Breath of Life

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit…”
John 20:21-22

I wonder what it was like to have an image of Jesus standing before you when the last time you saw him he was hanging on a cross. Of course in the mind of most people 2,000 years ago and certainly in the mind of most first century Jews, the spiritual world and earthly realm were not entirely separate. Spirits moved freely between the two planes of reality. Demons invaded the human territory. Angels appeared not with great regularity, but often enough to seem credible. God’s presence was at times tangible. But even still, given all this, the disciples must have been blown off their rocker when somehow the Resurrected One passed through locked doors and appeared before them bringing of all things peace.
And after they settled down a bit from their initial terrified astonishment, after he showed his wounds for proof and offered a word of peace, he did something quite unexpected. Like God filling the lungs of the first creatures, he blew on them. He gave them the Spirit of life and that made all the difference in their lives. After that, they were never again the same.
I wonder if we have anything that might compare to this breath of life?
Shifting to our common experience, if I were to say, “The air was so fresh we could taste it,” what does that expression conjure up for you? Where have you been that has air so fresh you could taste it?
A few places flash to my mind: The first time I went to Kauai in the early 80’s we landed in the smallest commercial airport I had ever seen. Passengers disembarked by walking down a staircase right onto the tarmac and I remember still the sudden explosion of fresh air. As I stepped out of the stuffy airplane, rather than the smell of jet fuel which I anticipated, I was immediately greeted with a warm blanket of sunshine, and a strange and delightful breeze. I couldn’t identify the mixture of aromas, and only later put together the distinct smell of saltwater mingling with green sugar-cane crops and red-brown earth.
Air so fresh you could taste it? Stepping out of the car after a long drive to my grandparents cabin in El Dorado, high in the Rocky Mountains. The air was thin there, to a lowlander like me, but the smell of pine and spring water and I don’t know what else was like a magical elixir that put a spring in my heart.
One more: Stepping out of the car after our drive from Vancouver to see my parents on Orcas Island (before they moved) and tasting that amazing combination of sea water and pine scented air.
You no doubt have your memories, your places that float to mind when you hear the expression “air so fresh you could taste it.” And when you’ve tasted this fresh air, have you, too, felt invigorated? When you breathe deeply and fill your lungs with gulps of this delicious air, do you, too, feel that both your body and mind wake-up, as if at long last the school bell just rang and you’re free to play? Does a smile seem to drop into your heart and a shot of courage run up your spine?
When Jesus breathed on the disciples, I wonder if it had a similar effect on them. I wonder if their body and soul woke up? And when we have those spirited experiences in life, those “goose-bump experiences” — when we sing some fabulous music or have an experience of prayer that leaves our body vibrating or when we see the orca leaping from the water – I wonder if the Resurrected One is giving us a puff of the Holy Spirit, a breath of fresh, spiritual air that rekindles the spark in our soul.
Or maybe the fresh air experience is still too commonplace, too ordinary for the disciples that day. After all, their situation was dire. They were not only fatigued by grief and gripped by terror – they had just seen their beloved rabbi brutally tortured – they were locked up in fear that the soldiers would come for them next. What could possibly bring the petrified disciples back to rejoicing? What could instill hope from the ashes of utter despair?
A swimmer in the Pacific Ocean got caught in a rough wave. I don’t know if his head hit a surfboard or a rock or what happened exactly because no one seems to have seen the accident. What they saw was his body floating face down in the churning water. Though the lifeguard sprinted to the body and swam incredibly fast, it seemed to take forever before the unconscious young man was brought to the sand. The lifeguard pushed on his stomach and ocean water ran from his mouth. Then he leaned over and gave the swimmer mouth to mouth resuscitation. We had practiced this on a life-sized doll in Boy Scouts, but to see it done in real life was both sickening and amazing. Before long, the swimmer coughed up more water, was turned on his side, and sputtered back to life. Everyone looking on exhaled with enormous relief, noticing that we, too, had been holding our breath in suspense.
Literally, the swimmer had received the breath of life.
I wonder if it was more like this for the disciples. They were petrified, frozen in fear. All hope had been drained from their heart, all courage had been choked out of them. What they needed was mouth to mouth resuscitation to bring them back to life.
“Peace be with you,” Jesus said. Understandably his appearance was enough of a shock to knock all sense of peace out of either his words or his presence. So he needed to repeat it and let it soak into the souls of his trembling disciples; “Peace be with you.”
And then, “Receive the Spirit” he breathed.
And they came back to life.
Or perhaps their experience of the resurrection was even more dramatic than mouth to mouth resuscitation. Because when a person is fortunate enough to receive mouth to mouth, they have been saved and have just survived a traumatic experience, but they may well simply be grateful to get their old, familiar life back. They may well just be happy to feel a warm shower again and taste a hot cup of tea. But they’re not necessarily transformed by the experience.
Perhaps the disciples experienced something even more fundamentally life-altering. Because it’s clear that whatever happened in that room that day, it radically changed the disciples. In a matter of a few short weeks and after a few short encounters with the Resurrected
One, they fundamentally changed. They moved from a group of people trapped by grief and shackled by fear to a community aflame with courage and faith and hope. It was as if they couldn’t contain the Spirit. It was as if they were lifted into a new way of being.
The image that comes to mind is a creature that moves from water to land, a creature that has been surrounded by liquid and suddenly finds itself needing to use its lungs for the first time. This story from John’s gospel reminds me of a baby being born.
Whether you have delivered a child, or stood by your loved one through labour, or have watched a birth on TV, or have waited outside the delivery room and heard the first birth cries, you know you’ve been part of a miracle. My simple mind is boggled whenever I consider how this creation of flesh and blood and bones grew in a womb of water and like an amphibian lifting itself to land, the child slips into the world of oxygen and light and with a quick smack on the bum it takes a breath and lets out its first life-cries announcing he or she has arrived. “Hello world, I’m here!”
What an amazing transformation: One minute receiving sips of oxygen from an umbilical cord, the next minute filling lungs with fresh air. And because of the birth of that child, the world, too, is changed.
I wonder if it was more like this for the disciples as they were transformed into a new spiritual way of being, a new self-identity, a new awareness of sacred possibility. Walking with Jesus of Nazareth had only been the training ground. Hearing his stories and watching him work his wonders was only the gestation in the womb of Spirit. They were still attached to his umbilical cord, receiving soul nourishment from him. They grew, they became more formed, but they weren’t yet reborn.
Then the horrible crucifixion. The death, the loss, the grief kicked them into immense labour pains of the soul. Then, as if they were huddled in a collective birth canal, Jesus appears and brings a kind of oxygen and light. “Peace be with you” he once said to them in the midst of a sea storm when they were frightened and thought they might die. “Peace be with you,” he said again this day and breathes on them the breath of life.
And they gasped, they sputtered, they rejoiced with a mixture of disbelief and relief and wonder. They received this strange breath of the Holy Spirit which issued a rebirth of the soul.
I suspect this encounter with the Risen Christ was more like a rebirth for the disciples, even more dramatic than mouth to mouth resuscitation and more profound than a breath of fresh air to revive the soul. This breath of life from the Resurrected One ushered them into a new way of being in the world, and the world has never been quite the same since.
The true miracle of this story as I see it is that it doesn’t remain trapped in ink on a page. The story lifts off the page and strangely appears in our life. I suspect that when we breathe air so fresh we can taste it, or when we feel like we’re floating face down in churning waters, or when we feel like we’re trapped in a room of grief and despair and only know that our old life is behind us and dead, I suspect the Resurrected One comes to us still. Passes through the locked doors of our anxiety and fear and appears with healing wounds and, somehow, a peace that passes all understanding. I suspect that even still we receive the breath of life. I believe a radical transformation happens even today as that transcendent air blows in and through us: pneuma; ruah, a gift of the Spirit.
There’s so much more to this story of forgiveness, doubt, trust and the power of God. But perhaps even more important than the Christ showing up on the scene, revealing his wounds like an identity card, is his breath. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. The umbilical cord to
Jesus was cut. Now, you have to breathe on your own, he said to them and to us; Now, you have in you the breath of the Spirit.
By the sheer grace of God, may we all be lifted into new life.
Amen.

Learning to Fly

…those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31

There is no doubt that we, the faith community of St. David’s, are facing a very difficult decision. This morning I’d like to speak not for one path or another, but to address our collective soul.
I know that I am not alone in having numerous and intense conversations. I know others too have shed tears or find themselves woken in the middle of the night with a pounding heart and scattered, racing thought. I know, at bottom, all of this is for the love of the church and the people of this community. And just like families in a time of disagreement and different perspectives, things can get tense. People can be on edge.
As difficult as the process has been, from the start my hope has been that being in this crucible will make us stronger. I hope that we realize how much the church means to us. I hope this process helps us clarify the real value of being a community of faith. It might be possible even that this hardship deepens our yearning for God.
Our relationship with God is like a marriage or a close working partnership. When a relationship is ongoing, we run the risk of taking it for granted. We can become blasé. Then, when something happens, maybe a serious illness for example, we can be jolted into a new appreciation of our partner.
Whether we stay or relocate to the Village, I hope this process helps us remember how the church is there to ease the burden of those who struggle. I hope we remember how the church community nourishes and guides us to attend to the presence of the holy, the sacred, the wonder and mystery, the amazing grace that we wade through every day. I genuinely hope that whether we stay or go we remain committed to the path of Christ.
One important quality of a genuine community is that there’s room for difference and disagreement. I don’t want you to be afraid to look me in the eye because you’re concerned we might have a different perspective. It’s healthy to have contrast. In an atmosphere of respect, it’s vitalizing to have difference. Several years ago, when my family and I returned home from a week-long summer vacation, the girl’s crayons had melted together from the sun beating through a window. All the vibrant colours of a rainbow had melted into a pool of dull grey. A community without variation and contrast is a dull grey.
We want difference. How we carry different perspectives is essential, but a community that can carry difference with respect and perhaps even appreciation is a beautiful thing to behold. A congregation, a soccer team, a class, a company, a family – any community that can make room for different perspectives with respect and appreciation is the kind of community people want to be part of.
In the newsletter, I shared my perspective that whether you vote to stay here at 1525 Taylor Way or relocate to 3255 Edgemont Blvd., there really is no wrong decision. The caveat is that the way to make it a right decision is to follow through with your vote. If you embrace and invest in our future direction, we can’t go wrong whichever path you choose.
Our real risk is this: if you vote in favour of going but then don’t follow-through, or if you vote in favour of staying but have no intention of rising up to meet the challenge, we all fall down.
Long ago, last September, I shared with you why I thought the move to partner with Highlands could be a faithful one. I feel I need to clearly say that I don’t think there is only one faithful response to our situation. I still believe our possible relocation can be an act of faith. But I also believe working to stay can be an act of faith. Absolutely it can. In a hugely inspiring way it can. But whatever you happen to think is the best decision for our community right now, what makes it faithful (or not) is how you engage the process and live-out your decision. That makes all the difference.
In our conversations, as we listen and speak, we’re given an opportunity to practice our faith. As with anything, it’s easy to be faithful when things are harmonious and smooth and life is going swimmingly well. It’s more difficult to be faithful when things are hard or there’s conflict or the situation is confusing. But that’s when it matters most. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus called this the great commandment. It guides everything we do. And how we love each other is exactly how we show our love for God. In this critical time, we’re given the opportunity to practice our faith.
In the end, whether we stay or relocate, as one friend proclaimed, “God is not finished with St. David’s yet.” Roll-up your sleeves: there’s much work to do. Look down the road: There’s much joy to be shared.
What does God want from all this? I don’t know for sure. Though I’ve put in a few polite requests, I’ve not received a personalized text message or letter in the mail. But I would suggest that God wants us, at the very least, to listen carefully, to speak respectfully, to pray together and to trust that no matter what, we will not be abandoned by the One who is the Source of life and love.
I suspect that, whatever happens, God wants us to fly. God is working among us to allow this time of difficulty to lift us into a new and revitalized way of being.
When I was younger, I was a long distance runner. I first discovered I could do what few other kids could do when I was in grade 5, and it was then that I learned about a “second wind.” I learned that there are times when you feel really tired and your chest is pounding and your arms and legs feel like lead and you want to quit. My dad warned me about this. He said, “Pace yourself. You’ll feel tired but don’t quit. If you keep going, if you take long strides and deep breaths you’ll catch a second wind and you’ll be able to go for a lot longer. You might even find that ‘kick’ that will allow you to win the race.” He was right.
When I was teaching in Japan, I went running one time with the track team up in the hills where they grow the lovely mikan or small, seedless oranges. After our long run, on the return back to the school, I found that second wind and felt as if my feet barely touched the ground. Everything flowed and I felt lifted back to the school.
A poet wrote,
I think sometimes — just because
We weren’t born with wings
Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t
Learn to fly.
We’re in a hard place now as a community. We all want to make a good, faithful decision. We all want this to go well and end well. Through it all I think God wants us to learn to fly. On the mountain top, we enjoy an expansive view. But when things are rough and we find ourselves in the valley, we’re stretched spiritually. That’s when we have a great opportunity to find a way to soar.
Nelson Mandela knew what it meant to be in the valley and grow. 27 years in prison on Robin’s Island, he walked out with a smile on his bright face. Somehow in there, in that tiny cell of his, he learned what it meant to forgive. Somehow he learned that he didn’t want to go through the rest of his life hating whites or carrying resentment toward his prison guards. Somehow, even behind bars, his spirit learned to fly.
And on his inauguration as President of South Africa, he shared this. Though the words originally came from author Marianne Williamson, they captured his experience and the experience he so wanted all of South Africa to share. Though confronted by deep racism and hatred, he wanted to teach others how to fly when he said,
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Whether we stay or go, may we be the kind of community that shines. May we be the light that liberates others and helps them find their wings. Because together, we’re called to fly.
Amen.

The Call to Adventure

The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.”
Genesis 12:1

A number of years ago, just after I finished university, the well-respected Bill Moyers held a series of interviews with Joseph Campbell. With these eight interviews on national public television, this relatively obscure author and professor at a private college was skyrocketed to prominence with the velocity of a 19 year old gold medal athlete. Only Joseph Campbell was at the end of his career and, as it turned out, reaching the very end of his life. When Moyers interviewed him, Joseph Campbell was a man who had survived struggles and losses and had come through the other side with passion in his voice, a smile on his face and light beaming from his eyes. Joseph Campbell was a mythologist, or whatever it is you call somebody who studies the stories that bring meaning to a civilization. Those stories are associated with religion because it is a function of religion to guard the stories that tell us who we are, and then to recall them verbally and with dramatic action so the source of meaning will always be available to us.
The amazing thing about these stories Campbell introduced to people like you and me sitting in our living room is that the stories share common themes. There is a sameness between the ancient stories and the modern stories, between those that come out of primitive society and those from sophisticated or so-called advanced religions, south, north, east and west. We all seem to be telling the same story. There are things that separate us and make each religion quite distinct. That is true. So we are different. But in this one respect, we are all alike: we tell the same story.
It’s the story of a hero. The hero can be a man or a woman. The hero is someone who is called to take a journey. Sometimes it’s a journey outward to a new land, and sometimes it’s a journey inward into a new awareness. And along the way they meet many dangers, toils and snares. And finally they enter into the promised land, or the Kingdom of Heaven, or climb the mountain to find the treasure, or awake to a new way of being human that is sometimes called enlightenment.
But the story is not over yet. Now they have to return to the normal world, to the everyday world. They return the same, but different. They remain human beings but they’re now fulfilled and complete and whole. They’ve experienced salvation. They’re back where they were before the journey, but they’re different. They’re different in a way that would never have happened if they had not taken the journey.
That’s the story, the story of the journey. Campbell has divided the story into phases, and the title of this sermon is the description of one of the phases of the journey. It is called “The Call to Adventure.” Campbell wrote that all hero stories have a call to adventure, in one form or another. The film director, George Lucas, came upon Campbell’s book A Hero with a Thousand Faces and it significantly influenced how he wrote Star Wars. Someone else used Campbell’s work to make a practical guide for screen writers, and suddenly the fingerprint of this mythologist was on Indiana Jones, The Matrix and The Lion King. Campbell tells us we recognize these stories, because they are our own.
It is our shared story, and it is our personal story. There’s no doubt that at this turning point in the life of this beloved community, we are invited – whether we stay or go – onto a journey of faith. And each one of us, personally, has a destiny. We are put on the earth not necessarily to be an accountant or a teacher or to live in Vancouver. Our destiny is to be who we are. And if we’re to fulfill our destiny, if we are to engage what we’re put on the earth to learn, then we’re invited on the journey.
The hero is not someone else. These great stories are true because they are mirrors of identity. We hold them up, look at them, and they point out who we are and where we’re going.
What was so helpful for me in coming across Campbell and the call to adventure is that the events that he describes are events that have happened to me in one form or another, but I would never have recognized them as calls to adventure. I saw them as unwanted experiences. I thought they were merely embarrassing moments, or painful losses, or reminders of my mortality, things like that. Things that annoy me or make me angry.
How come this has happened to me?
Things that make me feel persecuted –
What have I done to deserve this?
These are events that expose my limitations. Evidently, everybody else was aware of them all along, but I wasn’t able to see them. I was able to deny my limitations until the event happened that revealed them to me.
Or, it’s an event that reveals our mortality. For some that comes in a very specific way. The doctor says you have six months. And for others, they know it’s coming. They don’t know when, but it’s coming. It’s like waiting for the phone to ring, or the knock at the door. You don’t know when, but you know sooner or later it’s going to come. That knowledge changes your life.
You and I don’t cherish these kinds of experiences. In fact, if anything, we try to avoid them. Once you’ve sat on a stove you’re not likely to sit on it again. But sometimes in spite of our best efforts to avoid experiences that expose our limitations, something still happens to shake our world, or shatter our complacency. Do you know what I call such times? I call them “bad news.” But do you know what Joseph Campbell call such times? He calls them, “the call to adventure.”
Campbell has a marvelous description of what he says these stories can mean for any culture or civilization. He says they can “render the modern world spiritually significant.” What a marvelous phrase – “render the modern world spiritually significant.” The presupposition is that in our attempt to be scientific and rational about the world in which we live, we have created a flat and meaningless universe, and a terribly lonely one, one in which we must invent our own meaning.
In other times and other cultures the world was spiritually significant because they let the stories give meaning to the events in their world. They didn’t necessarily take those stories literally, but they took them seriously. And when they took them seriously they discovered that they have a power to put order into life, to provide a spiritual approach to what we might call “bad news.” It is the purpose of all these stories to reveal meaning and therefore to reveal that life itself has a purpose. It’s not the purpose that we make up. It’s the purpose that is there. And the purpose of our lives is to discover it. And the means of discovering it is called “the journey,” on which we pass through many dangers, toils and snares, until we come at last to the treasure or the kingdom or the enlightenment.
That just happens to be what the stories in the Bible are about – revealing meaning and being mirrors of identity. In fact, there is really only one story in the Bible, the story that was read from Genesis, the story of Abraham and Sarah, who are called from a comfortable, carefree, laid back existence in Ur of Chaldees, sometimes called Haran. Living in Haran is like living in West Vancouver.
Abraham is fairly old: about 75 when this happened to him. Sarah was nearly that old, probably in her middle or late sixties. They will be much older when the story is finally over.
But one day, something happened to that peaceful existence in Haran. All we know is what Abraham said happened to him, the way he interpreted the experience. Abraham said, “God told me, it’s time for you to begin to move into a land where you will create a nation, and you will be a blessing to others.” So Abraham up and left his comfortable life when he should have been enjoying the fruits of retirement.
Now that’s the controlling paradigm in the Bible, the journey to the Promised Land. And that story, that same story, is told over and over again in different settings. We don’t know what happened to Abraham in Ur of Chaldees. We only know that God said to him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.”
We don’t know what happened exactly, but I think this is what happened. I think something happened to Abraham when he was 75 years old, something terrible in which he lost everything. It was one of those devastating experiences. It shouldn’t happen to anybody, especially to someone who should be able to take a cruise or go visit grandchildren. But it happened to Abraham. And it was then that God said, “Leave what is familiar. Leave this life you know like the back of your own hand, and I will show you a new way of being, a new dawn.”
That’s the same story that Joseph Campbell said is everywhere. You find it told in all cultures. That’s why he calls it the story of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. It’s found everywhere, and everywhere it follows the same formula: The Call, which is the call to take a journey. And along the journey there are many dangers and challenges to overcome. And then the destination is reached, which is the new land or a new awareness. Then the return as a new person.
You can read Jesus’ life that way, by the same formula: The Call, which is his baptism – and then right when he should be able to enjoy for a moment the lingering blessing from God, he’s driven by the Spirit into the dangers of the wilderness, which is followed immediately by the challenges of his prophetic ministry, which leads him to Jerusalem where he suffers the cross. And then the return in the Resurrection.
But what I hope we learn here is that Jesus says the Christian life follows the same pattern. If we are paying attention to this stuff, we might notice that Jesus invites us all to take this journey, to become disciples. It’s a call to adventure.
It may not sound like much of an invitation to us, perhaps more like a threat, but it is a call to adventure when Jesus says to the multitude, “If any one would follow me, then you must lose your life in order to save it.” In this context, that means whoever refuses the call and tries to cling to the comfortable existence that they have, the one who refuses to shift when God is calling us to start anew, whoever does that is going to lose it. But whoever loses his life for the sake of Christ, whoever lets go, will find life.
Jesus says the same thing by drawing a distinction between getting rich and finding life. This is the next verse: “…What does it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your life?” By that he means that you are not going to find life by gaining the world. You are not going to find life probably until you lose what obstructs you from God and distracts you from what really gives life meaning. It’s only then that you will be able to see that the events that take away a familiar life, the events that can cause you to lose part of the life that is given to you, are the very events that can lead you into a new life. That is why they are called the call to adventure.
And evidently, it has always been that way because that story is central to every religion, ancient or modern, primitive or sophisticated. First, something happens, and it usually looks like bad news. In fact, it is bad news. But it is also a call to adventure. It looks like the end of a way of being, and in a sense it is the end of a way of being, the life we have enjoyed up to this point. But it can also be seen as the beginning of a new life.
Jesus is calling Christians to see their life in that way. But he is also saying that all of life is that way. The text is careful to point out that Jesus addressed “the multitudes” as well as his disciples. So this is not just insider information; advice for advanced professionals. It’s general wisdom about how you are going to find real life in the time that is allotted to you.
So when you find yourself in a tough situation and your first response is “why this, why now, why me?” shift your attention and consider it a call to adventure. Because anyone who tries to save his life or hold on to her past or dig in their heels and refuse to change, that person will lose the very thing they hope to protect.
But the person who is willing to let go of it all in faith as Abraham and Sarah did, and make a journey to a new land or a new way of being, that person will find new life.
One of the great musicians of our day, Wynton Marsalis, understands this. Wynton is a brilliant jazz musician and also a great classical musician. When he was only 22 he was the first person ever to win a Grammy in both jazz and classical in the same year.
This internationally acclaimed musician volunteers his time and shares his passion with music students. He’s a scholar of jazz and brings his knowledge to young kids, kids who never knew anything about jazz, kids in the Bronx, for example. He tells students to sit up in their chair because when they’re playing jazz they’re playing their culture and they should be proud.
On Dizzy Gillespie’s 70th birthday, Wynton put on a concert in honour of the great jazz trumpeter. Marsalis opened the concert with compositions written by Gillespie. Then he played his own composition written in honour of Dizzy, called “The Source.” A jazz critic reviewed the concert and wrote that Marsalis played with brilliance, his technical skill obviously impressive, but there seemed to be something missing in the music. What was missing, he finally discovered, was joy; the kind of joy he heard when Dizzy played his music.
At intermission the jazz critic went backstage to visit Gillespie in his dressing room. He talked with the old man about the concert to that point. Gillespie said some nice things about Marsalis, how he studied hard. The critic asked, “Can he study how to put joy into the music?” Gillespie didn’t say anything. He just laughed. But one of his friends, who was also in the dressing room, said, “That’s age. That’s how it happens. He hasn’t experienced enough.”
Dizzy Gillespie had been through it all. He had been through the pain, the toil, the sorrow. He had been through all the suffering life puts in front of us. He’s climbed the mountain, found some treasure, and came back with joy. That’s the way he got it. He responded to the call of adventure. There is no other way. You can’t study joy. You can’t buy it or borrow it. You have to take up your own cross and find joy on the journey.
A short while later, someone shared with Wynton what the jazz critic had said – a lot of technical brilliance but lacking in the joy that comes with maturity. Marsalis, at the time only 27 years old, indicated his genius when he said, “I’m not even close to what I’m going to be.”
None of us is. Because life is a journey. Life is a journey outward to a new life, and inward toward a new awareness. That journey never ends. At 75, God said to Abraham, “leave this land and I’ll take you to new promise. Because you are not even close to what you are going to be.”
By the grace of God. Amen.

St. David’s United Church
Rev. Dan Chambers
January 22, 2012
John 1:35-51

The Invitation

Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, Son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come from Nazareth.” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
John 1:45-46

It must have been something really amazing, some kinda show-stopper that inspired Philip to run to his skeptical friend, Nathanael, and say in effect, “You gotta see this!”
In the United Church, we’re polite to a fault. We’re not inclined to run out and tell somebody about a recent experience of mystery or wonder. We’re not inclined to talk to a neighbour in the grocery isle or a friend in the locker room about our church. It’s too personal. Religion shouldn’t be imposed on others. We want to be respectful of different attitudes. Leanne, our Administrator, who is part of a more overtly evangelical tradition, recently exclaimed, “You all are so polite!”
That said, we know how to be evangelical about some things. When we tell someone about a great movie or a fabulous restaurant, evangelical words can issue from our mouth: “Go!” Well say. “Don’t miss it!” Or we’ll say passionately about an excellent book, “When you have the time, read it!”
I think Cal Stead is the most natural evangelist this congregation has. He’s evangelical about anything he loves. A few nights ago he was telling us about “the world’s best sandwich shop” located right by Victory Square. He recently gave me a CD of a friend whose music “is amazing” he said, and he was right. If Cal tells you about something he loves, chances are you’ll be curious or interested to see if you may love it too. You’ll want to bite into that sandwich from the deli called Meat and Bread, Inc. You’ll want to listen to that CD. You’ll want to go to that church. He’s evangelical in the very best sense because he just wants to share something he loves with you, hoping it will give you joy, too.
I can learn from Cal. I share the Canadian qualities of being reserved and polite and extremely cautious when it comes to talking about my faith with others. But there have been times when I’ve been so excited about something, or so moved or so inspired that even I have broken through the sound barrier and said to someone, “Come and see. Check it out for yourself. I think you’ll love it.”
My guess is that Philip must not have been Canadian. Or if he did share Canadian tendencies of being polite and shy, reserved and cautious, he sure got over them when he met Jesus. It seems without hesitation he approached his friend, Nathanael, who questioned everything. “I’ve just met this amazing man; a holy man. A rabbi, it seems, from Nazareth.”
“Oh, really?” Nathanael responds. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
It’s interesting that Philip was not put off by his friend’s disinterested response. He didn’t apologize and slowly back away or quickly try to change the subject to something more comfortable. He didn’t seem to be hurt as I would have been or respond defensively. He simply says, “Come and see for yourself.”
I think Nathanael, the skeptic, is a great caricature of our society. “Oh, really?” we ask with one eyebrow raised in question. “Can anything good come from a church?”
And our job, our job as a church community, a God-centered community, a Jesus-filled community, is to be a place so genuinely inviting that people are willing to overcome their negative Christian-stereotypes, and come. We are called to be a place where people want to come because here, with us, they find life. They find a community that cares about others, that tends to the broken, that addresses injustice, that cares about the environment, that provides community and a place to grow.
People in our society are very likely to respond to an invitation to church with severe skepticism, “Oh, really?” But what I’ve noticed is that often, not always but often, people not grounded in the practices of a sacred tradition don’t have a strong root system to hold them up when things get tough, or to give them a depth of joy and gratitude when life is otherwise going very well. The majority of our society, if they think of spirituality at all, want to design their faith. And it makes sense: we buy designer fashion, we design our own music stream with ipods, we design our own facebook page – why wouldn’t we design our own religion?
The problem is, a little bit of that and a pinch of this isn’t likely to hold us when the winds howl. Because one way or another we need to go beyond ego-centrism and the desire to be in control of everything from how we load the dishwasher to how we encounter God.
Lillian Daniels is a UCC minister in Glen Ellen, Illinois. She remembers how her mother absolutely loved daffodils and shares this delightful story:
When I was a kid, my mother planned a big garden party, where her yard would be filled with blooming daffodils that she had planted in anticipation. But as the party date approached, the weather stayed cold and no daffodils were even close to blooming.
Yet on the day of the party, our lawn was filled with daffodils, just as she had dreamed. The guests marveled. No garden had any springtime action like that.
But then after the guests went home, the daffodils drooped and my mother went through the yard carefully removing all the cut daffodils she had bought at the florist, that she had painstakingly attached to chopsticks with wire twist ties, and stuck in the ground.
Those daffodils weren’t fake, but they were short-lived and flimsy, with no bulb under the earth to allow them to survive the rough weather. On the surface and for a short while, they looked like real daffodils, but they didn’t have enough going on underneath to last.
Isn’t that usually how the life of faith works? You can go to the bookstore or attend a yoga class or listen to a lecture or go on a retreat and pick up a little of this and a little of that, and decorate your life with little bundles of acquired wisdom.
But deep participation in a tradition greater than our own invention is the bulb under the earth. It will live through the cold, to rise again, long after our self-made bouquet has faded.
That’s why, even in the face of skeptical friends, we need to say, “Come and see.”
And what did the first followers of Jesus see? Who was Jesus for them? Who is Jesus for us, now?
Hold that question as we turn for a moment back to the story. Notice two odd things in this passage. Here’s the first odd thing: Nathanael comes to see Jesus, to check him out, but Jesus sees first. It’s as if Jesus sees Nathanael and in the seeing, knows him.
An Israelite in whom there is no deceit!
Nathanael is startled by this declaration and asks, “Excuse me, have we met?” Jesus says that he saw him under the fig tree.
In that exchange, Nathanael recognizes the holy identity of Jesus. Then Jesus says, Do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
Now, in the Jewish mind, and perhaps in our mind too if we’ve heard the Biblical stories, we hear about “angels of God ascending and descending a ladder” and we think… “Jacob’s ladder.” Jacob, the fugitive who ran from his brother who wanted to kill him for stealing his rightful inheritance; Jacob, who collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep on the
ground in the middle of the desert. He dreamed of the gate of heaven opening with angels ascending and descending on a ladder and when he woke he exclaimed, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. This place is awesome. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
What did those first disciples see in Jesus? What was their experience of him? I think this was it. They experienced him as one who housed God. Infinite Love dwelled in Jesus. The fancy theological word for this is “incarnation”. But it simply means that this rabbi from Nazareth was filled with a holy and powerful love.
For the person with an open mind and an open heart, an encounter with Jesus was like Jacob waking from his amazing dream. As you looked into the extraordinary eyes of this otherwise ordinary looking man from Nazareth, you might have echoed Jacob, “Here in this man is none other than the house of God, in him is the gate of heaven.”
I don’t think Jesus carried a special-effects machine around with him that hinted at his holiness. No extra lighting for that holy aura. No smoke and fire to convince people of his power and glory. He was just a guy with dirty feet and tangled hair.
But those without guile, those who were open to the way of God noticed something more. Something remarkable. Something awesome that they just couldn’t quite describe.
“Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
“Don’t take my word for it. Come and see.”
Jesus isn’t walking around anymore. But we can still encounter that Spirit, the Christ. It might happen when you’re reading the Bible, or in prayer, or talking with a child, or walking in nature. One way you know it is when you have that feeling that you’re being seen, and in being seen, you are known.
Now here’s the second odd thing: Two of the disciples of John the Baptist began to follow Jesus around. He noticed them, and asked, What are you looking for?
They said to him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”
Note: the Greek word for “staying” means more than “where are you sleeping?” or “in what hotel are you staying?” It means, where do you dwell, spiritually?
Come and see, Jesus replied.
The reading continues, “They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.” Then there’s this odd little detail thrown in like a sprinkle of salt: “It was about 4:00 in the afternoon.”
What? Who cares about the time of day? But in John’s Gospel, nothing is just casually thrown in. It all has symbolic meaning. Here’s the possible meaning of the time, 4:00.
In the Jewish tradition, the Sabbath is the high point of the week. The Sabbath is like having Christmas every week, except without the presents. The house is cleaned and decorated. Family and friends come together. People are in a good mood. There are special meals, candles are lit, stories told, songs sung, blessings offered. The Sabbath is the day of rest. It’s the “do nothing” day. It’s the day you don’t need to be productive, don’t need to strive, don’t need to achieve anything. On the Sabbath, you set aside your to-do list for a change, you slow down, take a deep breath, relax and give thanks to God. It’s a day to worship, eat, read, make love, nap, play. And it begins at sunset. Perhaps the twinkle of it around 4:00 in the afternoon.
It’s unfortunate that we’ve lost this practice. But I bet you know the feeling of Sabbath. That feeling of freedom when you approach a long weekend. Or that feeling of excitement when you prepare for a trip to someplace warm and you’ve packed a swim suit and a book. That
feeling of being back home with family and now you don’t have to cook for yourself anymore and you relax into the familiar smells and voices of home.
I think it’s something like this that Andrew and Peter, Philip and Nathanael experienced when they first met Jesus. He was the gateway to heaven. He was the dwelling place for Love. He was the embodiment of the Sabbath. Amazing! Come and see.
Even though people in our society often project a tough exterior that says, “I have it all together,” on the inside I think we’re desperately searching for something: for success, for riches, for acceptance, for love…Even still, Jesus turns to ask, What are you looking for?
A Canadian captured the echo of the one who embodies the Sabbath and is the dwelling place for Love. She lives in Toronto, and many years ago studied Social Work at Ryerson University and Philosophy at U of Toronto. She was debilitated by chronic fatigue, has struggled with that condition, and now writes and speaks and leads workshops on healing and life’s meaning.

Jesus asked those first disciples, What are you looking for?
And if we still listen, we might hear the whisper of Love, as Oriah heard an inner-voice say:
What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting
And see what you already hold in your hand.
There is no waiting for something to happen,
No point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.
You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.
How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying.
Give it up!
Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
Faithful to the Beauty you are.
Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
Dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.
(“The Call” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer)

That’s our invitation. That’s our call from the One who dwells in Love, the One who is the gateway to heaven and the embodiment of Sabbath joy. Amen.