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March 8, 2009 Sermon
Lent II: Losing to Remember
(Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Mark 8: 34-37)
Reverend Sally Harris
Once upon a time there was a storyteller who loved words: the sound and feel of them, the way they flowed, eddied about, returned, and spiraled down in little currents. Better, he loved stories: any kind really, but especially the ones that caught folks and carried them, casting them forth in a place distant from where they were when the story began. Best of all, he loved telling the stories. This storyteller was compelled into it by some power deeper than any force that moved rivers and stirred the seas in their depths. He was most himself in the telling: graceful, free, light, and truthful, obedient to Another, whom he liked to think of as the Word, the Story that all others could only serve and imitate. This teller of tales lived simply and faithfully and told stories whenever he could. Then, one day, the storyteller began to notice things changing, or to be more precise – disappearing. First, it was little things: keys, glasses, scribbled notes, pages off the calendar, socks, spoons. Nothing disappeared that was of any import really, but it was annoying. He thought of himself as forgetful, and the storyteller chalked it up to mid-life. But the problem grew worse, and more began to disappear: hours of the day, sleep and dreams at night, acquaintances, even friends. Then pages of his manuscripts disappeared, also notes for classes or talks, his suitcase. None was ever returned or found. The teller of tales began wondering what was happening. It was then that the storyteller began to notice connections, disconcerting connections. He carefully kept records until he was absolutely sure of his findings, which disturbed him greatly. Everything that had disappeared was closely connected to a story he had told. He tried not telling stories, but that didn’t work. He tried to monitor the stories and figure out ahead of time what he’d lose. Sometimes that worked, but the logic was not always immediately apparent. There seemed to be another structure of logic and symbolism at work. He tried being detached, then unattached. He grew fearful and apprehensive. When and where would it all stop. This predicament became the backdrop of his life. Stories continued to enchant him, and there seemed more of them. He found them in books, peoples’ conversations, his mind, observing situations and relationships on the street, traveling. There was suddenly an excess of stories. They couldn’t have come (or were they presented to him as choices?) at a worst time in his life. The storyteller took them in, gingerly, greedily, like one hungry for food, insight, wisdom, and hope. Then this teller of tales began to lose pieces of himself! One day he told a story - enthralled by it himself as the words flowed from him – and he lost his hair. The next day it was fingernails – replaceable parts but still serious! It was time to make some major decisions. The storyteller just couldn’t go on like this, at least not without consciously knowing what would happen every time he was caught in a story. Still he was bound to the stories and to the telling. Soon he noticed another side effect. As he disappeared he became more and more adept as a teller. The stories acquired more power, breadth, and influence. In fact, they began to come true in reality. The storyteller began to hope that in losing himself perhaps there was a larger design, a whole that he was contributing to and literally creating out of his own being. That thought sustained him at times, but he kept losing more of himself – more was disappearing. Was any story worth losing his sight for? or his heart? or his very soul? Was the Story insatiable? Did it really want everything, all of him, down to the last shreds of his body and soul? More to the point: could the storyteller, would the storyteller give it all up, in trust?
[adapted from a story by Megan McKenna in Lent: The Daily Readings]
That is the question. Can we, will we give ourselves up, in trust to the Other? Where is the end, the limit? How much are we willing to lose? How much of ourselves must be emptied out so that the Word, the Story, can come through us? The story of the disappearing storyteller and these questions haunted me as I reflected on Lent and on our readings this week. What if every day of Lent we lost something of ourselves so that the Word, the Story might flow through us more surely and freely? At the end of these forty days, what would be left? Can we, will we consent to the story? to the loss? to the mystery of the ending? to total trust in the Word?
I doubt if Abraham and Sarah ever pondered these kinds of questions and yet their story is a response to them. Abraham and Sarah gave up their homeland, their old ways of belief, their old identities and embarked on a whole new journey full of surprise, even outrage as God lead them deeper and deeper into God’s ways. Sometimes our Scripture makes it sound so easy, so clear and decisive. It doesn’t share the detail of the loss, the doubts, the pain, the arguments between Sarah and Abraham nor even the process of their own faith journey. Perhaps at the beginning Abram and Sarai merely felt the need to simply go deeper into what it meant to live, to know God. This need lead them to listen, to ponder, to discern and to risk entering fully into the Story. According to Genesis, the central part of their experience was their sense of God’s promise and presence. As they lived on the edge, in God’s presence, the covenant took form. A covenant: a conversation where God’s loving intention was offered and Abram and Sarai responded. As they responded they became aware of their vocation to be the beginning of a great nation; the beginning of God’s people. And so we are invited to remember these footprints of faith. We are invited not only to remember but to embark on a journey where we consent to the story and accept our vocation as God’s people. Vocation: the response a person makes with their total self to the invitation of God and the calling to be partners with God in weaving a new vision of reality. A vision that carries with it all sorts of new possibilities that the world thinks impossible. A vision of reality that is an oddity in the world, at odds with all the conventional orderings of society – political, economic, and social. This ‘signing on’ is not an ‘extra’ added to a normal life, but entails a reordering of all of one’s life from the ground up. Can we, will we give ourselves up, in trust to the Other? Where is the end, the limit? How much are we willing to lose for the sake of the story? For you see in this kind of experience with God, in this kind of response, in these kind of footprints of faith, lives are changed and the future unfolds in ways a person can’t even imagine. No wonder Abraham and Sarah laughed: everybody knew that they were too old to have children… everybody but God!
Long before Jesus, a disturber of structures and souls, disappeared into the tomb, he was intent on vanishing into the presence of God and the shadow of the Spirit. Jesus was intent on disappearing into the will of the One who started the Story, into the service and trust of his human companions, and into the depth of history and time. And in Jesus’ storytelling he knew the risk and the cost: if any would come after me, let them lose themselves, taking up their cross and following me. For those who would seek to save their lives will lose it. And Jesus knew the promise of our walk of faith: those who lose their lives for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what advantage is it, to win the whole world at the cost of your true identity? When we respond with laughter and hope to God’s promises, our barrenness is renamed and our lives are reclaimed. This Lent, maybe we need to disappear back into the arms of the One who created the earth to be a garden, a dwelling place secure for all peoples, a haven for the least among us. Can we, will we, give ourselves up, for such a Story? Do we dare journey in such footprints of faith?
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