How’s the View?
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How’s the View?
January 2, 2011
by Rev. William “Buck” Day
Let’s begin with a word of prayer.
Lord, that is a wonderful song and that is what we pray. We pray that you would draw us near. Draw us near, Lord God, to hear what you have for us this day. So Lord, by the power of your Spirit, we ask that you would help us to hear what you have for each of us because you know exactly what we need to hear. So Lord, speak to us by the power of your Spirit. We ask that in your name. Amen.
Well I want to start with a simple question; and that is, how many of you would say that you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? If you do, just raise your hand. Thank you, I appreciate that. Now, some of you maybe didn’t raise your hand. And that’s O.K. I want to tell you that right now. I wasn’t trying to put you on the spot or anything; but the idea is that if you didn’t raise your hand, maybe you aren’t sure what a personal relationship with Christ means—that’s an option. Or, possibly you don’t believe you have a relationship with Christ; or you may have just felt a little weird, and I get that and that’s O.K. But I did that simply to discover how many of us describe our faith in those kinds of terms, because I want us to think about that today, a little bit.
But just a quick side note, and that is this idea of having a personal relationship with Christ, or what we call around here, being a follower of Christ, is the most important thing a person can do. Just plain and simple, that is the most important thing a person can do; because it is only when you are in relationship with Christ that you can become the person that God sees you to be, God desires you to be and, truth be told, I think the person that you in your heart of hearts wants to be, as well. So that is an important deal and we just need to put that out there.
But, back to our original question, and that is that when we describe ourselves as having a personal relationship with Christ and just stop right there, I think we miss much of what God has for us; because a personal relationship with Christ is by definition, what? It is personal, isn’t it? It is personal to you and not necessarily personal to someone else. So as you try to share your personal relationship with Christ and you put it in those kinds of terms, what can happen? They can say, “Well, I am really glad. I’m glad you have that kind of personal relationship but that is not for me. You know, I am into meditation; I’m into the latest self-help book; maybe I’m into the new Oprah Winfrey Network. That is what I’m into.” So the thinking is, well, what is good for you may not necessarily be good for me and so I can dismiss it. The only problem with that is God doesn’t want to be that dismissible. God wants each person to deal with the reality that there is a God of the Universe that cares for them, that loves them and wants to be intimately connected with them. So by us describing ourselves as having a personal relationship with Christ, I think it lets you and the claims of Christ be dismissed by the world. And that is a bad thing.
There is also, I think, something else that happens when we use this kind of terminology of a personal relationship with Christ. I want to demonstrate that for you. It is what I call “tunnel vision”; that is what happens. So what I want you to do is take your hand and I want you to make a circle, like this. Everyone, just make a circle; have your opening about the size of a quarter, o.k. What I want you to do is to look through it at me and cover your other eye, because I want to see what you all look like doing that. (laughter) No, not really, go ahead and do that; but look at me and, as you look at me, notice what you can no longer see. You can’t see the people sitting around you any more, can you? You can’t see the child that gets up to go to the bathroom and if you take your hand away, what happens? Everything comes back into view, doesn’t it? Tunnel vision is one of those things that we have to begin to think about and fight against. It is one of those things that law enforcement officers actually have to train to fight against, as well. They have to fight tunnel vision. It is a physiological reaction that happens in the body when they believe they are in extreme danger. It is part of our fight or flight mechanism and it causes our body, many times, to stop seeing and to stop hearing. Officers who have had to discharge their weapons many times will say they can’t tell you how many shots were fired. All they could see was the gun that was pointing at them. They couldn’t see what was going on around them. All they saw was the danger.
So what’s my point? I think that when we look at ourselves and describe ourselves as having a personal relationship with Christ, we have tunnel vision, because we are missing the bigger picture of what God is up to in the world. You see God has a big picture in mind when he looks at the world. He looks at the whole world and that is what he sees. One of the ways to think about this big picture that God has in mind at all times is to think in terms of a story. God is unfolding his story through the course of human history, and it is a big story. It is a story that helps us understand how God is at work. If we were to take this story of what God is up to and try to boil it down to it’s very most basic bare bones, one of the ways we can describe it is God’s story is a story of creation; it is the story of alienation; and it is a story of redemption. This is the story that God has been telling throughout human history. It is the story of Scripture and it is a big story, isn’t it? We need to begin to see ourselves as having a part to play in this big story of what God is up to in the world.
So what I want to do now is I want to turn to our Scripture because, as we have this big picture, our tunnel vision will disappear. We are going to read a Psalm, and as I read the Psalm, what I want you to do is I want you to look for God’s faithfulness and I want you to look for how he is faithful to David and his descendants. This is our Scripture from Psalm 89. Follow along on the screen. (Psalm 89:19-37)
19 Long ago you spoke in a vision to your faithful people.
You said, “I have raised up a warrior.
I have selected him from the common people to be king.
20 I have found my servant David.
I have anointed him with my holy oil.
21 I will steady him with my hand;
with my powerful arm I will make him strong.
22 His enemies will not defeat him,
nor will the wicked overpower him.
23 I will beat down his adversaries before him
and destroy those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and unfailing love will be with him,
and by my authority he will grow in power.
25 I will extend his rule over the sea,
his dominion over the rivers.
26 And he will call out to me, ‘You are my Father,
my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’
27 I will make him my firstborn son,
the mightiest king on earth.
28 I will love him and be kind to him forever;
my covenant with him will never end.
29 I will preserve an heir for him;
his throne will be as endless as the days of heaven.
30 But if his descendants forsake my instructions
and fail to obey my regulations,
31 if they do not obey my decrees
and fail to keep my commands,
32 then I will punish their sin with the rod,
and their disobedience with beating.
33 But I will never stop loving him
nor fail to keep my promise to him.
34 No, I will not break my covenant;
I will not take back a single word I said.
35 I have sworn an oath to David,
and in my holiness I cannot lie:
36 His dynasty will go on forever;
his kingdom will endure as the sun.
37 It will be as eternal as the moon,
my faithful witness in the sky!”
We are part of the fulfillment of what we just read. We are part of that eternal line that God created with David. God established that line, beginning with David, through Christ and having a relationship with Christ makes each person a part of David’s line. We are connected to what we just read. That is why Scripture calls us “children of God” and “fellow heirs”. That is what the writer has in mind. And the truth is that that is how God sees each one of you. As we begin to see ourselves as tied into this long line that can actually be traced all the way back to David, all of a sudden we are a part of this big picture, too. We are part of this big story of what God is up to in this story of creation, of alienation and of redemption.
So when God inspired the psalmist to write that psalm, did you know that he had you in mind? He had me in mind? God did. That blows me away. God had you in mind when he wrote that psalm. We are part of God’s ongoing story, folks; that story of creation, of alienation and of redemption. So it is not just about me, myself, and I, and my little relationship with God. No, it is about my place; it is about your place in this big story. That is what it is about. So when we see our relationship or our salvation only in personal terms, we fail to see our contribution to this big thing that is going on around us. We fail to see our part in God’s ongoing story of redemption.
To have that kind of perspective, to see ourselves in that kind of view, all of a sudden we are not dismissible by the world anymore and neither is God. Because all of a sudden we can say we are playing our part in this larger story, and guess what, folks? You have a part to play too—those outside of the faith. So all of a sudden, they have to figure out what they are going to do with this God who is concerned about them and who wants to be intimately connected with them. Whether they like it or not, they have to figure out if they are going to play a part in this story.
So one of my pastoral words to you as we begin this new year is to stop seeing with tunnel vision. Stop seeing with tunnel vision. See your part in this larger story of redemptive history that God is playing out in the cosmos.
And my other pastoral word to us today is that as we live out this piece, our part in God’s larger story is to embrace the Word and the work of Christ in our lives. If you think about the Word and the work of Christ in our lives, you may go, “Whoa! That seems pretty heavy, Buck.” But if we think about it in terms of Christ’s life and what were his words and what was his work; then it becomes, I think, much more applicable to us. Jesus’ words…what were his words? His words were about speaking and telling of the coming of God’s kingdom. It is this idea that the redemption of humanity is continuing, when Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is come near you,” when he was there. That is what we say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Those were Jesus’ words. Jesus’ work was acting and showing others what living in this kingdom looks like on earth. So Jesus lived a life of telling stories—that is the Word; and of storied living—that is the work. Jesus announced the kingdom of God, didn’t he? When you think about the parables, he started many of them, “Well the kingdom of God is like…” and then he would go on. He embodied the kingdom, didn’t he? He embodied the kingdom in his healings and in his service. That was his call to his twelve disciples. And, because we are part of that line, guess what? That call is ours now, too. That call is ours to live a story telling life and a storied livinglife, as well; to live in a way so that others might experience what being a part of the kingdom is iike. And in that kind of life, that is how we play our part in God’s big story. And when we are doing that, people will naturally gravitate to that kind of living and the kind of people that live those kinds of lives, that kind of story telling and storied living life.
Let me give you a couple of examples what that looks like. I have a friend who’s name is Peter. I’ve known him for a long time, and I think he lives a story telling kind of life. Every time I run into Pete, he always has a story to tell, every time, it never fails. It may be about his work; it may be about his experiences when he was leading backpacking trips in Colorado for Young Life; it may be just something that happened on his way to wherever he was going. Pete always has a story. It is a story that will make you laugh; sometimes it will make you cry; sometimes it will make you just go, “How did that happen to you, Pete?” He always has a story. No matter what the story is, Peter always relates it back to his faith, somehow. You see, Peter lives his life centered by his faith. So every thing that happens to Peter, he sees through this lens of faith. So his stories are always going back to some kind of a faith connection that he is making in his life and it comes out every time he tells a story. It just happens. When you think about it, and I think if you were to ask Pete about that, he would not conscientiously say “that’s what I am trying to do.” He wouldn’t do that. He is not thinking like he is trying to manipulate it that way; that is just who he is. It is ultimately about how Peter lives out his faith. And I think that is what a story telling life looks like. It is telling stories of how you are living with Christ; how you are intimately connected with him as you go through your days and your words just simply reveal that connection. That is what a story telling life looks like.
A storied livinglife is centered around the work of your life. And as I thought about that, there is no better example I could think of than a couple here in our congregation, Don and Mary Anne Draayer. They live, I think, a storied livingkind of life, don’t they? For their whole lives they have dedicated themselves to trying to help children grow in their love for God. For Don, we know that he was involved in the school system, helping children grow in the educational basics that they need in order to grow into adulthood. He received national acclaim for his leadership and he now, even in his retired years, still continues to work with other districts to help their school systems along. That is just how Don is wired. He is an elder here and I know he has served on more committees than he would probably like to remember. Yet, it continues, as well. It continues in that he is now building a ministry to try to connect new people who move into Minnetonka with us here at Faith. And how many times after worship have you seen Don talking to a child, talking to a student, or talking to a young family. That is just how he is; that’s how he is wired. And then his dear wife, Mary Anne… She loves to tell the children of God’s love. She works with our Parents Morning Out program. Every time, as part of that, she has what she calls “the Jesus Place.” Isn’t that a great name? …the Jesus Place where she has these little children sitting around and she tells a bible story of God’s love for them. And beyond that, she operates very much behind the scenes but very much a solid rock in our Stephen Ministry ministry. She is one of our leaders in Stephen Ministry. She, too, is an elder. Together they help our third graders learn how to fall in love with God’s word. If we think about Don and MaryAnn, they bring to their lives a humility that I think is one of those things that makes them probably uncomfortable when it is acknowledged. But their lives when it is taken in this larger view of God’s story reveals hearts that give themselves away in healing and in service to others, don’t they? They live a storied living kind of life, just like Jesus. And their lives are worth emulating.
God’s call on us as his people is to live a story telling life as well as a storied living life. That is how we play our part in God’s larger story of redemption and, of course, of human history. And that is my desire for us as we begin this new year here at Faith. Because when we see our lives connected to this big picture that is going on, we can come to a day, like today, when there is all kinds of mixed emotions with Chris leaving and we can begin to think about it in ways that allow us to move, even in the midst of our sadness, even in the midst of our grief, we can step back and go, “This can be a day of celebration.” This can be a day of celebration. It can become a day of celebration because, guess what? God’s story is continuing. God’s story is continuing to move through history. As Chris leaves, we can see that as a closing of a chapter in this story and the beginning of another chapter. A beginning of another chapter for Pastor Chris, that God is going to use him significantly wherever God leads him. It is a beginning of a new chapter for each one of us here at Faith, because we are moving into a new place, as well; and we know that God is going to use us significantly, as well. So, as we step back and go, “Wow! In the big scope of things, God knows what he is doing.” And that is a good thing. And we can celebrate that, even in the midst of our sadness.
Yes, it will be hard for Chris to go, for us to see him go; but it is an opportunity for all of our lives to take new twists and turns. Even in the midst of all those twists and turns that will be coming folks, we can step back and we can say, “You know what? I can be O.K. with it because this is God’s Church.” He’s got his hands all over it. He’s got his hands all over my brother. And he is moving us through this history, his story, to its conclusion. If we think of it in those terms, we can say “Praise be to God.” Praise be to God. Amen? Amen.
Let’s pray.
Lord God, thank you. Thank you that you do not leave us alone because we would be in deep weeds. Lord help us to say goodbye to our brother, to bless him, and then to allow him, as well as this church, to move into the new place knowing Lord that your hands are firmly upon us and you will not let us go; because we are your children, we are your descendants and you have called us to this new place, this new chapter in your ever unfolding story of redemption. We praise you for that, God. In Christ’s name. Amen.