Monday Morning Preacher: Recycled sermons

I saw the readings for this week and thought, "hmmm...I believe I've preached on this before...and at a completely different church..."  A brief search later and voila! A sermon! One from 6 years ago, in full manuscript form, and not related to a current event.  SCORE!

I've never actually recycled a sermon before, so it was an interesting experience.  What I learned is that I couldn't use it as-is.  I had to rework it a bit to incorporate both for where I am now and to take into account that this is not new material.

First of all, the original version began, "I’ve been thinking about snakes this week." Well, that was a week six years ago, so I changed the beginning to strive for truth and accuracy.

Secondly, I completely rewrote the ending.  If you read the sermon below, everything from "let’s take a look at what this might mean for us" is totally new.  In the original, I thought I had done a good job with the exposition but blown it on the application part. So I had to revisit that.  I'm still worried it's a bit too Lenten and penitential, but I hope that for all the emphasis on "look at the bad, not just the good," there's a strongly positive underlying message.

Finally, another recent influence and change in tone came from reading up on Evelyn Underhill for Lent Madness (she's in Round 2 Wednesday!  Vote!--and today, too, of course), so the notion of the God as Reality was top of mind for me and became an important element in the sermon.

So even though a lot of the work was already done for me, this was still a sermon that grew out of where I am right now.  A heck of a lot easier to write, though.  And people really seemed to like it, so that's good too.

What's your experience of recycling sermons?

Sermon: Looking at the snake that bit you (abridged)

Preached Lent IV, March 18, 2012
St. Giles, Moraga
Readings

Let’s talk about snakes. In particular, let’s talk about these snakes in the desert, biting the wandering Israelites. Even more in particular, here’s the question: Why did the Lord send snakes to bite and potentially kill the Israelites when the Lord had taken such trouble bringing them out of Egypt? Is God a despot like King Lear who depends upon the flattery and kind words of those close to him? And then goes insane when that flattery isn’t there?

There certainly seems to be a taste of petulance and perhaps even insanity about this story: if you’re going to be thankless, then I’m going to send serpents. And then if you’re sorry, I’ll heal you. That will show you, God seems to say. If that is the case, then that’s a God I can’t worship. A God that says, “You don’t like me, so I’m going to punish you,” is not one that I want to adore. A God that works by fear and intimidation isn’t a God that I feel I could rightfully call compassionate or loving.

I think it’s just a cheap trick to say, “That’s the Old Testament God and God isn’t like that any more.” Instead, I want to take a deeper look at this nasty little story and see if maybe there isn’t something else to be found there. Perhaps there is more here than first meets the eye.

First of all, where in the Old Testament story are we? When you hear the Red Sea, you might think that we are towards the beginning of the Israelite’s wandering in the wilderness, but in fact, we have come a long, long way. And the people have complained almost every step of the way from the beginning of the departure from Egypt until now. When we finally get to this story that we heard this morning, by my count the people have complained that they were going to die in the wilderness six times. This is the seventh time we have heard the Israelites complain against Moses and the Lord, saying they wish they had never been brought out of Egypt.

With all that in mind, and with the knowledge that this is the end of a long series of complaints and rescues, here is my thought about these snakes: I think that the Lord made flesh the very snakes that were already there, the snakes of fear and faithlessness that had been biting and poisoning and plaguing the Israelites throughout their entire journey. Let me say a little more about that.

You may have heard this definition of a sacrament: a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. I think these serpents are anti-sacraments: outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual illness. To me, that explains why the response of the Israelites to the appearance of these serpents was to say to Moses, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you.” It’s because they recognized these serpents for what they were: a physical manifestation of their attitude and behaviors.

It also explains to me the next thing that happens. The Israelites say, “Pray to the Lord to take the serpents away from us,” but that’s not what happens. Instead the Lord says, “Make a poisonous serpent and put it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” Instead of getting rid of the serpents, God tells the people to look at the snake that bit them. No longer do they get to ignore the snakes; and the snakes don’t go away. The means of dealing with the poison of the snakes is that the people have to look at the snake that bit them.

Now, let’s take a look at what this might mean for us.

One of the problems I personally have with being forgiven is the part where I have to look at what I’m being forgiven for. I’m very happy to be forgiven. I’m even fine with repentance and amendment of life. It’s the part where I actually have to recognize what I’ve done that’s hurt someone else, that’s poisoned my relationships and hindered my community, that I have a hard time with. I don’t want to admit to the snakey parts of me. I’d rather be all pretty birds and fluffy bunnies and would prefer that those snakes just went away. But when I just ignore them, that doesn’t take care of the poison in the system.

The thing this story says to me is that as awful and ugly and scary and creepy as it is, I need to look at the snake that bit me. Being scared of it is not going to help. Running away from it is not going to help. Because there’s something about looking at that nasty snake, as awful as it is, that prepares the way for God to fully heal me.

I think Jesus is saying something similar as he speaks to Nicodemus. "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” he says, followed by that most famous line:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

And I am going to sacrilegiously change two words of that verse. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who looks at him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Looking at Jesus, not to see what we want to see, but to see what is really there. To see the one who challenges us about our behavior and says we must do more than follow the law. To see the one reverses our assumptions about who is an acceptable companion and who is important. To see the one who calls those he loves to suffer. To see the one who failed utterly, who was betrayed, whose disciples abandoned him at his lowest point. To see the resurrected Christ who appeared to dubious or unreliable witnesses and depended on them to tell the world he is alive. When it comes right down to it, when I really look at Jesus, that’s what I see.

Believing is easy. Looking is hard. Whether it’s the snake of our own actions or the savior who doesn’t follow our rules, it is hard to look, to really look, to not take shortcuts to healing or belief. But to get to healing, to belief, to the promised land, to eternal life, first we must look.

And in looking, I don’t see a God who wants flattery. Just the opposite: I see a God who wants people to see the truth, to face reality, to acknowledge the bad as well as the good, the sorrow as well as the joy, the hard things as well as the easy ones.

So here are the two things these readings ask of us today: to look at ourselves: not just the pretty birds and bunnies, but the snakes as well; and to look at Jesus: not a sweet and affirming Jesus, but the Jesus who challenges us and loves us and calls us to new and eternal life. Because it is only after truly looking that we can truly believe.

Survey says...

Thanks to all of you who participated in the survey I posted on my 5th blogoversary, asking you what you want to see in the future. I was surprised by the results, actually.  Here's what you said:

What topics or types of posts would you like to see on The Infusion in the future?
Listed in order of preference:
1. Commentary on current affairs. 76.9%
[really?!  You want my commentary? I'm flattered...also very surprised.]

2. A three-way tie at 69.2%:

• Reviews and recommendations
• Religious reflections
• Spouting off/opinionated and often ignorant rants

[a strange combination of things.]

3. Episcopal Church politics 61.5%
[this also surprised me, but I guess it reflects the audience!]

4. A two-way tie at 53.8%

• Photos/videos/tales of cute animals, mostly my own
• Random tidbits of fabulousness

[So I guess I'm keeping the Various & Sundry feature]

5. Obituary observations 46.2%

[Not a shock that this isn't everybody's favorite, but you're probably just going to have to put up with that]

6. A two-way tie at 38.5%

• Garden updates
• Snark

[what if they're snarky garden updates?]

7. The scandalous activities of my friends and relations 23.1%

[Why do I think it was the people who aren't my friends and relations who voted for this?]

8. And the two that tied for last place at 15.4%

• Advice to the lovelorn/bewildered
• Zombies

[which is just as well, since I don't have much advice for bewildered, lovelorn zombies.]

In the comments, people kindly wrote "Anything you want" and "Write early, write often." One person had the specific request for sermons, which I shall continue to post.

I also asked if you would like me to repost old blog entries from time to time.  Over 80% of you said "sure," so I will do that from time to time when I run out of opinionated rants on current affairs.

Thank you all again for your feedback! It was so great to hear from you.

P.S. You can find the map of Kyrgyzstan here.

Sunday Funnies, March 18

 Thanks, Este!

This week in death

It's been another big week in death, obit fans. No big names, but some truly big characters left this world this week.

Let's start with Lord Revelstoke, shall we? Born James Baring and later the 6th Lord Revelstoke, he was a daredevil flyer, owned a recording studio used by (among others) the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix, and a consultant to the Oxford Refugee Council.  Other than that, he led a rather ordinary life.

I loved the crazy tale of Raymond Scott, "a self-professed Ferrari-owning connoisseur of vintage champagne, beautiful girls and Cuban cigars, [who] sparked a literary sensation in 2008 when he claimed to have unearthed an unknown 1623 First Folio of the collected plays of Shakespeare." By a remarkable coincidence, a strangely similar 1623 First Folio had been stolen 10 years earlier from Durham University, 10 miles from his mother's house. He claimed it had been given to him by the friend of his true love, a dancer he had met in Cuba. So that seems like a reasonable alibi, then. Can't think why that didn't cut the mustard.

Then there's Mira Hamermesh, a documentarian whose own life was just as harrowing as the ones she documented.  Born in Poland in 1923, she fled ahead of the Nazis and got to Palestine.  Both her parents stayed in Poland and died.  She went on to make films about the untouchable caste in India and women living under apartheid in South Africa. As the Telegraph puts in, "her documentaries had explored virtually every regime of oppression except for the Holocaust." Finally, in 1991, she created a film about trying to find her mother's grave in Warsaw, called Loving the Dead.

In baseball news, umpire Harry Wendelstedt died last Friday.  As the head of the Al Somers Umpire School, he is responsible for every bad call made by an umpire.  Seems reasonable, doesn't it?

I was sad to hear about the death of Donald Smith, champion of Cabaret, as the Times puts it.  He created the Mabel Mercer Foundation to promote cabaret singing as an art form, "partly Mr. Smith’s response to obituaries and tributes that misleadingly described Ms. Mercer as a jazz singer." Ah, those obits, meddling in people's lives. Good work, sir, and here's hoping your good work continues.

Last but certainly not least, the tea world lost a giant this week in the death of Noble Fleming, official tea taster for Lipton for almost 50 years. "For decades, starting as a teenage apprentice, Mr. Fleming traveled to tea estates of 1,000 acres or more — primarily in India, Sri Lanka and East Africa — searching for varieties with specific tastes in the way an oenologist knows a chateau wine." I raise my Darjeeling to you, sir.

Various & Sundry, March 16: Curmudgeons, zombies, muppets

In case you haven't been keeping track of Lent Madness, we're now in the round of Saintly Sixteen, and today is the Battle of the Curmudgeons! Philander Chase faces off against Jerome, and I think it's the end of the road for ol' Phil, there.  But that's OK.  I like Jerome.  Still time to vote, though!

I think my blood pressure has finally returned to normal regarding the Kony 2012 video.  One last thing--maybe, we'll see--that I want to pass on to you is this blog post from Independent Global Citizen that answers the question, "So what do I do if I want to make a difference in Africa?" The answer? "My experiences have revealed an effective way to have an impact. Build sincere relationships with Africans. That’s it."

The results of the recent survey asking you what you wanted in The Infusion revealed most of you are not particularly worried about the impending zombie apocalypse.  Fine.  Be that way.  I still think you might want a white chocolate zombie rabbit for Easter.  At last a good reason to eat the head off first.

In other blood-spattered news, I'm looking forward to The Happytime Murders, a film noir featuring muppets!  Anibundel has the report:

[E]x-cop Phil Phillips...exists in a world where puppets are acknowledged but play second fiddle to humans. Phil is searching for a serial killer who murdered his brother and is now targeting cast members of ’80s television show, The Happytime Gang. The catch? The clues to the killer’s identity begin to point back to Phil himself.

I am so there.

Kony 2012 is shown in Northern Uganda

It didn't go over well. More here.