Sermon for Sunday, June 15, 2008.
Genesis 18:1-15.
Rev. Sharon James Fazel
The other day, at home, I rolled up a shade over a window downstairs
that opens at eye level over our front yard. Dylan was upstairs, Chris
was here at church at a meeting. And as I opened the shade, the most
wonderful vision presented itself. A fleet footed doe bounded headlong
before my eyes, from the direction of the street, past the corner of
the house, toward the back, where our yard and our neighbor’s join
at the fence. At once startled and delighted, I yelled “Dylan!” and
charged upstairs. “A deer! A deer just ran into the back yard!” We
raced around to the sunroom and looked out the back window. No deer!
We opened the door onto the patio, ran into the yard, and searched our
view of the neighbor’s yard over the chain link fence – No
deer! To the back of the shed ... surely we would see it there, where
could it possibly have gone? But it was gone. Vanished. And
I was the only one who had seen it! I love seeing deer. Their gentle
eyes, their tapered legs and hooves, the pride with which they hold their
heads – they are beautiful animals. But I never expected to see
one charging by my lower level family room window in the middle of the
City of Anoka! And, when it was suddenly apparent that I was the only
one who saw this deer, I began to ask myself – now did I really
see this? Or was it just my imagination?
How
many of you have you had a moment or moments like that – when you
know you caught a glimpse of something wonderful and exciting, so exciting
that it made you giggle with delight, yet by the time you told someone
about it, it had vanished? Anyone? I guess some of you know what I mean,
then. Others of you – hold onto your hats – for it will surely
happen to you someday!
I
guess it must have been like that for Sarah, wife to Abraham, when she
sat in the big tent that was her home, and overheard some traveling stranger
who paraded in out of the blue, telling her husband with great conviction,
that she would bear a child even though she was already post-menopausal!
(And by a husband that even today’s Cialis peddlers would likely
ignore!) “HA! What was that?” she laughed. “Is my imagination
fooling me, or did I just hear a prediction of the impossible becoming
reality?” And yet – a year or so later, Sarah laughed again,
and gave birth to a son whom she named Isaac, which means “May
God smile.” The imagination of the Divine is greater than the imagination
of humankind, it seems. Or, at least, it sometimes takes us awhile to
catch up.
This past weekend, as you’ve already heard this morning, Chris
Fazel and Nancy Benz and Leanne Patchen and her sister Linda Haemig,
and Zilla Way, Deb Braun, Jan Bodin and Malcolm Anderson and I were all
away at the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Conference of the United
Church of Christ. It was truly an overwhelmingly moving time for me,
personally, since I found myself the co-chair of the planning work group
again this year. (Next year’s meeting will be my last one, for
awhile.) The vision we imagined in our planning work group seemed grandiose
at times, impossible at others, fanciful and presumptuous oftentimes,
and clearly demanding of our full imaginative faculties at all times.
And yet – there it was! Reality that made us giggle! John Thomas,
General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ was a keynoter:
one of the most personable, humble, yet dazzlingly intelligent and insightful
persons I’ve ever encountered. I positioned myself in his
serving line for communion on Sunday morning, and he called me by name
as I went through. (Of course, he probably called everyone by name, since
we all wore name tags, but you know how that goes!) That was right after
I received the bread from another clergy member, who whispered after
giving me the bread, “Now where do I put the plate when I’m
done?” My role onsite was as a facilitator, trouble shooter and
stage manager. It is a marvelous role; and I confess, I love it! By Sunday
morning, I was ready to believe that just about anything could happen
at this meeting – it had delighted and surprised me so many times
in so many ways.
When John Thomas spoke to us on Saturday morning, however, we were still
headed full boar toward the shank of the weekend. We didn’t know
yet whether we were all moving in the same direction, or not. Whatever
he said that morning would define for many of us the “flavor” of
our ensuing introspection, the tenure of our discussion, the trajectory
for our involvement in the very substance of the meeting. He might have
disappointed us; but he didn’t. His talk was entitled “The
Big Tent and the Great Parade.”
Thomas used the big tent as a metaphor for the way the Church has come
together – the way we in the United Church of Christ, especially,
have defined ourselves. The big tent, sometimes a revival tent, sometimes
a circus tent, has served us well, he said. “And the tent can continue
to be important for us, a place of temporary rest, renewal, revival when
the journey has grown long, the resistance grown intense, the inner strength
lags.” “But,” he asked, “is the tent
as our dominant image one that can continue to serve us into the future?
Can we move from this relatively static image of the church, with its
essentially passive and private audience or congregation, toward a more
dynamic image, one that is more public in its vocation, more evangelical
in its spirit, more courageous in its encounter with the world? Instead
of the big tent, or perhaps in addition to and alongside of the big tent,
could we also consider -- the great parade?”
When I heard this analogy, I immediately thought of this image (slide). In
October of 2004, as First Congregational UCC of Anoka approached its
150th anniversary year, we built and entered a float in the Anoka Halloween
parade. (Anoka is, you know, by act of Congress in the 1930’s the “Halloween
capital of the world.”) Both the experience of building the float,
and the fun of riding, chasing, and advertising it were wonderfully and
incomparably energizing. We were part of the parade – where, in
Thomas’s words, “the movement, the direction, and the cadence
of the parade as a whole demonstrates the glory that shall be revealed.”
A parade is indeed a dynamic image. One that requires that we put ourselves
on the line. When we join a parade, we commit to an image and a message,
and put it out there for everyone we pass along the way. We are limited
by nothing, if not by our own imaginations. So, as we approach this summer
of gathering our faculties once again before the launching of a new church
year in the fall, one full of several important decisions about our future
together as a congregation of God’s people, let us imagine that
our church is a great parade -- as John Thomas said, “…announcing,
playing, practicing, inviting, moving toward the realm of God with individuals
and ensembles of all kinds sharing their gifts and daring their visions,
not in lockstep or uniforms, but in a glorious array of costumes walking,
skipping, rolling, running to the cadence of One whose laughter and tears
encompass all [our] pain and poignancy, [our] promise and prophecy…challenging
those who watch, confronting and inviting, calling for commitment, for
joining in, for marching alongside, for dropping nets and following…for
breaking down the boundary between participant and observer, insider
and outsider.” Let us startle ourselves into recognizing that the
answer to “What?! What was that?” is---- it is us! We are the “great
parade.” It is we whom we hear laughing outside the tent.
And it is we who will laugh with one another, as we rejoice with each
other and with our sister United Church of Christ churches, in the great
parade.
The parade is about to assemble at the starting line. On your mark, get
set – are we ready?
Let us pray
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