Satisfied // Disruption & Gift

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 01/12/2014
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

Satisfied

A new series for January and perhaps February

On the subject of what it means to find satisfaction in our lives

In our relationships

In our jobs

In our financial status and material possessions

In our spiritual lives

And personal maturity

In our vocations

And service to others

And parenting

And spousing

And why not, maybe even in our bodies

And our churches

And sports teams

How satisfied are you?

Scale of 1-10.

With your friendships __________

With your car __________

With your self __________

With your work __________

With your spouse __________

With your cellular service __________

With your income __________

With your pastor __________

With your living situation __________

With your physical fitness __________

With your parents __________

With God __________

Which brings up another question.

How satisfied should you be?

Which, the more you think about it, requires you to answer another question.

What does it even mean to be satisfied?

Does it mean you can’t imagine it improving?

Does it mean it doesn’t have room to grow?

Does it mean there is no ache in you for something more?

Our primary text is the book of Ecclesiastes, written by Solomon.

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless!”

Ecclesiastes will seem at first, perhaps, to be the wrong book for this subject. How is a book about meaninglessness, about vanity and futility the right book for us? Great question. Maybe it’s not. But maybe, just maybe it’s exactly the right book. Maybe only in truly understanding meaninglessness and dis-satisfaction can we move towards true satisfaction. Let’s see.

Oscar Wilde, the 19^th century Irish author and playwright (A Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest) wrote something provocative on the subject, in the same vein as Solomon:

In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

Dumby, in Oscar Wilde’s “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

Think about the patron saint of Dis-satisfaction, of Not Getting What You Want. (No, not Mick Jagger. He sings about not getting what he wants, about not getting no satisfaction, but only one truly embodies it. )

I’m talking about the coyote.

Wile E. Coyote.

Spending his whole life chasing the roadrunner. Again and again and again. Always frustrated.

What are his options?

Give up, throw in the towel. Settle down. Have a family maybe. A couple coyote pups. But we know he’d always be thinking, “If I got that bird, I’d be happy.” No matter what good things happened in his life, secretly, he be thinking about that bird all the time. A miserable option.

Or maybe, what if he actually caught the bird…? “What are you going to do now?” Not really any better than the first option, is it? Maybe worse.

 

Or, he keeps chasing it and hopes he never catches it. Maybe that’s the option he’s already chosen. Maybe that’s why his equipment always fails. How would Acme stay in business if their products were actually that unreliable?

More likely, Wile E. is sabotaging himself, because he knows if he succeeds, it won’t actually be satisfying.

Oscar Wilde, Wile E. Coyote, and Solomon all get at profound truth about satisfaction from different angles. Namely, that satisfaction isn’t found where we are normally looking.

Listen to more from Israel’s King Solomon, a man of legendary wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 1 & 2…

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

²“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaningless.”

³What does anyone gain from all their labors

at which they toil under the sun?

⁴Generations come and generations go,

but the earth remains forever.

⁵The sun rises and the sun sets,

and hurries back to where it rises.

⁶The wind blows to the south

and turns to the north;

round and round it goes,

ever returning on its course.

⁷All streams flow into the sea,

yet the sea is never full.

To the place the streams come from,

there they return again.

⁸All things are wearisome,

more than one can say.

The eye never has enough of seeing,

nor the ear its fill of hearing.

⁹What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

¹⁰Is there anything of which one can say,

“Look! This is something new”?

It was here already, long ago;

it was here before our time.

¹¹There is no remembrance of people of old,

and even those who are yet to come

will not be remembered

by those who follow them.

Wisdom Is Meaningless

¹²I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on the human race! ¹⁴I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

¹⁵What is crooked cannot be straightened;

what is lacking cannot be counted.

¹⁶I said to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” ¹⁷Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

¹⁸For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;

the more knowledge, the more grief.

Pleasures Are Meaningless

2 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. ²“Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” ³I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.

⁴I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. ⁵I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. ⁶I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. ⁷I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. ⁸I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. ⁹I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

¹⁰I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;

I refused my heart no pleasure.

My heart took delight in all my labor,

and this was the reward for all my toil.

¹¹Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done

and what I had toiled to achieve,

everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;

nothing was gained under the sun.

Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless

¹²Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,

and also madness and folly.

What more can the king’s successor do

than what has already been done?

¹³I saw that wisdom is better than folly,

just as light is better than darkness.

¹⁴The wise have eyes in their heads,

while fools walk in the darkness;

but I came to realize

that the same fate overtakes them both.

¹⁵Then I said to myself,

“The fate of the fool will overtake me also.

What then do I gain by being wise?”

I said to myself,

“This too is meaningless.”

¹⁶For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;

the days have already come when both have been forgotten.

Like the fool, the wise too must die!

Toil Is Meaningless

¹⁷So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. ¹⁸I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. ¹⁹And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. ²⁰So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. ²¹For people may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to others who have not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. ²²What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? ²³All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.

²⁴People can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, ²⁵for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? ²⁶To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Satisfied? A series from Ecclesiastes? How is this going to be helpful!? How did this even get in the Bible?

Well, it’s a bit like when you go to the doctor with a chronic condition, something that’s been bothering you for a long time. Something that you’ve tried to fix, unsuccessfully, on your own. Something that you tried to make your peace with, but it’s just getting worse. And the doctor says to you, “Well, I can help you. But it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s going to hurt. But if you trust me, if you let me do what I’m about to do, and if you do what I’m going to tell you to do, and you keep at it, this time next year, you’ll be all better. Whadda you say? Are you in?”

Our lack of being satisfied is like a chronic condition for many of us. We’ve almost always had it. We’ve tried to fix it, we’ve tried making our peace with it, and it’s just getting worse. At least, that’s my experience.

And Solomon is like the doctor. Or better, like a master teacher. And he’s been really helpful to me. So I’ll be preaching to myself here, if nothing else, and whomever wants to listen in is welcome.

Ecclesiastes falls into the general category of wisdom literature. But it’s not like most of the other wisdom literature.

Most wisdom literature falls along the lines of:

Do good, get good.

Do bad, get bad.

This series, this book Ecclesiastes,

is for everyone who did the right thing, and it all fell apart.

Or, maybe, it’s for those of us who did destructive things, and we came to the end of ourselves, and still found a God who loved us and rescued us.

This is Wisdom beyond wisdom.

A master teacher’s first job is to disrupt. To make you unsure of everything you think you know. So that you can receive something new.

Think about the first time human beings encountered the idea that the earth was round. Or that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe.

You can’t begin to absorb the new perspective until you can let go of the old one. And it’s hard to let go of the old one. Because so much of your current life rides on the assumptions that flow from the old one.

So the master teacher has to begin with disruption.

Jesus does this all the time, doesn’t he? He makes the outcast the hero of his story about what it means to be a good neighbor. The cheat the hero of his story about forgiveness.

Blessed are the poor.

Blessed are the meek.

Blessed are those who mourn.

The last shall be first.

You have heard it said…but I say to you…

Anger towards your brother is the same as murder. Lust the same as adultery.

You’ve got to lose your life if you want to find it.

Love your enemies.

The teacher here in Ecclesiastes wants to disrupt our understanding of satisfaction. To disrupt our assumptions about success and meaning and what matters in life. We’ll get to that more and more in coming weeks, as we talk about satisfaction in various areas of our lives, in our work and relationships and money and stuff and faith and all that. For today, though, I want to give you a window into some central ideas in Ecclesiastes that we can build on later, and that you can take with you as, perhaps, you read for yourself this week.

Let’s start with the word, “meaningless.” It’s the Hebrew word, “hebel” and many versions of the Bible use “vanity” to translate it. Vanity, all is vanity.

Literally, hebel means vapor, or breath.

You can’t get your hands on it. It disappears. Evaporates and is gone. Fleeting, temporary. Insubstantial.

Vapor, everything is vapor.

Not everything, actually, but everything “under the sun.”

“under the sun” occurs 29x

It’s the realm of the created. Everything that exists in time, between birth and death, rising and setting.

Solomon does it all, explores it all, everything there is to do or see or acquire under the sun. He learns, he builds, he buys, he tastes, he feels. He experiences everything the created and the creation has to offer. And it’s not bad – a lot of it is pretty dang awesome. As he says in 2v10:

¹⁰I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;

I refused my heart no pleasure.

My heart took delight in all my labor,

and this was the reward for all my toil.

This is a bit refreshing, isn’t it? He’s not fooling himself, so we know he’s not trying to fool us.

A lot of things under the sun are desirable and pleasurable. There is delight to be had. Fast cars are fun to drive. A nice crib is pretty cool to live in. A job where you can accomplish things and feel good about your efforts beats flipping burgers you can’t even afford to eat yourself. The buzz that wine gives you doesn’t necessarily feel half-bad. An expensive cut of steak, well prepared by a great chef tastes good. Most harems get good reviews on Sultanslist.com. All things being equal, being smart and in the know and making good decisions sure beats being dumb and ignorant. Life just works better. And it’s a good feeling to wake up to a vault filled with gold and a 401K that you could live comfortably on for a 100 years if you had to.

 

[5 Minutes of Heaven…

Joe: So! The man shot my brother three times in the head. The man is having the life of Riley. What should I do? Do I shake his hand or do I kill him?

Vika: Well, killing him wouldn't be good for him.

Joe: For sure of that!

Vika: But it wouldn't be good for you either.

Joe: Oh, not good for me? My five minutes of heaven! How would that be not good for me?]

The answer is in chapter 2, verse 11:

“Yet when I surveyed…”

It’s the morning after.

After the pleasure of the moment has passed.

You’ve caught the roadrunner and feasted on it, and you’re cleaning up the dishes.

5 minutes after the 5 minutes of heaven.

This is when you evaluate whether you are satisfied or not.

Not, whether the food was good or the product was worth buying or if the house you built is a good house or the company a good company.

But whether you’re actually satisfied now.

Now that you’ve got the job.

Now that you’re married.

Now that the mustang keys are hanging in your kitchen.

Was it meaningful?

Did it really matter?

Are you truly content?

Are you left with lasting joy?

¹¹Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done

and what I had toiled to achieve,

everything was vapor, a chasing after the wind;

nothing was gained under the sun.

Everything under the sun is vapor.

Our physical lives and current bodies.

Vapor.

All of our stuff. Our houses and cars and clothes and phones and tools and food and lawns and companies and teams and countries.

Vapor.

Our jobs, our tasks. Running errands. Managing people. Selling insurance. Gardening. Filling out permission slips. Cooking food. Filling up with gas. Shoveling snow. Making beds. Doing dishes. Cleaning toilets. Scoring touchdowns. Walking the dog. Organizing the garage.

Vapor.

That’s not all there is, of course. Not everything that is, is vapor. Not everything that is, is under the sun.

Listen to 2v24 & 25:

²⁴People can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, ²⁵for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?

God isn’t under the sun.

He’s uncreated, he’s not in time, no birth or death.

He doesn’t fall in the category of vapor.

And yet, he can somehow be connected to the things that are under the sun. He can give them meaning, transform them from vapor to glory, from insubstantial to meaningful. The food and drink and toil that is received from God’s hand as gift is something loaded with the breath of eternity. It becomes satisfying, somehow, in a way that on its own, divorced from heaven, it can never be.

Is love the stuff of heaven, or the stuff of earth? Is hope, and faith? Is joy? Peace? Is love vapor? Will it be here today and gone tomorrow? Or will it last forever and ever, even after all vaporous things have passed away?

We, like Solomon, spend our lives looking for satisfaction in things under the sun, and discover that they are vapor.

Satisfaction is found only in the uncreated one who is outside of time, who gives light to the world and brings all true, substantial things into existence. A satisfied life finds satisfaction only in God, who creates all things, including us, as an expression of his love, and as containers of his love.

Is your work, to you, an expression of God’s love – a container of God’s love - that you receive as a gift from him? Or is it something you look to, hoping it will satisfy you? Is your money, to you, an expression of God’s love that receive as a gift from him? Or something you look to, hoping it will satisfy you? Is your spouse? Your child? Your stuff? Your body? Your church?

Are you expending your energy to make your life more satisfying – to get more, be more, see more, do more, have more, give more?

Or is your expenditure of energy an expression of the gifts God has already given you? Are you expending your energy to fashion yourself and the world around you into containers for the life that God desires to give? Containers for God himself in this vaporous world?

I like an expression of Rob Bell’s – he says that sometimes our lives are nothing but “vapor management.” Trying to turn our vapor into something that will satisfy us. Trying to manage our relationships, our work, our money, our stuff, all of it, to corral it into some form that we’ll find satisfying.

We’ll even come to church, to God, thinking we need his help doing better vapor management. Thinking he can help us manage our money or our relationships or our stuff in such a way that it will start to give us life. Ah, if I spend money more wisely it will satisfy me. I’ll be more prosperous. If I give it to the poor. If I forgive people I’ll have life. If I do the right things with my body or my mind. Or whatever. I just need to follow the owner’s manual for this vapor, and it will finally be satisfying.

And it never works. You can never get good enough at vapor management to make vapor satisfying.

Which is why some come to church, to God, because they have gotten it all, they’ve won, they are the best vapor managers on planet earth, and they still have nothing but vapor.

The satisfied person is not defined by the quality of their vapor management. They might be rich. They might be poor. Their lives might be all in order or all out of order. What they have in common is the profound awareness (“this too, I see”) that life, all of it, is a gift from God to be appreciated and enjoyed.

This is why the teacher in Ecclesiastes is here to disrupt us. To shake us from chasing after the wind. To get us to stop. To look around. To feel the wind of God’s breath blowing against our skin right here, right now. To feel the warmth of the sun he made to shine on us. To receive Christ in the person before us, to receive him in the meal prepared for us, to receive him in the good work prepared in advance for us to do.

Jesus says it this way in Matthew 6v33

But seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well …

God’s kingdom started before time, and will extend beyond time. God’s love, his provision, his power, the life of the ages, it’s eternal. Don’t seek after what you will eat, or what you will drink or what you will wear – the pagans look for satisfaction in these things. The Father knows what you need.

It’s as if Jesus is saying, it’s all gift, an expression of the Father’s love, a container of his love, and when you see that, when you become aware of that, you’ll finally know what to do with it.

Practical Suggestions:

Make a resolution to

Let your life be

An expression of (God’s gifts to you)

Instead of

A search for (something satisfying)

Let go of the lie:

If I could just _________________

Then I’d be ________________

Advent 2013: Presence

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 12/15/2013
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

That experience of personal presence is at the root of the solution to all the world’s troubles. There is a power in presence that nothing can match. This is at the heart of why God comes to us on Christmas as a baby, to bring peace on earth, goodwill towards humankind.

Humankind, us people, the ones Jesus is given to on Christmas, are stressed out. Our minds aren’t working well from stress, we’re at our emotional breaking points, our bodies are suffering in the grip of stress, our relationships are in jeopardy because we are taking our stress out on one another.

Jesus offers us a way out of the grip of STRESS. Because STRESS has spiritual roots, roots in an un-reality, in shadow, in darkness. So Jesus shines a light for us on a truer reality, a reality we can seek asylum in and eventually become citizens of. A reality where STRESS and its demonic offspring aren’t authorized to follow us. And he gives us a way into that reality. I daresay that’s good news for us stressed out human beings.

On top of that, Jesus offers us the very thing that STRESS so insidiously steals from us. Jesus offers us LIFE. Abundant life. The kind of life he has, God-life. What the Bible calls eternal life – which, in the way that we’re talking about it in this context, isn’t a ticket to heaven, but rather the life of the heavens in the here and now (which of course, will continue on and on and on, without ceasing, even when our first creation bodies cease functioning, and will pick up at a whole new level in the new creation bodies we receive at the Resurrection.) The kind of life that isn’t subject to the destructive work of STRESS.

And it all starts with presence. With God making his presence available to us, inviting us to be present with him.

Our challenge, of course, is putting ourselves in a place to experience God’s presence near and with. We’re so stressed out it’s hard to even experience God’s presence.

That’s what Christmas is about. The rescue from our troubles starts with God entrusting himself to us as a baby. In due time, God will use his power to set things right. He’ll bring his powerful presence to bear in every corner of the earth. To fix everything that’s gone wrong. In us, in our relationships, in our world. But he begins by being present with us. Inviting us to be present with him. It’s in simple, holy Presence that the healing begins.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

As we talked about last week, God’s presence – Love made Personal - is the antidote for stress. We even get a taste of that in every form of loving presence, don’t we? An embrace from friend, a family member, a spouse, a child, heck, even a gracious stranger. (Which is why nothing feeds stress like isolation and loneliness – which of course is different from being alone, with…with God, with nature, with your thoughts, a good book, etc.)

However.

We have a problem with presence. Presence requires some things from us that aren’t easy for us.

Presence requires us to stop, for one. It requires us to stop, AND. And what? It requires us to stop and be attentive to what is present before us here and now.

What do we have to stop?

First, we have to stop rehearsing the past, ruminating, regretting, reliving, obsessing. To stop what-iffing.

We are who we are now. Now is what now is. Yes, the old nows can be assigned new meaning. The next nows can be changed, made better perhaps, more holy. But the now now is what it is, and we can either be present to experience it and draw life from the God who has given it to us and us to it, or we can miss it and move one step closer to death.

As the old King James Version says in Psalm 118:

This is the day which the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!

I like how Eugene Peterson translates that same verse in The Message:

This is God’s work.
We rub our eyes—we can hardly believe it!
This is the very day God acted—
let’s celebrate and be festive!
Salvation now, God. Salvation now!
Oh yes, God—a free and full life!

If we are going to be present to ourselves, to others, to the God who always occupies NOW, making his presence available to us, we’ve got to trust that God is big enough to gather the past in his arms and make something new and good out of it, no matter the regrets, difficulties, pain, or brokenness it contains.

What if you could do that, after a long day at work, with your rambunctious kids, a long day of tests and drama and trouble…? What if you could stop, pay attention to God’s presence with you right where you were, and realize, whoa, he’s here, and life is good, and it’s going to be OK. This is God’s work – I can hardly believe it!

A baby in our arms reminds us of this, doesn’t it…? No matter what has happened in humanity’s past, God has come here now. As a baby. New life, new hope, a new creation. Whatever has been, this now is good. I can accept a past that has led to the goodness that is now, divinity incarnate in my arms.

And presence requires us to stop worrying about the future. To stop imagining that bad is bearing down on us, and unless we make the right moves now, we just might get trampled in its path. If that’s what we imagine, and if we start using all of our nows to worry and fret and strain and manipulate whatever we can to avoid that imagined bad, then that imagined bad has already succeeded in its badness. It’s robbed us of all the good that might be present now, because we’ve missed it in our stressed out exertions. And in some ways, we’ve helped usher the bad into our future nows because of the way we operate under stress, developing cracks in all of our relationships and in our selves, good leaking out and emptiness rushing in.

Finally – with respect to how problematic presence is for us – it can be excruciating for us to be attentive to what is present before us here and now, because until God arrives – or until we become aware of his presence – sometimes all we have here and now is, well, there’s really no other way to say it, all we have is ourselves. And although we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and although reality is shot through with the glory of God, the first thing we are likely to notice when we attend to the reality present in us and before us is the brokenness, the emptiness, the sadness, the pain, what theologians call the “not yet” of God’s kingdom.

I’ll let one of the 21^st centuries great philosophical minds explain…

[Louis CK clip…watch service at http://www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand (December 15) and go to 31:05…]

There’s some deep truth in that, isn’t there?

The even deeper truth, according to the scriptures and the witness of many who’ve gone before us, is that it’s into that emptiness and darkness that God himself comes, reveals himself, makes his presence known in a way we could never otherwise know him.

We’ll never know it though, until we can stop and give our attention to the possibility of the presence of God, here, now.

Jesus has a lot to say to us about that, as we began to talk about last week. Let’s continue.

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

What keeps us from taking time to attend to the presence of God with us right now, right here, in this moment? What keeps us from slowing down enough to become aware of God, like a baby, among us, even in our arms?

One significant obstacle is the sense that if we don’t start doing what we need to do to take care of our futures, we’ll be in trouble. We won’t have what we need. And so worry drives us to activity and stressful existence, now after now passing us by, life slipping away in our misguided attempts to prolong our lifeless lives.

That’s why Jesus points out the birds to us. The birds are living entirely by instinct. They don’t dig up fields and plant seeds. They don’t harvest crops and fill up storehouses for a rainy day. They don’t remember the past. They can’t plan for the future. They have bird-brains after all.

Look at them, Jesus says.

Do they look stressed out? Not a bit.

You’re so much more valuable than they are, Jesus says. God cares for the birds. He’s caring for you as well. So worry is for the birds. Wait, strike that, worry is such a waste it’s not even for the birds!

Don’t misunderstand me. Planning and preparing for the future are part of how God has uniquely gifted us human beings. It’s part of his image in us, even, perhaps. We, alone among the known creation, can imagine the future and make wise decisions to cooperate with God’s creative work. But when we do it out of worry and anxiety, as a way to protect ourselves from an imagined scarcity and bad future that will surely overwhelm us if we don’t, then we have lost the plot. We’ve surrendered our gift and exchanged it for a curse.

Jesus knows we’ve forgotten what it means to sow and reap and store away in barns in a way that is fully mindful of God’s blessing in the present and promise of future care, so he’s gently shaking us awake to the reality of God’s good news. We’re not sowing, and reaping, and storing to get life for ourselves, or even to keep ourselves from dying. Stress is born in that perversion of reality. God will provide for us. Period.

No, we sow and reap and store, if that is what we do, or we teach, or we nurse, or we manage, or we parent, or we fix, or we build, or we design, or we make art or music or entertainment, or we beautify, or we invent, or we program, or we play soccer, or we act, or whatever we do, because we are cooperating with God’s rule and reign being experienced by his creation on the earth. As a part of his glory being displayed, magnified. All we need is his presence with us, like a baby in our arms. God himself is our life. If we forget that, then we’ll forget what it means to be alive.

Even more that, Jesus knows the Good News isn’t mediocre news. God will provide abundantly for everything we need for life and life to the full.

²⁸“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The word that stands out to me here is splendor. Not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. God wants to give us splendid life. Glorious life. The Greek word here is doxa. It’s where we get the term “Doxology.” A hymn of Glory: Praise God from whom all blessings flow…. It is the glory of God to bless his children. The more blessings he pours out, the more he meets his kids needs, the more he is glorified. The more splendidly he clothes us, the greater his splendor is.

Paul writes in Philippians: And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever…

Something in the dark shadowy unreality of our world says to us that we can only have full, abundant, splendid glorious life if we go and take it for ourselves. It’s a twisting, a corruption of the truth.

The truth is that work is a gift and blessing from God, and we come fully alive in giving ourselves wholeheartedly to our purposes, that there is joy in exertion. But there is only life and joy in work and exertion if it comes from a foundation of confidence in God’s provision and care and delight in us for simply being who we are, his children – which is why Jesus says “seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”

The perversion of Satan’s message to us is that we can only have God’s blessing and favor if we work for it, if we earn it, if we deserve by being perfect, so we’d better step to it. If we believe that, we will work to earn the un-earnable, and stress and worry will rob us of the very thing we are longing for.

So Jesus directs our attention to the flowers. God gives them a splendid, glorious life, and they don’t work at all. Surely we can pause, take in the moment of God’s presence with us now, today, here in this moment, breathe deeply of the smell of new life right under our noses, and live out of that experience of his presence with us.

One of the interesting things here is that Jesus isn't talking about clothing from a warmth/protection standpoint. When we are worried about "what shall we wear?" our worry isn't that we'll freeze (for some people, of course, this is a basic survival question, especially here in Michigan - but in the world Jesus inhabited, closer to the equator, that wasn't the primary issue with clothing.

It had more to do with the way in which you see yourself, the way in which others see you. How will I be able to clothe myself in a way that really reflects how I want to be seen? My clothes are worn out, or not fashionable, not high enough quality to make a good impression. And it's not just about what others think, is it? When we are dressed well, we feel good about ourselves. Like we can take on the world. When we put ourselves together well, we feel like somehow we are that person we see in the mirror, we rise above our flabby, aging nakedness. [Marty McFly, Back to the Future story...watching back to the future at 13 years old, thinking, man I'd like to be the kid that sleeps in his jeans, rolls out of bed, wears a flannel shirt over his t-shirt, takes on the world on a skateboard...actually started going putting on my jeans after closing the door to my room at night...]

From the beginning, clothes are what we use to cover our shame.

Sometimes the STRESS that drives us to anxiety, that keeps us from being present to God's presence, from being present to one another's presence, even from being present to ourselves, stems from the thought that we need to present ourselves in a particular way, in a way that says something about our strength and productivity and usefulness and excellence as human beings. That if anyone - others, God, even ourselves - saw us naked, raw, unmade up, un-killing it, a little unsure of ourselves sometimes, hurting sometimes, just holding on sometimes, maybe just a little like our parents walking around with dark knee socks and boxers, nightgowns and curlers - they wouldn't respect us, want to be around us even, wouldn't go after life with us, wouldn't do life with us.

This is such a lie.

Look at the flowers of the field. They don’t do didly-squat. They don’t even last that long. And they have splendid lives. God makes them beautiful. He’ll do the same for you – you’re his son, his daughter. And you’re going to last forever. Clothing yourself in importance, making yourself look valuable – such a waste! You can relax. There is no shame with God. Your needs are just part of who you are – you don’t need to hide them; God already sees them and he loves you. You’re valuable to him, needy and all. Be concerned with important things, like the presence of God among us, and God will take care of everything else you need, moment to moment to moment, without fail. It’s what he loves doing, it’s how he glorifies himself. God himself will cover your shame.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Give worry the _________. (No, not the bird) The Peace Sign. Identify the two or three things you most often worry about. Picture those worries as vultures circling, hoping you’ll die. Picture yourself giving them the peace sign, and them falling out of the sky dead, replaced by birds happily wheeling about in play and song. Now, pay attention to the next time you start to worry about one of those things. As soon as you notice it, actually hold up your fingers in the peace sign and say to yourself – Jesus promised me that everything is going to be OK, and it has nothing to do with me making it that way. Then, close your eyes for 10 seconds (unless you’re driving or something like that) and say, “I’m here. Please give me your peace as a sign of your presence.”

2. Pray to baby Jesus. For some of us, we feel all kinds of shame when it comes to praying. Because God knows our failings, our weakness, our sin, our needs, we sometimes imagine he won’t be happy with us. Instead of picturing a Majestic, Glorious, Holy God who you’ve got to dress up for to come into his throne room, picture God as a baby in an animal’s feeding trough. Imagine yourself coming in, picking him up, and talking to him. What baby ever cared about the clothes you were wearing? Or how well you spoke? Or if you’d ever done anything important with your life? All they care about is if you love them. The same is true of the God who comes to us in Jesus. The God who clothes the useless flowers in splendor.

Advent 2013: Holding the Baby

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 12/08/2013

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard/ondemand
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Holding a baby. The experience of now. No thought of the past. No worry about the future. Just the wonder of the now. An attentiveness to this living being.

A calm that comes because of the simplicity of the baby’s existence. It’s here. Profoundly here. When its needs are met, it just breathes. Looks. Responds.

The thought of a baby doesn’t have this impact. Not the idea. Not a picture.

(Well, maybe a little, for some of you.)

No, it’s the baby’s actual presence. In your arms.

Really, there has to be a physical connection, doesn’t there? Across the room, in the crib, in the car seat, someone else’s arms - it’s just not the same.

Not the same as in your arms.

In your lap.

Against your chest, your breast.

It is a wonderful, wondrous wonder.

Assuming you can get over whatever nervousness or discomfort or whatever that you might have with babies.

Assuming you’re not having to attend to its needs.

To make it stop smelling bad.

To get it to stop crying.

Or to get it to eat.

But you’re just there, with her. She’s there, with you.

There’s something about the shared experience of presence. You with him. Him with you. Just the now. The wonder of life and breath and presence.

That experience of personal presence is at the root of the solution to all the world’s troubles. There is a power in presence that nothing – hear me on this! – nothing can match. This is at the heart of why God comes to us on Christmas as a baby, to bring peace on earth, goodwill towards humankind. We’ll be exploring this truth over the next couple of weeks together.

Our journey doesn’t start with the baby in our arms though. It starts with stress. If the baby in our arms is the now, the wonder, the peace, the warmth of presence, the solution, then unhealthy stress is the rumination, the anxiety, the worry, the coldness of isolation and loneliness, the problem at the root of all our problems.

Stress itself seems like not that big a deal, at least not at first. We most all of us feel it, almost all the time for some of us. Life is full of potential stressors. Financial stress. Relational stress. Work stress. Raising kids stress. Health stress. Stuff stress – cars and houses and technology. Mental stress – our brains can’t handle everything there is to think about, and we think we’re going crazy even sometimes. Emotional stress – we’re right on the edge of anger or despair or contempt or terrifying fear, so easily overwhelmed by the seemingly smallest things. Physical stress – our blood pressure is up, we’ve got ulcers and indigestion, knots in our backs and shoulders, headaches.

To clarify the obvious – we’re not talking about healthy, good stress here. Like when you break down muscle tissue so you can get stronger. Like when you tax your brain to learn a new skill or concept, and then have to sleep to retain the new learning. Or when you push yourself to the limits of your capacity so that your capacity can increase. Or when the pressure of a deadline or a developing situation brings you into focus and you marshal everything you have to overcoming a challenge you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, and you discover something inside of yourself that maybe didn’t even exist before. No, that’s good stress. It’s what strength and endurance and true joy are built on.

Jesus wasn’t immune from that kind of stress; he didn’t run from it or avoid it or resist it.

We’re talking about STRESS. The kind that a good night’s sleep won’t erase. The kind that’s destructive. That stays and becomes chronic. The kind that makes you grind your teeth and messes with your physiology and psychology and sociology. The kind that’s rooted in anxiety and scarcity and worry and fear and shame. The kind that makes you smaller and meaner and weaker and less of who you truly are, not larger and more generous and stronger and more fully the you that God intends as gift to the world.

77%. That’s the percentage of people in the United States who report regularly experiencing physical symptoms caused by stress. 77%. Regularly. This is from July study this year by the American Psychological Association.

73% Regularly experience psychological symptoms caused by stress.

48% Reported lying awake at night due to stress.

48% Feel their stress has increased over the past 5 years.

33% Feel they are living with extreme stress.

Ok, maybe it is a big deal.

But it’s worse than that even. Because how we begin to relate to each other, and the world around us, and even to ourselves is shaped by that stress.

54% of people report that stress has caused them to fight with people close to them. (I wonder if people close to stressed people report that 46% of stressed people lied on the survey…)

Terrible ills, from global in scope to personal, are fueled at first by stress. Wars, greed-fueled inequities, domestic abuse, suicide, broken relationships, theft, destructive sexual behaviors, addictions…what do they have in common? They grow out of unhealthy stress.

Is there anything we can do about STRESS? Does Jesus have anything to teach us about it?

Because of course we can take deep breaths. And of course we can practice brain calming techniques like meditation and prayer. And we can exercise. And eat better. And, yes, hold babies. All of these, and others, will help. And are worth doing.

But is that all we’ve got? Some decent ways to cope with STRESS? Wouldn’t it be great if there were some hope for more than that?

Jesus offers us more.

Jesus offers us a way out of the grip of STRESS. Because STRESS has spiritual roots, roots in an un-reality, in shadow, in darkness. So Jesus shines a light for us on a truer reality, a reality we can seek asylum in and eventually become citizens of. A reality where STRESS and its demonic offspring aren’t authorized to follow us. And he gives us a way into that reality. I daresay that’s good news for us stressed out human beings.

On top of that, Jesus offers us the very thing that STRESS so insidiously steals from us. Jesus offers us LIFE. Abundant life. The kind of life he has, God-life. What the Bible calls eternal life – which, in the way that we’re talking about it in this context, isn’t a ticket to heaven, but rather the life of the heavens in the here and now (which of course, will continue on and on and on, without ceasing, even when our first creation bodies cease functioning, and will pick up at a whole new level in the new creation bodies we receive at the Resurrection.) The kind of life that isn’t subject to the destructive work of STRESS.

And it all starts with presence. With God making his presence available to us, inviting us to be present with him.

That’s what Christmas is about. The rescue from our troubles starts with God entrusting himself to us as a baby.

There’s not much you can do with God when he’s a baby in your arms, is there? You’re just present with him, and he with you. The past slips away and the future pauses to make space for the present moment. All you have is now. You. Jesus. Breath, warmth, weight.

And the wonder of it all.

God in our arms.

The divine energy, personality, creative power at the center of the universe, Love itself, tiny legs swaddled in the crook of our elbow, tiny hands and fingers curled around our finger, content with us. Content, in that moment, to simply be, with us.

Even then, Jesus, as a helpless infant, beginning to teach us in action what he would later teach us with words.

Because there is power in the presence of a God who is making himself present to us. And in due time, God will use his power to set things right. He’ll bring his powerful presence to bear in every corner of the earth. To fix everything that’s gone wrong. In us, in our relationships, in our world. But he begins by being present with us. Inviting us to be present with him. It’s in simple, holy presence that the healing begins.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6.

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

²⁸“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6:24-34

I understand that the connection between all this and the infant God in our arms may not be immediately obvious, so let’s take a few minutes and see how it works.

Can anyone of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? … Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own, Jesus says.

What’s so wrong about worry? The irony of worry is that every hour of worry robs us of an hour of life. Worry keeps us from being present to the here and now where God is, where God is present to us with his care and his Love – even when now is full of troubles. Worry is rooted in a distorted picture of the past and anemic view of the future. Jesus is trying to dislodge us from that false past, trying to pull us back from that mistaken future. Jesus wants us to be present right now, here, in this very moment. Because this is where he is. Now. Here. We are surrounded by a God-breathed, God-filled, Good-News witnessing now.

Try this exercise.

Think about food for 15 seconds.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

What did you think about? A meal you ate at some point in the past? Something you’re hoping to eat in the future? Food you really enjoy and are hoping to have? Food that you cooked or want to learn how to cook? Food that you hate?

Whatever you were thinking about – no matter what it was – you weren’t present to this present moment. You were somewhere else. Ruminating about or rehearsing or remembering the past. Planning for or hoping for or being concerned for the future. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself, but it’s that somewhere else where worry can get in a foot in the door.

Although God was in the past, when we were there, unless we invite him to accompany us as we revisit it, and reveal himself to us there, we won’t experience him in the present moment as we dwell in the past. There is no present presence.

And although God will be present in the future, when we get there, unless we invite him to shape our imagination as we consider the future, and reveal himself to us there, we won’t experience him in the present moment as we imaginatively cast our minds into the future. There is no present presence.

And since all any of us actually has is a series of neverending nows, as long as our nows are spent thinking about the past or the future, then we are missing God’s actual presence with us now. And all we have left is God-empty past that makes room for worry to dominate our present as we live in fear of what the future might bring. That’s STRESSFUL, isn’t it?

Now, try this.

Instead of thinking about food, just pay attention to your experience of food, right now. For the next few seconds. Do you feel satisfied? Provided for? Hungry and in need? Go ahead and just notice your present experience.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

This is a completely different way to experience life, and it opens the door to experiencing the presence of God in the present moment. Because if what you notice is that you have been provided for, that you are satisfied and cared for, it tells you a Good News story. God loves you, he’s taking care of you, you’re not alone, you have nothing to be afraid of in the future. You don’t have to worry.

And if what you notice is that you are hungry, that you have unmet needs, well then those needs can be presented to God, right now, who is here with you, right now, and is already aware of them, but because he’s your Father, who gets his glory from providing for you. And because you’ve given your needs to God, you don’t have to worry about the future. What the future holds is God being faithful to his promise to provide for you in all sorts of interesting and surprising ways. What the future holds is a series of Christmas morning experiences. Who in their right mind would worry when they anticipated that kind of future?

Which brings us back to the baby. To God arriving as a baby. Placing himself in humanity’s arms.

If anyone should be worried, it would be the baby Jesus, in that situation, don’t you think? After all, what is it about our past behavior that suggests we’d take excellent care of him? We don’t have the best track record with caring for one another, let alone with God. And what is it about his actual immediate future that wouldn’t give him reason to worry? He’s going to be misunderstood, rejected, crucified. By us! The one’s holding him in our arms. He should be petrified.

But he’s not.

Glad tidings! The angels sing. Peace on earth, goodwill towards men on whom God’s favor rests! Praise God!

Jesus doesn’t worry because from the first moment of his human experience, he is simply present in the now that is God-breathed, God-filled, Good News witnessing. He is present with us, and God’s Spirit is present to him.

Practical Suggestion:

17 minutes of presence. Take 17 minutes each day this week (a minute for each day until Christmas) to pause and be present to God, simply opening yourself to experiencing the reality of the presence of God with you. Begin with a simple prayer: God, I’m here, in your arms like a baby. Will you show me that you are here, now, in this moment, in this place? If your mind starts to ruminate about the past or worry about the future, just gently stop it and return to now. Notice how you’re feeling, if it helps. Express gratitude for whatever you notice that’s good. Ask for God’s help for whatever you notice that feels like a need or a problem. You can try holding a baby, if you have one. Or someone or something else – yes, even a thing will do – that’s precious to you. When the time is up, say, Jesus, you are all I need, and you have come to me. Even if you’re just saying it in faith.