Walls and Horizons

 Last week we had a fun time with music, and I mentioned how much I liked a variety of musicians as I was growing up.  One in particular was a fellow named John Denver.  His song “Country Roads, Take me Home” is one that a lot of people can relate to.  “Almost Heaven West Virginia” is one I want to change to “Almost Heaven Athabasca” with the hills and the river.  Every time I drive down the east hill, that view of the river grabs my heart with its beauty.  Gorgeous!  I’m sure many of you have a river valley you love to see, or a hill you live next to that puts a lump in your throat, a piece of wilderness that just seems special every time you see it.

The ancient writer of our psalm, one of the oldest psalms in the bible, reminded us to give credit for the beauty of nature to God.  Recognize God in those moments of wonder.  Honor God in those moments of awe.  See God in those country roads, those shining waters, those mountains and hills, but don’t get messed up thinking that the hills and mountains are God.  They are fragile and changeable, not as permanent as we’d like to imagine.  God can disrupt and change that which we mere mortals see as unchangeable.  Which is a good thing from time to time.

We need disruptions to keep our attention on the right things.  It’s important not to get stuck in ruts, assume we have all the answers, that we’ve come to an end point in our thinking or understanding.  And God seems to shake things up just when we least expect it, sometimes in powerful ways, sometimes in gentle whispers.

Baptism and confirmation are when we take a moment to recognize the disruptions that have brought us to a new stage in our lives.  A new baby, a new family, a new understanding of our faith come together in the waters we use to symbolize a change has taken place, something new is in our lives.  It can be something we can’t quite put into words and bring a lump into our throats just like a beautiful sky or a glimpse of river.  Something we wish we could sing about if only we could find the right tune.

Baptism and confirmation are not the end point.  And they are not some kind of magical spell or ritual we cast to prevent bad things happening, the storms of life from hurting us.  Jesus was baptized and it didn’t keep him safe, he got crucified.  He wasn’t baptized to give himself a ‘get out of hell free’ card like we’re playing some kind of cosmic Monopoly game.  These kinds of ideas were what people thought baptism was but not for John and Jesus.  Confirmation too used to be a sign of who was in and who was out.  When I was growing up, confirmation was the ticket we needed to have communion, or teach Sunday School.  It became a wall that kept ‘them’ in and us kids out.  It was something that excluded.  And just as our faith grows and our ideas about how to worship change from one decade to the next, so our understanding of baptism and confirmation also change. 

Not every church is comfortable with change.  There are churches that still forbid organs and pianos as sinful.  There are churches who have women and children sitting on the left and men on the right and never the twain shall meet.  There’s one United Church in Halifax that has gates on their pews and the ‘free’ pews in the back were where people sat if they couldn’t afford to pay for a box.  Even today no one sits in the front box for that is reserved for the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia.  I don’t know if it’s ever used.

Jesus and John were not interested in putting walls up or boxing people in.  They were interested in getting people to look up, past the walls that hemmed them in to look at far horizons, and to take courageous steps on our journey towards God.  They were interested in rituals with simple everyday things like water, bread, wine, and fish that would break down walls between people.  Even then, they were working together to bring hope and inspiration to ordinary people like you and me.  They were working together to stir things up, to get folks thinking, to inspire new ideas and new ways of being in community.  Just like country roads with the radio reminding us of our home far away, baptism and confirmation are the voice of Jesus calling to us today to move beyond our walls to far horizons together with this congregation of courageous travelers.  May we hear that voice and heed the call and find blessings and fellowship this day and ever more. Amen.

A New Song in our Mouths

I don’t know U2 music very well at all.  You ask me a trivia question about an ABBA song, and I’m your gal.  U2 is my brother’s music, something the younger generation listened to.  So, I was floored to learn that U2 took the words of Psalm 40 and put it to music.  Not only that, but they used “40” as their concert grand finale for many years, leaving the stage while the audience sang the chorus of “How Long to Sing this Song” which would go on and on and on.

Almost like the kids songs we used to sing, “This is the Song that Never Ends” or “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”.  They can go on for a long time, much to the annoyance of others who listen to them and don’t want to join in the silliness.

There are times we feel like we can’t sing.  Like we are still caught in the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, or in some translations, the miry bog.  Taxes, kids clothes, food, expenses, sickness, family drama, fender benders, and world events, all kinds of things can contribute to that feeling that our lives are out of control and we are in a sticky situation. Sometimes we cry for help and feel like there is no answer to our dilemma, like no one is listening, like we are alone and abandoned.  And sometimes we feel like there is something listening, that encouragement comes when we least expect it, we get a phone call from someone we haven’t heard from in a while, or something comes together and things make sense.

For me, that was music.  When I was struggling with depression as a twenty-something, I stumbled into church one day and the music and hymns were what helped me feel less alone, less hopeless and helpless.  Songs outside the church also supported and encouraged me.  Music like John Denver’s “Sweet Surrender”.  Many folks found country gospel music like “I Saw the Light” or “I Come to the Garden Alone” sustained them in their dark times. Or Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” or Judy Garland’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or Natasha Beddingfield’s “Unwritten” and the list goes on.  Hymns like “Amazing Grace”, “This Little Light of Mine”, “Be Thou my Vision” can pull us out of our negativity we may be stuck in. It also reminds us that we’re not alone. 

But music is not enough to help us when we are really in challenging times.  Like a bandage and a kiss on a boo boo, this may make us temporarily flushed with positive adrenaline, but sometimes a panacea won’t work.  Sure, there is something magical about sitting on Connor’s Hill on an August night singing along to Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds” with a thousand or more other Albertans that leaves us all with lumps in our throats, but what kind of love will end conflict in Ukraine or starvation in the Sudan or political unrest in Peru?

I’ll never forget leaving the old Rexall hockey arena in Edmonton after a Neil Diamond concert where thousands of people had sung about brotherly love together only to discover that the same people were now arguing loudly and heatedly over taxis.  My faith in humanity was shaken hard that night as we stood there wondering how we would get home.

Songs are not enough if they slip out of our lips without thinking.  And if they are only about our pleasures and our concerns.  The words that slipped out of John’s lips in our gospel reading were pointing to something beyond him.  John wasn’t singing “I will Survive” like Gloria Gaynor, he was singing, “B-b-b-baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet” and pointing to Jesus.  “Go, follow that guy!  Go, watch him pull you out of the horrible pit, the miry bog.  Go and learn a new song to sing that will spill out of your mouths and bless everyone who will hear you, to come and see!”

John’s excitement was contagious.  How can we share our excitement to the people around us that are feeling stuck, hopeless and helpless?  We tend to do exactly the opposite of what the scriptures suggested – at the first sign of opposition, we have concealed the signs of God’s steadfast love, and hidden the truth of the difference our faith has made in our lives.  We’ve experienced too many cases of toxic bullying that was used to bring people to church, too many ugly songs that preached shame, guilt, fear and superiority.  We’ve listened to stories of racism, injustice and intolerance that have been done in the name of winning souls to Christianity.

Enough!  Time to sing the truth, the new song!  One of joy and liberation, of new light in our troubled world, of power with rather than power over.  This week I was talking to a young lady about our church and she got very excited when she saw our big rainbow flag in our basement.  “I left my church because they preached hate”, she told me. “I didn’t know churches like yours even existed.”  She needed to hear that new song we are singing, and there are others, so many others that also need to hear words of hope.  People who need a light in their lives, a lamb of God to pull them out of the clay bogs of their lives. How can we do that?

Remember that all John the Baptiser said was “Wow look at him!” and all Jesus said was “Come and See”.  Very simple.  Very straightforward.  “Wow, this has happened, check it out.  Wow, I feel much more hopeful with my life, come and try it out.” It’s okay to hear no, just keep singing anyway.

And we may find that people, hungry for a new song of hope in their lives, will join us as we say “Wow” together every Sunday.  The light is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God!