"The Inner Secret"
Advice for fathers and others
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Text: John 15:1-11
As one of the fathers in our congregation read our Scripture lesson today, Mr. McCombe, I was thinking about the passage that he read from the Gospel of John in which Jesus talked about being the vine.
As I was contemplating this passage a couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in my own garden looking at a fountain where there had once been beautiful flowers. I say once, meaning before I started the gardening. So, in place of what were beautiful bougainvilleas and other gorgeous flowers, I put a fountain.
That fountain has been a source of great comfort to me. It was supposed to be, first of all, a thing of beauty, to fill a gap and to look good. Secondly, it was supposed to give a refreshing atmosphere to the back garden on hot summer days. But I have discovered, having it on quite a lot, that there is a residual effect that a lot of people refer to as “white noise.” In other words, the sound of water running covers up the clamour, the noise of the city. Even though those noises are still out there, the traffic still goes by, the planes still fly overhead, somehow what you hear as the dominant sound is the water. It makes all the other noises of the world somehow seem bearable.
It's a wonderful way of bringing down one's stress level as well. Listening to running water has a calming effect. It's very obvious that the world desires a calming effect.
I went into a book store a couple of weeks ago and found amongst all the other categories - you know: transportation, health, well-being, sports, etc. - there is a new section now. It's called “Got Angst?” There's a whole series of books that deal with anxiety and angst. That just shows you the world that we're living in when there's a whole classification of literature dedicated to dealing with angst. We live in a world that needs to have some white noise, needs to have something to bring down the clamour and the tension and the stresses of life.
I think of fathers today and the stresses and strains on their daily lives. The need to balance their work and their families, the need to be all things to all people. It is a very tense thing and sometimes it is a thankless position.
I read an article asking fathers what would bring them real fulfilment in their lives, what would bring them peace? Would it be when they'd attained great status in their life? Would it be when the mortgage was paid off? Would it be when their children received a university education and so on? Many of the fathers responded, “No, real peace comes when the children leave home and I get the car back. That's what I'm looking forward to.”
If you don't think it's stressful being a father, how about this analysis done of telephone calls by Illinois Bell a couple of years ago. They compared the number of telephone calls that people receive on Mother's Day and Father's Day. They were pleased to say that there were nearly as many calls made to fathers on Father's Day as there are to mothers on Mother's Day. The only difference is most of them were collect calls.
It's hard to be a father, isn't it? It has its stresses and strains. A little bit of peace is what a lot of fathers would like to have in their lives. It is such an important role. It is a vital part of our society, and if there isn't the caring and loving, if there isn't the outpouring of affection, then there is great damage done.
One of the most famous biographers of all time was a man named Boswell. He wrote the biography of Samuel Johnson. In his own writings, Boswell bragged about his father taking him on a fishing trip. He wrote about this fishing trip and how he was deeply moved by what he was able to learn from his father, how he loved to bond with his him and learn about his profession. It was one of the highlights of his life.
A researcher some years later analyzed the diary that Boswell's father kept. He looked to see whether there was an account of that fishing trip. There was. The father wrote, “Gone fishing with my son. A day wasted.”
It's amazing. We get caught up in the stresses and strains and the challenges of life that spending time with children is sometimes, to some, a day wasted. The stresses and demands of life can get people thinking in such a way. This morning I want a word for our fathers, but not just our fathers, for our mothers, for those who have no children, indeed for all of us. It is what I would like to call the “white noise” of the Gospel in a very stressful world.
The Gospel speaks to us of the need for peace in our souls and lives, in order that all other things might find their proper order. Do not misunderstand me; I am not trying to say that the end is peace and the means is the Gospel. I am not saying that the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is just another self-help tool for getting to the ultimate goal of being at peace. On the contrary, I would say the following: “Having faith in God in Jesus Christ will lead to peace.” The beginning is actually faith, the result is peace, rather than starting with a desire for peace and then trying to find the gospel amongst many other means and ways of achieving it.
Indeed, if you look at our passage today from the Gospel of John, Jesus is reaching out with a powerful message to the disciples. To help us put this in some context I want to use as a structure for my sermon this morning a poem that has meant very much to me. It was also one of my father's favourites. It is a hymn by John Henry Newman, Lead Kindly Light:
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
There is a sense here that faith is stepping out into the darkness, into the noise and clamour of the world. It is stepping out into the difficulties and challenges of life. It does not mean that those challenges diminish. It does not mean that they are eradicated. Rather, it means that faith in Christ is a means whereby we handle the challenges of life.
No one knew this more acutely than Jesus. The passage this morning is part of the farewell discourse in John's Gospel, a time when Jesus knew that He was leaving His disciples, and wanted to give them words of hope and inspiration for what was going to be the emerging doom of the cross.
Jesus wanted them to know that no matter what they were going to face in their lives, and no matter what He, the Lord was going to face, there was the opportunity to abide in Him. If He was the vine, they were the branches. No matter what they faced they would have the strength to be able to deal with it. That's what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. It's a source of strength in the journey, not in removing the stresses of life, but in giving us that abiding love in Christ that enables us to deal with these stresses.
There is a long-told legend of a king who wanted a painting for his great palace. This painting would be a source of peace for all who entered into the palace. He asked a hundred artists to produce a painting within a year and he would choose one to hang in the palace. After submissions from all over his kingdom, he narrowed it down to two, and put them on display. The first was an idyllic scene of a calm lake that was like a millpond. Behind it were glorious white-capped mountains with the sun rising behind them and casting a shadow on the waters. Around the lake there were daffodils growing and the sun was shining. It was tranquil.
The second painting was of a torrent of a waterfall cascading over a rugged cliff. Coming out of the stones on the face of the waterfall were branches. Overhead were clouds and lightning striking. The scene seemed dark, but in the midst of it, on one of the branches right over the waterfall was a bird sitting gently on a nest of eggs at the end of the branch, while the torrent swirled all around her.
Against the advice of all the sages in his kingdom, the king chose the latter to be the symbol for peace. He did so, he said, “because peace is not the absence of conflict; peace is the presence of a power that even in the midst of conflict protects life.”
That's what God is like. And that's what Jesus was offering His disciples in today's passage. As He was leaving, He told them to step out into the difficulties of life, to take the challenges on wherever they may face them, but to be reassured even in the midst of a torrential waterfall, not a lovely fountain that He would be with them. “I will abide with you and you will abide with me” - and therein lies your peace.
This poem goes on to talk about stepping onto a path:
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!
Here John Henry Newman is writing about the fact that we often try to select our own paths in life, and we do not take the time to seek the path that God has for us.
There is a wonderful moment in the Book of Job where Eliphaz gives some advice to his friend Job in his time of trouble: “Agree with God, and be at peace; in this way good will come to you. Receive instruction from his mouth, and lay up his words in your heart.”
In other words, the source of peace is when we actually walk in the path of God. When we face the challenges of life we need to maintain our fidelity to God. Jesus put it this way: “If you keep my commandments, if you will be obedient to me, you will abide in my love.” The problem with the world is that we think that somehow we can have peace in our lives even if we are not obedient to God. We can simply choose our own path, walk along our own way and then assume that peace will happen magically. The more we fill our lives with beautiful music or waterfalls or lovely literature, somehow that in and of itself, will artificially enable us to have the strength to cope with the challenges of life.
My friends, do not be fooled. Such things are temporary bandages on the cracks of life. When the waterfalls come you need to be attached to something much stronger than artificial things - you need God. Being obedient and following in the path of God is the true path of peace. Sometimes this is ridiculed, because some believe that the path of God just makes us feel guilty and the more guilty we feel, the more empty we feel. And the more empty we feel, the more stressed we feel and the more stressed we feel, the less we are at peace. Therefore the problem lies with God. Then we wonder why we live in a world that often drives itself onto the rocks of despair.
One of the writers who has influenced me the most over the years is actually not a Christian at all, Albert Camus. Although not a believer, really an agnostic, he wasn't an atheist. He wrote, along with his compatriot Jean-Paul Sartre, much about the despair of life. For a while in the 1950s Camus attended a church in Paris run by a very low-key American Methodist minister. This minister didn't try to sell Camus on religion, he just told him that he was not alone in this life. This is what Albert Camus had to say of his engagement with that minister:
The reason I have been coming to church recently is because I am seeking. I'm almost on a pilgrimage, seeking something to fill the void that I am experiencing and no one else knows. Certainly the public and the readers of my novels, when they see that void, are not finding the answers in what they are reading, but deep down, Reverend, you are right. I am searching for something that the world is not giving me. In a sense we are all products of a mundane world, a world without spirit. The world in which we live and the lives that we live are decidedly empty. Since I have been coming to church, I have been thinking a great deal about the idea of a transcendent being, something that is other than this world. It is something that you do not hear much about these days, but I'm finding it and you've made it clear to me, Reverend, that we are not the only ones in this world, there is something that is invisible. We may not hear the voice but there is some way in which we become aware that we are not the only ones in the world and that there is help for us all.
My friends, he could be writing in 2004 in the middle of Toronto. He could be writing of a world of seekers who are craving peace and belonging, for something more that fulfills and is deep. To that world this morning and to those fathers who sometimes feel like Camus, I say, “Listen to Jesus. Abide in me and I in you.”
There is one last stanza from Newman's poetry that has always touched me deeply:
So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it will, will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!
Here I believe is a passage of eternity, that we step into the peace of light.
As I was standing in front of that “Got Angst” section, a young man stood looking at this section alongside me. I couldn't resist asking because I thought, “How can a young man of 17 or 18 want to take out a book on angst?” So I said to him, “Have you read any of these?”
He looked at me with great surprise and said, “No. Not yet.”
So I said, “Are you thinking of reading one of these?”
He said, “Yes I am.”
I said, “You mean, you've got angst.”
He said, “Man, have I got angst. I'm in the middle of exams. Have I got angst.”
I said, “Well, what's causing you angst?”
He said, “I haven't got enough time to study.”
I said, “Maybe if you were studying instead of hanging around in a book store, it might be better.”
He said, “Man, you sound like my father. I can't think unless I get a little bit of peace in my life.”
I don't know what he did after that or whether he passed his exams, I hope he is listening on the radio this morning. I wish him well, I really do. He needs better study habits, but I wish him well. I keep thinking about what he said: “I can't think without some peace.” One can't have a life that is full, even while writing exams without peace. If we don't have peace in our lives, there's so little we can do. Jesus knew that peace comes by faith. He knew that peace comes from God. That that peace is not just for now, but into eternity. It is a peace that can come through prayer.
This week I'm going to be teaching a course on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When Bonhoeffer was in prison, not long before his execution, a young man was crying and wailing in the cell next to him. Bonhoeffer realized that something was wrong and spoke to the guard. He said, “What's wrong with the young man?”
The guard responded, “Tomorrow this young man is to be executed.”
Listening to his sobbing, Bonhoeffer cried out, “I'm a minister, would you like my help?”
The young man said, “I don't believe in God.”
Bonhoeffer said, “Put your hand up against the wall.” Bonhoeffer also put his hand up against the wall of his cell and this was the prayer that he offered: “Lord, it's dark in me, in you is day. I am alone, but you will stay. I am afraid, you never cease. I am at war, but in you is peace.”
As the prayer ended the young man leaned his head up against the wall and cried. The next day there was silence in the cell and Bonhoeffer asked the guard what had happened. He said that the young man had been taken away and executed. But he added, “Never in my whole life have I seen anyone face such a fate with such peace.”
That's what I mean by the power of faith. I may be at war in me, but in God is peace. And when that peace comes it brings forth one last thing and that is love. You can't love if you don't have peace, but if you have that peace you have perfect love that drives out fear and you care for others.
One of the most moving things that I have ever heard was an interview with one of Toronto's leading thinkers, a man who had led in his field. He was asked, “When do you think you will be successful?”
He said, “Well, I don't know. When I have reached the top of my profession? No. When I have accumulated all that the world has to give me? No. When I am recognized and my books sell millions? No.” Then he thought and said, “I will be successful when my children are better citizens than I am.”
Fathers, today think of the peace that faith brings and from that peace may your example shine and your love be shown. For as Jesus said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.