Sermon for Christmas Eve, 2006

You Talkin' to Me?

by

Jerry Herships, Local Pastor

How I came to be wearing this robe, well, to quote the Grateful Dead, “what a long strange trip it’s been.” This is this robe’s maiden voyage. It’s kind of exciting. This robe symbolizes the work to which I feel I have been called. It is called a John Wesley robe in the “robe book catalogue” bet you didn’t even know there was a robe book catalogue did ya? For me it also is a physical representation of a change in my life. At 40 years old I left one career behind to go off and pursue a new path that I felt God was calling me to. In 159 days I will graduate with a Masters degree required for Ordained ministry (not that I am counting) and in 189 days, God and the Board of Ordained Ministry willing, I will begin serving as a Pastor at a church in the Rocky Mountain Conference. The Bishop will tell me where I will serve. It is exciting and scary.

I was reminded of this when we hear about how Mary felt when Gabriel delivered the message that she was going to give birth to the Son of God. Now I don’t care who you are, in anyone’s book, that’s pretty big news. And as we would expect, Mary felt frightened. Now we have heard fear talked about a lot. We are told, “Do not fear” 365 times in the Bible. One a day.  Coincidence? I think not. This is pretty handy, because if you are anything like me you could use those words at least once a day. Clearly this is an important point. And yet Mary was afraid. Now to be fair, she did not have the advantage of having the King James Bible on her nightstand. It has been said by many people that the opposite of faith is not doubt but rather fear. And yet, by the end of the passage, Mary says, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Harvey touched on this last week but I want to tease it out a little further.

She put her will and her own fears behind her to do God’s will. Do you believe people are still called? Do you think it is only clergy that gets called? Do you believe that God is calling all of us to a unique and special purpose? The call that Mary gets follows a pattern. See if you recognize it. First there is fear. The very idea of following a different path is petrifying. For many of us today it is, “How will we survive? Where will we get money? I’m too old. I’m too young. What will people think?”

This is usually followed by confusion or perplexity. O.K. I want to do God’s will but how? What is it? How am I supposed to know for sure huh? Huh?

The third step is recognizing that with God anything is possible. It is a moment of knowing that maybe, maybe, this “thing” is could really happen.

This then leads to the final step, which is obedience. A surrendering one’s own will to the will of God. Mary did all four steps: fear, confusion, trust in God, and obedience. Mary, in a moment, realized that her life was going to change and by saying yes to God, the history of the world was changed forever.

As my dad would say, “I would bet dollars to doughnuts” (I have to be honest, I don’t even know what that means but he said it all the time) that there are some people here that are feeling a call to do or be something else. You might be one of them. You might be at anyone of the stages I mentioned. Fear. Confusion. Trust. Obedience. You could be there for any number of reasons.

Burnout is one of them. We live in a time where people are burning out at an alarming rate.  New York  magazine did its cover story on the topic. It said that the number one reason for burn out wasn’t hours worked, that is what people assumed but it wasn’t true. It was instead based around expectations. One person quoted in the article said that burnout is, “the gap between expectation and reward.” The equation worked out to be: Happiness equals reality divided by expectations.

Sound like anyone you might know? I knew this guy real well a few years back. See when I moved to L.A., my expectation was to Host The Tonight Show. My reality was that I was folding jeans at the GAP when I was thirty. You can see the disconnect.

In a book by David L. Goetz called Death by Suburb, Goetz talks about a spiritual practice of pursuing action without the thought of result or outcome. This I think is central to moving forward to where you are being called. Like Mary, none of us have any idea what the future will hold if we follow God’s will and it can be our attachment to the future that can keep us from moving forward. The truth is we never know what the future will hold. Helen Keller once said, “Security is mostly an illusion. Life is either a daring adventure, or it’s nothing.” 

In Buddhism there is a saying, (I know it might freak some people out to quote Buddhism on Christmas Eve…work with me.) The saying is, “Cease expectations and you have all things.” To me this is what Goetz said in his book and it is exactly what Mary did. When she said, “Let it be” she let go of her plans and her agenda. She released outcome and trusted God that it would workout.

I truly don’t know where anyone is with his or her life at this very moment. You might be deliriously happy with your path, and if you are, then you have a pretty fantastic present to be thankful for this Christmas, but if you are feeling a nudging, a still small voice, know that it probably won’t go away. As Theologian Frederick Buechner said, “The place God is calling you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”  God wants you to live in Joy. I am slowly coming to the realization that I am getting to a place where I am happier than I have ever been. Even if the robe does make me look fat.

What is important to note is that. You won’t lose yourself completely when you turn your life over to God. God is only going to bring out your best qualities. After all, God is the one that put those qualities there in the first place. God’s desire is that they are used. You will still be you, underneath it all. This robe only represents the role, which is a part of me. It doesn’t define all of me. Underneath it all, I’m still Jerry. Struggling with Weight Watchers and usually overdressed.  The important part in all of us is what is on the inside anyway. Hand it over to God and it will be the best it can possibly be.

Can you feel it? We are less than an hour away from Christmas. Let this night mark a moment in your life when you joined Mary and said to God, “let it be”. Have a very Merry Christmas. Amen.

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