noonday demon. It is a demon that keeps us from being free.

Sometime, when you have an opportunity, take the time to read Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is a very short letter – four chapters. When you read each chapter, notice how many times the word “joy” is mentioned. It is there 14 times. Joy, in prison.

So, what is this joy that Paul talks about to the early Christian community? What did he mean? What does it mean to us today? In part, I think the meaning is this: all too often, we are defined, caught, trapped by what takes place around us. We let the external forces of the world impact the internal forces inside of us. 

Paul writes his letter while he is in prison, but he refuses to see himself as a victim. Instead, he sees himself as a person who has been empowered by God. But how do we trust what Paul is saying? How do we keep from letting the world define us?

I remember the first time that I really started to get a glimpse of what Paul was talking about. I was 23-years-old. It was a cold, spring day in St. Louis, Missouri. I flew from St. Louis to Biloxi, Mississippi. Now, let me tell you… I have never been to the south before. When I stepped off that plane in March, I could not believe the humidity. It just stuck to you. The saying, “You can cut the air with a knife,” began to make sense. “What’s going on here? All this heat and humidity, and it is just spring.”

I meet ten other pastors from across the nation. We go to Back Bay Mission. It is a mission center supported by the United Church of Christ. We are going to spend four days learning the ins-and-outs of a mission trip. The goal is to discover how to lead these trips. The first night, we are sitting around this table. The dinner table is covered with newspaper. There is a huge pile of shrimp. This is my introduction to the south. It is just great! We had a leader named Don. He was a very large man with a bellowing voice. We are peeling these shrimp. (I don’t think I had even eaten shrimp before.) We are peeling the shrimp, and everybody is talking. All of a sudden, Don stands up and says, “Now it is time to go to church.”

OK. We get in the van. We drive through the streets of Biloxi. We pass all the casinos. We go farther, farther, farther to the edge of town. We then stop at this small church. We walk inside, and there are probably 25 or 30 people in attendance. All of a sudden, the worship starts, and we start singing. I mean really singing, like joyful singing. Before I can help it, I find myself clapping and swaying, and swinging to the music. If you know me, I do not clap and sing. But we are clapping, and singing, and it goes on and on – 45 minutes. 

Then the pastor strolls up to the pulpit, and he welcomes us, his visitors. Then he says, “Let’s have one of the guests here tonight bring us our message.”

And I thought, “Is this a joke?”

He is looking right at me. I am thinking, “No! Not me. I don’t have a message. I’m still in seminary.”

He’s looking at me. I can feel other people looking at me. I’m not moving. There is this long pause. Then our leader, Don, walks up to the pulpit. (“Oh, bless Don!”) He gets to the pulpit, but Don must have not known that he was going to be preaching that night, either. He says to the congregation, “Just keep singing. Just keep singing.”

The singing begins again. There is more clapping and more singing. Don is flipping through the pages of the Bible. He starts humming the bass to the hymns. He says, “Keep singing. Keep singing. Hmmm. Hmmm.” Five minutes. “Hmmmm.” Ten minutes. “Hmmmmm.” Fifteen minutes. He is still flipping through the Bible. We are still singing. Then all of a sudden, he stands up straight, and he says, “The Word of the Lord has come to me tonight.”

The singing stops. Then he begins to preach, I mean, to really preach! This was a night of firsts for me. It was the call-and-response type of preaching. Don is calling out to the audience, and they are responding back to him. They are saying, “Um-hum! Preach it!” “You got it!” “Keep on preachin’.”

He is really getting into it. Then all of a sudden, he puts up his hands, and he turns to the letter of Philippians. He says, “This is what Paul is talking about. We are called to be free. We are not going to let the shackles restrain us. We are going to find joy. We are going to find peace.”

The entire congregation stands up and starts clapping. That’s when I begin to sense what Paul is talking about. Paul was talking about a different kind of freedom and peace. But it is so hard, sometimes, to follow what Paul is suggesting. Sometimes, we confuse our blessings with our burdens. 

The other day, in the newspaper, I saw this story. Maybe you saw it as well. There is a 2009 International Monopoly World Champion. A true contest! It has been going on for ten years. The winner of the contest gets $20,580. That is the amount of money in a Monopoly game.

I have to tell you; I am a cutthroat Monopoly player. I am the racecar driver. The railroad baron. If you land on one of the railroads and can’t pay the rent, I will not be sympathetic. But I just love that pile of money, the jackpot, sitting in the middle of the Monopoly board. Does anybody else have this tendency? You can confess; it’s OK. That jackpot is just sitting there, and you just want to grab it and have all the money. Then you will be set, because you feel so lucky.

However, this idea of searching for a jackpot, of always wanting just a little bit more is exactly what Paul warns against. When we are searching for that next great prize, or what we think will make us more content, we are failing to trust in God. We are anxious, sleepless, uneasy, and distrustful of both others and ourselves.

The earliest followers of Jesus had the same struggles, the same challenges. Several weeks ago, I heard a well-known pastor and scholar provide an interesting interpretation of the story of the feeding of the 5,000, in the gospel of John. Maybe you remember this story. Jesus is preaching and teaching all day long. The crowd gathers around to listen to him. By the end of the day, they are hungry, and they want more – both in terms of food and in terms of teaching. So, Jesus performs a miracle, and all of a sudden, everyone has enough to eat. The story doesn’t end there. The crowd is so taken by Jesus. They know he is so special, so powerful, so amazing; they want more. They start to follow him. Jesus tries to back away. John tells us that Jesus wants to flee to the hills. The crowd, however, is so determined to get something else from Jesus, according to John, that they almost took him by force. Jesus escapes.

Here is what is different about the story. What if the crowd following Jesus wasn’t searching for a blessing, but they were searching for another jackpot? What if they were following Jesus for the wrong reasons? What if all they wanted is more, and more, and more? Because when you start searching for that jackpot, you stop living life fully. 

As Christians, we make certain claims. One of these claims is that we seek joy, not just as individuals, but also as a community. Few of us find it easy to follow the advice Paul gives this morning. We tend to worry about everything. Our attitude is the opposite of the trust that God commands. 

It is easy to forget, when thinking about Paul, who he was writing to, because Paul was writing to people who were poor, many of whom were slaves, almost all who had no means of security. Life was rough. Then contrast that to today, where many of us live a comparative life of wealth. We are surrounded by modern conveniences that are considered luxury. As a whole, our society is worried and anxious. 

Now, to let go of our worries doesn’t imply an irresponsible attitude towards life. But what it does do is distinguish between the anxiety that cripples a person, the anxiety that can destroy a community, and instead, focus on the joy that can lead to freedom. When we live life full of worry, when we are burdened and defined by the external that surround us, we lose our concern for both others and ourselves.

Our psalm from this morning, Psalm 127 says it like this: “It is in vain that you rise early and go to bed late chewing on worry and anxiety.”

We are called to develop mature spiritual lives. There is an old rabbinical story that goes like this:

When I started, I wanted to save the entire world. I lived a little longer, and I thought maybe I will just save my nation. Then I lived a little longer, and I thought maybe I will just save my city. Then I lived a little longer, and I thought maybe I will just save my family. When I became an old man and had lived a long, long time, I realized maybe I will just save myself. Then it dawned on me. If I had tried to save myself first, then maybe I could save my family, and my city, and my nation, and my world. The truth is this; it begins with you.

I have one final short story to share. Several weeks ago, I was at the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center. I was there visiting our friend who was receiving treatments. At the same time, she was practicing with her dulcimer group in the hallway. The dulcimer players were just strumming out these lovely tunes. It was so beautiful. Before I knew it, an older gentleman came out of a room. He sat down next to me, and he started singing with the melody of the dulcimers. There was something magical, something spiritual, about it, these two voices just coming together. When the music was all done, when it was finished, I said, “That was some beautiful singing.”

This older gentleman laid his cane down, and he asked, “Would you like to hear my story?”

I said, “Sure.”

He said, “Well, I just came out of my wife’s room. She is receiving treatment for yet another battle with cancer. She knows it is serious. I know it is serious. But we have this deep and abiding trust in God.

“Fifteen-years ago, I had a massive stroke. The doctors, the specialists, the physical therapists all said the same thing, ‘There is really not going to be a lot of improvement. You are going to have to find a way to manage with what you have.’”

This man was heart-broken. Singing was his passion. It was his life, but he no longer had his singing voice. One evening, he called his son on the phone. He wanted to sing to his son, his most favorite song, one time a year, “Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you.” He started to sing the song, and it just would not work. He could just not sing the words. He tried to muffle his tears on the phone.

His son said to him, “Dad, have you prayed to God about this?”

That night, he went to bed. He surrendered his prayer to God. The prayer went something like this: “God, I do not know what to do. I cannot handle it all. I am asking for you to heal me, to take away my anxiety.”

The next morning, he woke up. There was no miracle. But something inside of him felt different. He realized that he had let go of something. He kept on going to the physical therapists. He kept on doing his exercises. He started to get a little better.

Then exactly one year later, he called his son on the phone. You know what he did. “Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you.” He sang the entire song. He made a promise to God that day. He said to God, “I am so thankful for this gift and for this grace. I am making a promise to you that I will tell four people each day my story.”

That day, in the hallway, I don’t know what number I was, but it was his story to tell. It was a story of grace, of love, of trust.

Psalm 127 continues, “The gift of rest comes to those who love God and find themselves being loved by God.”

Because of his love and complete trust in God, that man I met in the hallway and his wife had the same holy indifference that Paul had, not an irresponsible attitude toward life, but a deep and abiding trust in God.

As you go forth this morning, remember the words of Paul as he speaks to the people in Philippi: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you. God is active in you.”

The great challenge of the Christian life, of the Christian faith, of the spiritual journey is to surrender our anxieties to God and trust in the One who created us. 

Through Christ, we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

It is well, with my soul. Amen.