True Story

 

Psalm 78:1-7

Life is more than just our experiences, it’s the stories we tell – to ourselves and to others – about our experiences. Story is how we understand them and the meaning we make of them.
 
We are in the middle of a big experience right now.  A new president has been elected.  A new chapter is opening up for our country.  But what you think that means depends on the stories you are listening to, and the ones you are telling yourself.  The future in front of us is either terribly hopeful or horribly terrifying.  Same set of facts, different stories. How we face the world, the choices we believe we have, the choices we will choose to make, depend on the story we are telling about this moment. 
We are part of this story. This is part of our story. Absolutely.  It shapes who we are as Americans; it will impact the experiences we have with each other in the coming months and years. But this is not the whole story.
 
There is a bigger story. A longer trajectory. A deeper narrative that holds us. 
Beyond the 244 years of this country’s existence, and the 45 presidents we’ve had, you and I are part of a people and tradition that extends over two thousand years, and we are shaped by those who’ve gone before, even as we are connected by the God who holds the universe in love to all those around us and every human that has ever been or ever will be, so our story is even broader, deeper, wider: it’s timeless and eternal.
 
We live inside our experiences, but they are not our story. The Psalmist encourages us to remember this, and to tell the bigger story.  
The rest of Psalm 78—nearly 70 more verses past this encouraging part—gets specific and uncomfortable. It goes into great detail to tell the Israelites story through the Exodus and wilderness into the generations that follow, up to King David. And it’s not too flattering. It tells the story of a people who over and over again doubted and turned away from God, and a God who over and over again cared for them.  God provided and they complained. God delivered them, and they chose captivity. God gave them what they asked for and more, and they chose scarcity and turned on each other. God led them and they refused to follow. 
 
Back and forth the Psalm goes, like a boat rocking on the waves: the people complain; God gets angry and still provides. The people turn away; God gets angry and punishes them. Then God comes to God’s senses and restores them again. They repent and say good things about God, but they don’t mean it, and they continue tearing each other down and turning their back on God. God gets angry and calls them out, and then welcomes them back in with great compassion and provides for them once again.  Over and over the people are unfaithful. Over and over, God is faithful.
 
That is our story. That is the ancient story of humankind and the ageless story of our faith, and our scriptures don’t sugarcoat it. The bible doesn’t make its protagonists shiny and perfect. It tells of their failures and their infidelity and God’s consistency and salvation nevertheless and always. Telling this story is what the Psalmist is suggesting we do, and with the rest of this Psalm, he shows us how.  Humans are unfaithful and inconsistent. God is faithful and trustworthy.
 
Our experiences and the things that have happened in our lives, in our families, in our country, in our world, they are the ingredients, but they are not the story. How we tell them – to ourselves and to each other, to the next generation, and the one after that – that is the story. And sometimes we get the story wrong, and we need to go back and look at what happened again and tell a different story. And sometimes we think the story goes just one way, but the real story, God’s story, is always bigger than our premature conclusions. And God’s story – the true story – is always about hope and redemption. 
 
We are in an important moment as a country – and our children are watching and listening. They are watching us go back and look at how we’ve told the story of race and equality in this country, how we’ve told the stories of economic opportunity and fairness and justice for all and they are seeing us realize we weren’t telling ourselves the truth, we weren’t facing the whole story. Our kids are watching us start to listen more carefully to our past, and listen more intentionally to our siblings in this country whose experiences are different than this story, and different from our own. They’re watching us sort out what all of this means and begin to wonder what it might be like to tell our story differently, and to try to figure out how we go forward together into a different story, how we build a nation together that is what we all long for it to be.
 
But even as we do this work, we are part of a bigger story – one that puts this smaller story into context. The Story we are living in understands that human beings are consistently unfaithful and God is consistently faithful.  And in order to live in hope (which is always from God) and not despair (which is never from God), we need to tell the bigger story. The story of God teaching us that we belong to God, no matter what, and we belong to each other, no matter what, and nothing we do or don’t do can break that belonging – even when we pretend it’s not true, or forget it is true, or actively argue that it can’t possibly be true. It remains the true story. 

So we will claim this story, and let it claim us, and will live in this story, and tell this story to each other to help each other remember.  And we’ll tell those who come after us so they can live in it too, and they can tell those who come after them, so they can set their hope on God and not forget who they are and what God does, and they too can live in God’s way instead of the way of fear.   
 
Our kids need to hear about when we messed up, when we said something that hurt someone deeply, when we didn’t come through for someone, when we lied, or cheated, or turned our back on someone, or turned our back on God.  They need to hear about when we gave up hope, and lost our faith, and forgot who we were and whose we were.  Because the true story is about what God does.  They need to hear about forgiveness, and redemption, and healing, and fresh starts and new beginnings – because they need to know that who they are is not defined by their failure and unfaithfulness but by the love and faithfulness of God.
 
This is who Church is - those vulnerable and brave enough to tell the stories about our own unfaithfulness and God’s faithfulness even so, working through it all, to move us into life, with and for each other. 
 
One day we will tell stories about this time– about our country and about the pandemic, about the seismic changes happening in the world, the climate crises and catastrophes, and all the upheavals of this time.  And if the stories we tell are true, they will not be about good verses evil, or us verses them. They will not make us look good or cover over our mistakes. They will be about God’s faithfulness through our unfaithfulness. About how normal humans came alongside each other in our brokenness and God worked through us to achieve remarkable things. How we were saved not through might and power, or by violent acts or vile words, but by God acting through our smallness, and sameness, and willingness to look each other in the heart and recognize that the one I want to hate belongs to me too. 
They will be stories of how we forgot that we are meant to care for each other, but then God spoke through a photo of a child in a cage, or the cries of a man with a knee on his neck, and turned our hearts back toward each other. 
Or how we forgot we are meant care for this earth and its creatures, but God spoke through a fierce child from Sweden, and terrible raging fires in Australia and California, and restored us to our place of responsible stewardship for creation. 
Or how we forgot that we are not invincible and indispensable, on demand at every moment, but God spoke through our quarantines and lockdowns and suddenly, when our busy was taken away from us—and it was terribly disorienting, and we were afraid a lot of the time and bored just as often—God woke us up to the deeper life that can only come to us when we’re moving slower and listening more closely, and God showed us how much we mean to others, and what they mean to us, and God gave us new and different ways to stay connected, and the Holy Spirit helped us to hang on tighter and love more deeply, and God reminded us that we are not indispensible but we are integral. 
Or how we forgot that our neighbors are beloved children of God until they got sick or we did, and with masks on someone brought soup and bread to someone else—someone learned how to make soup and bake bread and then brought it to someone else—and God touched our lives through culinary contributions, and through needing each other this way God helped us start seeing other people we need too, like doctors, and nurses, and mail carriers, and teachers and grocery store workers, and garbage collectors, and we realized that the people we’d taken for granted were the essential ones all along, and God showed us that we all belong to God and we all belong to each other, and we listened and obeyed and let God change our hearts.
 
No matter what happens next or what comes after that, we follow a God of unfailing faithfulness and infinite compassion who works even in our consistent unfaithfulness and through our weakness to bring hope and life to us all. This is the true story, ancient and eternal. And we will keep telling it.
Amen.

PRAYER
God, please show me the stories I am telling myself
that are holding me back from the fullness of life you have for me.  
Destroy my stories of self-protection 

and make me vulnerable and open.
Heal my stories of injury 

and make me a conduit of your healing.
Forgive my stories of enemies 

and make me a courageous peace-maker.
Break open my stories of irreconcilability 

and make me a willing listener. 
Redeem my stories of wrong 

and help me join in your ongoing justice.  
Release me from my stories of grievance 

and help me to grieve.
Break my stories of despair 

and teach me to hope.
Set me free 

to know and share your joy,
to receive and share your love,
to bear and share your hope.
Help me to live in your true story.
Amen.

90 Years of Wonder and Life

Acts 2:42-47 & Ephesians 3:14-21

Life is strange and a little amazing.  Seeing this timeline stretching across the back of the sanctuary and all of us here today makes me wonder, what if those first people, sitting in the shade of a tree in 1915, with their bibles open, swatting away flies and talking about faith, what if they could see us today?  Or the ones who raised $1200 to buy the plots of land, or $6000 to build the first chapel on this site in 1918? What if the crowd who sat together filled with joy and hope at the future when Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church became officially incorporated in 1922 could have a glimpse of us right now, sitting here in all of our own struggles and joys, trying to do this life the best we know how, just like they were, so long ago, in the church they saw begin? 

Even though the dinner began with turkey in the 30s, would they be excited to know we’re still eating Ham (comma) and Cherry Pie every year for over eighty years?  Would those empowered ladies who had recently been granted the right to vote be tickled to hear that the bazaar that has been raising money for missions and agencies in the community through jams and quilts and attic treasures every year since 1924 is just a few weeks away? 

How would it feel to know that you were part of something that was still going on, long after you were gone?  That your life, your story, your quirky personality and tricky milestones of life, and hard work and sweat, and gentleness and tears, was woven into the fabric of a community reaching far beyond your whole lifetime and all those you knew?  

Would they feel as blessed and awed as I feel to see the story laid out - That for decades your music, Jane, filled this sanctuary and lifted people’s souls, or your teaching, Marlys, guided a generation and more in embracing their own story, and seeking to understand and live out their faith?  That living last suppers and youth disaster relief trips and whole lives that began with water dribbled on a bawling forehead and feet pounding through halls and Easter bonnets and choir robes and floor hockey in the basement and confirmation corsages and college farewells and all the pain and happiness in between, were cherished and nurtured by this community of which I am now a part? 

How much do we really know about the impact of our lives- even our ordinary, very human and faltering lives, as we are being rooted and grounded in love?  How much could we really grasp about how vastly connected it all is, how far deep it goes, how profoundly significant and prevailing is a life in the hands of the living God, to say nothing of a whole collection of them, and collections of them over time? Could we even begin to fathom what is the breadth and length and height and depth, or would our imagination short-circuit first?

And if we could pause on the threshold of that place, with just the faint awareness that we have our toes tipped over the edge of something spectacular, if we could, with the slight whiff of awe and wonder in our nostrils, breathe it in deeply and let it fill us momentarily and then spill out, as these things usually do in the only language remotely up to the task, that of poetry and prayer, and pray,

if we could pray for those who are coming down the river, and for those who are swimming in it with us right at this moment, for those we love and those we’ve yet to meet and those we will never know…  If we could put words to this thing in the form of a wish, a hope, a prayer, a longing lifted to Almighty God, what would it be?  What would we say of this mystery of living and life?

 

My guess is it would be a little like the prayer that that Pastor Paul prays for his people, a prayer that begins from the astounding mystery that in Christ God restores the world to its maker, and all people to one another, that this living business is sacred, and it touches on salvation and hope and redemption and promise, that God is doing something both outside and within the very fabric of what we see and do every day, that pulsing inside everything real is the most real thing of all: God has come, God is here, God is bringing all things to Godself, also known as, Christ has died, Christ has risen and Christ will come again.

So from that place, “for this reason”, Paul prays for his people this impossibly grand prayer, this extravagant prayer, beautiful and intangible. To know that which is beyond knowledge, to grasp that which is immeasurable.  To be filled with the fullness of the one who is all in all. The one who can accomplish abundantly far more than we could ever ask for or even ever imagine. 

It is a tremendous and impossible prayer, but he prays it anyway.

  And then he writes it down for them, in a letter to them, just between his description of who God is and what God has done, and then his explanation of the way we live it out in our lives. Right where our human story meets up with the Divine story is where he falls to his knees, lifts his face to the sky and prays that the mystery would fill them, swallow them, seep into and out of them, open their eyes and their hearts and their hands and their lives to the love of God that surpasses all knowledge, that claims and calls them to fullness of life.

And I suspect that a tiny part of what happens when we are church together, in all our goofy and ordinary caring and arguing and forgiving and hoping and grieving ways, is that from time to time we get our own glimpse, our own whiff, our own inkling and passing awareness, we get to dip our toe into this mystery and every now and again have that breath-stealing peek that things are a lot bigger, a lot more poignant and magnificent than they might seem.   And these glimpses happen in the same space that God’s presence with us happens – person to person, in community, as we share life and doubts and joys and prayers with each other.  As we are church.

The other day, I shared with a few people something that I think of almost daily in my role as pastor here. In fact, this moment I recall so often might be what clinched the deal for me.  Before I really got to know LNPC, when I was first interviewing with the Pastoral Nominating Committee in 2008, I asked them how they would describe the job of a pastor to a friend or neighbor who was not a church-goer.  This was my sneaky way of fishing for their true view the pastoral role, you see, the job description behind the job description. 

Each member of the committee responded with a few things about what they thought a pastor did, and then finally Gary Johnson stopped and leaned toward me and said, “Look, we know how to be the church. We just need a pastor.” 

And boy is this true.  This congregation knows how to be the church.  And that’s not to say that everything is perfect – human beings are broken and beautiful all rolled up into one, and being church with each other is a messy and complicated business, but it’s also simple. Like Gary said. It’s about loving each other. It’s about honesty and trust and seeking God and being human. It’s about sharing what we have for the good of all, and breaking bread and eating food with glad and generous hearts, and praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.   

Toward the end of 2010 we shared a wonderful conversation around the question, What is Church to me?  We sought to uncover, What is this thing we're part of?

And we got lots of beautiful answers from each other, here they are:

Church is prayer.

It is hands - that hold and embrace those in need,

that reach out beyond ourselves and reach up to God.

It is smiles and connection.

It is where I go to be real.

It is the people of eschatological imagination.

Church is celebration and grief shared,

it is where we learn and grow

and the people that help us remember the truth.

It is what connects us to the story of God's faithfulness in the past and helps us see God's faithfulness right now in our lives and in the world.

It is the things that help us notice God and feel God with us.

Church is singing

and communion

and baptism

and worship

and laughter

and tears

and hugs

and helping each other.

It is giving what I can and seeing it multiply.

It is being connected to something bigger than myself.

It is being held by something greater than myself.

It is belonging to God

and participating with God.

Church is the place to ask questions and doubt.

It is a place to play with questions and ideas about God.

It is the protection around me,

accountability and support.

Church is the people who live forgiveness together.

It helps me see where I am wrong

and invites me to think more deeply

and live more intentionally.

It is love.

And in all of this, we are reminded that Church is not a place we go.

It is who we are.

We are the Body of Christ,

with each other,

for the world.

And so today we celebrate the past and rejoice in the present and we do both of these things on behalf of what will be.  Because the church is always about the promise of God that is coming, and even already is.  It is about living from the fullness we can’t yet get our arms around, and loving with the depths we can’t quite get our mind around, and standing in our place in the stream of hope with all the saints, those before us and those after us and recognizing and joining hands with those around us right now in this life we’ve been given and this community we get to build and be. 

And this little part of the Body of Christ is strong and faithful, and it’s real and honest, and it’s vulnerable and generous, and it is truly being rooted and grounded in love. 

And I wish I could hear what they’ll look back on and say of us in another 90 years - I can make guesses at some of the stories they’ll tell of the our shenanigans and spirit.

But mostly I get a little giddy at the thought of people I will never know, long after I and all of you are gone, sitting together in all of their own struggles and joys, trying to do this life the best they know how, just like we were, so long ago, also living from the promise of God’s future that holds us all, and sharing what they have for the good of all, and breaking bread and eating food with glad and generous hearts, and praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And being church.

What a wondrous thing to be part of. Truly.

Amen!