The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for September 10, 2006

Title: “In Praise of Storytellers”

Texts: Deuteronomy 6:4-13/Mark 7:24-30

                  Education is a value to which all the world’s people subscribe.  A non-controversial topic, the warring factions in our world could easily gather in a forum without rancor, without provoking riot, to celebrate the virtue of education. 

The acquisition of knowledge is something to which all aspire. Generic knowledge, or course, is value neutral, though the same certainly can’t be said for the ends to which knowledge is directed. 

                     We in the Christian church are purveyors of knowledge, but it is knowledge of a specific kind. What we teach is not value neutral, the kind of useful information any well rounded twenty-first century citizen of the world should know. What we teach is set forth in our primary textbook, the Bible, which recounts the trials and triumphs under God of people no different than ourselves.       

                     We are the people of the book, the book imparting the lessons you and I need to know to live lives consistent with God’s holy purposes.  The lessons are taught in story form, a story beginning with the primordial events that saw the earth take form and our ancient ancestors draw their first breathes. With a relatively brief overview of how our ancient ancestors requited themselves in the first generations, the story takes a decisive turn, the story establishing its focus on Abraham whom God anoints to be the father of  a  great nation. 

                   The story of Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob and his twelve sons is the mustard seed, if you will, from which the great tree, the Old Testament, emerges. The story of Abraham and his extended family, the Hebrews, is a rich saga, deeds of virtue and vice, unexpected twists and turns, great commanding personalities, and the great anonymous masses that lived and died leaving no traces behind them.

                    It all starts with the book and a story, what we do as people of the book grounded in one ancient peoples’ encounter with God thousands of years ago. It is an ancient story set in lands and cultures foreign to our experience. It is a story, however, that transcends lands and culture to expose human corruption and frailty, but also to celebrate human compassion and wisdom.  

                   We in the church claim that the Bible is “authoritative.”  What we mean by saying that is that what we read in here, and what we learn from what we read, uniquely equips us to live life more fully, the Bible’s authority deriving from the truths it teaches and we, in turn, confirm in daily living.

                   The Bible is based on a series of revelations, a series of encounters beginning with Adam, our most ancient ancestor.  The story continues through Abraham and his sons, through Moses, is handed on through prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, through the royal family of David and Solomon, and other prominent men and women through whom God chose to work.

                   The Bible is based on a serious of revelations, the most decisive as far as we Christians are concerned is the revelation that the Gospel of Mark introduces with these words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” That brief phrase is freighted with meaning.  “Good news,” gospel, “Christ,” messiah and savior, Son of God, uniquely set apart as God’s own.

                    On this rally day, the day each fall when we officially inaugurate the new Sunday school year; let us pause to acknowledge our responsibility as a congregation to impart the great lessons of faith.  Let us celebrate the legacy that has passed to us through our predecessors in this church.  Let us celebrate the dedicated folk in our congregation who fill out the teacher’s roster for the current year.

                  Christian education is all about the story, though not everything we teach derived exclusively from the pages of the Bible.  That said, everything we at Lakeview do in education, provides our constituency, the members and friends of this church, opportunities to encounter biblical principles in a variety of contexts.

                   Christian education has everything to do with the story.  Think back to your Sunday school experience.  You and I were introduced to the Bible through the great stories, Adam and Eve and the apple, Noah, the animals and the arc, Moses and the reed basket, Pharaoh’s army and the Red Sea, David and Goliath, and who among us wasn’t enthralled as we listened to stories about the baby Jesus in the manger, Jesus calling his disciples, Jesus walking on water, and Jesus standing before Pilate.

                     Christian education has everything to do with story, but not just any story.  Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus were not born in the imagination of some creative author, indeed, we believe that each was born of God for a specific purpose established in and through God, the author of life itself. Moreover, we believe the author had, and continues to have a plan, that not only encompasses beginnings we already know about, but also endings yet to be revealed. We uphold the belief that God is not surprised by any event that occurs in life, but that all events occupy some predetermined niche in God’s plan for humanity. We refer to this as the doctrine of divine providence, which holds that God is out ahead of us reigning sovereign over the future into which we are living.

                    We believe God knows what we cannot know, that God controls what we cannot control.  That most basic statement of faith informs everything the church does in Christian education.  It is also our story’s central theme.

                    God knows what we cannot know, and God controls what we cannot control.  The question of God’s knowing and controlling, God’s providence, is an issue Mark’s Gospel takes up in our morning’s lesson. We find Jesus, having concluded his exchange with the Pharisees and scribes on the subject of tradition, an encounter I described last week, [we find Jesus] in Tyre, a region abutting Galilee.

                   Mark tells us that “[Jesus] entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there [this secrecy dimension of Jesus’ ministry is something Mark chooses to emphasize].  Mark continues, “Yet he could not escape notice.”  He didn’t want anyone to know he was there, “yet he could not escape notice.” 

Interesting. Could not Jesus, the son of God, who did all manner of cures, restored life to the dead, and walked on water, not have escaped notice if he so chose?  Fact is Jesus didn’t escape notice, the direct consequence being that the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman, whose petition for help Jesus initially rejected, was healed.

                     Jesus could not escape notice, which is another way of saying Jesus didn’t conduct his ministry exclusively on his own terms. We might go so far as to say that the central theme of this story of which we are a part, namely that God knows what we cannot know, that God controls what we cannot control, applies to Jesus as well. But can we say that? We can say that, I think, without at the same time in any way diminishing Jesus’ standing as our Savior and Lord.

                   As the obedient son of Jewish parents Jesus knew well the history of his predecessors under God. In his formative years he heard the same stories of Abraham, Moses, and David that figured into our own educations in the faith, he matured in a community of memory that recited the psalms and the prophesy of the great prophets. In sum, he knew enough of the past to place his future in God’s hands. Jesus did not control the future, but lived into it by faith.   

                  There is a story we know that helps us make sense of the story we are living, that, friends, is the reality we celebrate as we inaugurate another Sunday school year. Sunday school helps us to shape a context for the lives we are living.  There are other contexts aplenty, contexts that elevate individual wants and appetites to primary status, contexts that promote narrow self-serving agendas of every description. There are contexts in which verbal and emotional abuse are the order of the day. There are contexts that demean and degrade there occupants. There are contexts in which people are living today where famine and highly preventable diseases make life a precarious challenge.

                 Our context is founded upon the God of Israel, to whom the faithful of generations have addressed their praise, their thanksgiving, their disappointment, and their distress.  We are building a part of that context each time we meet, and I join my colleagues in our Christian education program in inviting each one of you to participate in those efforts.  Insure that your children and grandchildren are regulars in Sunday school, take the initiate yourselves to participate in one of our adult offerings. Become better acquainted with our story.

                There is a story we know that helps us make sense of the story we are living. But the story can’t make sense out of all the story we are living, and that fact can, and in many instances does, undermine our faith in God. We find that the faith to which we lay claim cannot negotiate the mountain God’s providence has erected.

                It was a wrong turn onto a runway, something as simple as that, and forty-nine people perished. He was passing an open air market on his way home from school just at the time when a suicide bomber detonated his vest of lethal explosives.  A fluke thing that’s all it was.  An internationally known conservationist loses his life when attacked by a Stingray, a rare occurrence.  A virulent disease finds an opening, and in the space of twenty-four hours a life is set on another course.

                There is a story we know that helps us make sense of the story we are living, but then something happens that makes no sense.  Wrong place, wrong time, altogether random, altogether senseless. The fact that this tragedy or that, somehow fits into God’s plan offers absolutely no relief to the afflicted, and so we bargain, beg, demand that God change his plan, but God remains silent and unmoved.

               Call for rewrite, another script, another ending, but the script remains the same. According to the script Jesus still gets arrested, still gets tried, and still gets crucified.  Problem was he who could do all sorts of miracles could not do the one thing that might have saved his life.  He could not escape the notice of his enemies, those into whose hands God surrendered him. 

                It’s all in the story.  The pain and suffering take their place in the story right along side the triumphs through which God rescues, saves and redeems. Look it up, it’s all in the story, and we keep on returning to the story because it makes more sense of the lives we are living than any other story we know.

              The random suddenness with which the blow is dealt sends us reeling, but I would remind you that the story to which we turn in making sense out of life does not end with the mourners at the foot of the cross, but with those who, experiencing the resurrection, were so overwhelmed with joy and amazement that they couldn’t be bribed, intimidated, or threatened into silence.

              No, we are not privileged to set the terms by which we will live.  In solidarity with us Jesus chose not to set the terms by which he lived, instead he entrusted his life to God, the author of his story and ours.   

              The Bible cannot answer the questions we in our grief, despair, and rage may pose, but the God of the Bible can and does use that inspired word, that story, to communicate hope in the most desolate and forsaken places we shall ever find ourselves, this we know because those treasures of hope and light are also part of our story, the story, I, our Sunday school teachers, all of us, are privileged to share.  Tell the story.  You know things. There is someone you know who needs to hear about what you know.   AMEN    

PRAYER

              We have gathered on this day, this day like no other day you have created, O God, to witness as a congregation like no other, to truths revealed to us by your Son, who like no other, is our true source of hope and salvation. Your divine word to guide us, we worship in the freedom you provide, rejoicing in the privilege we enjoy to taste and savor the fruits of discovery. Preserve in us, O God, an openness to learn and grow. Where the habits of study and prayer lie dormant, challenge us to embrace the disciplines that can change our lives. Where we have hoarded our gifts of time, talent, and treasure, making excuses for doing less when we could be doing more, challenge us to reevaluate the commitments we have made.  

              Abide with those who will embark down new roads through the opportunities this church provides in Christian education.  Grateful for the dedicated teachers who will share their gifts, grateful also for the resources at their disposal to bring the lessons they will teach to life, we enter this new Christian education with great expectations. Prosper our efforts as a church to faithfully communicate the salvation story, O Lord, that those who teach and those who are taught may experience lives transformed through the discoveries they shall make. Renew our ardor to reach beyond the walls of our church and become a beacon of light for our community.

              As we solemnly mark the fifth anniversary of a national tragedy we pray your blessing, O Lord, upon all those for whom the day evokes memories of loved ones lost in the tragedy. Where the wound of grief remains open and debilitating, O God, bring healing and consolation.  Where anger has overwhelmed, there be to calm and heal.

              Our generation, O God, is cursed by upheaval, destructive forces feeding on hatred inflamed by corrosive ideologies and dogma. Good minds and billions of dollars are wasted in designing strategies to kill and maim, and countermeasures to thwart attack. Reason is a casualty of ideology, the roadside bomb deemed the most effective way to assert a grievance. In your mercy, O God, help us to help ourselves, that the malignancy of hatred not further contaminate and despoil our civilization.

              We pray for healing in our city.  Disaffected and impatient, we look for signs of progress, O Lord, and we are disappointed.  Abide with the leadership of our neighborhood and our city as they cope with the unprecedented demands the residue of the storm has left behind. We would pray for the marginalized in our community who lack the resources to rebuild, and those who remain dislocated as a result of the storm without any prospect of returning home any time soon.

              O Christ who healed the blind, the deaf, the leper, and the demon-possessed, direct your healing powers to our friends who suffer affliction this day. Be with the forlorn who have lost hope, the isolated deprived of emotional support. Be with those who must submit to the rigors of drug regimens and therapies. Grant them courage and strength to cope, physical strength to manage the adverse effects to which the body must submit.  Abide with us who love and care for the afflicted, that our words and actions may bear witness to our devotion and commitment.  Be with doctors and nurses who tend the sick that the passion they direct to diagnosis and healing may be matched with compassion for the unspoken but compelling needs of the people they are treating.

              O God, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hear our prayers, both spoken and unspoken for they issue from hearts seeking their one true home in thee.  For this Sabbath and the special gift that worship affords we come to thee in prayer, praying the prayer Jesus taught us