Both
Sides, Now (3/13/16)
Nicholas Mynheer, Flight into Egypt
Sometimes I pull my sermon titles from pop songs. I'm a big fan of Joni Mitchell and there's a lot to chew on in her songs, and it seems especially appropriate during Lent, as we reflect on change and loss in the church. I also offer some reflections on the passing of a good friend of my family, the late John McCreight.
Sermon
Good morning!
It’s always good to have some time away from the pulpit and from my day-to-day
responsibilities, so thank you for granting me some time off for study leave.
And thank you, too, for giving such a warm welcome to my friend Laura. She told
me that you were all very nice to her and that she enjoyed the opportunity to
share the Word with you. I am glad to know that you extend your love and grace
to all who step into this pulpit.
By a
show of hands, how many of you recognize the title for my sermon this morning?
For those of you who don’t recognize the title, it comes from a song written by
Joni Mitchell, though it was first recorded by Judy Collins. The song begins
with Mitchell describing her experiences with clouds:
Rows
and flows of angel hair
And
ice cream castles in the air
And
feather canyons ev’rywhere
I’ve
looked at clouds that way
But
now they only block the sun
They
rain and snow on ev’ryone
So
many things I would have done
But
clouds got in my way
The
idea for the song came to Mitchell when she was flying in an airplane. Quite
literally, she was looking at clouds from the other side. As she says in the
chorus:
I’ve
looked at clouds from both sides now
From
up and down, and still somehow
It’s
cloud illusions I recall
I
really don’t know clouds at all
In the next two verses, Mitchell examines love, and
then in the last two verses, she examines life. Each time, she changes the
chorus: “I’ve looked at love from both sides now,” or “I’ve looked at life from
both sides now.” Each time, she reaches the same conclusion: it’s the illusions
of love and life that she recalls; she really doesn’t know love or life at all.
Joni
Mitchell was 23 when she wrote this song. I don’t know about you folks, but
when I was that age, I was pretty well convinced that I knew almost everything. In this song,
Mitchell shows that she’s growing out of that phase; she acknowledges that she
only thought that she knew about love
and life. She’s moving into a new understanding of everything. She’s now on the
other side of life, and the other side of knowing everything.
This
idea of moving into something new underlies both of our readings this morning.
In the text from Isaiah, God is urging the Jerusalem exiles to return from
Babylon to their homeland. They must enter a new space to live more fully into
the covenant with God. God tells the exiles: “Do not remember the former
things, or consider the things of old.” For God says: “I am about to do a new
thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the
wilderness and rivers in the desert.” God is telling the exiles to return to
their homeland and to trust that God will protect them as they journey into an
uncertain future.
The
Apostle Paul is saying much the same thing to the congregation at Philippi. Paul
reminds them that their true identity is in Christ, and not in the things that
they used to hold dear, such as their material possessions or their status in
the community. Remember, the congregation at Philippi is made up of Roman
veterans. Like Paul, they are citizens of the Roman Empire; they have much to
be proud of.
It’s
important to remember that at this time, Christians are not fully
differentiated from Jews; Christianity is a splinter movement within Judaism.
Because Christianity is not clearly defined as a separate religion, there is a
great deal of debate within the movement over whether or not Gentile converts
can be accepted; some think that Gentiles must first convert to Judaism before
becoming Christians.[1]
Among other things, adult males would have to undergo circumcision in order to
convert to Judaism.
Paul
tells the Philippians they don’t have to do this—they don’t have to follow
empty rituals to follow Christ.[2] In
the opening verses of this passage, Paul states:
If anyone else has
reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth
day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born
of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
But none of that matters to Paul! In fact, Paul
says, whatever gains he had from his birth, his Jewish identity, his Roman
citizenship—he counts all of these things as a loss. Paul’s only gain comes
through his faith in Christ. He’s telling the Philippians that he is more
Jewish than any of them could ever hope to be. And he is telling them that his
previous identity doesn’t matter! The only thing that matters is that Jesus
Christ has claimed Paul as his own! That’s Paul’s true identity and he’s
determined to live into that identity: “Beloved, I do not consider that I have
made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and
straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize
of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” To seek Christ’s call, Paul must
forget his past—what lies behind—and he moves forward.
Friends,
over the last several weeks, I’ve been talking about the things that keep us
from moving forward to follow Christ’s call. I’ve talked a lot about the way we
hold on to our memories of the church of the past. I think we often lose sight
of the fact that this isn’t your church or my church; this is Christ’s church!
We are merely the stewards of this congregation, yet we’re stuck in our
memories of the way things used to be. I know I’ve been hitting this message
pretty hard. but we’re really stuck—and I’m stuck, too.
Last
week, a good friend of my dad’s passed away. His name was John McCreight. I
imagine some of you knew him. John was from Washington. He was an attorney and
he was a member of Church of the Covenant. John was also a tuba player, and
that’s how he came to know my dad. As I’m sure I’ve told all of you, my dad
played the bagpipes. He also played the trombone and he and John McCreight
played together in many bands over the years. John was a great friend to my
dad, even to the very end!
I
know I’ve told parts of this story to many of you, but please allow me to
repeat some of it. My dad died on November 3rd, 2013. It was a
Sunday. He had played his bagpipes at the Church of the Covenant that very morning.
He had a massive heart attack shortly after the service. They tried to revive
him at the church and the paramedics continued to work on my dad in the
ambulance, but he never came back around. Officially, he died at the hospital,
but really, my dad died at the Church of the Covenant.
When
they loaded my dad on the ambulance, John McCreight followed the ambulance to
Washington Hospital. I don’t think that John expected my dad to make it. I
think he had a good idea that my dad was already gone. So John went to hospital
because he knew that I would be
coming. He knew that sooner or later, I would arrive at the hospital and find
out that my father was dead. And John didn’t want me to be alone in that
moment. This was an act of kindness and mercy that I will never forget. It was
also a great act of friendship and loyalty to my father, to realize in that
moment that I was the one person my dad would be most worried about, and then
to be there for me. I’m still amazed at John’s generosity of spirit.
I
told you this story because a big part of me is still stuck in that moment in
2013. I was a senior in seminary they. Yes, my life has moved forward, but my
life was forever changed that day. I had expected my dad to be with me to see
these milestones in my life: graduation from seminary and ordination. I had
expected him to be with me, here on Earth, when I accomplished these things. I
wanted to see that look of pride and happiness in his eye when I graduated and
when I was ordained.
In
the last couple years, I find myself listening to lots of music from the 1960s
and 70s. That includes lots of Joni Mitchell and John Denver, Al Stewart and
Gerry Rafferty, Paul Simon, Abba, the Bee Gees—it was the soundtrack of my
childhood and I’m trying to recapture a time when all of the people I loved
were still alive. Maybe I expected a different future. Or maybe I expected to
achieve more things when my closest loved ones were still alive. I don’t know.
I do know that my past is slip-slidin’ away; I’m not happy about that. I want
to hold on to the memories, good and bad. But those memories come from a time
before I understood my calling to ministry.
As
the church, we had expected a different future. We expected our pews would
always be full. We expected that we would have a bigger impact on the culture.
We thought we would always be surrounded by the people who were the pillars of
our own faith. We thought we would always have enough people and enough
resources. Now we’re not so sure.
I had
a mostly-happy childhood. In my moments of grief and self-pity, I want to crawl
back into that childhood, even though I know I can’t dwell there. What I am
forgetting in those moments is my true identity in Christ. I’m not called to
live in 1978; my true identity is not in the memory of my earthly father. The
seminary gave me the language to process his loss and to ask these questions
about my true identity. In a sense, I’ve looked at life from both sides,
now—from the time before I realized my call to ministry and from the time in
which I’m living out that calling. The call to ministry is my present and my
future. To move into the place where Christ is calling me, I must press on,
leaving my past in the past.
In
the same way, Christ calls his church to move into the world as it is, not as
it was. If the people aren’t inside these walls, then we must go outside and
embrace them where they are and we must do it as the church. To get unstuck, we
have to let our dreams die; we have to let our false selves die so that we can
become our true selves. This is scary, but it’s who we’re called to be and it’s
part of our identity in Christ. We are an Easter people! We must die if we are
to be born anew. And we can’t do that if we’re busy trying to remain in our
glorious past. The Easter story is our story; let us live into the future that
Christ intends for us and for his church. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now,
beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that we are an Easter people. We
are called to live into Christ’s call to be the church in the world, the world
today. Go forth and be instruments of God’s peace and reconciliation. Do not
return evil for evil to any person, but know that we are all loved by God, and
that we are called to reflect that love to everyone we meet. In the name of
Jesus Christ, our Lord, let all God’s children say, Amen!
[1]
Elizabeth Shively, “Commentary on Philippians 3:4b-14,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1592
[2] Elizabeth
Shively, “Commentary on Philippians 3:4b-14,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1592
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