"When Lent Becomes A Microscope"

Sermon Preached By Rev. Richard E. Stetler - March 6, 2005

I Samuel 16:1-13; Ephesians 5:8-14

    
    Many of us are well aware that Christians often use Lent as a period committed to some form of self-examination.  This process could be likened to putting the contents of our lives on a glass slide and placing it under the revealing magnification of a microscope.  We need to do this as often as we can because we realize that the unexamined life is no life at all. 

     Many of us so easily fall prey to unrecognized needs, sensitivities that are way outside the parameters of even our own acceptability, and responses that sabotage our relationships as well as our dreams.  We are on stage every day, and we need to be attentive to what we are communicating to those with whom we interact.  

     Within our cultural wisdom, we find little reminders of our need to check-in on ourselves.  Many of us can remember our parents teaching us, “Engage your mind before you open your mouth.” “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”  “What will people say about you during your memorial service?”  

     Some of us have attended professional development workshops that have started off with this last one.  In fact, after the 8:30 a.m. service this morning, Jody Kelley handed me a quote that she once read on someone’s t-shirt.  It said, “Live your life so that the preacher doesn’t have to lie at your funeral.”            

     Not everyone, however, engages in the process of self-examination in the same way.  For example, there are people living around us who have no idea about the spiritual dimension of their lives.  The Apostle Paul described this dimension better than anyone in the classical world.  He wrote, “You yourselves used to be in the darkness, (e.g., in ignorance of the inner world that governs the spirit by which we live) but since you have become the Lord’s people, you are in the light.  You must live like people who belong to the light, for it is the light that brings a rich harvest of every kind of goodness, righteousness and truth.”             

     When Paul began to teach the Ephesians, his listeners were in “darkness.” Life for many of them was grounded totally in their experience of the material world with all its voices, temptations and stimuli.  The dimension of their inner world was ignored.  They either did not know about it or they did not consider its powerful potential for changing their perceptions and values. 

     Ephesus was a city with many Greek gods. No doubt the people knew the mythologies surrounding each god, but no one was teaching that life was more than the sum of its known parts.  No one was suggesting that people needed to examine their desires, attitudes, motives and their sources of inspiration.   Paul began to coach his readers on what happens to people once they discover that there is more to life than what their senses were telling them.            

     While I was serving in our church on Capitol Hill, there a woman in our congregation who held a senior position on a Congressional staff.  During those years, the Democrats lost the majority in both Houses and Bridget lost her six-figure salary. Her response to this unexpected change was like observing an art form. She was totally at peace, unalarmed and eager for the next adventure to begin somewhere, some day.  An added variable was that she had just given birth to twins.  She and her husband, Chuck, were examples of what faith and trust look like when the spiritual dimension is understood and fully deployed in life’s living patterns.

     Neither one of them had the slightest doubt about their future.  Yes, there would be uncertainty.  Yes, they might have to relocate.  Yes, they would have to leave their friends and acquaintances.  In spite of all that might have inspired insecurity, fear and self-doubt, nothing did.  They were fully engaged in living, maintained their sense of humor and they even paused in the midst of these whirlwind changes to have Lois and me over for a great Italian dinner.  Bridget prepared for us my first taste of Calamari. Calamari; isn’t that a great sounding word?  That is much better than saying she served us fried squid.

     I mention Bridget and Chuck because many of their friends, who likewise had been displaced from downsized Democratic staffs, did not fair as well.  The faith dimension was not so obvious in their lives.  Some of them were distraught and panic stricken.   Some spent many of their waking hours wondering what would happen to them.  A confidence-building component was missing from their lives – the knowledge of God’s presence.               

     Paul told his readers that when we bring all our cluttered, misguided and uninformed thoughts out into the light, we quickly understand their nature.  We also learn how much our own fear has placed a basket over our light.  Paul wrote, “And when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed.  

     Emotional pain can be a wonderful thing when it is seen for what it is.  Such pain offers guidance pointing to skills we have not yet developed.  We can stay with the pain and remain in the darkness it creates, or we can learn something about ourselves and move forward in our growth.   

     Paul also wrote, “You must live like people who belong to the light, for it is the light that brings a rich harvest of every kind of goodness, righteousness and truth.”  In other words, Bridget and Chuck experienced the consequences of living their faith and trust.  Both of them sailed on in life totally confident that bumps are always part of everyone’s life experience.  

     When we personalize those often shocking, unanticipated changes or assume that we have been victimized or abandoned by God, our microscope will tell us that such thinking is more about “poor me” than encouraging us to seize with both hands the adventure that is opening before us. God equipped us with resilience, flexibility and energetic skills to move through life’s changes without hesitation or fear. When life begins to send those waves of fear that sweep over us, we have either forgotten this lesson or our choices reveal that we are more like the Ephesians who walked in ignorance than we might believe.  

     Lent is an excellent time to put our lives under the microscope in order to examine our reactions and responses, examine whose lives we touch with our love, examine how we negotiate rapid changes or scrutinize the sources of our anxieties, stress levels and overreactions.  Perhaps we need to make some changes in the direction of our lives.  

     Are we taking enough time for persona -development?  The microscope of the faith Paul wrote about is very revealing.  When the contents of our inner world are brought out into the light, we see them for what they are.  What is it about ourselves that we may need to change? 

THE CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

     Each of us is always humbled, O God, when we consider your unfailing love.  During our moments together, may our self-examination give us hints into what others see. When we believe our faith has matured, suddenly an old habit will remind us of the distance we have yet to grow.  Our responses to being hurt reveal sensitivities that have not yet healed.  Words said in haste point to the loveless thoughts to which we still give utterance.  Help us to remember, O God, that we are students of life who are under your grace.  While we will fail many times in reflecting your will, your love is sufficient to help us stretch to levels of consciousness we do not yet practice.  Amen.

THE PASTORAL PRAYER

     Merciful God, may Sunday not be the only occasion this week when we remember that we are in Lent.  As we consider placing our lives under the microscope for our own scrutiny, may we pause to consider our pettiness; our expressions of frustration born from a world that will never be the way we want it; the smiles that we may have chased away from the faces of loved ones because of words we used in haste.  We thank you, God, for creating us with the ability to change how we think, to reframe our attitudes and to replace our fears with the far more powerful skill of trust that life is unfolding according to your will.

      Help us to remember that faith means believing in and trusting in a world that we cannot understand or interpret with our five senses.  And yet, how powerful the guidance is that comes from the voice that beckons us toward kindness and generosity and helps us silence our anxieties. 

     As we experience our moments of worship together, we pray for those who are sitting beside us.  We pray for our national leaders, for our troops stationed around the world and for those of us who have followed our calling by using our vocation as a place to be in ministry and mission.  We pray these thoughts through the spirit of Jesus who taught us to say when we pray . . .