TEXTS
Dove that ventured outside by Rainer Maria Rilke
Dove that ventured outside, flying far from the dovecote:
housed and protected again, one with the day, the night,
knows what serenity is, for she has felt her wings
pass through all distance and fear in the course of her wanderings.
The doves that remained at home, never exposed to loss,
innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness;
only the won-back heart can ever be satisfied: free,
through all it has given up, to rejoice in its mastery.
Being arches itself over the vast abyss.
Ah the ball that we dared, that we hurled into infinite space,
doesn’t it fill our hands differently with its return:
heavier by the weight of where it has been.
Gospel of Mark 1:29-39
“Directly on leaving the meeting place, they came to Simon and Andrew’s house, accompanied by James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever. They told Jesus. He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up. No sooner had the fever left than she was up fixing dinner for them.
That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door! He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits. Because the demons knew his true identity, he didn’t let them say a word.
While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed. Simon and those with him went looking for him. They found him and said, “Everybody’s looking for you.”
Jesus said, “Let’s go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I’ve come.” He went to their meeting places all through Galilee, preaching and throwing out demons.”
A Video format of this sermon is found by scrolling to the bottom
I am feeling better about preaching right now.
Who knew? It never seemed to me
like preaching was a serious job
for a grown human being,
but it turns out that preaching
is the whole reason Jesus came around
in the first place – to preach.
At least according to Mark.
Got to love it.
So I’m going to preach now.
Have you ever been driving along
and suddenly
the punchline to a joke you heard earlier
makes sense
and you get it…and you hadn’t even realized
you didn’t get it before?
Or have you ever had the experience
of entering a favorite haunt,
like a restaurant or coffee shop,
and suddenly
you notice that they have changed
the wallpaper of paint color…
only to find out it was done months ago?
I really hope some of you are nodding
cause I would hate to think I am the only one!
I frequently have that experience with the Bible.
It is amazing to me
that I can give so much attention
to something like the bible,
and yet it comes back time and again
with an unanticipated,
or utterly unexpected angle
on life or God or Jesus or even myself.
It reminds me that we domesticate the Bible.
We think it is just an old book
from ancient and primitive people
about rules,
about right and wrong,
about moral and immoral,
about heaven and hell,
about an angry God verses a lover God.
If we were ever actually taught anything
about the Bible
it was probably in childhood –
or, if as an adult,
it was probably with child-like simplicity.
And so, as we mature
and grow
and wisen-up,
we begin to look down our noses at the old book.
It becomes just a book
with a bunch of old stories, old “Bible stories.”
And “old Bible stories”
becomes a synonym for – for what?
For not true: “Oh, that’s just an old Bible Story.”
Alas, we are still confusing truth with facts,
as if data and information
interpret themselves
and can tell us anything
without our telling the data what it means.
We also imagine
that history actually happened,
when in fact history is only the interpretation
of something that may have happened.
We imagine that history happened,
and that it happened in precisely the way
the historians tell it in modernity.
But look at how differently
we tell the history of Christopher Columbus now
from what we did just thirty years ago.
I don’t recall ever hearing about
the hundreds of thousands of dead and enslaved
Native Peoples
in my early history lessons.
For that matter,
the only thing I heard about slavery itself,
was that it happened
and Lincoln stopped it.
In other words, it was told by white people
arranging the data in such a way
that it suited their story.
Was the history I was taught true?
Is the history that elementary kids
are taught today true?
Will it be truer 100 years from now?
It is all about what we know,
how we read it,
what order we put it in,
how we arrange the material
and what perspective we come to it with.
Surely by now, we recognize
that there is not
one,
definitive
way to interpret history.
History is endlessly interpretive
and will be interpreted differently
depending upon what information, ideas,
and perspectives we bring to the interpretive process.
Well of course, that is also true about the Bible.
The Bible is endlessly interpretive.
There is not
one
definitive
way to interpret it.
There is not one truth
waiting to be uncovered in those pages.
Even the idea that the Bible
is just a bunch of old stories – i.e., not true –
is an interpretation.
It is an interpretation
rendered by an intellectual tradition
that brought with it
an assumption that such an ancient text
and such primitive people
could not hold truth.
So I want to let the dove fly the dovecote, because:
“The doves that remained at home,
never exposed to loss,
innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness;
only the won-back heart can ever be satisfied: free,
through all it has given up, to rejoice in its mastery.”
I want to open up Isaiah and Mark to a truth
different from what often gets preached.
Will it be the true one? Hmmmm?
Isaiah 40.
When we hear this prophet’s song
we may imagine the gentle voice
of a patient teacher asking questions as she
guides her students to a new awareness.
We imagine such a voice because
we have domesticated God as well as the Bible
so that God is all about
feeling good
and being affirmed
and making nice with us.
But try this on instead of the usual interpretation of Isaiah 40:
“How could you not know, you bumbleheads?
How could you not have heard by now,
you dingbats?
Have you not understood after all this time?
What is the matter with you dunderheads?
I am the Creator.
I sit on top of the world
and you and all your animal friends
are all a bunch of little grasshoppers.
Who do you think brought down Hitler, your armies? Don’t be stupid.
Who do you think brought down the Berlin Wall? Reagan – give me a break.
Who do you think is bringing down the United States of America – Putin? China?
You’ve got to be kidding.I am the Creator. Me. God. Get it?”
That’s the way to read the little ditty from Isaiah 40.
It drips with sarcasm.
It stings.
Now Isaiah’s message in this song or poem
is actually, ironically,
quite affirming and comforting.
You see, because it is a song sung to exiles –
people who had given up hope of rescue
from their slavery and abject misery,
Isaiah’s message was:
“How dare you give up hope
you bunch of hapless boneheads.
How dare you play victim
and whine about your situation.
God will give power to those who wait
and God will reverse the fortunes of the powerless.”
“Sit up straight and pay attention
because even now
events have been set in motion
that will turn the world of kings and princess’s
upside down.”
Now I don’t know how you heard Isaiah
the first time is was read,
but it was probably with a somewhat different
voice underneath it.
Which one is true? Truer? Truest?
I guess it depends
upon how we interpret it;
and our interpretation depends
upon what assumptions we bring to it;
and our assumptions depend
upon how self-aware we are…
Ohhh, now there is an interesting thought.
Let’s turn then, to the piece
we heard from the Gospel of Mark.
Our hero Jesus was a healer
but was he really?
Did he really cure Peter’s mom
just by holding her hand?
Did he really cure the whole city
lined up at his door?
Did he really?
Is it true?
Or…is it true that no one can cure people
without medicine or technology?
Is that true?
Is it really true, a fact,
that people cannot be cured
without modern medicine and technology?
I’ll tell you what is true about this story:
Jesus may have been a healer
but that is not what he wanted to do
and that is not what he cared about most
and he was irritated and frustrated and exhausted
by people who were focused
on their own neediness.
As dissonant as it may feel
with our image of sweet baby Jesus,
I think the truth of this story
is that Jesus was agitated
by how much people like us
are focused on our woundedness
and on our brokenness,
rather than engaged in active participation
In the arrival of God’s kingdom –
an event, according to Isaiah,
that has already been set in motion.
The truth of this story
echoes the hard and harsh
voice of Isaiah’s song
sung to the dunderheaded exiles.
Are we not just as dunderheaded?
Are we not, as progressive Christians, also exiles?
And are we not lined up outside Jesus’ door
just waiting to get fixed
and totally oblivious
as to why God is among us in the first place?
That looks like truth, at least to me.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jesus says.
No, he doesn’t just say it.
He gets up early in the morning before anyone else
and he gets the hell out of there –
away from his own friends
who also do not understand him.
Now isn’t that a great story?
Doesn’t that have the ring of truth to it?
Too often church-people
and their leadership
are like Jesus’ friends
who track him down
and plead for him to come back
and fix people
because that is what everyone is clamoring for.
To which Jesus says,
“No, I want to go to the villages and preach,
because that is what I came to do.
Don’t bog me down, let me go.
Let me go!”
So here is the deal:
The real issue
is hearing the invitation God issues to us,
as individuals and as community.
If we assume that God
does not get the divine hands dirty
by playing around in the mud of creation,
then we do not have to wonder about it.
That kind of remote God
doesn’t speak to us anyway.
But assuming a remote, amorphous God
is just as big an assumption
as those who pray for God
to get them a new 120” television
and entertainment center.
Here is what I do.
I assume
God’s invitation
in the same way
that I assume God issued
an invitation to those ancients in exile;
in the same way
I assume
Jesus received
an invitation to teach and preach.
I assume God is inviting us.
I assume
that there is an invitation from God
with our names on it.
Have we heard it?
Felt it?
Intuited it?
Read it?
Been touched by it?
Imagined it?
As it turns out, Jesus was not invited
to be an exorcist and healer
but he also didn’t turn down the opportunities
to use whatever gifts he had.
He was invited
to preach and teach.
Most of the good information we have
is about what he taught
and what he preached.
To extrapolate then,
you and I are invited to something too,
even though we have many gifts and talents
that may or may not be part of that invitation.
We don’t have to stop doing what it is we’re good at
or what is needed by those around us,
but we are invited
to keep first things first.
What is first things first, for us?
Not WHO is first
but WHAT is first?
WHAT have we been invited to DO
and how can we keep first things first,
and not get bogged down
in all the other stuff – no matter
how important that other stuff is to us?
First things first?
Now notice please, this question
is endlessly interpretive.
There is no one else in the whole world
who can answer it for us.
We are stuck
with an endlessly interpretive question.
I just love that.
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