“Worlds Apart”
Jesus is the bridge and the Holy Spirit the wind at our back
Sermon Preached by
The Reverend Rick Tamas
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:9-16
Good morning!
This is a very special Sunday for me. Today I have the opportunity to share a message with the confirmation class of 2004.
They will be confirmed on May 30, Pentecost Sunday of this year, and I feel privileged to preach the message in their honour this morning. Today is also one week from the anniversary of my first year as an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada - a very meaningful time for me in many ways.
Confirmation is a significant event in the faith development of our youth. The confirmands need to know that we are here for them. They need to know that their thoughts and feelings are important - that their church is listening to them.
Some of you may recall that in a previous sermon, the confirmands contributed by sending me e-mails on what they thought made up a good sermon and I used their ideas to improve my message. This time, however, they helped out in a different way.
Last Sunday, the confirmation class met with the Junior Department in the Church School to share what confirmation meant to them (what they got out of it). The Grades 4s, 5s and 6s listened intently to what the confirmands had to say. It is from these shared insights that I have put together this message this morning.
By way of an introduction, here are some words of wisdom from the class:
· I made a lot of friends; fellowship is important.
· I learned to take the church more seriously.
· We were more involved this year.
· The church took us more seriously. We expressed ourselves through prayer and art - and someone listened.
· We learned about other religions and about the Taizé community.
· We learned about prayer, and baked cookies for community service.
· I liked lighting the candle and saying our own prayers.
· We enjoyed being involved in community service and helping at the church.
The teen and pre-teen years are a time of searching. Or so I thought, until I became a university student and I was still searching; and then when I was in the business world in purchasing management, and I was still searching.
The adolescent years especially, though, are filled with questions about identity - questions of who we are. These questions are often connected with feelings of separateness, confusion, and at times, isolation.
Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, states: “Most people struggle with three basic issues in life. The first is identity: ”˜Who am I?' The second is importance: ”˜Do I matter?' The third is impact: ”˜What is my place in life?'”
We explored such questions of identity during our confirmation class, and this led to even more questions, such as “Who are we as Christians?” and “What does that really mean to us?”
I asked myself when preparing this sermon, “What could I say this morning that could reduce the stress, the uncertainty that the youth may feel? How was I going to communicate in a way that would connect with them?”
Like all new preachers, I needed some divine inspiration. I needed some help. So I went to where most teens and pre-teens go - I went to the television.
As you see, I have brought a remote control TV controller with me this morning (and I have a surf board) because WE ARE GOING SURFING! - channel surfing! (At the 9:30 a.m. contemporary service, I also brought the popcorn and the root beer for half time.)
Now I must confess that usually, while watching TV, I am a “one-show-at-a-time” kind of guy. I don't flip back and forth from channel to channel watching two shows at once - and I certainly don't surf regularly.
I know that there are some of you here this morning who can watch three shows at the same time, and never miss a scene! It's a mystery to me. (And now the teens are telling me it's another gift of the spirit!)
Let's imagine a large movie screen appearing miraculously on either side of the chancel - aesthetically crafted to blend beautifully with the wonderful worship space of the nave.
Now, just to prepare you before we start, a good channel surfer can probably go through 100 channels in less than 15 seconds. So hold on! You may get dizzy… We're going surfing!
When I actually did this at home, I turned on the TV and the first thing I saw was Homer Simpson. My first reaction was, “Boy, that's worlds apart from where I am, where I need to be right now,” so I - perhaps a bit too hastily - turned the channel. (I am afraid we are going to come back to Homer in a few minutes.)
As I began surfing, the next few stations were filled with glimpses of reality shows - Survivor, The Apprentice, Fear Factor, The Bachelor - one show after the next. I kept flipping channels. (Remember, the idea of surfing is not to stay in one place too long or you sink, you have to keep moving, and in my case - keep searching.) I must admit, after about 20 channels I was getting a bit worried. How I was ever going to find the right station this way? But I persevered.
Then the sitcoms started rolling by, and the soaps, and the movies - more situations than I could have imagined. I even noticed the season finale of Friends, one of my daughter's favourite shows, and I was tempted to pause and watch, but a surfer has to surf, right?
I just kept surfing.
Then came the sports network and the network news, both filled with disaster stories - from my favourite team losing again to higher gas prices and political corruption. Too much to think about. I surfed on!
Then, in the blur of passing images, I noticed the PBS stations. So many charities, so many worthy causes, all asking for help! I wanted to help, but I couldn't stop. I was still surfing!
Relentlessly, I kept going until that final moment in every channel surfer's journey when he or she can go no further. He or she has reached the top.
There are no more channels to surf, or programs to ponder.
I stopped. Needless to say, I was confused.
Well, is it any wonder? I had just surfed 100 channels in a little less than (well, it took me more than) 15 seconds, but I think if we all were to have surfed together on those make-believe screens I mentioned earlier, we would all have been confused. Our minds would have been overloaded, full-up, crammed with images, ideas and products.
In fact, I had so many ideas and concepts in my mind, I didn't know where to start. How was I ever going to use them all?
Do you know what “professional channel surfers” do once they reach the top of the dial? It is like they are at the crest of a wave, and there is a moment of exuberance, exhilaration - they can go no higher. But they can ride that wave back down again - even faster. (As if the TV world was going to change for them in the next 15 seconds.) But down they go through the channels, more convinced than ever that new meaning and satisfaction will roll like a wave into their life.
Being a novice channel surfer, I thought it a good idea to pray for renewed strength (Isa. 40:31). Then I decided to surf back down like a pro. My mind was so full already, a few more random images, snippets of commercials and segments of TV shows really couldn't hurt, could it?
Quite honestly, I was still searching, looking for that special something, trying to find an answer to my dilemma: “How was I going to connect with the confirmands and the congregation?”
And then something extraordinary happened.
There were Bart, Homer and Lisa on the screen again. I paused.
The two children were watching TV and their father, Homer, came up to them and asked “Why do you listen …to …so …much TV?”
And Bart answered, “It's just hard not to listen to TV, Dad. It's spent so much more time raising us than you have.”
Homer, in his inimitable style, said, “Oh, okay” and walked away.
Worlds apart? I began to wonder…
It was definitely food for thought.
I went to the next channel.
On the screen was a global service network showing scenes from an underdeveloped country, asking viewers to call in and become foster parents. It was a dramatic scene of hunger and need and I couldn't help but slow down for a moment and take it in. Geographically, I was worlds apart from the images on the screen. However, the TV brought me closer. I no longer felt isolated or removed. I had the opportunity to do something about what I saw - “bridge the gap” so to speak.
The passage that Christopher and Carolyn read so well for us this morning comes to mind: “We speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.”
From that point on, I took one step at a time, down through the channels - looking, discerning, interpreting through the Spirit and asking God to “enlighten the eyes of my mind” as in Ephesians 1:18, so that I could see what hope God's call held for me.
It took me close to 20 minutes.
I had the impression that on every channel there was a different world, a world separate from all the others around it, isolated on its own, and with the eyes of my mind, I looked closer at each of these worlds.
I saw three new dramatic shows for high school teens. It is not our purpose here to evaluate their content and concepts. The point I would like to make is that they were asking teens to think ethically, morally and theologically about important issues. And asking questions is a good first step to discussion and dialogue.
When we discussed the topic of “stress” during our confirmation class, I learned that the biggest cause of stress for the confirmands was not family situations - no, not brothers and sisters! It was not relationships with peers. No, it was teachers - those whom we hope would alleviate stress in our children and help fill them with confidence. And usually it was just one teacher who was not seeing eye-to-eye with a student. They were worlds apart, sometimes causing such unimaginable stress in their lives.
We all know how important it is to have good teachers, and we are fortunate when we do have good teachers.
We were blessed this morning as we celebrated and acknowledged the contributions of our Sunday School teachers. They are an essential part of a thriving church school community.
For Jesus himself was a teacher.
When Jesus told the disciples the parables, the disciples knew enough to look beneath the surface. For example, when Jesus spoke of the woman and her lost coin (Luke 15:8), the disciples didn't say “Hey, what woman was that? We will teach her not to lose things, to be more careful. Why didn't she tell someone sooner?” No, the disciples listened and looked for a deeper meaning, a spiritual meaning.
That is what Jesus does. He teaches from the spiritual perspective, “interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.” While the mind of Christ is aware of human wisdom, it is full of spiritual wisdom.
You may ask, “When our worlds seem so far apart, how do we tune into this spiritual wisdom?”
It may appear that we need a translator - someone to tell us what it all means, or a guide to show us the way; at the least, a bridge to bring us closer.
Max Lucado in his book Just Like Jesus asks this question a little differently. He says, “How, then, do I live in God's presence? How do I detect his [God's] unseen hand on my shoulder and his [God's] inaudible voice in my ear?” He uses the metaphor of a sheep becoming familiar with the voice of its shepherd. The more we listen in the quiet spaces, the more we, too, become familiar with the sound of God's call.
When you and another person are at opposite ends of the world, the expression “worlds apart” has an obvious meaning. But what happens when you are living with that person everyday, face to face, up close and personal?
In the musical that Spirit Express teens just recently presented here at Eaton Memorial, there was a character called Mr. Cellophane (a character that Spencer Barnes, one of our youth, so superbly portrayed).
In the musical he sang a line to his wife that said, “You would think that after sleeping with someone for seven years in the same bed, you'd notice him!”
Yes, we can be so close to someone and still feel like we are worlds apart. Yet we continually want that person to understand us, to feel like us, to be like us.
There is no doubt that we are worlds apart in a human sense! You can look at any area of your life and see. We don't all like the same foods, watch the same movies, listen to the same music or wear the same clothes. Our relationships need work, our goals and expectations may fall short and there is often a struggle between generations.
And when we come into this world at birth, we grow separate from our mothers and (we hope) learn to become caring individuals. But we are individuals. That is undeniable, and human wisdom would leave us right there - as individuals, separate and alone.
But we have the mind of Christ! We have spiritual wisdom! In every life situation - though you may feel worlds apart from where you need to be - Jesus is the bridge and the Holy Spirit is the wind at your back encouraging you across. Yes, it's easy to think of ourselves as separate.
It is easy to think we are alone. But we need to look again! For, as Matt. 6:22 teaches, when our “eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.” (Matt. 6:22)
Dr. Hawkins - “Power vs. Force” speaks of one of the most powerful choices we can make as humans - the act of KINDNESS. Jesus was preaching this 2,000 years ago.
A wonderful contemporary example of this kindness and caring is shown by Linda Campbell, who was awarded “Nurse of the Year” in early May of this year. In an article in the Toronto Star, Linda explained how rewarding it was for her: “You can make such a difference.”
I watched an interview with Maria Shriver on TV. Maria is a TV journalist and the wife of the governor of California, and she was speaking of her new children's book titled, What's Happening to Grandpa? The book is a result of the struggle she experienced trying to come to terms with her new relationship with her father, Sargent Shriver, after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Sargent Shriver has made phenomenal humanitarian contributions, especially through the Peace Corps. Maria Shriver confided that she had to learn all over again how to love her father for who he was NOW, today.
I think that is a very powerful observation: We must learn to love each other for who we are today. Not for who we were yesterday, but for who we are now in God's world.
Scripture tells us that we can't even begin to imagine “what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) This same love is the bridge over our troubled relationships, closing the gap between distant shores and through the generations.
Worship helps to bring worlds together. (This is one of the elements I love about worship here at TEMC.) Through the teaching of Jesus, the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and the ministry of music and drama, our children, our youth, our seniors and our adults come together to participate and lead in worship in a most meaningful way.
Intergenerational? Inter-inspirational! All ages worship.
In conclusion, sometimes we have to look at the big picture, at more than one channel on the TV screen from one perspective.
The wisdom of the mind of Christ surrounds us. It embraces us in love, envelopes us in light - in this nave, in your living room, while driving your car and as you listen on your surround sound speakers at home.
It penetrates into us. It is an inseparable part of who we are as Christians. It encourages us to be more than whom we think we are. Connects us and re-connects us again and again to Christ - each time we stray and then try to find our way back home.
Are we really worlds apart? In this united church? In the interconnected body of Christ?
So when you look at your parents, or look at your life partner, or look at your children and teenagers and are certainly tempted to shout, “But we are worlds apart. How are we ever going to get it together?”
Look also to the mind of Christ. Put Christ at the centre.
And know that you are loved… more than you could ever imagine.
As the confirmands prepare in just a few short weeks to be confirmed and to re-affirm themselves as Christians and members of this church, I applaud them. I am continually amazed at their gifts, their strengths, their ideas and their enthusiasm. And I welcome them, as I pray you all will do, into the one, world-wide body of Christ. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.