Anthony De Mello tells a story of a little town in America where people gathered in the evening to make music. They had a saxophonist, a drummer, and a violinist, mostly older people. They got together for the company and for the sheer joy of making music, even though they didn't do it very well. So they were enjoying themselves and having a good time, until one day they decided to get themselves a new conductor who had a lot of ambition and drive. The new conductor told them, "Hey folks, we need to have a concert for the whole town." Then he gradually got rid of some people who didn't play very well, hired a few professional musicians, got an orchestra into shape, and they got all their names in the newspaper. They eventually decided to move to the big city and play there. But some of the older people had tears in their eyes. They said, "It was so wonderful in the old days when we did things badly and enjoyed them".Our culture is one that, at our birth, has instilled in us the impulse to continually never be satisfied with ourselves. There are times when this can be healthy for us, but most often it is one that destroys our esteem. Under the multitude of fads and obsessions are people who want to be simply themselves... completely, wholly, broken. Maybe that is what Jesus meant by saying "be perfect", or complete. God wants us to be whole humans, even as badly as we fail to be!
This is a copy of portions of a sermon that I preached last year during Lent, I got to thinking this year about how "the interruptions" are ruling my life again. It is good to remember the cross... Living with Interruptions
Isaiah 58:8-9a
March 24, 2004
North Section CoB Lenten Series
I have a disclaimer for this evening’s message. And it is this: You can never play the role of a prophet until you have discovered in yourself that which you accuse others of.
It’s called the “But-First” syndrome. You know. It’s when you decide to do the laundry. So you start down the stairs with the laundry, but then you see the newspapers on the table, ok you’ll do the laundry.
But first, you decide to put the newspapers away. So on your way in to put the newspapers away, you notice the mail on the table. Ok you’ll put the newspapers away. But first you’ll pay that bill that needs to be paid. So you look for the checkbook. Oops... there’s the baby bottle from yesterday on the floor. Ok you’ll pay the bill.
But first you need to put the bottle in the sink. You head for the kitchen. Oh man, there’s the remote for the TV. What’s it doing here? Isn’t that normally attached to my husband’s hand? Oh well! You need to put the bottle in the sink. But first you need to put the remote away. Head for the living room and you step on the dog and the remote control flies out of your hand. The dog limps over to the remote and tries to eat it. You then remember that the dog needs to be fed. Ok you’ll put the remote away. But first you need to feed the dog....
So here’s what happens at the end of the day... laundry not done, newspapers on the floor, bottle on the table, bills unpaid, checkbook still lost, dog ate the remote control, and husband can’t watch television without the remote.... And when you try to figure out how come not a thing got done all day, you are baffled because... you know that you were busy all day!
“Your light shall break forth like the dawn”, says the author of Isaiah. You know, maybe not! I mean not with all these distractions and interruptions in our lives, can our light ever truly break forth? It depends, I believe, on our mentality.
Maybe we are as Richard Rohr says “in the middle of a 2nd Copernican Revolution. The first Copernican Revolution was during the 17th Century and was the realization that the earth is not the center of the universe; it is merely just a small dot in the mix of something much bigger. The second Copernican Revolution is the realization that I am not the center of the universe and that the world does not revolve around me”. And if we are honest with ourselves, anything that gets in the way of our “self” becomes the distraction that keeps us from ourselves.
Then Jesus, as he always does which is always too much for us, tells us what it means to be a follower. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who will lose their life for my sake will find it.” You see our life was never really ours, it is God’s. Yet we cling to our “selves” in fear that the image of God may indeed begin to reveal itself in us.
Here it is. The great interruption, the cross of our life, the thing that asks us to give up our own lives, which sadly enough most of us have never done or are willing to do. Sure many of us have given it up in our heads, but as we know this isn’t a spirituality of the head rather of the heart, the gut. In our culture and in the church today it is too much to ask of us to take up our cross and follow the victim, the lamb… and if we were honest we really wanted a lion. We can never take up our cross or deny our selves without first letting go of our lives. We tend to put off the interruption even in the language we use. We have chosen to only worship Jesus rather than to also follow him, because we know that the moment we choose to follow him, we will be asked to lose everything. And that my brothers and sisters is too much of an interruption in our lives. Therefore, it becomes safer to just worship Christ, which he never once told us to do, than to follow him which he told us to do seventeen times.
Henry Nouwen tells the story of a time when he visited the University of Notre Dame. He met an older, experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. The professor said with a certain melancholy in his voice, “You know my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until one day I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”
Has the cross… maybe better said has your cross become a part of your work? A part of your life? Or has it merely become another interruption in your life, one that gets put off ‘til the next day then the next and so on. Your vindicator has gone before you, set his face to Jerusalem, and bore his cross, died so that you/we may live. Brothers and sisters, Jesus’ death allows for us to live completely and wholly in the presence and love of God. And here comes the paradox: In order to live this abundant life we must move toward the fringes of our lives so that we may truly live from the center. So prepare… to live with the interruption. It’s about letting that great interruption become a part of who you are and who you are becoming in Christ. Then maybe just maybe your light will begin to break forth like the dawn. Rest assured…. It won’t be your light but the light of Christ that dwells within you.
The following post comes from an edited analysis that I did for class. This post is simply notes that were taken with some of my own thoughts. So it might seem a little scattered but I felt that it is an important conversation that American's need to be engaged in if we are to ever be effective in the international community again.
What is America’s role in the world? Depending on who you ask, you might get a variety of responses with many variables. In spite of what the United States government and the media may project, there is a growing concern on campuses; in communities and globally that the U.S. is not taking a responsible role with its supremacy, resources and foreign policy. This perspective is one that is seen through the eyes of those who have more international ties and not conducive to our own opinions, beliefs and persuasions.
I will be reflecting and commenting on notes that I took on presentations that took place during Manchester College's tradition of Discussion Day with the 2005 topic "America's Role in the World - An International Perspective". The first will be Dr. G. John Ikenberry’s speech on “American Power and the Future of World Order”, in which Ikenberry discusses America’s power in regards to foreign policy and global responsibilities. The second will be the Rev. William Sloane Coffin’s “A Lover’s Quarrel with His Country”, in which Coffin discusses ways in which we define patriotism and what the real “axis of evil” is and how to fight it.
Dr. Ikenberry, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as well as, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs’ presentation dealt with the subject matter in which his life has been immersed in, foreign policy and international affairs.
His presentation discussed such items as the military golf courses that are abroad, 123 of them to be exact; to using such realistic quotes as “The U.S. and Europe only have about 20 years left to have their hands on global influence before countries like China and India become major players as well”. As far as the U.S. foreign policy he said that if we could just be willing to become an equal exchange partner when it comes to fair trade, soldiers wouldn’t have to cross borders.
He named five shifts that are taking place in today’s world that were not present following the Second World War. They are in order: a decline in old threats, a rise of new non-national threats, the privatization (and rhetoric that gives power) of war, the rise of the U.S. as a single superpower (unipolarity), the rise of new power centers such as China and India and the rise of religious extremism. These have led to such events as 9/11 and the War on Terror.
He also listed three arguments that reinforce the shifts taking place within the U.S. government and its policies. Such reasons as looking to the past to see what the future will be like, the Bush Revolution that gives power to neoconservatives that want to solve the world’s problems and that long term shifts play a major part in the role of change. “If the U.S. does not have a positive impact on international relations, then we will fail as a superpower and a nation. And if we fail as a superpower we will be supplanted by a stronger one.”
In conclusion, Dr. Ikenberry made a strong claim that “if the United States does not have a positive impact and bind itself to the international community we will be unsuccessful as a superpower and a nation”. He closed his presentation with a quote from Paracletes that said “I worry less about strategies of my enemies than I do of my own estate.”
Rev. William Sloane Coffin, an advocate for progressive Christianity and long-time supporter for an end to the nuclear race, had a video presentation that discussed how we can better fight the “axis of evil” by naming what exactly that is as well as defining exactly what are the true/false notions of a patriot in the United States.
He encapsulated the emotion that Americans felt following 9/11. “The insecurity produced by 9/11 is responsible largely for the fresh militancy in this country… We have a self-righteousness now that comes from feeling unfairly hurt… a lot of people in the world are being unfairly hurt. But we closed in on ourselves and now the most powerful nation in the world became the victim of victim-hood… after 9/11 we had the world’s good will and we have squandered it!” He then describes the response to that “felt” sense of insecurity that we expressed to the global community, “The United States that has become “a victim of victim-hood”.
Rev. Coffin had a wealth of quotes such as: “My pride swollen face has closed up mine eyes” from St. Augustine; “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men and women”, by Abraham Lincoln; and the French philosopher Pascal that said: “Human beings never do evil so cheerfully as when they do it out of religious conviction.” All of these anecdotes heightened the awareness of our current circumstance in America that Rev. Coffin asked the audience to identify with.
He continued to discuss the U.S.’s foreign policy and apathetic tendencies when it comes to poverty, pollution and warfare. “Our military budget alone is greater than the next 15 military budgets combined… we’re acting like winners that couldn’t care less about the losers.” He continued with what most Americans would counter as anti-American, “We know that dissent is not disloyal. What is unpatriotic is subservience.”
According to Coffin there are three kinds of patriotism. “The two bad ones are “uncritical love of your country” and “loveless criticism”. While the good patriots are “those who can carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country… as a reflection of God’s eternal love quarrel with the entire world.” We as citizens can address the flaws of the country in such a way that we are “true patriots”.
“We need a single standard… there must be either universal permission or universal prohibition”, as it pertains to the nuclear arms race and those countries that have chosen to practice a nuclear apartheid. Rev. Coffin’s conclusion that most impacted the audience was his claim that “the axis of evil is not Iran, Iraq and North Korea. A much more formidable trio is environmental degradation, pandemic poverty, and a world awash with weapons”. The moment we start to focus on these evils, our world will be better suited to take care of, and not destroy one another.
I would conclude by saying that we must allow truth to invade our being, truth that at the same time gives us reassurance that we effectively preserve our own stances while still able to cry at the wrongdoing that takes place within the very fabric of our society. Both Ikenberry and Coffin would say that we can not go on as we have been, otherwise we are sure to see doom that spans not only our nation but the world. What effect will this have on our lives today? How can we be true patriots? How can we better bind ourselves to one another? What will happen when we finally do?
