VBS for this year:
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SUNDAY MORNING from the pastor January 12, 2003 One of the most helpful books I have read in recent years is David Ford's The Shape of Living. His thesis is that our lives are shaped by the various things that overwhelm us. I think I agree with him. We can make a list of the things that overwhelm us: jobs, children, parents, financial problems, health problems, addictions, housework, friends, depression, tragedies, commitments...the list goes on. Not everything that overwhelms us is bad. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by relationships that are wonderful (a romance, a child, a friend), sometimes we are overwhelmed by experiences of faith (being born again), sometimes we are overwhelmed by work that has purpose and meaning. But good or bad, life is big. We seek a routine, we articulate rules, and we practice being controlling, all in the hope that we won't get swept away by the bad--or get left behind by the good. But in the end, our rules, routines, and control mechanisms are all an illusion. We experience nature as overwhelming. And perhaps we can learn a few things from nature. I was in Chicago yesterday to visit Alison. We thought we might walk around downtown a bit. But the temperature was in the teens and the wind was whipping. We were overwhelmed by the cold and changed our plans to stay indoors more. Animals can be overwhelming. As I write this, my cat is crawling over the computer, sniffing my coffee, and stretching out before my eyes to look out the window. It is hard to concentrate. She overwhelms in her interrupting sometimes--not always in a bad way. I think of being at the ocean. It is the quintessential experience of being overwhelmed. My imagination is overwhelmed by its vastness, my mind is overwhelmed by its secrets, and my body is overwhelmed by its waves. The waves: there is no stopping them. When the waves roll in, one cannot stand in one place. When we are in the ocean, OUR rules turn ridiculous, OUR control is a sham, and OUR routines non-existent. How can one have a routine if one lives in a sandcastle on the shore? Sometimes our being overwhelmed by the ocean is pure joy. Sometimes it is pure hell. (The biblical writers were as apt to use images of water to describe God's wrath as they were images of fire.) We can't keep it from being overwhelming. We CAN try to find the right spot so it will delight and bless us more than curse us. And so we worship, and join a small group, and pitch in to help serve--not to take control of our lives--but to position ourselves--that we might be shaped by God's powers of mercy, life, and grace. In all our being tossed about, may God find us, bless us, and keep us. --Mike |
