Let me tell you about my Grandson, David. Now he’s not only my grandson, but, in a sense, he’s also the grandchild of our entire Congregation here.
· David was the youngest and maybe the last to attend our St. Timothy’s Daycare.
· I remember members of the congregation helping him with his tricycle riding on the sidewalk out there.
David is a lot like a pot belly stove. If I put in pinch of love and attention, he just glows, warming up the entire room.
When he hurts, I hurt. When he is happy, I’m happy.
But, amazingly, given that he’s a just a child, when I’m hurt, he hurts. And when I’m happy, he’s happy. We seem to beat with the same heart or maybe with hearts that are synchronized with each other. He mystically feels my pain or happiness. I think all young children, to one extent or another, can mystically feel the pain or happiness of their loved adults.
Now David’s not perfect. You may remember St. Timothy Christmas pageant several years ago when he was two and he played the part of baby (or very young) Jesus. The kids were too crowded together up there. David got into a shoving match w/ the 3 wise men. Not good behavior for either Jesus or for the Wise Men. Only at St. Timothy’s do we have this special variation on the Christmas pageant!
After that Christmas pageant, little David said to me, “Papa, it’s scary up there!
But now that he’s ten years old (almost 11), my question, ‘How’s school?’, usually brings his response as ‘It’s ok - nothing special.’ He seldom gushes his enthusiasm for everything. He’s becoming an adult or at least he’s becoming a teenager. He’s judging others, figuring people out. He’s more reserved, not so childish. He often can’t come to his grandparent’s house because he’d rather go to a friend’s house to play.
I think – I feel – I know that God’s relation with me is like the one I have with David, especially the David of a few years ago. God fells hurt when I’m feeling hurt. God is happy when I’m happy.
God feels love when I feel love. Actually the ‘God feels love when I feel love’ may not be exactly true. I’ve heard in a sermon that touched me deeply, that the love within me and within David, that all love, actually is us feeling God move within us. [Steve Shortes at Cursillo 88]
Certainly the pure love of little children like David is very special to God. The Bible says:
I remember being about 10 years old, myself. I was given an autograph book as a birthday present. But a blank autograph book means I’m uncool, I don’t have any friends. So I asked my parents to sign it – to start to fill it up. But when my mom took it, she put it in her top drawer of her writing desk and said she’d have to think about what to write in it. The next day she wrote in my autograph book what I now know is her all-time, favorite, scripture:
I must have been approaching the teenage years myself. I was so impatient with Mom. By her taking my autograph book for even one day, she delayed my filling it up, my erasing this sign of uncoolness. She just didn’t get it. She was making life more difficult for me.
But as I read these words today, especially the words,
I hear a commandment to listen to God as an un-judging child, as a loving, believing, child. God will tell me what I must say and do – if I’ll listen and act humbly.
In the beautiful words of today’s reading of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians:
In other words, your love overflows out of righteousness. But what does the word ‘Righteousness’ mean? Righteousness means listening to God, having Faith in Him, and acting rightly as He wants us to.
In a larger sense, righteousness means having a oneness with God, having your heart beat in sync with God’s heart. The religious word for having your heart beat in sync with God’s is to be ‘centered’ in God. When Adam and Eve daily chatted with God in the Garden of Eden, when it was a central part of their everyday lives, they were ‘centered’ in God. Monks live alone for years in the desert to avoid daily distractions of the surrounding culture, of surrounding people, so they can focus all their thoughts and energy on God. They try to mystically see with the eyes of God, think with the thoughts of God, feel with the heart of God – to be mystically attuned to God, to feel themselves surrounded in the warmth and love of God, to hear the Holy Spirit speak in their hearts.
God is righteous with us because He kept his covenant with us, His promise to us. He promised in the Old Testament that if we will be His people, He will be our God. If we need Him, He is there for us. If we are in pain, He is in pain with us, helping us shoulder the weight of that yoke of pain. If we are happy, He is happy along with us, helping us enjoy it and to learn from it and to share it.
We are righteous with God if we, likewise, do our obligations to Him – not only the 10 commandments, etc. but to love, and to listen to God. Then we get Right with God. We get in sync with God. We are centered in God.
The classic example of Righteousness in the bible is Noah, the same Noah who built the Ark. I’m sure everyone in Noah’s neighborhood made fun of him for building the ark. But he was God’s fool. He listened to God and he acted. Noah ignored those critics around him in his everyday world. The bible says Noah lived to be 600 years old! Talk about an OLD fool. So, for the young crowd out there (including Jim Suver), Noah was a righteous dude! He was in tune, in sync, with God! How wonderful is that!
Advent Season means getting ready for Christmas, getting ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus – for the First Coming of Jesus – but also Advent tells us to get ready for Jesus’ Second Coming. We get ready by listening to God’s Call for us and then by acting upon that call. But if we’re acting like arrogant teenagers or like arrogant adults, we can’t hear His Call. We need to be an old fool for God. We need to be like Noah. We need to be righteous dudes.
I know we as adults don’t want to risk being called fools. We want to keep our shields up of being serious, smart, adults. We want to judge others, not to have others judge us. But, then we can’t be righteous dudes.
Assuming you want to be righteous dudes – and if you don’t I don’t know why you’re here - let me present 3 paths for you consider following for the season of Advent:
1st) Tell someone you love them. This takes so little effort and so little time. But it carries life changing results – both for you and for your secret loved ones. If you say you love them and you sincerely mean it, your life will change and so will theirs. Just like David glowed with love like a pot belly stove, so will they and so will you. Let God’s love touch them, warm them, and warm you. Don’t worry you’ll be considered an old fool by openly declaring your love. This is much too important.
2nd) Take up a new, scary, ministry. Remember when David said, ‘It’s scary up there!’ Undertake a new ministry in this new church year. For example, our new Community of Hope with health and wellness outreach into our community will be a servant ministry to others and bring you closer to God. But beware! This may entail even wearing a cross in public, being a visible Christian in public! That’s scary!
3rd) Listen to your heart. Listen to the Holy Spirit within you. Listen with humility, as a child would and then act on some strange, new, exciting but scary, path - your own new path.
So…
The baby is coming - the baby of love. That baby, and the man he becomes, is calling us to do what we know is right, that is to touch, to love, to feel the happiness and the pain of others this Christmas season, this coming year, and for the rest of the days of our lives. Feel the loving power of God within you. Pray with it, in humility, to make your heart beat in synchronization with the heart of God. Listen and discern His messages you hear while:
· here at church
· when you wake up in the middle of the night
· Or ideas when you wake up in the morning.
God is trying to talk with you and with all of us here at St. Timothy’s. After all, He is our God - we are His people. He’s giving us the opportunity to feel His presence not just this Advent season but every day of our lives. There isn’t enough God in the world - there isn’t enough love in the world.
Sesame Street would say this program has been brought to you by the letter ‘G’, perhaps. Following their example, this sermon has been brought to you by:
· ‘G’ for the God of young children and of Righteous Adults
Dan Boeger
December 10, 2006