Last fall, when we had our stewardship emphasis, we had a very strict program that we were supposed to follow. There were letters that were supposed to go out, and specific sermons to be preached, and temples talks every Sunday. There was a dinner for leaders and a celebration dinner for the congregation afterwards. We did all these things. There was also supposed to be a prayer vigil, which I thought was an awesome idea.
I forgot all about it.
I myself was praying fervently. I am sure that everyone on the stewardship team was praying fervently. I am pretty sure many people in the congregation were praying fervently. And everything did come out all right. But if I had to do it all again, I would not forget the prayer vigil.
Prayer was part of the stewardship strategy, which sounds like a weird thing to say. After all, prayer is not magic. It is not a magic formula for having all of our dreams come true, whether personal, congregational or global. It's not something we do to get our way. It's also not for "sounding religious" in front of God or other people. I think about the prophets, who sometimes told the people that God "hated" their solemn assemblies.
Yet prayer is necessary, but for different reasons.
I have confessed before and I will confess again that I don't feel like I am in the top ten of pastors who pray. I pray, and I frequently stumble, and I am not known for long prayers either. I pray in my own words, and sometimes I pray using the words of prayers written long before I was born. Sometimes the honest prayers of my own heart are just the thing I need to come before God. Sometimes, when I use those prayers written a long time ago by someone else, I discover that there were things I needed to pray about, but I didn't even know it.
That's the Holy Spirit for you.
Prayer is necessary, and sometimes we do change God's mind. But more often, prayer is necessary, because, for one thing, it can change our mind. When we pray, when we ask God for help, when we confess, when we give thanks, we are first of all acknowledging a power and a source and an imagination much greater than our own.
Prayer is a strategy for confessing the reality of our dead ends and black holes. It is a strategy for when we see that there are no options left, and it is a strategy for when we are sure we have all the answers, because God is sure to let us know (somehow) that we don't. Prayer is a strategy for opening us up to God's dreams and plans, to God's imagination. It is a strategy for listening to God, and acknowledging that God is in the world, in our lives, in the room, even and especially when we don't see God.
Showing posts with label imagination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label imagination. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2016
Monday, July 1, 2013
Writing a Sermon
It is Friday morning: a beautiful day. It's not too hot and there's a little breeze. I brought my dog Scout in because every once in awhile on a Friday, I do bring her in: she helps me write my sermon. (That's what I say, anyway.)
It's the last day of Vacation Bible School around here. The dog gets to meet all of the children before I go into my office to begin writing the sermon. She's a great procrastination tool; I stand around for a while, letting groups of children pet her and talk about their own dogs. Then I go into my office and begin writing.
(My sermon-writing practice is not awfully linear, although I do try. I make folders of the Scripture readings and try to look ahead for the whole season. I read the lessons early in the week. And I read them aloud too. I carry the words of the scripture readings along with me where I go: to the hospital, walking the dog. I journal my first impressions. I exegete, and muse and remember and read.)
All week I had been thinking about putting my hand to the plow and not looking back. Or looking back. Either way. All week that particular verse from the Gospel had just sort of been niggling at me, as well as a passage from Isaiah 43: "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old...."
Now it is Friday, and I am sitting in my office typing, writing a sermon and seeing where it went. The windows are small in my office, but the shades are up and the light is coming in. The dog sprawled on the floor, doing her 'world's laziest dog' impression. The children are out on the lawn, playing. I can hear them in the background, a light buzz. But I am on a mission, writing furiously, trying to get a beginning, a middle, and an end before my computer runs out of power. I have my hand to the plow and I am not looking back, although I 'm not really looking forward either.
The buzz gets nearer, as I am thinking about memory and imagination: the foundations of our memories, how hard it is to imagine the future. (Behold I am doing a new thing. Really?)
I look up. There is a group of children who are not playing any more. They are just staring in the window, looking at me, looking at my dog. There they are, their fresh faces looking at this odd woman who is just sitting and typing on a beautiful, breezy day. And I am looking at them. We are looking through the small window at one another.
(Behold. I am doing a new thing.)
I consider the window that looks out onto the church lawn, green and growing this time of year. I consider the window that looks out on to the children playing, the neighborhood, the school across the street. And I think of the light and the children looking in at me, and at my life and at my dog.
And I think: looking in and looking out are both part of the sermon-writing process. Looking into the scriptures. looking out at the world. Looking into my own life. Looking out at the children's faces, and at the sorrows and hopes around me. Remembering and imagining: a window that goes both ways.
The children's faces get into the sermon, somehow.
(Behold. I am doing a new thing.)
It's the last day of Vacation Bible School around here. The dog gets to meet all of the children before I go into my office to begin writing the sermon. She's a great procrastination tool; I stand around for a while, letting groups of children pet her and talk about their own dogs. Then I go into my office and begin writing.
(My sermon-writing practice is not awfully linear, although I do try. I make folders of the Scripture readings and try to look ahead for the whole season. I read the lessons early in the week. And I read them aloud too. I carry the words of the scripture readings along with me where I go: to the hospital, walking the dog. I journal my first impressions. I exegete, and muse and remember and read.)
All week I had been thinking about putting my hand to the plow and not looking back. Or looking back. Either way. All week that particular verse from the Gospel had just sort of been niggling at me, as well as a passage from Isaiah 43: "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old...."
Now it is Friday, and I am sitting in my office typing, writing a sermon and seeing where it went. The windows are small in my office, but the shades are up and the light is coming in. The dog sprawled on the floor, doing her 'world's laziest dog' impression. The children are out on the lawn, playing. I can hear them in the background, a light buzz. But I am on a mission, writing furiously, trying to get a beginning, a middle, and an end before my computer runs out of power. I have my hand to the plow and I am not looking back, although I 'm not really looking forward either.
The buzz gets nearer, as I am thinking about memory and imagination: the foundations of our memories, how hard it is to imagine the future. (Behold I am doing a new thing. Really?)
I look up. There is a group of children who are not playing any more. They are just staring in the window, looking at me, looking at my dog. There they are, their fresh faces looking at this odd woman who is just sitting and typing on a beautiful, breezy day. And I am looking at them. We are looking through the small window at one another.
(Behold. I am doing a new thing.)
I consider the window that looks out onto the church lawn, green and growing this time of year. I consider the window that looks out on to the children playing, the neighborhood, the school across the street. And I think of the light and the children looking in at me, and at my life and at my dog.
And I think: looking in and looking out are both part of the sermon-writing process. Looking into the scriptures. looking out at the world. Looking into my own life. Looking out at the children's faces, and at the sorrows and hopes around me. Remembering and imagining: a window that goes both ways.
The children's faces get into the sermon, somehow.
(Behold. I am doing a new thing.)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
My (Very) First Lenten Sermon, circa 1989
Preached at my home congregation before I even went to seminary. The theme (chosen for me) "Laughter and Play vs. Dead Seriousness." The texts: Psalm 104:24-26 and Psalm 98:4-8. I know, it's an odd choice for Lent.
My father taught me how to play. Oh, it wasn't that he couldn't be strict, if the occasion demanded. But he remembered how to play, and he played with us. He knew how to turn ordinary activities into GAMES. Take bath time, for instance. In order to coax us out of a hot bath, he would play a "let's pretend" game with the towel. As he was drying us off, the towel became many costumes, and we became everything imaginable from Casper the friendly ghost or Little Red Riding Hood to Superman or even an Arabian sheik.
Or, take prayer time. Sometimes when my father walked in our bedroom door in the evening, he was not our father but -- Methuselah, the world's oldest man! He could tell us stories about Abraham and Moses and he had known Jesus personally, but he had a hard time remembering some of the words to the prayers, and we had to fill them in for him. This was the way my sister and I memorized the Lord's prayer -- with laughter and imagination.
But I have a confession to make. I have grown up -- and I have all but forgotten how to play, how to imagine and pretend. Caught in my literal dismal present, I can't see beyond the nose on my face, beyond my dreary desk piled high with files, to a more promising future. I see only day after day of drudgery, work that I have to do. Like many others, I suspects, I work earnestly at a job I no longer enjoy, work earnestly at fulfilling my church obligations, work earnestly even at having fun. I have not only forgotten how to play, I have forgotten what play is. What is it? Play is what children do. It is the foolish abandonment and joy of children when given a surprise. It is the ability to play unself-consciously a game of "let's pretend." But I am an adult. I know there are no more surprises, and I am too serious about doing my work to pretend much. I have learned my lesson well. Play is for children. Work is for adults.
The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time and a season for everything under heaven, for weeping as well as laughter, and the season of Lent is most often skewed toward the weeping side. Traditionally, Lent is a season for self-examination and self-discipline in preparation for Easter, as well as remembrance and re-enactment of the life of Christ. In other words, Lent is a lot of work. As adults, we know about work. Plodding drudgery and dead seriousness. But the Scripture tonight speaks of God's work of creation as sheer delight. We see God as One who plays with, delights in, creation. Even the dreaded sea monster Leviathan is God's playmate. For God, Creation is play and we are created to play with God. But we don't, do we? We walk with our heads down, trudge along like unredeemed slaves, fulfill our obligations to God as though God were some harsh taskmaster hurling edicts from heaven. In the Nicene Creed, though, we confess that, rather than being a harsh taskmaster, God, for us and four our salvation, came down from heaven. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The early Church imagined that the almighty Word leaped down from heaven, such was God's eagerness to be among us. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are freed again to play with God.
What is our response then? Can play be as appropriate a Lenten discipline as the works of prayer and meditation, hospitality and service? Joyous Psalm 98 has a clue. We can, along with all of creation, the roaring seas, the stars, the hills, break forth into joyous song, make a joyful noise with hearts and hands and voices. We confess that it is not only our duty, it is our delight to serve and worship God. For we know the end of the story; we know the life beyond death; we know the love of Jesus Christ who was crucified and has risen triumphant. And if we do not know, at least we can imagine.
An amazing thing happened to me during a recent worship service. Me, the unimaginative one, drowning in dull repetitious days, unable to see the hope that lies in wait for me. "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord, God of power and might," I sang. "Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory -- HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST." Suddenly i felt like I must be in one of Walter Cronkite's historical re-enactments: "You WERE there" -- and if I could stand on my toes a little higher I just might see, out in the narthex, Jesus on a donkey getting ready to ride into the sanctuary. For a fleeting moment, the work of worship became the grace of play to me, and I became aware that God was there, playing out His life for and with us -- a holy game of "let's pretend."
You don't believe me? Try it. The next time you sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on earth<' sing as if you were the angels are Jesus' birth, proclaiming the good news to a bunch of illiterate shepherds. Because that's who you are. Or, singing "Lord, now you let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation," be, not yourself, but -- old Simeon, holding the baby Jesus in his arms to bless Him, and getting a blessing instead. When you sing, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life," imagine that you are that rag-tag group of disciples, meeting the Lord, dropping your nets, following Him -- because you are.
Our Creator taught us how to play, but we have forgotten. We know the duty, but not the delight, and we cannot imagine the redemption of our pointless present, much less the resurrection that awaits us all. Jesus reminds us that we are children still, calls us to give ourselves to our tasks in abandonment and joy, as he gave Himself to us in abandonment and Joy. Our highest work, then, is to play -- with the One who made us, who is (wonder of wonders) also the One who saves us.
My father taught me how to play. Oh, it wasn't that he couldn't be strict, if the occasion demanded. But he remembered how to play, and he played with us. He knew how to turn ordinary activities into GAMES. Take bath time, for instance. In order to coax us out of a hot bath, he would play a "let's pretend" game with the towel. As he was drying us off, the towel became many costumes, and we became everything imaginable from Casper the friendly ghost or Little Red Riding Hood to Superman or even an Arabian sheik.
Or, take prayer time. Sometimes when my father walked in our bedroom door in the evening, he was not our father but -- Methuselah, the world's oldest man! He could tell us stories about Abraham and Moses and he had known Jesus personally, but he had a hard time remembering some of the words to the prayers, and we had to fill them in for him. This was the way my sister and I memorized the Lord's prayer -- with laughter and imagination.
But I have a confession to make. I have grown up -- and I have all but forgotten how to play, how to imagine and pretend. Caught in my literal dismal present, I can't see beyond the nose on my face, beyond my dreary desk piled high with files, to a more promising future. I see only day after day of drudgery, work that I have to do. Like many others, I suspects, I work earnestly at a job I no longer enjoy, work earnestly at fulfilling my church obligations, work earnestly even at having fun. I have not only forgotten how to play, I have forgotten what play is. What is it? Play is what children do. It is the foolish abandonment and joy of children when given a surprise. It is the ability to play unself-consciously a game of "let's pretend." But I am an adult. I know there are no more surprises, and I am too serious about doing my work to pretend much. I have learned my lesson well. Play is for children. Work is for adults.
The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time and a season for everything under heaven, for weeping as well as laughter, and the season of Lent is most often skewed toward the weeping side. Traditionally, Lent is a season for self-examination and self-discipline in preparation for Easter, as well as remembrance and re-enactment of the life of Christ. In other words, Lent is a lot of work. As adults, we know about work. Plodding drudgery and dead seriousness. But the Scripture tonight speaks of God's work of creation as sheer delight. We see God as One who plays with, delights in, creation. Even the dreaded sea monster Leviathan is God's playmate. For God, Creation is play and we are created to play with God. But we don't, do we? We walk with our heads down, trudge along like unredeemed slaves, fulfill our obligations to God as though God were some harsh taskmaster hurling edicts from heaven. In the Nicene Creed, though, we confess that, rather than being a harsh taskmaster, God, for us and four our salvation, came down from heaven. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The early Church imagined that the almighty Word leaped down from heaven, such was God's eagerness to be among us. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are freed again to play with God.
What is our response then? Can play be as appropriate a Lenten discipline as the works of prayer and meditation, hospitality and service? Joyous Psalm 98 has a clue. We can, along with all of creation, the roaring seas, the stars, the hills, break forth into joyous song, make a joyful noise with hearts and hands and voices. We confess that it is not only our duty, it is our delight to serve and worship God. For we know the end of the story; we know the life beyond death; we know the love of Jesus Christ who was crucified and has risen triumphant. And if we do not know, at least we can imagine.
An amazing thing happened to me during a recent worship service. Me, the unimaginative one, drowning in dull repetitious days, unable to see the hope that lies in wait for me. "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord, God of power and might," I sang. "Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory -- HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST." Suddenly i felt like I must be in one of Walter Cronkite's historical re-enactments: "You WERE there" -- and if I could stand on my toes a little higher I just might see, out in the narthex, Jesus on a donkey getting ready to ride into the sanctuary. For a fleeting moment, the work of worship became the grace of play to me, and I became aware that God was there, playing out His life for and with us -- a holy game of "let's pretend."
You don't believe me? Try it. The next time you sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on earth<' sing as if you were the angels are Jesus' birth, proclaiming the good news to a bunch of illiterate shepherds. Because that's who you are. Or, singing "Lord, now you let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation," be, not yourself, but -- old Simeon, holding the baby Jesus in his arms to bless Him, and getting a blessing instead. When you sing, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life," imagine that you are that rag-tag group of disciples, meeting the Lord, dropping your nets, following Him -- because you are.
Our Creator taught us how to play, but we have forgotten. We know the duty, but not the delight, and we cannot imagine the redemption of our pointless present, much less the resurrection that awaits us all. Jesus reminds us that we are children still, calls us to give ourselves to our tasks in abandonment and joy, as he gave Himself to us in abandonment and Joy. Our highest work, then, is to play -- with the One who made us, who is (wonder of wonders) also the One who saves us.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Power of Imagination
It's always a good thing to go over to Mimi's. Today she had a post up regarding J.K. Rowling's recent commencement address at Harvard. She directed us to read the full transcript of Rowling's address, which I did.
Rowling speaks eloquently about the values of failure, and of the power of imagination in our lives. Please go and read, or view the whole address. Meanwhile, these words struck me:
"But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."
For those of us who claim a Christian heritage and vision, I hope and pray that the Christian imagination informs and empowers us as well.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall ot lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more; (Micah 4:3)
We have the power to imagine better.
Rowling speaks eloquently about the values of failure, and of the power of imagination in our lives. Please go and read, or view the whole address. Meanwhile, these words struck me:
"But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."
For those of us who claim a Christian heritage and vision, I hope and pray that the Christian imagination informs and empowers us as well.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall ot lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more; (Micah 4:3)
We have the power to imagine better.
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