PASTOR APPRECIATION SUNDAY (9/17/2007)
Remember the
story of Elijah when he fled from Jezebel and the priests of Baal and found
himself on Mount Horeb. This story is told in First Kings
19, beginning with verse 11. I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version
of the Bible.
God
said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about
to pass by.”
Now there was a great wind,
so strong it was spitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the
Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind;
And after the wind, an
earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;
And after the earthquake, a
fire, but the Lord was not in the fire;
And after the fire a sound
of sheer silence.
When Elijah heard it, he
wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the
cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “what are you doing here,
Elijah?”
I
bring you greetings from the people of God who worship and minister across the
street at St. John’s.
And I bring their best wishes to Rev. Tyson on this day to honor his prophetic
and pastoral ministry in your midst.
I
share in many ways your appreciation for Maner’s work and dedication and
commitment as your Pastor. In addition, as most of you know, Maner and Rhonie
work with St. John’s
as our Youth Ministers.
Now,
Episcopalians and Baptists have some different ways of looking at the Christian
Faith and some different ways of worshipping God. There’s a story about a
Baptist who went to an Episcopal Church. He sat in the very first row—which was
empty because Episcopalians usually don’t sit in the first row except on Easter
and Christmas. He followed along in the Book of Common Prayer and listened to
the scripture readings. And he sang the hymns a lot louder than most of the
folks around him. But the trouble started when the priest got up to give the
sermon.
After
a couple of sentences, the Baptist said, “Amen, brother! Preach it!”
Well,
the Episcopal priest was so startled, he stopped preaching. But he gathered
himself and started again. Another few sentences and the Baptist said, “Praise
the Lord, thank you Jesus….”
Some
of the members of the congregation were getting a little nervous at that point,
but the preacher continued and the Baptist man stood up and said, “I hear you,
brother! Amen!”
At
that point one of the ushers came down to the first pew and whispered to the
Baptist: “Sir, I’m afraid I have to ask you to keep quiet during the sermon.”
“I
can’t be quiet,” the Baptist replied, “I’ve got
the Spirit!”
And
the usher said, “Well, you didn’t get it HERE….”
I’m
pleased to say, you CAN “get the Spirit” across the street at St. John’s. And I’m proud that we’re the only
Episcopal Church I know of with Baptists as youth directors….
And
I’m delighted to be with you today.
I
was told “prophet leadership” should be the theme of what I have to share with
you. I want to talk about three prophets this morning: Elijah at the cave,
Ezekiel in the Valley
of Dry Bones and Jesus on
the Cross.
But
before that, I want to define what a “prophet” is. My definition is this: A
PROPHET IS ONE WHO SPEAKS THE WORD OF GOD IN UNCOMFORTABLE, EVEN DANGEROUS
SITUATIONS.
Somewhere
along the line, people started thinking of “prophecy” as having something to do
with being able to “see the future”. You
might have heard of Edgar Casey and Jeanne Dixon. Edgar Casey had waking
“dreams” of what was going to happen and Jeanne Dixon made predictions of the
future. Neither of them were “prophets” in the Biblical sense. They were
“sooth-sayers” and fortune tellers, not “prophets”.
I
contend that a true prophet—a “prophet” as the Bible describes them—does three
things: first, “listens for God”; second, “speaks for God”; third
and most importantly, “loves for God”.
Let’s
go back to Elijah in his cave, listening for God. It is good to remember how he
got there. Elijah, in Chapter 18 of 1st Kings, is the last living
prophet of Israel
and he single-handedly defeats 70 priests of Baal when God miraculously set
fire to Elijah’s offering though it had been soaked by water. Then the people
of Israel,
convinced of God’s power, killed the prophets of Baal and Elijah ran for his
life, fleeing from the wrath of Queen Jezebel. Fearing for his life, he sits
under a bloom tree and asks God to take his life. But God sends him instead to
Horeb.
The
journey takes Elijah 40 days without food and water (that sounds familiar
doesn’t it?) before he comes to the cave and listens for God. A prophet must
listen very carefully for God. To “speak” for God, a prophet must “hear” God
clearly and discern God’s voice.
God
speaks to Elijah on Horeb—but not in the wind and not in the earthquake and not
in the fire. Most translations of the Bible say that God spoke in “a still,
small voice”—but I prefer the translation I read which compares God’s speaking
to “a sound of sheer silence”.
One
of the most important ways we “listen for God” is in prayer. But most of the
time we think of “prayer” as talking to
God rather than listening for God.
Prayer is a conversation, and like any conversation, we have to “listen” as
much as we “talk”.
A
prophetic leader must be a person of deep, profound prayer. And, most often,
that prayer must often be “without words”, simply being present to God and
listening for God’s voice. Prayer is the beginning of Prophecy. Prayer is the
food and drink of Christian leadership. And you must be very quiet, very
attentive, deeply listening to hear “a still small voice”, to recognize the
“sound of sheer silence….”
Now
let’s turn to another prophet—Ezekiel. This is found in the 37th
chapter of Ezekiel.
EZEKIEL
37.1-10
The
hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord
and set me down in the middle of a valley: it was full of bones. He led me all
around them; there were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry.
He said to me, “Mortal, can
these bones live?”
I answered, “O Lord God,
you know.”
Then he said to me,
“Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the
Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you
and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you and cause flesh to come upon you
and cover you with skin and put breath in you and you shall live; and you shall
know that I am the Lord.”
So I prophesied as I had
been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling,
and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked and there were sinews
on them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me,
“Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal and say to the breath; Thus says the
Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live.”
I prophesied as he
commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their
feet, a vast multitude.
Ezekiel
spoke for God and the words he spoke were words of renewal, words of
rejuvenation, words of healing, words of resurrection, words of Life….
Prophetic
Leadership is leadership that brings healing and hope and life to bear on a
world deeply wounded, despairing, dying.
Remember
the prophetic message of Jesus to those disciples of John the Baptist who came
to ask him if “he were the One” sent from God. This begins in Luke 7:22: Jesus
says: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard; the blind receive their
sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised, the poor have good news brought to them….”
Words
of healing and hope and life to a world wounded, despairing, dying….If dry
bones can put on flesh and breathe again and live, can’t we bring healing and
hope and life as well? And it is vital to notice that the Words of the Prophet
are not “just talkin’”—the Word of God is “action” as well. Lots of people talk
a good line about God, but true Prophetic Leadership “takes action” in this
world.
Remember
the story of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25, when the Son of Man divides the
sheep from the goats. He condemns the unrighteous, not because they didn’t
“talk the talk”, but because they didn’t “walk the walk”. He doesn’t say, “you
didn’t praise my name enough, you didn’t pray in church enough, you didn’t
testify to my power enough”…oh, no, those are just words. The Son of Man
condemns the “unrighteous” because they didn’t “DO” enough, they didn’t take
the actions in this world of healing and hope and life.
…for when I was hungry and you gave me no
food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you
did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison
and you did not visit me…”
And who does the Word
of God speak to most vividly, most forcefully, most powerfully? To “the least
of these”. It is what we DO for “the least of these” that we truly DO for
Christ. Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words.
True
Prophetic Leaders “speak for God” AND “act for God”—and their words and actions
are always for “the least of these”: the poor, the oppressed, the
broken-hearted, those imprisoned by bars or by addiction, those on the margins
of society, those longing for equality, for justice, for inclusion, for
freedom. True Prophetic Leaders—like Gandhi, like Mother Teresa and Mother
Jones, like Martin Luther King—work for justice and have a dream.
Mother
Teresa’s dream was to eliminate poverty and sickness from the poorest of the
poor in Calcutta, India. Someone once asked her,
surrounded by thousands of suffering people: “Mother Teresa, how do you ever
expect to help all these people?”
Mother
Teresa smiled: “one at a time,” she said.
***
A
prophetic leader “listens for God” and “speaks and acts for God”. But most
importantly, a prophetic leader “loves for God”. This brings us to Jesus on the
Cross. In the midst of his suffering and dying, his thoughts were still
thoughts of love.
“Father,
forgive them,” he prayed from the cross, “for they know not what they do….”
Imagine
that—imagine, if you can, loving and praying for the ones who beat
you and spit on you, the ones who made you carry your own cross, the ones who
drove the nails into your hands and feet and lifted you up to die. That is
radical and prophetic love. That is the love God calls us to share and to be.
To love our enemies and bless those who persecute us.
This
is the hardest and most important role of a Prophetic Leader—“to Love for
God….”
Here’s
what I think Jesus was saying from the Cross—I think he was saying: “Father,
God, even though they are killing me, they are your children and you love them.
And I love them too.”
Loving
for God, as a prophetic leader, tells us two things: it tells us “WHO WE ARE”
and “WHOSE WE ARE.” No matter what the
world says, God’s love tells us that we are his beloved children and that we
belong to him.
Did
you notice that when I began this sermon, I crossed myself like this?....I did
that on purpose, knowing that it is one of the things that Episcopalians do
that Baptists don’t do. And I wanted a chance to explain why we do it.
Whenever
I cross myself like this…I say to myself, silently, “in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Doing this—crossing myself—is a way I
have of reminding myself of my baptism. When we baptize a child or an adult in
the Episcopal Church, we say: “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And a little later in the service we anoint
the newly baptized with oil on their foreheads in the sign of the cross and
say: “You are sealed in the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever….”
MARKED
AS CHRIST’S OWN FOREVER….That’s a pretty amazing and wonderful and joyful thing
to be. “Marked as Christ’s own forever” is who
I am and whose I am. And every time I cross myself, I am reminding myself
of those two things: that I am a child of God and that I belong to Christ
forever. So it’s not an empty gesture to me….It speaks to me of God’s radical
and prophetic love.
I heard a sermon
two weeks ago in Columbus, Ohio, at the General Convention of the
Episcopal Church, that points to this kind of radical and prophetic love. The
preacher was a man who has been oppressed and hated by many just because of who
he is—but he said to us all—“love them anyway….No matter what they do to you,
love them anyway. It is by loving that you know who you are, really….”
I
want to end with a story that, it seems to me, speaks to the role of a
Prophetic Leader in today’s church.
It
seems a man from the city was out driving in the country. He passed a free
range chicken farm and almost wrecked his car because right in the middle of a
huge flock of chickens he saw a full grown bald eagle, digging and scratching
in the dirt. The man stopped and turned around just to make sure his eyes had
not deceived him. He stopped his car beside the fence and sure enough, there
was a full grown eagle eating grain with the chickens.
The
man walked up to the farm house and knocked on the door. He introduced himself
to the farmer and asked about the eagle.
“Yessir,”
the farmer said, “I found the little fellow when he was not much passed
newborn. I don’t know how he got here, but I put him in with my chickens and
he’s seemed to have adjusted to life.”
“But
don’t you think the eagle is unhappy?” the city man asked.
The
farmer thought for a minute and then said, “he don’t seem to mind much….”
The
city man drove about 20 miles in silence, thinking about the eagle among the
chickens. Then a thought came to him—he should go and liberate the eagle and
show him the sky. So he turned around and went back to ask the farmer if he
could try to teach the eagle to fly.
The
farmer didn’t seem to mind. “Don’t think you’ll have much luck though,” he told
the city man.
The
city man went into the field and waded through dozens of chickens until he was
near the eagle. He picked the huge bird up and held him over his head.
“You
are an eagle,” the man said, “you must fly!” And he threw the eagle up in the
air as far as he could.
Plop,
that eagle fell to the ground on his side and tried to get away. But the man
was undeterred. He picked the eagle up and carried him across the field away
from the chickens. The eagle clawed and bit to get away, but the man ignored
the pain. Again he said, “You are an eagle, you must fly!” and through the
great bird up in the air.
Plop.
Again the eagle fell to the ground, jumped up and waddled off back to the
chickens.
So
the man caught the eagle again and put him in the backseat of his car and drove
him up to the summit of a nearby mountain. He held the eagle over the edge of a
cliff and the bird became so frightened that he climbed up on the man’s
shoulder, digging his great talons into the man’s shoulder.
“You
are eagle,” the man shouted to the sky, grimacing with pain, “you must
fly!” He jumped around, trying to knock
the eagle off his shoulder.
Then
something wondrous happened. The eagle, afraid of losing his balance, raised
his wings and brought them down….Whoosh! went the eagle’s wings through the air
and the great bird, for the first time, felt the power he possessed. After a
moment he tried it again…Whoosh!...and lifted a few inches off the man’s
shoulder.
With
a pause of amazement, the bird seemed to realize something his life on the
ground had made him forget. He lifted his head and stared at the sky and then
with a grace and beauty born of God, his wings came down again and again and
again and again…and he was soaring into the endless sky, once more remembering
“who he was” and “who he belonged to”.
The
man watched until the eagle was but a dot in the blue above him. Then, weeping
with joy and the pain of the wounds he had received, he walked back to his car
and drove home.
And
the Eagle Soared.
***
Here’s
what I believe with all my heart. Your pastor, Maner Tyson, is a prophetic
leader to you. He is a man of bone-deep prayer who listens for God’s word and
will for Waterbury Baptist Ministry. He is a man of courage and commitment who
speaks for God and acts for God in this suffering, sorrowing world. And he is a
man who loves for God, loves deeply, with all his heart and soul.
And
one person at a time, he holds up the Eagles all around him in this
congregation and in this city and reminds them—no matter what the world says—he
reminds you “who you are” and “whose you are” and he invites you to soar as you
were meant to soar.
It
is not without a cost to him—a cost to his energy, his stamina, his faith, his
ministry, his very soul. AND, it is “what he is among you to DO…it is who
he is among you to BE.”
It
is right and good that you show him all your appreciation today. Honor him and
love him and nurture him—this man of prayer and action and love…this prophetic
leader in your midst…this good and kind and gentle soul who is God’s special
gift to you, and to me, and to this whole city.
I
love you, my friend. I love you.
