Sermon for Sunday, March 12, 2006

A SEASON FOR SIFTING

by

Rev. Steve Burnett, D. S.

Scripture: Psalm 51:6-12

6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Mark 8:31-36

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

I’m hearing wonderful things about your members’ trip to Israel and to the Palestinian Territory.

About eight years ago on a trip to Israel the current “intifada” had not started, but there was much tension. Everyone back home was nervous about our well-being. One day we were on the top of Masada – an old Roman fortress on top of a huge flat mesa overlooking the Dead Sea. The tour guide’s cell phone rang. Cell phones then were not as prevalent – nor particularly as global as they are today. He answered the phone, then handed the phone to me and said, “It’s for you.” The travel agent back in North Carolina was just checking to make sure we were ok.

While on Masada, we watched college-aged adults shaking archeological sifters, kind of like sifters used to prepare sand for mixing mortar. We weren’t sure they could speak English, so we asked them, rather haltingly, “What are you doing with that?” This one young woman – we learned later was from Atlanta, GA - answered in a beautiful southern accent, “Why we’re just sifting through this stuff to find something precious.”

Isn’t that what the season of Lent is about? It’s a season for sifting through our lives to let what is encrusted fall away and reveal what is precious. To reveal more clearly what gives meaning and value to life. To let fall away what is unnecessary and untrustworthy.

My own sifter tends not to sift at all – know what I mean? It seems to have an airtight bottom…too much stuff remains. I need some bigger holes. What about you?

This season of Lent offers a designated period of time to sift through the stuff of our lives. And in this church community – the recent loss of life, two memorial services in three days for wonderful, special leaders, husbands, and fathers – begs us to do some sifting - asking some questions, reaching deeply into our soul, shedding or letting go of what really isn’t central to vital living, that God might reveal what is.

Certain days or weeks like you have had can really be “defining moments,” can’t they?

King David had a different kind of “defining moment” when he found the prophet Nathan in his face. David had abused his power with Bathsheba. He wanted this behavior to go unnoticed. But Nathan confronted him, and this confrontation we’re told led David to a time of sifting, resulting in this Psalm 51 attributed to him, where he recognized how “God desires truth in the inward being.”

Mark’s gospel tells about still a different kind of defining moment that the disciples had with Jesus. Jesus had just asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” They had answered, “The Messiah.” And this exchange precipitated a time of sifting for those disciples….

… sifting through the popular understandings of what a Messiah is, and does….

… sifting through their own triumphalist vision of a conquering savior who would drive out the Romans, bring down the Herodians, wipe out diseases….

… sifting through their fears of what it meant to follow such a religious figure whose increasingly public appearances might draw unwanted attention and punishment from the authorities….

… sifting, until the core of Jesus’ self-understanding was revealed: how God’s intention for God’s messiah would involve “great suffering,” rejection by the religious leaders, execution, and resurrection….

… sifting through this revelation that following Jesus would require them to deny themselves, take up their cross, lose their lives for Christ’s sake….

… sifting through what it meant to gain the whole world and forfeit their lives.

A typical defining moment for me, when I do a lot of sifting through the stuff of my life, is when I face my own mortality – through the death of loved ones or dear friends, or even through difficult illnesses – either mine or in the family.

Back in January the Denver Post had a fine article about Gil Caldwell, coinciding with Martin Luther King weekend and the publication of Gil’s book, What Mean These Stones, probing the meaning of religious faith and democracy in America.

It was following a time of personal illness that Caldwell sifted through his life, and confessed that he was becoming something of a late-life “mystic”. He said that he’s handing out to friends a card that defines what that means, to him: - “A mystic is anyone who has the gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradictions and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity…” Being a mystic, he said, “doesn’t soften me, but it makes me less anxious.” I believe what he is saying is that. . .

Sifting doesn’t immediately bring solutions. Instead, it brings us into this holy conversation about our lives that I believe can reveal a greater wisdom, as we entertain the mystery of God’s grace.

In his autobiography, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Swiss psychologist Jung comments that the world will ask you over and over who you are. . .and if you don’t have an answer the world will give you one. He said that the world is impatient with mystery because mystery lies beyond the world’s control.

Children of God, on the other hand, are stewards of mystery. We dwell gently with it, not so much to search for answers as to be transformed by the questions that open us into God’s eternity – that reveal God’s truth in our inward being.

Such a week as we have had offer up the questions that open us up to transformation – to health – to healing – to God’s reign. And these will come – but will come more richly, as we purposefully let God sift through the stuff that so fills up our boxes.

One way Christians through generations have sifted for this truth is through a spiritual practice created by Ignatius of Loyola nearly 500 years ago called, “The Examen,” or the examination. He subtitled it, “Finding God in All Things.”

In the evening before bedtime, or early morning, this practice invites you to a five-part journey in prayer. It only needs to take about 10-15 minutes, and can be a rich practice during this Lenten season.

Recall that you are in the presence of God. We’re supposed to remember that “In God we live and move and have our being”, but it’s easy to forget.
Give thanks for the gifts of the day – in the concrete details.
Ask help from the Holy Spirit. “When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth.” It’s a time for gentleness, grace and healing.
Examination – Review your day. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 13:5) “Test yourselves to see whether you are living in faith; examine yourselves. Perhaps you yourselves do not realize that Christ Jesus is in you.” Ask for an account of your soul from hour to hour through the day – not so much what you did, or didn’t do, but how God was present in your life, what God was doing
Reconcile and resolve. Ask to resolve and amend your heart…to re-focus it – let it be formed in God’s spirit.

That’s one time-tested way of sifting the stuff to let that which is precious and mysterious be revealed.

Another way disciples sift through their stuff is in small group study. For many of you, as for me, Marcus Borg’s Heart of Christianity has been a great “sifter.” One book just out by Michael Slaughter, pastor of our Ginghamsburg UMC, is called Momentum for Life: Sustaining Personal Health, Integrity, and Strategic Focus as a Leader.

The trick is to find time, isn’t it? Not only personal and family activities, but church activities alone can eat up our devotional time.

That’s why I believe some sifting is good for our churches, too!

I know about a fairly large church that went on a fast together. But it wasn’t about food. The leaders of the church declared the ultimate fast for Lent: They gave up meetings! They interrupted their regular administrative and program meetings during Lent….and invited their members instead to some form of daily – and weekly – individual and small-group spiritual practice.

Would you consider using the remainder of Lent as a season for “sifting”?...to let what is truly unimportant drop away, so that what is precious might be made more visible.

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