I had a fun time preaching this weekend. The teaching was about facing and working through some of the baggage of our past. I even was able to try and sign and preach a little at our 11:00 service 🙂
Here is the sermon (very rough draft) of what this week was about. I haven’t edited it but i haven’t posted in a while so here it is.
About a week and a half ago Katie and I went on a date. We went to go see the new Harry Potter movie. I don’t really remember the last time that I went to a movie in the theaters, but Katie and I love Harry Potter. So we decided to go and the theater was packed. Just about as much as watching the movie I love people’s reactions to the movie. You know what I am talking about if you go and an animated film with a theater full of kids. The commentary that comes from the young ones is sometimes better than the film itself.
With that in minds, my ears tend to wonder in the theater and I happen upon a group in the row behind us as the movie is about to begin. In this group of about 8 teens there is someone (perhaps the only one left in the county) who had not read the books or even seen the previous 5 movies. His friends were chiming in all at once trying to bring him up to speed about what has happened in the past half of decade in the world of wizardry. Terms like sorting hat, Gryffindor, chamber of secrets, goblet of fire flew through the air faster than charms in a wizards duel.
The movie finally began. There was action and suspense, and every once and a while there were whispers from the guy behind us. “What’s up with the scar?” “Why do they go to school on a train?” “What is the point of magic if you still have to study, can’t it study for you?”
The questions kept coming. Then at the climax of the movie something shocking and awful happened. Something so bad I hesitate to tell you what went on next. The movie stopped. That’s right the projector got messed up and that was the end of our movie. With 20 min. to go we were finished with our film. The guy behind us went crazy. Questions upon questions came pouring out of his mouth until finally one of his friends said, “Just go read the book!”
There was a lot of quiet after that and then finally the guy responded. “Man, Harry really had it going on.” I could imagine a little bit of remorse eking out when he said it. As if he really would have loved to have a life like Hary’s (truly I could be mistaken and there was no remorse, but it makes for a better sermon illustration if what I heard was a longing for something more).
True or not at that moment, I am sure the guy behind me has wanted to trade up with someone at one time. I think that we all have. We have looked on with those “the grass is greener eyes” wanting to be someone from a book, movie, or just someone we know “has it going on.”
So often we see a snapshot of someone in the present and we long to be with them, but we have no clue what has been written in the past five volumes of their lives. It would seem know these people we long to trade lives with have it all together. However just under the surface we see that they have baggage just like us.
Today we are continuing our preaching and teaching series entitled “Facing your Giants.” We are confronted with things in our lives that may seem impossible to overcome. We have a couple of options when we realize these giants. We can run and hide, allowing our giants to walk all over use. Or we can stand up and face them down and overcome them so that we may be the people we have been made to be.
The Giant that stands in front of us today is actually already behind us. However it has such a hold on us that we choose to drag it along wherever we go. Today we are going to face our past. So many times what we do and how we perceive ourselves are echoes from a past we feel we cannot escape. When we look in the mirror we see the kid who always got picked last for sports teams, or the one who couldn’t read, maybe you see the class clown, or the one who was bullied.
We cling on to things in our past that we know don’t officially define us, but these are the things that tends to steer our lives. So we have a big decision to make. We can roll with the punches that we are thrown and continue to be defined by what once was. We have all had conversations that reflect upon a life that once was. Maybe it takes the shape in one of those “good old days” kinds of conversations where we wish that we could bring back and cling on to some of the times when life was good. “I think that this is what Peter was trying to do at the Transfiguration. Jesus was there and all of a sudden Moses and Elijah were there too. To live into that moment Peter wanted to make three booths so that they could stay on the mountain top and worship what had happened. But Jesus’ message was that life must go on.
A couple of weeks ago at our summer youth retreat we talked about having that perfect memory or perfect idea about our lives. We decorated tiles in a way that represented who we were. The tiles soon became filled with pictures and words of things and people who are near and dear to us. Family, pets, nature scenes, food, sports, and the sea of life were just a couple of the things that our tiles held for us. Yet, this kind of view of the ideal world is far from reality.
After decorating and making the tiles of our lives just the way we thought that they should be, they were broken. Because of the hurt, sorrow and wrongs done to us and by our hands our view of the Edenic world soon becomes broken.
At times all we can see are the broken pieces of our past and we want to get out and run from it so quickly that we miss who we have become in the mean time. When I think about living in this way I think about the parable Jesus told about the servants and the talents. Where the master gave servants talents to care for when he was gone and the first two did great with what they had and the third one buried what he had because he knew what was going to happen because he was chained down by the ways of the past.
I have heard success defined as doing the very best with what you have. I have been thinking about that in terms of stewardship. What are the ways that we use our lives for the very best for God? I am not talking money (though that is a piece of it) but I am talking that whole person stewardship that is able to make the most out of every situation. Pastor and Author Mark Batterson defines spiritual maturity as seeing and seizing the God-ordained opportunities of life.
Today I would like to tell you about a woman who did just that. Her name is Esther. She is one of the great women of our faith tradition because of the way that she was able to seize those God-ordained opportunities of life. I encourage you to take out a Bible and find the book of Esther. The story of Esther is told in one of the shortest books in the Bible’s Old Testament. It reads like a Cinderella story – born in poverty and obscurity she becomes queen over one of the most powerful empires in history. She was born into a Jewish family and became an orphan at a young age. Her Jewish name, Hadassah, was changed to the Babylonian name Esther to protect her identity and heritage. Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, raised her after the death of her parents.
As the scripture continues Esther catches the eye of the king and by the second chapter of the book Esther finds herself Queen. Who would have thought that this poor young girl who had lost her parents and was an orphan could rise to be one of the most powerful women in the land? Not only that but in a culture that was not her own. We then find that the King and the Jews were at odds with one another (little does he know about the true roots of his Queen’s heritage). Esther then has an opportunity to be queen or be the one who saves her people. She is able to do just that and because of the way she acts in the God-ordained moments she is revered and here people are spared.
In the 4th chapter of the book it says, “If you keep quiet in a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” Mordecai know what is going and he knows that God’s had has been at work in this even though it seems unlikely. Even though it would seem like thoughout scripture God loves the long shot and the underdog, there can be nothing that can stop us when God is on our side.
The scripture that was read today points to the promise that we have in God. When we are clothed in Christ all of the things of our past seem to be of little importance. They most defiantly go away. This is both a hard pill to swallow and something that allows for great opportunity. Knowing God was at work in her, Esther was able to take a risk and save her people.
As our young people found out, life will shatter the perfect images that we make of it. Yet when we rely on God to shape us and help us pick up the pieces. Great things can come of it. In face when we let god have our way with us there is something beautiful that is made that we could not do on our own. When we have been clothed with Christ we are able to know in our hearts that our past is not forgotten, but that we are truly a new creation. We are set free from the bondage of the old way of life and we are able to find that new life in the one thing that matters. We are able to turn our heard to those God-ordained moments and live into them in a way that will allow our hearts to sing.
When we are clothed with Christ we can journey with others we have gone down similar paths of our past and comfort them and encourage them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that there are new beginning and that God loves the underdog. It is in this new life that we will find ourselves telling stories about today rather than living vicariously through the life that once was because there is nothing more exciting than living a life tuned into the one who created you. I loved college and seminary, when I was teaching people how to kayak and snowboard. A couple of weeks ago I went to summer camp with a couple of our youth and it was awesome because I was back in that world. We hikes, and did the ropes course, we rafted and played frizbee. But I am so content here. I am excited about what God is doing in my life now and I know that God is not done with me yet.
So where do you find yourself in this drama. Are you like Peter trying to live in your past? Are you like the servant that his the talents because of what you have been told of your past? Or are you like Esther, tuning in on the God-ordained moments of life and letting the fragrance of God guide your life? This week I would like you to take an honest look in the mirror and reflect on what you see. What are some ways that you could then be more like Esther, being faithful and doing the best with what you have and not letting your past get in the way but enabling you do sing for God?
