Apr 3 2005

With a Light Rein

April 3, 2005 Pastor Ray Fenton

I feel nothing but joy and pleasure in being a part of this community. Being part of a community reminds me of an experience I had recently. I went to my seminary’s 50^th anniversary, at least for my class it was the 50^th anniversary. My wife and I arrived at the administration building and before she went into the assembly hall, I said to her, “you go on because I’ll hang my coat here and catch up with you later.” She said, “fine” and when she went into the meeting room, one of my classmates caught sight of her across the way and he called out, “Maxine, is Ray dead yet?” They can put you in your place.

I went to an elder hostel last fall in Williamsburg, VA. We gathered for our first meeting and the gentleman that was in charge said, “We have here but one rule, and we hold to it fast, but it’s only one. No one is permitted here to talk about their grandchildren.” And those of you who are grandparents know what I’m talking about. We can wear you out with our stories. So I would like to break the rules just briefly and talk to you about a young lady, her name is Alexandra, she is a granddaughter of mine.

She is 17 years old and will graduate from high school next month. She lives on a farm in Colorado. And consequently, all her life she’s lived among animals, especially Holstein cattle (on this farm by the 100’s), and hogs, and lately goats because people are taking a fancy to goat cheese out there in Colorado, and of course cats and dogs. But her favorite animal is the horse and she’s been riding it seems for 17 years. She does a lot of competition in the quarter horse business which is all strange to me. I’ve not seen Ali do competitions but I’ve seen her ride in video cassettes that her mother sends to us. And the thing I’d like to have you picture in your mind is someone sitting erect in the saddle, riding a horse, and the rider doesn’t move at all. And I’m always intrigued by how she manages and so I said once to her, “How do you steer your horse?” And she said, “Well, you have to gain its trust. You have to bring it under your control and you have to understand its personality.” I said, “I don’t want to do a psych-head trip here, I just want to know how you steer your horse.” “Well,” she said, “you don’t use your reins.” “What do you mean, you don’t use the reins? There’s a bit in the horse’s mouth and back from the bit come two reins, right?” “Right. You hold those in your left hand and put your right hand on top of the left hand. And you don’t move your hands. You give commands by pressing with your thigh on the horse’s flank and that way the horse knows which way I want to go.” “What about the reins?” I said. “You don’t use them,” she said, “that’s the whole trick. You don’t move your hands or the reins at all.” “Well, what happens if you want to stop?” “Well,” she said, “you sit down hard on the back of the saddle, follow that on the next step with the command “whoa”, and the horse has only one more step and must stop.” “Let me see if I’ve got this,” I said, “you stop a horse by sitting down and saying ‘whoa’ and the horse does it all?” “You’ve got it,” she said. “Well what about your heels? I’ve seen the cowboy movies. They have these spurs that they dig into the flanks.” “No,” she said, “you touch the horse with your heels when the horse is starting to become distracted, when you’d like to have its attention.” That struck me as somewhat similarly as the way God in Christ works in us. There are these sometimes, not always, but sometimes these subtle and light moves.

For example, the truth of who Christ is comes to us from the source of truth, which is pretty obvious. But there is a sense in which you and I come to a knowledge of God through the Christ who comes clear to us, as to who He is, by the way God works with us in, at times, a light rein.

I was attending the New Wilmington missionary conference on the campus of West Minster College in New Wilmington, PA some years ago. We took our meals in the dorms’ dining rooms; you passed a cafeteria line and found a seat at tables. And I did that and found an opening and went and sat down. I had not sat but a moment when a young man said to me on my right, “Can I sit here?” And I said, “By all means.” And we began a conversation in which he explained to me he was working with young adults in a church in Columbus, Ohio. He had heard about this conference and had come to see if he could incorporate it and he thought he could. And then suddenly he said to me, “Have you been saved?” And I thought to myself, that’s a good question and I’ve had it asked before and I’m comfortable with it. But somehow in that time in the evening, I was a bit tired and I would like to get the conversation back to him if I could so I searched my mind for an answer that might accomplish that. So I said, “Yes, I have been saved.” “Well how do you know,” he said. And I came up with something that was like this, “Well I know like Martin Luther knew. Luther said he knew he was saved because he had been baptized.” And the young man said to me, “Well, who’s Martin Luther?” I want you to know I remember that conversation with pleasure because that young man took delight in the joy, he was a devout gentleman, and he was zealous for the faith. He put a little bit of steam in your veins, at least in mine. But there is more than one way to be saved, for to be saved means to be restored to your rightful place. And what is your rightful place but a disciple of Christ, a daughter and a son of God Almighty who made you. There is more than one way to be restored, that is saved, to your rightful place. And sometimes in working with us, God will do it with a light rein.

There was the apostle Paul and Timothy in the church. Both were crucial to that first sensory group of believers. Paul had a dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus; he was brought to his knees by light and by a voice that spoke to him. However, Timothy brought no fireworks. He was the product of Christian nurture. Paul said of Timothy, “I congratulate you for your sincere faith, which I saw first in your mother, Eunice, and then before in your grandmother Lois.” They came by different roots; one dramatically turned the other the product of nurture of three generations. The point is that there is no exclusiveness, to be born again dramatically sometimes seems like the real deal and to be nurtured in faith is less dramatic. Sometimes even like a light rein.

Jesus did not tell all his believers to be born again. He told Nicodemus, Peter, James, and John, he said, “Follow me.” There is in our time a company of folks known as the “religious right.” They favor conversion to nurture, the twice-born superior to those who grow up never knowing anything but a Christ they loved. We are not, however, all one in our experiences of God. But we are all one in God, whom we experience.

And yet, there’s more. We come back to Alexandra for just a moment…as you watch her go through her routine, I said to you before, she never seems to move in the saddle, never takes an unnecessary action. But she says it all begins in trust and understanding and that’s subtle. But that is how God will work with you sometimes, not always, but sometimes. I want to tell you about the subtlety of these experiences of ours by borrowing from the rabbis. They tell the story of a Jewish antique dealer in New York City who ran a small shop and was visited occasionally by a young woman who was always intrigued if there might be some new pieces come in since she was last there. And the antique dealer took a liking to her and on one visit; he said to her, “Would you wait here just a minute because I want to go back in my shop?” And he did and he came out bearing a lamp, it wasn’t very good-looking, it was all dirty and smudged. And he said, “I’d like to give this to you.” “Oh no,” she said, “I really don’t want something like that. It’s not keeping with my décor.” “Well,” he said, “this is a very unusual lamp because if you rub it twice and make a wish, it will come true.” And the young woman became suspicious now and began moving toward the door. “Here,” he said, “take it.” “No,” she said, “that’s much too expensive. I couldn’t dare take that from you.” “No,” he says, “it is expensive but I don’t need it.” “Oh, you don’t?” she said. “No, my daughter is married and my son phones me once a week. Do you need more?”

Isn’t that amazing? In my first parish, I had the experience of which I just spoke. Neva Allen was a member of the congregation; she was a widow and had a son John who was what we call intellectually challenged. She worked in the bank; she was one of the accountants there in that small town. On the last Sunday I was with them in town, Neva took my hand and said, “You know, I’ve prayed for you everyday since you’ve come here and I’ll pray for you everyday until I have no more days.” And I’ve been stunned since. What goodness, thoughtfulness, amazing gentleness to think of you everyday? I don’t know about you, but there is a sense of lightness, not heaviness, in her remark.

And finally, there is a lightness in the insights we sometimes see in our faith. They come to us like surprises. Walter Brugeman is a theologian among the Presbyterians down in Richmond, VA. He talks about insights given. He says, for example, “Abraham Lincoln did not give freedom to the slaves. He returned to the slaves the freedom they should never have been without. The Americans did not restore sovereignty to the Philippines after World War II; they returned to the Philippines the sovereignty we should never have taken in the beginning.” To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly…it has a lightness with an insight that surprised us.

A friend of mine went to visit her grandmother. On Sunday, they went to worship in her grandmother’s church. It had a different pace than her church, she said. It was kind of jumpy. People even went into the aisles. She leaned over and said to her grandmother, “Are all these folks filled with the Holy Spirit?” And her grandmother said, “It don’t matter how high they jump, honey. It’s what they do when they comes down that matters.” We are not all one in our experiences of God, but we are all one in the God whom we all experience…sometimes with a light rein.

Will you bow in prayer with me?