Sermon: Awake, O Sleepers

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Awake, O Sleepers

By Charles Rush

February 14, 1999

is last week, I was at a conference for a couple days with 15 other pastors and theologians. Each morning, we would begin the day with devotions: a hymn, a prayer, the reading of a passage of scripture, a time of silence to absorb what the scripture said, the prayers of the people, the Lord's prayer and a benediction.At the meals where we all ate together, we would regularly sing a prayer of thanksgiving together.

It is a simple thing that Christians go through together. We gather as the ‘beloved community' and remember what it is that brings us together. The devotions have a way of giving us an immediate focus that hopefully helps us to see what needs to be seen right around us.

What does your daily devotion consist of? Someone sent me one woman's daily devotion that said ‘O God, you have saved me from gossip and deceit. Not an evil word has come from my lips this day, nor a mean spirited thought towards anyone I know. Thank you for keeping thus far on the straight and narrow path. And now as I rise from bed to greet the day'

What does your daily devotion consist of? My suspicion is that we all have one, even if we change our schedule somewhat every day. How do you regularly begin your day? What routine do you go through to get yourself focused for the next day? What is it that helps you to see what is really important to see right around us?

I know that a number of you are thinking through your morning routine right now and saying ‘The Wall Street Journal, a cup of coffee as I bark orders at sleepy headed kids to get their socks on, NPR in the car on the road, fifteen minutes of meditative rest on the train before the rush at the PATH, a shower, what? Rev., I'm lucky to get where I'm going, and get my whole entourage moving. I understand that. Somebody once asked one of my professors in Seminary why he didn't have morning devotions to start his day and he said ‘Because I don't want to hear from God at 6 a.m. and God certainly doesn't want to hear from me.'

But what strikes me is that we are so goal oriented in most every aspect of our life, and in the spiritual realm, which is the most fundamental in many ways, we live on a daily basis a fairly ruderless existence. It is an odd lacunae.

It strikes me as doubly odd because we live in an age where our souls are being shaped dramatically on a daily basis. I look at our children and the profusion of video games that abound. I suspect that the vast majority of parents don't know a single thing about what is on them but our children spend hours every week. I don't know what effect they will have but it will be substantial.

I read an article in the Christian Century about how the media is forming us. The author relays a simple night. He comes home tired, flips on the tube to watch ‘Cops'. It is supposedly a docudrama that is going to give us insight into the trials and struggles of the men and women in blue, but really, the author says, it is a peep show that ‘allows me to join two young policeman as they walked through the latest rounds of a domestic struggle. Peering through my cathoid keyhole, I spied a warring couple in their early thirties. Apparently, the woman had stabbed her husband in the arm in what she claimed was self-defense. As she wailed, one of the policemen urged the disoriented man to press charges against her. The woman bellowed, ‘I was only defending myselfI don't want to go to jail.' Clearly confused, the half-clad man finally shrugged that he would press charges. One of the policemen grabbed the woman's arm and smugly remarked, ‘You're going downtown.' Sobbing she begged, ‘No, please don't take me to jail, please don't take me to jail. As though he didn't know or care that he was on camera, one of the cops sadistically assured her, ‘That's exactly where you are going.' The husband looked on as his wife was handcuffed and taken away. That was when it finally registered. I was entertaining myself by watching two lives unravel.'

The point is that we live in a world where we have the freedom to indulge in more and different stuff, more purient, more kinky. What thinking person would allow this tide to simply take your boat where it will? Who would allow their souls to be uncritically formed by the welter of competing images that invade our homes day in and day out?

I've mentioned before that I am struck by the fact that Jesus parting words are ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? [Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners] It is an apt remark for all of us ‘would be disciples' who are not so much heinous and evil as we are careless and unreflective about our soul formation.' We just don't think about it. We are unaware of how the culture is shaping us. We are a people of several allegiances, without any unifying mission statement for our lives . Somehow it seems to work okay but it is hard for us to talk about because there isn't much definition to the way this all works out. Since we do no have to give an account of it anywhere like we do with assets and liabilities on a financial statement, we don't bother to clean it up much. After all, it is only our character! It's only our character? Wait a minute

Jesus makes a prediction that appears to be somewhat clairvoyant in this story. Matthew has Jesus says ‘you will all fall away from me this night.' Peter protests, ‘though they fall away because of you, I will never fall away.' And here, it would be helpful to hear the tone in Jesus' voice, when he says ‘Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.'

This may not have required so much clairvoyance as insight into character. It might have been more akin to a time when my boys came to me a few years ago with a plan to cobble together some drift wood they amassed, attach a broom stick and their two blankies, and sail over to Nantucket from Martha's Vineyard. It didn't require nautical clairvoyance to see that there were problems with this plan. Even as grown women and men, I wonder if we don't sound like kids justifying a hair-brained scheme to God. God has to say ‘I don't think you have the character to get this boat out of the harbor, let alone'

I suppose we are all a little defensive like Peter upon hearing that we are shy on moral and spiritual character. Peter says ‘ I will never .' And the scriptures say ‘And so said all the disciples.'

At this point, the contrast between Jesus and the rest of us begins to become pronounced and defining. The focus of Jesus becomes increasingly singular. He is connected with God in such a way that he is no longer concerned about his personal ego needs. He wants the Spirit of God to fill him completely with divine purpose and will. This becomes his prayer. ‘ Let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wills. ' Jesus becomes filled with courage that comes from singularity of purpose, from being filled with God's Spirit in the midst of threat and likely torture.

The disciples, on the other hand, are sleepy and distracted. They do not see what is happening and do not understand the spiritual significance of Jesus being in their midst. They are overcome with sleep after the Last Supper and go to pray and take their rest. On one level, they appear to have been pretty much asleep the whole time they have been acquainted with Jesus. They do not really understand who he is. They do not really understand what he is to be about.

They increasingly become distracted as this plot goes on. They pretty much disappear into the mob that comes with the Roman army to arrest Jesus. They are absorbed into the crowds that gather around Jerusalem after Jesus is arrested. They huddle with the others trading stories in the night around camp fires and when one of them asks Peter if he knows Jesus, Peter denies any knowledge.

Do I know him? Know, I mean we worked together. We didn't really socialize much. I knew who he was I mean we were on the same floor but I never really talked to him I mean, I didn't know him at all.'

They are afraid, unsure of who they are, unsure of their allegiance, without purpose or direction. They become absorbed into the crowd that cries out later to Pilate when asked whether Jesus should be crucified or Barabas. They are not centered in God, not unified in purpose, without courage. They were swept along like everyone else.

But Jesus returns to pray. At the very beginning of his ministry he goes to the wilderness to pray for 40 days and 40 nights, fasting all the while. He is tempted at his foundations and he emerges with a clear sense that God's hands are upon him. Periodically, throughout his career the gospels say that Jesus retreated to pray and reconnect with God. Now, when he is facing a serious crisis, he again returns to pray with an ultimate seriousness. He says ‘Let this cup pass from me But not my will but thine.' He wants God to fill him in this time of need. He is getting clear about what is important.

Crisis has a way of doing that when you are regularly connected with God. . I am reminded of Dr. King's last speech in Memphis. He had gone to support the garbage men in their strike for equal pay and working conditions. He knew that danger was about. His life had been threatened many times. You didn't have to be clairvoyant to see that there was a likely chance that he would die before his time. On his flight to Memphis the pilot had to stop the plane so a bomb search could be conducted. These are his last words:

"And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I‘ve been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Sometimes crisis has a way of centering you in what is important. What is it that gives some people the ability to rise to the occasion in the midst of crisis and summon the moral courage to do what is right in the face of life threatening risk?

Corrie Ten Boom was an ordinary Dutch woman, who lived in Holland through the Nazi occupation in World War II. In her own simple pious way this woman got deeply involved in the underground movement and help smuggle hundreds and hundreds of Jews through Holland to freedom. The more the underground developed, the deeper she got involved, one day at a time. Eventually she was routinely taking these enormous life threatening risks regularly. Finally, she was arrested she was sent to the concentration camps

What is striking about her life story and so many people who act in courageous ways in the midst of life threatening situations, is the matter of fact quality they have of reporting what they did. It was simply the right thing to do in the situation and I did the job that needed to be done.

In Corrie's case, she also regularly reports that these daily acts of moral courage were no big deal but it wasn't quite that simple. At one point in the book, she remembers her family life before the war. She says in a simple sentence that there wasn't a lot of room in her house because her parents had 22 orphans that they kept. Then she moves right on to the next thing. Her family was her parents, she and her sister and 22 other kids they were trying to find homes for.

Little surprise that helping out orphans when she became an adult was the obvious thing to do in the situation. As is so often the case, when you press the lives of people who act heroically in a dangerous situation, they have already stretched themselves and developed their moral and spiritual character on many smaller occasions that prepared them for a major crisis. The actual crisis simply appears like just doing the right thing. They already have the character in place.

And that character is formed from stretching yourself. In some way or other, we have to go through a wilderness where we learn to depend on God. We have to learn to focus our will in the will of God and we become stronger. Maybe it is through fasting or other spiritual disciplines but often it is not.

Often it happens through some difficult situation you find yourself in, something where you look back on your life and realize that in living through that difficult and frustrating time, you can now almost give thanks for it because you came away with a spiritual maturity and strength that you wouldn't have had otherwise.

I know people who have spoken about a significant loss, that of a job that they really felt they needed for their ego, only to later to say that losing that job was one of the best things that ever happened to them. I've heard more than one testimonial at AA where someone would say that they were thankful to have been born a drunk. Even though they wasted a lot of their life and caused a lot of people pain, they were sure that they would not be people of the spiritual and moral character that they are today, had they not lived through the hell of alcoholism and conquered it. I heard a colleague this week write about the experience of having a life threatening disease in the middle of her life. She came very near to death and said that the whole experience ‘smashed her last illusion of her own autonomy'. It was a confession of thankfulness in its own way. You wouldn't want to live through something like that - but living through it - you can give thanks for the way that you grow, mature, and become stronger morally and spiritually.

Understand, it is not for us to tell other people that the suffering they are going through is making them better people. All such preachments, be they from the pulpit or well meaning friends, are dangerous and not for us to know. But you can look back on your own life and see some of the most difficult times as some of the most important times for actually shaping your character and developing you as a person.

Jesus returns to God in prayer in the midst of crisis. He returns to what is important. He focuses again on what has integrity, on doing ‘not my will but thine'.

In the end, the one thing that remains is our soul formation. The God who has shaped us from before birth to the end of life, I can only personally imagine as the Spirit that continues to form us on the other side of death. For a season we are athletic, for a season we are sexy. For a season we have power and influence in the community. Perhaps for a season or more we have affluence and the good life. For a season we have our health. In due time, all these things fade. Our character remains. Right up and through death, God still wants for us to embody the Spirit of love, the Spirit of integrity, God wants us to be grounded in God. May God grant you thte focus to keep perspective on the most important things.

Amen.

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i Marino, Gordon ‘Remote control: The Ethics of Watching' Christian Century, January 20, 1999, p. 57.