Sermon Series Shattered Dreams The Pathway to Joy Sermon: And then Traci Hubbard Mark 16: 1-8 (9-20) February 21, 2016 Marina was extremely afraid of the dark. When the lights went out, everything and every shadow appeared to her as the most terrible of monsters. Her parents explained to her, every day and with great patience, that these things were not monsters. Marina understood her parents, but she could not stop feeling an awful fear whenever it was dark. One day her Aunt Valerie came to visit. Valerie was an incredible woman. She was famous for her courage, and for having gone on many journeys of adventure, some of which had been made into books and movies. Marina wanted to conquer her fear of the dark, so she asked her Aunt how she became so brave, and whether she had ever been frightened. "A great many times, Marina," answered her Aunt, "I remember when I was small and I was terribly afraid of the dark. I couldn't stay in the dark for even a moment". Marina became very excited. How was it possible that someone so courageous could have been afraid of the dark? "I'll tell you a secret, Marina. It was some blind children who taught me how to be brave. They can't see, so if they had never discovered the secret of how not to be afraid of the dark, they would have been forever frightened". "It's true!" said Marina, intrigued, "Can you tell me that secret?" "Of course! The secret is to change your eyes. Since blind children can't see, their hands are their eyes. All you have to do to conquer your fear is what they do. Shut the eyes of your face and open the eyes of your hands. Let's make a deal: tonight, when you go to bed and put out the light, if anything makes you afraid, close your eyes, carefully get out of bed, and try to see what it is that's making you scared. But do it using your hands as eyes... and tomorrow tell me how you're getting on with the fear". Marina accepted, but she was rather worried. She knew she would need to be brave to close her eyes and go and touch whatever it was that was frightening her; but she was willing to try because she was already too old for this. When her parents took her to bed, she herself put out the light. After a little while, she felt afraid of one of the shadows in the bedroom. Following the advice of Aunt Valerie, she closed the eyes of her face and opened the eyes of her hands. And, summoning up all her courage, she went over to touch that mysterious shadow... The next morning Marina came running into the kitchen, a big smile on her face, and a song on her lips. "The monster is so soft and smooth!..." she cried, "It's my teddy bear!"
The Bible is stacked with asides, with amended comments intended to clear up fear and uncertainty, reminding us that there is something important we need to remember and trust. Particularly as we read the Gospels our hearts are often left dangling in the dark with things we have forgotten, things we have learned to question when we are afraid during the dark nights of our souls. From the everpresent "selah" of the Psalms to the deeply strange "let the reader understand..." of Mark 13, the writers assume that we might well be missing the point. To its earliest readers, the Bible was not a divinely inspired, inerrant document. All we need to do is read the Bible to know that. The authors of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures assume that their readers are going to have some questions and that people will be "thinking along," pondering the meaning of the words and questioning whether they are true for themselves. That's why I believe studying the Scriptures is the best medicine for fundamentalism. During Lent, Christians study the Bible deeply in order to gain a deeper relationship with God. If the Bible becomes an object of worship, then we replace the living Christ with dead letters. And without the living Christ, it is possible to wind up with a faith that denigrates the marginalized and creates a culture of fear and shame. And they were afraid. This is how the Gospel of Mark ended before some of the early scribes could not sit with the amazement of uncertainty. They decided to add some stories to prove that the reason we do not receive what we desire is because we do not have enough faith. Listen to the women at the empty tomb: Wasn t Jesus dead and buried behind that huge stone? I mean we all know and a few of us saw what happened to Him! When we fail to love God, ourselves and others as we are called to love, when others fail to love us as they are called to love, do we, like the disciples, do we run to what Jesus taught? In the Gospel of John 16: 1-15 we read, I ve told you these things to prepare you for rough times ahead. They are going to throw you out of the meeting places. There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he s doing God a favor. They will do these things because they never really understood God and my ministry. I ve told you these things so that when the time comes and they start in on you, you ll be well-warned and ready for them. I didn t tell you this earlier because I was with you every day. But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, Where are you going? Instead, the longer I ve talked, the sadder you ve become. So let me say this truth again: It s better for you that I leave. If I don t leave, the Holy Spirit won t come. But if I go, I ll send him to you. I still have many things to tell you, but you can t handle them now. When the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won t draw
attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. The Message (MSG) Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson Like the wise Scribes in the 2 nd, 3 rd and 4 th centuries, how many times have we too missed the thematic evidence of the Spirit of God leading us to transformation through our relationships and life events? Why do we find it difficult to live with questions and uncertainty? I believe we find difficulty trusting that God s ways of how we need to love and live are better for us than what we want to believe is best. Connecting deeply with God, living out of our soul s consciousness, requires us to practice a life of complete surrender to God s mysterious ways. In Barbara Brown Taylor s book, Learning to Walk in The Dark, she writes, I worry about children who grow up thinking that every story has a happy ending and no one gets permanently hurt along the way. She shows how the earlier versions of Cinderella and Snow White had harsh realities and story lines that have been traded in for The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar and Aliens Love Underpants. Barbara goes on to say, What I learned from the original Cinderella story and others like it is that mysterious things happen in the dark, redeeming things like Belle s tears falling onto the Beast and turning him back into a prince. Sometimes what is most true is not always evident by the light of day. Living into not knowing what is coming next means we need to constantly and courageously revisit Gethsemane. Britain James Bremner writes, Courage, which is no more than the management of fear, must be practiced. Taylor asks, How do we develop the courage to walk in the dark if we are never asked to practice? It was not until I explored God that I learned how dangerous darkness really was not the kind under my bed or in the dark woods but the kind the Bible (and Spirit reveal) is in my own heart. Our current condition is the human condition and struggle of wanting life, certain outcomes, to be what we believe God desires for us. God is always speaking but many of us are saying by our thoughts, feelings and actions: Slide 1
We do not like the darkness of uncertainty. We fall in love and the world becomes brighter and full of hopes and dreams. But if we are honest, we wonder if our beloved or those closest to us saw our unhealed stuff that we spend so much energy hiding from ourselves and others, if our shadows sneak out, our loved ones will sneak away and find someone that sees the world exactly the way they do. We have children and we love them with a love that only God understands but if we are honest, we forget that our children are gifts from God. We forget when the laundry piles up and the kids begin to push and pull their ways into becoming independent and we begin to fear: have I taught them enough given them enough? Have my human failures ruined them? Will someone crush their heart or hurt their body and I won t be there to protect them? We discover friends along the way that promise to walk with us through thick and thin and when the thin dark moments of brokenness, or addiction, or uncontrolled anger or fear or doubt sweep us off our feet, if we are truthful few of us turn to our closest friends in complete authenticity saying, I blew it. I need help. Please walk with me. What if we chose to live into faith instead of fear? What if we chose to turn what we feel as famine into a holy feast of healing and shared becoming new together? What if we dared to get out of our boats of what we want God to want for us and Slide 2
walk out onto the waters of unknowing trusting that we are exactly where we need to be in order to surrender ourselves into the Potter s Hands who longs to help us become wholehearted authentic people? How do we face the And then what happens? moments in our lives when we are broken and bent and need to learn how to love? Slide 3 We need to become like a child connect to our inner child and sit in the lap of God and learn how to breathe and touch the eternal in the dark. The hands of our souls are our beliefs and our thoughts come from what and who we believe, trust and love. Friends, when we choose not to trust because we are afraid of being hurt or afraid of being authentic to ourselves and others we create a life of fear and inner scarcity. We nourish feeling entitled that our ways need to become God s ways. When we demand answers, demand understanding, validation and respect from outside sources, when
we wait for gurantees before we love, constant disappointment and longing for something more or different is certain to companion us on our journey. Slide 4 In every moment of our lives we have the opportunity to be courageous enough to choose to walk by faith. We have the freedom to choose to remember who God is and how Jesus has shown us how to love and live with one another. When we walk in faith we will journey with joy and hope from the inside out because the love of God validates us, understands us and challenges us to remember what we prayed for to become people who love like God loves. God didn t say life crucified with Christ would always feel like Baptismal or Easter moments or like falling in love or like
achieving a milestone. God has promised that He loves us enough to keep us on the Potter s wheel and so we can be transformed into Her heart and ways. And like any loving parent, if we crawl off the wheel because the journey is not what we want, God will let us suffer the painful emptiness and disappointment of not being true to our covenant with Him. If we want greener grass, we need to dig up the weeds and plant the seeds of transformation and love right where we are. Today, may we fall like a seed, like Christ on the cross, into the ground of right where we are and die to our fear, surrendering ourselves to God s mysterious and stretch mark creating ways. Slide 5 Ghandi said, Our enemy is fear. We think it s hate but it is fear. Mark chapter 16 ends with, and they were afraid. There was once a town where the thing everyone feared the most was getting lost at night in the "Cave of Fear". No one had ever returned from there, and whenever
anyone got lost and ended up there, the last that was heard was a great cry of terror, followed by a few enormous guffaws. The townsfolk lived in terror that one day the monster would leave the cave. So they regularly left gifts and food at the mouth of the cave, and these always soon disappeared. One day, a young man came to town, and, as he heard about the situation with the cave, he thought that it was unfair. So he decided to enter the cave and confront the monster. The young man asked for some help, but everyone was so afraid that not a single person approached the mouth of the cave with him. He went inside, finding his way with a torch, and calling out to the monster, wanting to talk with it and discuss the situation. At first, the monster had a good long laugh, and the young man followed the sound of the monster's voice. But then the monster went quiet, and the young man had to carry on, not knowing in which direction to go. Finally he arrived at a huge cavern. At the bottom of the cavern he thought he could make out the figure of the monster, and as he approached it, he felt that something hit him hard on his back. This pushed him forward towards a hole in the rock. He couldn't avoid it, and fell through. Believing that he was about to die, he let out one last cry. Then he heard the great guffaws. -"Darn it, I think the monster has swallowed me," he said, whilst falling. However, as he fell, he heard music, and voices. They got clearer, and when he made a soft landing at the bottom, he heard a group of people shout: -"Surprise!!" Hardly believing it, he found himself right in the middle of a big party. The partygoers were all those people who had never returned to the town. They explained to him that this place had been the idea of an old mayor of the town. That mayor had tried to accomplish great things, but was always held back by the fears of the people around him. So the mayor invented the story of the monster to demonstrate to people how such an attitude was so limiting. So the young man stayed there, enjoying the party and the company of all those who had dared to approach the cave. Our Helper is ever present with living water and the Light of the world is dying to shine in us so like the little girl, we can discover that what we perceive as a monster in the dark is really just love waiting to hold us and be held. This Lent, may we dare greatly to enter the darkness of our shattered dreams and not only discover but do the necessary vulnerable work of implementing the healing gifts of the dark that create light and love out of our shadows. Namaste