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Holy Gifts, Wholly Giving.. Island-Style
Habakkuk 1:1-11
Neal D. Presa Village Community Presbyterian Church, Rancho Santa Pe, California, and North-West University, Potschefstroom, South Africa
Sermon for Cpening Convocation, Columbia Theological Seminary, 2013
“I can hear you, but 1 can’t see you,” so said my youngest son on iPhone PaceTime. From Decatur to Damascus: The Senate bill is ready. The gunship cannons are on red alert. I’m not ready, are you? All the women, the children, the families: will they be ready? ٧١٠٧can anyone be ready for their death, destruction, dismemberment? We hear about degrading Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. What about our souls being further degraded, diminished, demolished? When fire rains down from the heavens, can we still march in the light ٤٠Cod? “I can hear you, but I can’t see you.” Habakkuk needs an “ardent embrace,” a great big hug. There’s no hugging in this chapter nor in any of the four. I like Habakkuk . It’s an honest, open-ended conversation with the Almighty, the Creator of this broken and hurting world, with broken and hurting people. What we need is FaceTime with God: Hand-to-hand combat asJacobdid wrestling the angel, as Hannah did in pouring out her tears in the Temple, as Mary’s Magnificat does, as presidents do when fiindraising needs to happen, as faculty do when tenure ٢٠ promotion reviews come, as staff do when deadlines approach, as students do when there’s that paper, that verbatim, that dang ordination exam to prepare. We need an ardent embrace. We’re all Habakkuks: we need to embrace Cod: God’s heart, Cod’s mind. Even more, we need God to embrace us, to embrace this world: Babylon to Judah, Damascus to Decatur. “Took at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded!” Habakkuk cries out to God “Wake up, God. Embrace it, God. Embrace us. Seattle pastor and blogger Eugene Cho tweeted on August 30: “The best way to become a better storyteller is to simply live a better life. Not a perfect life, but one of honesty, integrity, and passion.” These are gifts of God, graces of God: an anchoring in the heart and mind ٤٠God, a delighting in God, as Jesus does with the Father. Honesty, integrity, and passion; Habakkuk’s mind, heart, soul. This is changing his whole being, his whole perception, his reception ٤٠the world outside and inside. Honesty, integrity, passion: this is being encoded and emblazoned on his life and with yours. ¥ ٧٠are being apprenticed in the ways of Jesus Christ. ¥ ٧٠can hear the prayer, as your heart is apprenticed, being shaped and formed into God’s own. “I need FaceTime with God,” Habakkuk cries out for honesty, integrity, and passion from God. It’s as if he cries out, “God, I need you to be honest. God, I need you to have integrity; God, I need you to be passionate because we are suffering.” Habakkuk’s cry is honest, passionate prayer with integrity, a no-holds barred, real relationship with God. That’s what your ministry in this place is: a lifelong apprenticeship in prayer, being anchored to the heart and mind ٠٤God, to ardently embrace what God ardently
Journalfor Preachers
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embraces, to ardently embrace whom God ardently embraces, God’s Son, God’s Anointed One to whom holy giffs have been wholly given. To embrace the Anointed One, to be embraced by toe Anointed One through Christ, with Christ, in Christ is to embrace the world in Him. From Deeatu!־ to Damascus, we cry, “1 can hear you, but I can’t see you.” In toe worlds of theology, history, preaching and worship, pastoral care, leadership, biblical studies, ethics, feminist studies, post-colonial studies, ecumenical theology, world Christianity, missional theology, we sometimes feel or say, “I can hear you, but I can’t see you.” Or sometimes we can feel that as in؟uirers, candidates for ordination, or being certified ready to receive a call. Think of your MIFs (ministry information forms). Don’t get miffed if your call becomes a part-time one ٢٠if your call involves two ٢٠toree yoked congregations. “I can hear you, but I can’t see you.” What if that call doesn’t come? Or what if your call takes you to a distant land, with dirt roads, with spotty ٢٠no WiFi coverage? “Oh no!” you might be tempted to think. “I can hear, but I can’t see you.” ¥ ٧٠are being apprenticed to a lifetime of prayer, of communing with toe heart of God as God communes with you. I am Filipino American bom on toe Facific island of Guam. ¥ ٧٠can drive around toe whole island in two hours. On a little island you can only do three things: eat, party, and swim. As with any island party, you invite your next door neighbor. ¥ ٧٠ don’t use Evite; just a word to come on over will do. Tell one neighbor and that neighbor will tell other neighbors. The expectation is that everyone will bring toe whole household, toe whole clan. Eventually blocks of people come, not necessarily for a birthday or an anniversary, but just to come. ¥ ٧٠eat, you sing karaoke, you dance, you talk about other people. $ome call it gossip; in Christian circles, we call it sharing prayer concerns! ¥ ٧٠eat, you party, and you swim into toe early morning. Then you go home. But before you do, you get aluminum foil and you pack food, a lot of food. ¥ ٧٠go home and you tell people about toe wonderful party, of what you have seen and heard. In the islands, we make a distinction between eating, dining, and feasting. Eating is toe function of putting food in your mouth. Dining is eating, but with rules, protocols, eti؟uette, forks, knives. Feasting, which is what we do on toe island, is using your fingers and your hands. It’s bringing your family, it’s bringing toe joys and strains ٨۴ life, to to« table. It’sabouthonesty,integrity,passion—apprenticeship in lifelongprayer in honesty, integrity, and passion. It’s about feasting: giving your whole self to God, crying out to God, “I can hear you, but I don’t see you,” even as God gives God’s whole self to
It’s a mutual feasting: God and you and us, in mutual feasting, opening our lives to each other, fully, honestly, passionately. Open your lifo to toe world in love. At this Table, this feastTable, where we bring ourselves, where we bring toe prayers for toe world, where we offer toe prayers of the world: “I can hear you, but I can’t see you.” But then, toe apprenticeship was nearly complete, for toe Gospel says, “When he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, then their eyes were opened, and toey recognized him.” Come, and hear! Come, and taste! a d see! Come, and feast!
Advent 2014
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