Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

5th in a series: Faithful Christians in Life’s Tragic Gaps V
preached onNovember 4, 2007 (All Saint’s Observance), by Winton Boyd

“If I get a little crazy or inappropriate,” she said, “just say to me, Loreen, take a pill.” Don’t try to argue with me, don’t just tell me I am inappropriate, don’t ignore me – I need someone to just say, ‘take a pill.”

Loreen was a dear woman in our former church, First Congregational Church of Fresno, CA. This elderly woman was not only bi-polar, but probably had other mental illnesses. She imagined herself an elegant, sexy and sophisticated woman. Now I like to shop Goodwill with the best of them, but when this dear woman picked clothes at second hand stores – well let’s just say she had a unique sense of style. She loved hats and I never saw her without one. She would come and go in the life of the church depending on whether she was in a manic or a depressive state. Because she was one step away from being homeless, we always worried when we didn’t see her for awhile.

But in the midst of her delusions, she did have lucid moments, including the time she gave this “code language” to my colleague if in her manic stage she was inappropriate, out of control or simply driving us crazy.

If it is true that the least of these shall teach us about the realm of God, I always appreciated that she knew she could drive others crazy, she knew she had faults and flaws that made it difficult to be in community with her.

I for one, have to admit, that there have been many times in my life when I wanted a simple, sure-fired way to silence the folks in my life who are crazy making – be they relatives, world leaders, children, colleagues, other Christian leaders, or even sometimes – the inner voices of my own life.

Throughout the fall, we have been talking standing with faith in some of the “tragic gaps” in our lives – those gaps between what is and what could be, between what we know and experience to be true and what we know to be possible. Is it surprising then, that one of the gaps many of us stand in is the gap between
• our efforts to live faithfully on the one hand and all the people in the wider Christian church who literally drive us crazy, on the other?
• Feeling a deep sense of God’s spirit at work in our lives and wanting to follow that instinct – while at the same time finding ourselves frustrated, confused and angry at the actions and attitudes of others who call themselves Christians.

Today, we celebrate “All Saints day” –we recognize the beautiful, if flawed, saints of our lives – those who have inspired, guided, loved and challenged us into adulthood or faith. As we do so, we acknowledge the deep divisions within the Christian church; we acknowledge how easy it is to be critical of and judgmental towards other Christians. For some of us this ability to be judgmental is so ingrained, it creeps up on us without our knowing.

For example, even as I was writing this sermon, I went to a website, Beliefnet.com – an eclectic and fascinating website with religious articles, jokes, surveys and quotes – for people of all different faiths. I noticed that one of the ads across the top of the homepage was for none other than Liberty University (started by Jerry Falwell) – and I found myself saying – “you can never get away from these folks!”
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However, I am somewhat comforted- and challenged - that we are not the first in history to deal with this. One of the ongoing tensions in the New Testament is this balance between humility and boldness,.

Our text from the book of James is a great case in point. Written as a letter to Jewish Christians, our text is part of a larger letter than is focusing not on those outside the emerging church, but within it. As the author calls the readers to greater wisdom and a continual turning to God for assistance in matters of relationship, ethics, and community – he is in a sense reminding them that conversion in the context of our faith is a continuing process, and ongoing element of our spiritual life and transformation. While we may be “friends of God” – it doesn’t mean that our actions and attitudes are “fully formed” by that love for God. We live constantly with some tension, he writes, between the surrounding culture, our inner nature, and the vision of God.

Wisdom and deep faith, he writes, come from a continual turning that is both explicit and wholehearted. It comes from acting with boldness to proclaim and witness to the love, justice and grace of God in the world; while at the same time remaining humble as we remember how easily we stray not only from our best selves, but from the vision of God’s realm that we profess.

So what does this mean practically – it means that the tension and craziness we feel as we seek to live with brothers and sisters in Christ – is part of our history and part of human nature.

The cynic inside each of us would say that some who call themselves Christians these days are worse than ever before, misusing and abusing the faith for their own ends. And maybe part of this is true. On the other hand, another part of us recognizes that

• we too are flawed;
• we too are bumbling our way forward –trying to let our faith inform and guide our lives.
• we too can succumb to using the faith for our own ends;
• we too can be judgmental and critical without listening to or learning from another.

Considering how it is that God’s people live and proclaim the realm of God,  Annie Dillard writes;

There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead - as if innocence had ever been - and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been.

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The gap we stand in, really, is that gap within ourselves – between a bold belief in the faith that grounds us and the humble recognition that like everyone else, we are on a quest – a journey towards a spiritual home. We live with bold confidence that the most important thing we can do is act on our faith and the humble recognition that for all our certainty, we may be wrong.

It is appropriate that in such a state we can come together to celebrate communion. One theologian uses the metaphor of weaving – that in communion we unite the warp (vertical threads) with the woof (horizontal threads). We unite our quest for God and for spiritual connection with our immersion into human relationships, culture and reality. It strikes me that as we take the bread and wine, we take it with a confidence and certainty that no matter who we are or where we are on life’s journey – God believes in us and holds out hope that we can live up to our best, most authentic selves. As we come away from the table and from the elements – we travel with a deep humility that recognizes in spite of our best intentions and hopes, we can and must rely on the strength, grace, forgiveness and hope of God.

So, in the end, standing in the gap is a recognition that there may be little we can do about those who drive us crazy – but we can pray that we might live a life
 of continual conversion,
 a repeated “returning” to the realm of God.

In that spirit, with all that illuminates and deflates us – let us come to the table.

Today’s text:

James 3: 13-18, 4:10
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.
15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.
16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.