Ben Folds has a song, the chorus of which goes:
“You know what hope is? Hope is a bastard.
Hope is a liar, a cheat and tease.
Hope comes near you, kick it’s backside.
Got no place in days like these.”
— Ben Folds, Picture Window Scenes
An honest song about someone going into the hospital Christmas Eve.
The mom was enjoying this song immensely,
but she didn’t think about her five-year-old hearing it.
Until they came to church one Sunday morning,
and he commented,
“I have to tell Pastor John that hope is a pastor!”

What are the givens of our lives? Death and taxes is the old joke.
But we can add to that short list, can’t we?
Incarnation is a given.
And that means twisted ankles, bum knees and backs, the seasonal virus.
That means the disease.
That means age,
and several of you have been very clear in saying,
getting old is not for the faint of heart!

These are the givens of space and time
(the more philosophical way of saying incarnation!).
There are also, for us, the more theological ways of saying given—
the given of our creation: created in the very image of God—
the given of our nature:
we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

There’s a sense in which the givens do seem to represent the limits—
the boundaries beyond which we cannot,
the parameters within which we can, beyond which we can’t.

And so there are the givens that are the limits of our knowledge
and the limits of our ability.

There are relational limits—
hopes or expectations unmet or shattered.

There are the preferential givens of what we like and what we don’t.
Have to be careful there though. They change!
So stress is a given—not always so much how we deal with it, but stress itself.
Financial stress seems to be a new given for more and more people.
For so long in our culture, you worked hard,
your net worth increased regularly,
you were more “successful” than your parents,
you retired at ease.
Things change. Some givens change.

And some don’t though, right? Stress, for example.
And so much more important than any preferential givens,
there’s the given that’s the right thing to do
and the given that’s the wrong thing to do, right?
Except sometimes what initially appears wrong turns out to be right,
and what initially appears right turns out to be wrong.
So maybe more givens are preferential than we think
because given obviously doesn’t always mean obvious.
But we have to consider our givens—
we don’t have a choice
because we live within our givens.

Now improvisational actors, on the one hand,
play within the givens—
on the other hand though, question givens—
seek to overturn givens—
ask themselves, “what is a logical,
completely obvious way of hearing this another way—
a completely different way?”

Because while playing within the givens
acknowledges a certain kind of reality,
overturning the givens taken for granted
leaves you free to explore something unexpected and wonderful.

Nothing unexpected, new or surprising to that, actually.
Jesus and Mary Poppins overturn givens regularly.
Think about it:
Harry Potter begins with the givens of Harry’s existence overturned.
Star Wars begins with Luke’s givens overturned.
Percy Jackson, Jason Bourne, Mission Impossible …
what else is hot?
It is, after all, a tried and true formula.
Whether it’s by magic
or manipulation
or skill
or knowledge,
the question is, so you think you know who you are?
Really?
And you think you know what’s real?
Really?
We’ll see!

Nothing new or surprising to this formula.
Improv’s just about doing it without a script that does it for you.
Improv’s about taking the initiative to overturn things yourself—
to find the unexpected and wonderful to explore.
So much of it’s a matter of perspective, after all.

There’s the story (I think someone made a song out of it)
set in Alaska, two trappers, snowbound in their cabin.
And their deal is that one cooks until the other complains.
Then they switch.
Well, the one is good and tired of cooking,
but the other won’t complain. Y’all heard this?
So the cook goes outside and finds himself some moose patties.
And he bakes himself a pie—a moose patty pie—
nice lattice pie crust on top,
neatly crimped around the edge.
Well, the other trapper comes in,
sits down at the table, tucks his napkin in,
picks up his fork and takes a big bite.
As the taste registers (though why it would is utterly beyond me)—
as the taste registers, he throws down his fork
lets out this tremendous yell, “Moose patty pie! …
… Good though!”
(Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics
Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004, 107)
Perspective.
Priority.

To consider our text this morning
is to consider the overturning of givens from the get-go
(if we can get past some translation issues!).
Our prophet (and we know he’s a prophet
because we begin with “now the word of the Lord came to Jonah” (Jonah 1:1),
which is your basic introduction of a prophet)—
our prophet’s introduced as “Jonah son of Amittai,”
and he’s told to “arise, go and call” (three imperatives)—
arise, go and call—preach—against the city of Niniveh great to God—
again, that’s literal, “the city great to God”
(Phyllis Trible, The Book of Jonah in The New Interpreter’s Bible:
A Commentary
in Twelve Volumes, Volume VII [Nashville: Abingdon, 1996] 511).

So we’ve all heard that Niniveh was the evil enemy back then.
That’s a given, right?
Niniveh, associated with Assyria—
the evil empire that defeated the northern kingdom of Israel.
But not, actually, any of that until well after the time of Jonah—
who’s dated to the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel,
the king under whom Israel, the northern kingdom, was actually militarily successful—
under whom Israel expanded its borders.

But we read Jonah,
and the prophet Nahum comes to mind.
Right? Didn’t the word of God to Nahum come right to your mind?
Came right to mine—after I read all the commentaries!
The whole book of Nahum is an oracle concerning Niniveh.
And Nahum explicitly claims that God is against Niniveh—
has God say that … or God has Nahum say that God said that:
I am against you, says the Lord of hosts (Naham 2:13 and 3:5).

So this is the city that will destroy Israel—
the city that God is against (according to Nahum)—
city of bloodshed, utterly deceitful (Nahum 3:1)—
the city whose wickedness had come up to God (according to Jonah),
yet great to God … somehow.

Great to God before it was great to anyone else.
Great to God before it was the military power of its time.
Great to God before it was the capital of empire.
Great to God even as that which would come to define the other—the enemy.

So you think you know what’s real?
Really?
We’ll see!

The word of God comes to Jonah the son of Amittai
which literally means dove (like that bird)—
dove, son of faithfulness.
So a bird was told to arise, but this bird doesn’t arise.
Instead goes down (the opposite of rising) to Joppa,
doesn’t go east to Niniveh but sets out to the west to Tarshish
and doesn’t call out but goes down (further down)
into the hold of the ship and goes to sleep.
And will go further down into the water,
and then then even further down in the fish
(Trible, 470).
That’s all in the first chapter.

So what are the givens?!
You think you know who’s who?
Who’s good and who’s bad?
We have an evil city great to God,
and a prophet disobedient to God—
who does the exact opposite of what God says to do.

Now the word of God came to Jonah a second time
as the beginning of the third chapter echoes the beginning of the first.
The word of God came to Jonah again.
The same three imperatives are repeated: arise, go, call.

Now, think about what that means.
It means Jonah had resisted God’s will.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Even God’s prophets!
We just usually get the positive press releases!
But this—and this being the Bible, not just the one book—
this being the story of God not the story of any of God’s people—
this is about God’s persistence not anyone’s obedience.

Arise. Go to that great city and call,
but this time God says call—proclaim—preach to it (3:2).
in direct contrast to the earlier command to call—proclaim—preach against it (1:2)
(James D. Nogalski, The Book of the Twelve: Hosea-Jonah
in Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary [Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2011] 438).

What’s changed?
We don’t know.
Other than that all the givens we thought we knew,
we didn’t—we don’t.
They’ve all been overturned.

So, of course, this time Jonah obeys. He gets up. He goes.
Now will he proclaim? Will he obey all three commands?
And, if he does, what will he proclaim?
God’s more explicit, you see, this second go round.
Proclaim to the city what I tell you to say, God says to Jonah—
literally, “Call to her the calling that I am wording to you”
(Trible, 510).
Isn’t that wonderful?
The wording of God came to Jonah.

Well, Jonah gets to that city, great to God.
We’re told that it would take three days to get through this city—
which means it was a big city, right?
Well, it was never that big.
Not quite eight miles in circumference (Nogalski, 414) in its heyday
(which, remember, was after the time of Jonah).
More important than how big the city really was,
we’re also told that Jonah made his way one day into the city
when he offered up his prophetic word.
So he didn’t go to the middle of the city,
let alone tell the whole city.
He goes a little ways in and proclaims what is in Hebrew just five words:
in forty days, you will be overturned.
It’s a half-hearted or a third-hearted prophetic word!

And I’m thinking he whispered those five words!
Found some quiet cul de sac off the beaten path
that he though was deserted
one day into a three day journey,
whispered five words,
then backtracked a day,
and found a place outside the city to watch it be overturned.

And consider what all he leaves out.
He doesn’t say whose word this is.
He doesn’t say this is the word of God.
He gives no reason for the coming overturning.
He offers no options.

But the Ninivites didn’t play within the givens.
They questioned the givens. They played with the givens
and heard something completely different
as the givens were all upset—overturned as it were.
In forty days, you will be overturned.
It’s a word that can mean destroyed—overturned.
It can also mean delivered—saved—overturned (Trible, 512)—
free to explore the unexpected and wonderful.
It’s the wording of God!

So the Ninivites didn’t hear destruction; they heard possibility.
They weren’t playing within the givens.
They were questioning the givens. They were playing with the givens,
and they heard theology. They heard repentance. Responsibility.
And they turned—that’s what repent means, doesn’t it?
They turned—they overturned.

And starting with someone—
Jonah overlooked—didn’t see—didn’t know was there—
someone who overheard five whispered words
in a quiet cul de sac
well off the beaten path
one day into a three day trip,
the people of Niniveh declared a fast
and they put on sackcloth.
And when the king heard about it,
the king rose (Jonah didn’t, remember?).
The king rose, divested himself of royal robe,
put on sackcloth,
sat in ashes,
overturned what it means to be king—
which he had already done, right?
Because he was responding to what the people were already doing.
His decree is the will of the people already being enacted.

He, too, playing with the givens,
and the play is the thing
wherein to catch the conscience of the king!

Samuel Wells, in his book Improvisation:
the Drama of Christian Ethics, asks,
what’s the difference between a given
and a gift (Wells, 115)?
How it’s received?
There’s so much I just can’t conceive of as gift though.
There are truly horrible possibilities in this world of ours.
But that’s why it’s Niniveh, don’t you think?
Wickedness incarnate.
Good though.

Jonah can’t do it.
It’s beyond him.
Moose patty pie. Yuck!

The worst of the world (Niniveh) received given as gift,
and the man of God received gift as given.

It’s not a how-to manual. Would that it were!
I wish I could tell you based on a careful study of the Hebrew
and the theology,
these are the steps to take your givens and receive them as gifts.
But the Ninivites only got five words!
No instruction whatsoever.
But they knew it was important—vitally important.
They knew it would be hard.
They knew it meant overturning everything—
overturning who and how they’d been.
And that, says our story, can be done.
It has to do with believing God.
Not believing in God—believing God.
The wording of God come to us.

Won’t just happen, Jonah reminds us,
but can, proclaim the Ninivites.

What are our givens here at Woodbrook?
Average attendance? The number of giving units?
Dollars in and dollars out?
All important, but not our bottom line.
Our bottom line has to do with the integrity of our ministry—
the witness of our worship.
For a church, that’s the only bottom line.

What are your givens?
What if I were to say to you, our only given, as the people of God—
your only given, as a child of God, is the unfolding story of God?
That’s a gift, isn’t it?
Doesn’t mean everything’s good. Or right.
It does mean that nothing has to overturn destroy us—
that all can work together within the love and presence of God for good.
The wording of God!

Nahum and Jonah are the only two books of the Bible
to end with rhetorical questions
(Nogalski, 441).
Nahum ends with a question for Niniveh,
“Who has ever escaped your endless cruelty?”
Jonah ends with God asking,
“Should I not be concerned about Niniveh?”
These are the wordings of God.
Thanks be to God.

So I have some questions for you to think about.
Of course I do!
But this time, mull your answers over.
I’m not asking for outloud responses.
I’m asking you to seriously consider
what’s the most real thing to you in your life?
Is it a given—a limit—a boundary?
If so, can you think of a way of focusing on a gift instead of a given?

More importantly, what about God?
I asked you what the most real thing in your life was,
if you did not say God,
is that something you should do something about?
And what can you do about that?

I wish there were the how-to steps,
but all I can tell you is it’s hard.
It involves overturning your reality,
believing God, and you will find
unexpected wonderful.

We are bold in our praying—
when we ask for the very undoing of what’s been done,
the reversal of things begun,
in truth, a divine cease and desist order
against the very laws of consequence and nature.
That’s bold …
or naive.

If we’re honest though, we often pray for what we do not really expect …
which is to sometimes say, we do not expect that for which we pray …
which is to say we sometimes pray boldly
only because we don’t believe in the possibility of that for which we ask.
And that’s not bold
or naive.
That’s just noise.

Yet we pray,
and we do, sometimes, pray boldly.
Not naively.
Not just as meaningless drivel.

Because we remember, sometimes, what’s most important.
And what’s most important isn’t
always a matter of the laws of consequence and nature.
What’s most important is not always what is,
but what we, as followers in the way of God, feel should be.

And we really don’t know what we unleash in our praying.
Nor do we know what, if anything, would remain leashed if we didn’t.

But we believe—we do—
that no limits can be placed—
no limits—
on the power of transformative love
in which, in the very act of praying,
we participate.

This we pray
in the name of transformative love made flesh
still redeeming all creation.
Amen.

Each week a new banner went up
(one outside, to see as we drove up,
one inside, to see as we entered the sanctuary),
a new candle was lit,
trees were added—poinsettias,
the nativity figures were moved around the sanctuary
in correspondence to their individual journeys to Bethlehem.
Something wonderful about all that—
the regular accommodation of place to meaning to facilitate worship.
But we rarely do as much ….
And I wondered whether to wish we did.

Maybe it’s enough though—those five/six Sundays of the year—
enough to help us, all the other Sundays, know to cultivate the eyes to see
to see our sanctuary decked with the joyful laughter of children,
hung with the prayers and praise of the people,
decorated with the rich resonance of promises made and tears shed,
festooned with the God-story tightly braided into our own,
adorned with the wonder of ongoing conversations and relationships,
graced with our own great cloud of witnesses,
luminous with the lives of the faithful.

Something wonderful about all that—
the cumulative meaning of a community of faith in place—
living worship.

We pray, rather, believing you would have it be other than it is.
We pray believing your grace, your desire for wholeness,
your investment in justice and righteousness,
your commitment to peace and love,
all shape an alternative reality into being.

We pray believing you created us to be healthy,
in loving relationships and community—
believing you created us for a world other than as it is.

So our prayers for healing, for reconciliation, justice and peace,
constitute more than just prayer to you,
but constitute, as well and, in truth, our prayer for you—
for you to define our reality.

Prayer is thus affirmation of our belief in you,
even as it is part of our discipline of working toward you—
working toward your being fundamental to our living—
your being definitive of our being—
as both who we were created to be
and who and how we want to be.

May it be so.

We continue thinking in our worship about the insights and lessons
that the practice of improvisational theater and
the practice of improvisational actors might offer us
as followers of God in the way of Jesus.
And we consider today the alternatives of accepting or blocking offers.

And right off the bat I have to disabuse you
of what is probably (and understandably) the first impression
many of us here today have of blocking.
Because these days—today, here in Baltimore,
blocking is all about those big guys up front
who create a path for the runner to make forward progress.
Blocking enables—it facilitates forward momentum.
Blockers are those who deal with what would interfere
rather than those who themselves interfere.

So you need to get all that out of your head for now.
Think about football after church—pretty much right after church,
but not now!

Because right now we’re thinking about the stage, not the field.
And in improvisational theater,
an offer’s an initiative one actor offers another or others—
an introduction, an idea, an action, a possibility—a reality.
Accepting an offer means the other actor or actors go with that initiative—that offer.

According to David Alger, director of San Francisco’s Pan Theater,
an improv theater and school, the first and second rules of improv
(he offers twenty rules—twenty rules of improv)—
the first and second rules of which
can be summed up as, “yes, and ….”
You accept what’s offered (you say, “Yes”),
and then you build on it. You add to it. You say, “Yes, and ….”

So blocking, or denying an offer, is refusing to go with it.
It’s an initiative offered and rejected, the possibility not taken,
the road not chosen, the reality not pursued.

Blocking is someone with an idea fixed in their head,
and because they have their idea fixed in their head,
they reject anyone else’s idea,
and the scene, for such an actor, turns into a competitive struggle
for whose idea will prevail—who will dominate.

Now it might well be that there’s some, or even a lot of humor
in such rejection—in such blocking.
There might be some, or even a lot of appeal to such a development,
but it’s not humor or appeal conducive to the scene.
The laughter comes at the expense of someone who’s supposed to be a partner.
So it’s short-sighted humor.
It’s the appeal of immediate gratification.
And you may get those immediate laughs, but then you have nowhere to go,
and no one wanting to go with you anywhere anyway.

Sounds a lot like Washington, DC, doesn’t it?,
where the rule seems to be block anything and everything that’s not your idea—
that’s not in locked, goose-step to your idea.

But blocking’s a big no no in improvisational theater.
In fact, the third rule of improv is just don’t do it—don’t block.

Biblical scholars that you are, you’re probably all thinking
of Romans 14:13, aren’t you?
Where that master improviser Paul
wrote his own version of the third rule of improv:
“Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another,
but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block
or hindrance in the way of another.”

As biblical scholars who are theologians as well,
you’ve also no doubt made the connection
with the first stories of our faith—the genesis of our narrative—
in which God’s initiative—God’s offer—was extended to us—
but, in the unfolding of our primal narrative, was subsequently blocked.
Humankind, in the exercise of free will, blocks God’s offer.
Just don’t do that. Rule # 3.

You see, Paul knew, as does every good improvisational actor,
you really cannot afford to stop the flow
of relationship and dialogue and action.
Because if you do, then nothing develops.
Nothing flows.
And your top priority—your only priority, really,
is maintaining the flow—
keeping the action going—the story.
That’s your goal. That’s your hope. That’s your job.

In improvisational theater, if someone says something,
you go with it, and you go with it enthusiastically.
What do we do with this? How do we develop this?
What can I add to this?

A lot of the practice of improvisation actually consists of playing various games.
One of these games involves asking one actor to speak about something
he or she is passionate about,
but the other actor or actors are all instructed not to respond—
to return no emotional energy.
they are to remain neutral—
offer the occasional nod, a non-committal “Uh huh.”
You know, the basic, I’m sorta listening to what I don’t really care about.
And what becomes a monologue will begin to drag on the actor—
begin to feel heavy—as the weight of carrying the momentum of the scene
rests squarely on the one who’s speaking.
That’s hard to keep going.

This game is then turned on its head
when the reactive actors (who have been pretty much non-reactive)
are all told to respond enthusiastically to the one speaking.
And it doesn’t take long to feel the growing energy of “Yes, and ….”
the growing energy of acceptance and advancement—
of a monologue that becomes dialogue
as ideas are built upon and developed.
And you’re not just dealing with growing energy, but synergy.

Such good practice.
Because we don’t always get the option of blocking
so much of what life sends our way, do we?
We get the diagnosis.
We’re told what the decision was.
These are the circumstances.
This is the reality of our living.
Yes, and ….
Yes, and how do we keep going?
Yes, and how do we bring ourselves to what life throws us
and participate in a synergy of positive possibility?

We’ve noted before, do you remember?,
that verse from Romans—that oft misapplied verse from Romans—
Romans 8:28—actually reads: there’s a synergy for good
within the experience of those that love God.

So it is that we, biblical scholars and theologians, come to our text for today
thinking already of the consistent initiative of God—
remembering how God’s initiative was blocked
in one of the fundamental, primal stories of our faith.

Now this text begins with the statement
that the word of God was rare in those days.
If we read the preceding chapter,
we know that those who were to represent God (the priests, Eli’s sons)
had not done so—had not represented God, but their own desires and greeds.
So God was again, blocked.
And Eli’s own eyesight had begun to grow dim
so he could not see.
Visions were not widespread.
That’s where we start this morning.
That’s the reality with which we start this morning.

But we believe in the persistent offer God extends,
and God called out to Samuel, “Samuel! Samuel!”

And we have the boy, Samuel accepting God’s offer—
waking up to possibility.
“Here I am!”

Now Samuel did run to Eli, thinking it was Eli calling, but that’s not a block.
Samuel doesn’t reject the late night offer.
He just misidentifies it.

Eli’s response is though—a block.
“I did not call; lie down again. It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.

It happens again—the same exact way.
God’s initiative—God’s offer.
Samuel’s acceptance.
Eli’s block.

The third time though—God still offering, Samuel still accepting,
Eli accepts too.
He perceives that it’s God calling.
Samuel didn’t know to identify God.
Eli did, but had gotten used to not seeing and not hearing.
To his credit, as soon as he perceives God,
he identifies God for Samuel.
“Go back. Lie back down; and if God calls you again,
you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

And then, as we keep reading,
something fascinating happens!
Because God has some pretty harsh words for old Eli.
God takes the behavior of his sons so seriously and personally.
And what happens?
Did you see it?
Samuel blocks, right?
Doesn’t want to tell Eli God’s word.
And now Eli’s the one who accepts God’s offer.

So within our practice of Scripture—
our practice of learning not to block,
we learn that we do block.
We learn that no one’s exempt—
that in our Scripture text two prophets of God both block the word of God!
Both the one rejected (Eli) and the one anointed (Samuel).

The third rule of improv may be don’t block,
but, as a rule of life, we do.
Everyone does—even God’s chosen.
That’s another aspect of the reality with which we start this morning
and every morning.

Which brings us to the big question of the day—
shouldn’t we? block.

I mean, don’t block anything? Don’t get in the way of anything?
Really?
Surely not.
That’s not it. That can’t be it.
Clearly there are things—lots of things in our experience
we’re to say “No” to not “Yes, and ….”
I’m sure you, like I, have received lots of offers
it was appropriate, necessary, healthy
to completely shut down.

Here’s the thing: you have to pick what it is you want to not get in the way of.
You have to decide what story unfolding you don’t want to impede.
You have to identify your priority and then get out of its way.
And that may well mean you do get in the way of another story.
You do impede other priorities.

Susie and I love the deep imaginative play of our girls.
They’ll get to going and the living room is transformed into a class room
and dolls and stuffed animals become students,
or the front porch becomes a family’s house—
each imaginative offer accepted taking them deeper and deeper into another world.

A while ago, we were amused overhearing them
out on the front porch playing with a neighbor.
The three of them were all members of a family.
Sydney and Callie, the older sister and the mom.
Audra was, apparently, at times, assigned the role of the baby,
and, at times, that of the family dog—
both characters, I’m sure you notice, relegating her to pretty much non-activity.
She was blocked from full participation …
which didn’t sit well with her.
She had a dream, you see,
of being fully included—
of being recognized as a contributing member of the family—
valued and honored as much as anyone else,
and so in the unfolding of their story,
she kept throwing curves into the imaginative play.
We’d overhear her, to Sydney’s growing exasperation,
making these dramatic offers:
“Let’s pretend our mom is sick.”
“Let’s pretend one sister died.”
Completely changing the tenor of the game—
the direction of the focus—
claiming a power that had been denied her.
Sydney wanted to block.
Audra kept offering.
And they surfaced out of deep imagination into sibling bickering.

You have to pick what it is you want to not get in the way of,
and thus what you will get in the way of.
You have to decide what story unfolding you don’t want to impede,
and thus which ones you will impede.
You have to identify your priority and then get out of its way
and into the way of other priorities—blocking them.
And if you identify the God story as the story you want to see unfold,
then you block what’s not the God story.

Clarence Jordan, great Baptist that he was, observed
living as he did in the Bible Belt down on Koinonia Farms in Georgia,
an interracial, Christian farming community
he and his wife founded with another couple in 1942.
As you might imagine, it was the target of much local ire and even violence
in the fifties and early sixties.
In that environment, Jordan observed how many parents
raised their children in the church—
how many parents raised their children
in the language and practices of the faith—
how many parents wanted their children involved in youth group—
involved in choir and worship—
how many parents wanted their children to walk the aisle—
how many parents wanted their children to be baptized,
but when their children began to live into the implications of our faith—
began to live into the implications of justice and equality—
began to live into the implications of a radical concern
for the poor, and the outcast—the excluded, the widows, orphans and aliens—
how many of those parents then wanted their children to,
in effect, say “no” to God, by saying “no” to what God wants and expects,
even while still saying “yes” to church and worship and Sunday School.

So it’s really not so much don’t ever block.
Sometimes it’s important—sometimes it’s vital to block.
It’s don’t block without knowing what you’re doing.

In fact, Paul, that great improviser,
early composer of rule # 3 of improv,
also wrote, you know what’s coming, don’t you?
also wrote—in his first epistle to the Corinthians—
wrote of Jesus as—what? a stumbling block (1 Corinthians 1:23)!

For the message about the cross is foolishness
to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God,
the world did not know God through wisdom,
God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation,
to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews
and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom,
and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters:
not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world,
things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,
so that no one might boast in the presence of God”
(1 Corinthians 1:17-31, excerpts).

So maybe we’re back to that image of blocking
with which we want to leave here to go to our TVs—
Jesus throwing down blocks on all that would get in our way
as long as we’re running in the way of God.

And that means throwing down blocks at wisdom and strength and power
as interpreted by the world.
That means running in the face of the priorities of the world,
and that’s kind of scary

And it’s the scared improviser who just says, “No”
(remember Samuel was scared when he blocked God).
It’s the scared improviser who shuts down the story—
suppresses the possibilities.

Because it’s about control, or, at least the perception of control.
When we’re nervous, when we’re defensive, when we’re feeling out of control—
which is—what?—usually, right?
We want to impose control on the story.
We want to make sure we make it turn out right.

We may have the best of intentions,
but the deeper question then becomes:
what do you trust?
Ultimately, what do you trust?
Do you trust your control of what’s to come?
Do your trust your skill—your skill at manipulating
events and people to make them do what you want?
Do you trust your knowledge and training?
Do you trust your wisdom to know what’s best?
Or do you trust the unfolding story and the God
we believe is a part of that unfolding?
Do you give up to it? Give yourself up to it?
Let go and let it go?
Do you trust the relationships and what will develop in their synergy?

The truth of the matter is that most often
I trust me more than I trust God.
There’s good reason for that.
God’s more invested in the God story than in me …
unless God’s investment in the God story is also God’s investment in me.
But I know how the God story can turn out—
not so good for the me story …
unless the God story’s more important to me than the me story …
unless I want the God story to be the me story.
What a me story that would be.
What a mystery that is!

Our text concludes with the affirmation
that as Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him
and let none of his words fall to the ground.
None of his words were blocked.
And everyone knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of God.
And the word of the Lord was not rare anymore.

It never had been, had it? we believe.
Just blocked.
Which left the story—God’s story—unable to develop.

But God persists.
And God will prevail.
This we believe.
That’s the story we believe.
Don’t we?
Then embrace rule # 3: get out of its way.

Too often, though, it’s a strength we the people
allow to be made manifest in one of its shadow forms—
allow to be made manifest as weakness—in cheap speech—
in valueless speech—
in drivel.

As if the guarantee of free speech somehow guaranteed
respect for each speech of any and all who are free to speak.

And nothing could be further from the truth.

That someone is free to speak
does not make what they say worth listening to.
It is, in fact, most respectful of free speech
not to indulge cheap speech—
certainly not to value valueless speech.
But not to ignore it either—
to laugh at it.

One of the great gifts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert offer us
(while they are typically dismissed by many
who claim to report or respect the news, as mere comedians)
is precisely laughter—in truth, exactly what we most need—
not just as the most appropriate response
but also as the most accurate evaluation
of what too many simply report as having been said—
thereby implicitly justifying or validating what was said.

More importantly (for me),
these comedians help me, occasionally, find—
beyond the derisive, angry, mocking laughter
that is an easy reaction to cheap speech—
that is typically my initial and default reaction
(and one that actually sustains the power of the ludicrous),
these comedians occasionally help me find
the true laughter of genuine amusement.

Free speech costs too much
to indulge cheap speech,
and cheap speech isn’t worth
more than a good laugh—
which makes of it something more than it’s worth!

Friday, December 23, we took the girls out of school
and up to New York City for the day—
a family Christmas present.
We rode the subway down to Battery Park.
We rode the Staten Island Ferry by the Statue of Liberty
over to Staten Island and back.
We rode the subway back up near Central Park,
walked down Seventh Avenue through Times Square,
down Broadway.
we walked 42nd Street.

We spent a good bit of time looking up.
One of the things I like best about New York City—how often it makes you up!
We saw the ice skaters at Bryant Park,
visited the American Girl Doll shrine,
went to Rockefeller Center and saw the big Christmas tree,
saw the window displays at Macys and Saks.
Mas, saw a five foot Christmas tree made out of lots and lots of origami cranes.
if you were to start now, we could have one next year!
We saw the light show on the Fifth Avenue facade of Saks
(it’s amazing what you can do with light!).

Oh, and we saw Mary Poppins!

What a great show.
I was particularly impressed
with the risk they took in taking such a familiar story—
such well-known and beloved music
and changing it—adding to it!—
claiming not a movie from the early 60’s, but a musical for today,
and yet with an acknowledging nod and a respectful wink.

So in the beginning, Bert, the street artist, the chimney sweep, the narrator—
the whatever he is, sings by way of introduction,
“Can’t put my finger on what lies in store,
but I feel what’s to happen all happened before.
A father, a mother, a daughter, a son,
the threads of their lives are all raveling undone.
Something is needed to twist them as tight
as a string you might might use when you’re flying a kite.
Chim chimenee chim chim cheree chim cheroo.”
(“Prologue/Chim Chim Che-ree,” Mary Poppins
[Original London Cast Recording], Walt Disney Records, 2005).

But you’re not here to hear about our trip to New York! Let alone to hear me sing!
We’re in week two of our worship series on the practice of improvisation,
and we’re talking this morning about being aware of status—
being aware of what each person thinks of his or her own status,
being aware of what each person thinks of everyone else’s status,
being aware of status as a strategy everyone employs
both defensively and offensively, to negotiate relationships,
becoming aware of how to change status,
and then playing with what you’ve become aware of!

Status awareness, transactions and manipulations are so important in improv,
and are largely and broadly played in drama—in improv—for comedic effect
like in … well, Mary Poppins!
You remember?
The so very strait-laced and tight-laced Mr. Banks asks for Mary’s references.
Replies Mary Poppins, “Oh, I make it a point never to give references.
A very old-fashioned idea to my mind.”
She’s the nanny (low status), but she’s also very clearly in control (high status),
and thus turns her job interview into his,
“I believe a trial period would be wise,” she says. “Hmm. I’ll give you one week.
I’ll know by then. I’ll see the children now. Thank you.”
(http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Mary-Poppins.html)

She’s the nanny, but she’s clearly in control,
and not just of the children, nor of just the household,
but indeed of all reality.
She glides up the bannister; she flies;
she brings statues and drawings to life.
In fact, in an interview some of the show’s actors and writers
had extended conversation about what exactly Mary might be:
a guardian angel, a spirit,
a combination of different mythological figures with superhuman, magical powers,
a witch, a fairy, a god
(http://www.broadway.com/shows/mary-poppins/video/133015/opening-night-mary-poppins/)?

Like Mary, Bert, well aware of his status in the world, sings,
“Now as the ladder of life has been strung,
you might think a sweep’s on the bottom most rung.
Though I spends me time in the ashes and smoke,
in this whole wide world, there’s no happier bloke.”
(“Chim Chim Che-ree,” Mary Poppins
[Original London Cast Recording], Walt Disney Records, 2005).
And he’s not only fun and funny. He’s also powerful—
with the insight that “all that it takes is a spark,
and then something, plain as a park, becomes …
a wonderland!
All you have to do is look anew
then you’ll understand!”
(“Jolly Holiday,” Mary Poppins [Original London Cast Recording])

None of such playfulness with status should come as a surprise
to those of us steeped in our Scriptures—
with all their status transactions, manipulations and inversions.

Think through the story of Joseph.
Trying to track his every changing status
throughout the story (high/low/lower/higher) is like watching a yo-yo.
Think of all the second sons and the women God unexpectedly
chose (and still chooses!) to work with and through.
Think of Israel itself, as the author of 2 Peter does, writing:
“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (2 Peter 2:10).

Status inversions are magnificently presented in the Magnificat:
“God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53).

They’re core to the teaching of Jesus, who said, “Many who are first will be last,
and the last will be first” (Mark 10:31; Matthew 20:16; Luke 13:30).

Scripture doesn’t have a problem with the observations
that “[s]tatus informs every single interaction between people—
no casual movement or gesture is without significance.
There are not innocent remarks or meaningless pauses
(Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics
Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004, 88),
and that “status transactions characterize every interaction
between two or more people …” (Wells, 89).

Scripture also readily acknowledges that typically “[s]tatus is a seesaw.
If people bring themselves up, they bring the other person down.
If they bring themselves down, they bring the other person up” (Wells, 88).
So it is that seesawing is typical strategy and storyline in improv.
The drama is interpersonal,
relational and competitive.
One wins, another loses,
and it’s usually funny—in improv.

Sean’s been watching old episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway.
How often do those characters raise their status at the expense of another’s—
often Drew Carey’s!

There’s something about the person of God though—
who and how God is—
that throws a curve into the seesaw strategy or storyline.

In the Old Testament, during the time of the Exile,
the people of Israel had to wrestle with their defeat at the hands of the Babylonians,
had to wrestle with the reality that Jerusalem had been sacked—
that the Temple had been razed—
had to wrestle with what that did to God’s status—
and to their own as the people of God.

And what they came up with was the idea of the Shekinah—
that even with Jerusalem as the home of God, razed to the ground,
the Shekinah was present with them—
that the presence of God in their Exile was also, somehow, God exiled—
God not being where God wanted to be—preferred to be,
yet God could separate self without diminishing self—
distinguish from self without minimizing self.
So even when Jerusalem was razed to the ground,
the presence of God was raised with the people of God!
That’s all part of the Shekinah of God.

So when God’s status was low in the world,
as the God of a defeated people, it was nonetheless still high—
because God’s status turned out to not be circumstantial.
And when the status of the people of God was correspondingly low, in Exile,
it was also correspondingly high—
yet not at the expense of the Babylonians. You notice?
It’s not that the exiles dramatically, bravely, miraculously, took over Babylon.
Their high status is independent of the Babylonians
and of their circumstance. It has to do with God.

In the New Testament, in the person of Jesus,
“who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11),
the truth is personal, relational and yet non-competitive.
One wins high status not to lower anyone else’s,
but, in fact, that others may be raised as well.

And then, in the followers of Jesus, we have some evidence
that they did not continue the up and down of seesaws—
of strategy—of competition,
but interacted and acted in such ways that people said,
“These people who have been turning the world upside down
have come here also …” (Acts 17:6).
That’s not the typical seesawing.
That’s a complete upending of all categories and presuppositions—
strategies and storylines.

Now, in Scripture, we tend to miss the humor—
too focused on the theology I should think—
the oh so very seriousness—the profundity.
And not that that’s not all there, and appropriately there.
It’s just that the first level of status manipulated and inverted
is humor. It’s funny.

We read Isaiah 53, one of the so-called suffering servant passages,
and soberly contemplate the suffering.
Then we might note the inversion of status (as in the Philippian hymn)—
affirm the surprising ways in which God accomplishes God’s will.
We might talk about the unexpected
or the inexplicable.
We tend not to think this is a Monty Python skit
that somehow got included in Scripture—
that’s laughably ludicrous,
hysterically hilarious,
insanely nonsensical,
preposterous, farcical,
and just plain silly.

In theater, inversion of status is usually funny.
Nothing wrong with that.
In Scripture, inversion of status is usually profound.
Nothing wrong with that either.
They often do each need a good dose of each other though!

Because, at their best, status inversions start with humor,
but don’t stop at humor—
becoming rather poignant, meaningful, profound, revelatory—
but without losing the lightness of fun and funny.

So we load down that suffering servant passage—
with the depth of our theology,
and not just because it’s, in retrospect, interpreted messianically—
interpreted as about Jesus, but that too!
We identify something in this text as essential to and about God.
Walter Brueggemann writes “[t]he poetry cannot be reduced
to a rational formula” (Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66
[Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998] 146)—
that it constitutes an invitation to faith (Brueggemann, 144)—
a faith that cannot be explained—
a faith that doesn’t make sense—
a faith that is thus non-sensical.
So it can’t be just all meaningful and serious.
Come on! As a messianic psalm, Isaiah 53 says Jesus was ugly!
Not just homely, plain, somewhat unattractive—seriously ugly.
How many of you seen pictures of an ugly Jesus—other than on the cross?

It’s precisely in the interplay of the funny and the serious—
the light and the heavy—that “[a] massive critique of our failed cultural values
arises almost inescapably from the text” (Brueggemann, 150).

I think about it every time in presidential debates
when the commentators talk about how the tallest person usually wins—
or the one who blinks less.
And while fuming at so many aspects of such commentary
(not the least of which is that it’s evidently verifiable!),
I imagine Jesus as short with what appears to be a nervous tic in one eye,
without good hair (or even any hair!)—and ugly—
because none of that is supposed to matter,
and yet it so obviously does and entirely too much.

We’ve been talking about our Old Testament passage.
In our Gospel passage,
we talk about John the Baptist assuming the prophetic mantle.
We note that he’s identified with the wilderness—
his dress and his diet that of the desert nomad.
We remember that the wilderness
is associated with a time of purity of relation with God—
when God led the children of Israel—and provided for them—
before the children of Israel had a country or a king—
when they had no status in the world.

Again, in such deep and pervasive meaningfulness,
we can overlook the fact that the prophets,
as those set apart from the norm, were odd,
outlandish, quirky, eccentric, peculiar, kooky, bizarre, offbeat—weird!

Think of Shakespeare’s fools, prophets we might call them too, no?
Mark Edmundson, Professor of English at the University of Virginia,
in “Playing the Fool,” an on-line article for the New York Times,
wrote, “Shakespeare’s fools are subtle teachers,
reality instructors one might say ….
They tickle, coax and cajole their supposed betters into truth,
or something akin to it”
(http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/04/02/bookend/bookend.html).

And then John, our prophet, our fool, our reality instructor, speaks of Jesus,
and says he wouldn’t be worthy to undo Jesus’ sandals.
“The action of unfastening sandals was regarded by the Jews
as the most menial of all the tasks performed by a slave.
It is said in the Talmud that a disciple must do for his teacher
everything that a slave will do for his master, except this one act …”
(Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark
[Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991] 38).

There’s a fluidity to status in Scripture
that’s not just the lower status assuming a higher one,
but higher status also willingly assuming lower status.
And again, it’s not competitive.
Jesus doesn’t gain high status by lowering John’s.

In fact, “[o]ne of the most significant forms of dramatic tension
in the Gospels is between Jesus [himself] as servant, slave, and crucified outcast
[on the one hand] and Jesus as Messiah, Lord, and Son of God [on the other]….
Perhaps the most poignant moments in the Gospels
comes when these two portrayals coincide” (Wells, 99-100).
One of the most significant forms of dramatic tension
is not interpersonal, but personal.

In the show, Mary Poppins—early in the show,
Mrs. Banks plans a tea party
for all the people her husband wants to impress (those of high status),
and none of them come.
Now this creates an expectation of reversal.
If we’re familiar with Scripture, we might expect some surprise invitations
issued to chimney sweeps and street artists in the hedges and byways.
As those brought up in this world of ours,
we expect those who rejected the Banks to themselves be rejected.
We expect the low status of the Banks to rise at the expense of these others, right?
And yet, it only occurred to me in reflection,
that’s an expectation that actually never materializes—
never materializes in the lowering of other people’s status anyway.
There’s not a tea party the Banks host at the end of the show
everyone who’s anyone’s clamoring to attend.
Mr. and Mrs. Banks’ status is raised throughout the show,
but without lowering anyone else’s.
It’s like in the Bible! It’s less interpersonal—
not at anyone’s expense, and more internal and personal.

It’s actually been kind of fun, this past week, to imagine Bert as John the Baptist
at home in the wilderness of London’s rooftops in soot and ashes,
waiting to recognize Mary—
to make straight a path into wonder and play and love.
It’s Mr. Banks, after all, who says, “It’s that woman, Mary Poppins.
From the moment she stepped into this house, things began to happen to me”
(http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Mary-Poppins.html)!

“In Shakespeare, to have a fool attending on you
is generally a mark of distinction.
It means that you’ve retained some flexibility,
can learn things, might change;
it means that you’re not quite past hope,
even if the path of instruction will be singularly arduous.
To be assigned a fool in Shakespeare is often a sign that one is, potentially, wise”
(Edmundson).

So your three questions for the day:
first, as you look back on this past week, for what did you give thanks?
Second, what aspect of who God is did you praise?
Third, and finally, and most difficultly
(we said last week, practice has to get harder, right?)
how did you witness the fluidity of status in the way of God this past week?

Again, no attempt to connect these three answers.
I do note that giving thanks and offering praise
are both ways of practicing looking beyond your own status.
And again, I assume, that you, as followers of God, do make a habit of giving thanks,
that you do make a habit of offering praise.
I also assume that from the moment God stepped into your living
things began to happen to you!
And that you so very intentionally watch for examples
of how true status has more to do with God than us—
that you know you are not to look at anyone—and that includes yourself—
you are not to look at anyone as defined in status
by the categories or circumstances of the world.
Because we are all, in fact, defined by God’s love.
That that’s all we need know personally,
and then in our various interactions with others.
Whomever we meet, in whatever circumstance,
God loves them, even as God loves us.

Brueggemann in writing of Isaiah 53 notes
that an “authentic Christian reading is not,
in [his] judgment, monopolistic” (Brueggemann, 149).
It can, in other words, be messianic—be about Jesus,
and yet not be just about Jesus.
It can also be about other servants of God.
And so it can also be about us—about you and me.

“Thus the tension that runs through Christ’s life
must likewise run through the heart of the disciple….
[who] must learn, like Jesus, to be an expert status player.
Discipleship involves a constant questioning, teasing,
and subversion of status, both high and low.
For the New Testament is all about status,
but its message is that, in God’s reign, status is far from static” (Wells, 101).

We’re to be as aware of status as trained improv actors,
but to practice relying on God for our status,
not our circumstances, not our manipulative skills.

“If we were to celebrate April Fools’ Day in Shakespearean fashion
rather than our own …, it would be quite a different day.
On Shakespeare’s Fools’ Day [or God’s Fool’s Day],
we’d test our capacity to hear the truth,
in slant, peculiar and painful forms,
and to use it to take a few steps in the general direction of freedom.
The day would be a trying, exhilarating,
perplexing and sometimes joyous affair ….
We’d look forward to it—and fear it—all year long”
(Edmundson).

We can’t put our finger on what lies in store,
but we feel what’s to happen all happened before.
We risk, every day and this next week, a well-known, beloved story—
claiming not a story from thousands of years ago,
but a living for today
with an acknowledging nod and a respectful wink.

“All you have to do is look anew,
then you’ll understand ….”
(“Jolly Holiday,” Mary Poppins [Original London Cast Recording])

We begin our Epiphany theme today, the practice of improvisation,
on this the first Sunday of the year 2012!
Amy Butler, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in DC
(and preaching here, by the way, Transfiguration Sunday, February 19)
suggested the theme at preachers’ camp this past summer.
It fit in well with my appreciation of Samuel Wells,
Dean of the Chapel at Duke University — Samuel Wells’ book:
Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics —
a book in which he notes that the Duke of Wellington, rather famously, said
(or is said to have said),
“The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”
(Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics
Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004, 73).
Waterloo, of course: the battle in which the Emperor Napoleon was ultimately defeated
after his escape from exile to the island of Elba — all in the year 1815
(he escaped from exile, reclaimed his emperorhood
and was defeated at Waterloo all in the span of about one hundred days in 1815),
and Eton: a public school — equivalent to our own private schools —
through what we would call high school —
which most of the British officers would have attended —
on the playing fields of which they would have learned …
well, teamwork, discipline, courage, the will to win,
the importance of hydration and good hygiene,
the sweat that is effort, the pain that leads to gain
and the difference between the pain that leads to gain,
and the pain that just leads to the hospital.

The habits of our growing up shape who we are
and shape what we do in life.

In our gospel text, we read about Mary, Joseph and Jesus going to the Temple —
going when the time had come for their purification
according to the law of Moses.
Jesus was also presented as their first-born son
as it is prescribed in the law (see Exodus 13:2, 12-16).
And they offered the required sacrifice
according to what’s stated in the law.
The whole family was involved in the traditions of the temple —
the customs, expectations and law of their faith.
The habits of their growing up shaped who they were
and shaped what they did and what they would come to do.

There are five references to fulfilling the law in our passage.
But it’s a passage about more than just the religious habits of Mary and Joseph —
the faith habits with which Jesus would have been brought up.
Here’s the thing, we know Mary had to be purified
because Leviticus 12 is right at the top of all our reading lists!
Who doesn’t have a copy of Leviticus on their nightside table?
Oh. Really? A new ministry for 2012!
Leviticus 12 is where it’s very clearly laid out:
after giving birth, the mother of a boy will be ritually unclean seven days,
then have 33 day of blood purification before presenting herself to the priest
with a lamb for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering —
or, for those who can’t afford a lamb, two pigeons —
one as burnt offering, one as sin offering —
two pigeons or two turtledoves —
and a partridge in a pear tree!

So we know our story takes place forty days after the birth of Jesus.
We know Mary and Joseph could not afford a lamb.
We also know our text does not say Mary had to be purified … does it?
It reads (verse 22) that they both had to be — Mary and Joseph.
And while there may have been some reason
completely unrelated to the story unfolding,
the most likely reason Joseph needed ritual cleansing as well
was that he had been involved, hands-on, in the birth.
No other reason (in the story) for him to be ritually unclean.
Which is also to say, we’ll hear it again and again in the story of Jesus,
there are times that purity is not the priority —
in direct contrast to any strict adherence to religious expectation,
and a much-needed lesson again in Israel these days,
where a small but vocal and aggressive minority of the ultra-orthodox
have in the waning days of 2011
taken it upon themselves to accost women and girls —
to verbally and physically harass them,
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,806386,00.html),
to demand they cover themselves more fully,
to demand they go to the back of the bus.
There are times that purity is not the priority,
and it has something to do with how we relate to each other.
There is no purity law that justifies spitting on little girls.

We also note in the latter part of our passage,
that the identities and the living of Simeon and Anna
are all wrapped up within the rhythms of temple life.
They encounter Jesus in the midst of their hopes,
their righteousness, their worship,
the disciplines of their faith —
the habits of their living that not only shaped who they were,
but also created the context into which experience came and was interpreted.
They located their hope in their faith;
they lived in the arena of that faith,
and that’s where their hope found them —
not in the purity of their own initiative,
but in the humility of looking to someone else —
another lesson much-needed again these days.

So what are the habits with which we grow up?
What are the habits with which we grow our children up?
Because what we habitually do —
that to which we habitually give —
our time, our money, our attention, our enthusiasm —
that which we habitually say and sing and hear and repeat —
that’s where we implicitly locate our hope and our priority.

I grew up and church attendance was not an option.
In my parents’ home, Sunday morning, we all went to church.
Now it may turn out that in the course of raising our children,
the habit of church is determined to run counter
to the habit of respect or the habit of trust,
and far be it from us to do away with purity law
and then make church attendance the be-all-end-all.
Given the possibility of exceptions though,
is weekly worship a habit? A family habit?
Because it will, in the course of time, shape who you are and what you do,
as families and as individuals, in the way of God.
I guarantee it.

And here’s why:
back to Wells, who suggests that ethics has become a study
of the choice and the action in a critical moment of decision
rather than the study of the character of the person
who engages each moment in choice and action (Wells, 73).
It’s a study of the battlefield (Waterloo) instead of the playing fields (Eton) —
an examination of the moment instead of the lifetime that leads to a moment.

And Wells is actually only understating the facts.
Ours is not only an age of individualism, indeed, hyper-individualism —
but also what I will call “now-ism.”
Confusion says, “Now-ism is a philosophical or religious impulse
that does not consider any greater harmony
than the desires of the individual in some now or another,
and, maybe, some chosen subset the individual wishes to please.”
Ours an age in which you don’t even have to say what’s right in the moment,
you just say what sounds right in the moment,
given who’s listening — given what you want to accomplish.

Counter to such trends, our faith centers not on a word —
a word that polls well —
a popular word —
a soundbyte,
but a word made flesh,
and made flesh in the daily habits of God’s way.

Too much of our experience these days (in all arenas) is flesh made words —
life’s commitments made insubstantial —
life’s priorities made uncommitted —
made unincarnate in the sound of drivel.

So how do we enflesh our words?
Our most important words of faith and hope?
How do we, as a community of faith, incarnate what we believe?
Substantiate it?
How do we practice the habits that will shape us?
Wells suggests that worship — weekly worship — is, in fact,
the principal practice (Wells, 82) by which our faith is made flesh —
gathering with others —others, ideally, of different background and experience
whose different likes and dislikes we discipline ourselves to respect;
praying — praying not just for self — not just for our immediate circles —
praying beyond the circles;
giving beyond the self;
reading and hearing the stories of God over and over again;
and being sent into the world with transformative truth.
Worship is the practice that leads us into and through the way of God
in the week to come.
Worship is the practice that prepares us to incarnate the word of God
in days to come.
Because “[m]ost of the Christian life is faithful preparation
for an unknown test” (Wells, 80). A moment is coming.
It could be momentous. Are you preparing yourself?

And here’s the thing!
In practice — think about it,
you get it wrong more than you get it right!
Until you start getting it right more than wrong,
at which point, it’s time to up the challenge
and be, once more, more wrong than right. Right?
It’s how you get better.
No one gets better by not failing.
No one gets better not working through failing.
So the community of faith represents the context
in which to fall flat on our faces in the practice of living our faith,
not the one in which to seek admiration for our perfection in the faith.
I tell you, the world doesn’t know that.

Practice is also, you all know this, drills.
Not the least bit interesting, let alone fascinating.
Dare I say dreaded? Sure I’ll say dreaded. Drills.
Doesn’t matter the discipline.
You know what I’m talking about.
It’s memorizing math rules:
faith adds to living; hope subtracts despair; grace multiplies joy; love divides grief.
It’s practicing, over and over again, the scales of justice and the scales of humility.
It’s conjugating, over and over again, the verbs so irregular in our experience:
I love, you love, he/she love, we love, y’all love
they may or may not love, but that’s not the point.

In sports, the repetition of drills and mechanics
is to make specific skills second nature
so that in a game, you don’t have to think about it, you just do what you know to do —
what you’ve prepared to do in practice
and weight training and cardio-vascular conditioning.
And some elite athletes do things you don’t believe you just saw,
“[b]ut what is spontaneity but the result of years
of experiments” (Wells, 80) and drills and practice.
You don’t see the countless hours of work behind it,
and that’s part of the point. You’re not supposed to.
But neither should you think they’re not there.

Wells affirms “To live well requires both effort and habit. There is a place for both.
But no amount of effort at the moment of decision
will make up for effort neglected in the time of formation” (Wells, 75).
You can put forth as much effort as you want come game time,
if you haven’t put in the effort in practice … sorry.

So what habits do you form in your living?
Because the habits of our days shape who we are.
What do you put your efforts into?
Do we form the habits of grace?
Do we put in the hours to form the habits of compassion?
Do we work to form the habits of love?
Do we risk what it takes to form the habits of truth?
If not, we’re missing the point.
Learning to live well is about practice.
“The moral life [living well] should not be experienced as an agony of impossible choice.
Instead, it should be a matter of habit and instinct.
Learning to live well is about gaining the right habits and instincts
rather than making the right choices” (Well, 75).

Too often, and especially in the church,
we’re far too impressed with being right —
and with some sense that we should be right all the time.
Let me tell you, being impressed with being right all the time
undermines good practice.
Think about it.
And being impressed with being right all the time
also too easily sacrifices people and relationships
to someone’s idea of what’s right.

So again, what is it that elicits your discipline? —
the determination: “I’m going to get better at this.”
What justifies the hours of work you put into it?
A sport? A vocation? A hobby? Music?

David Hajdu, writing for The Atlantic Monthly back in March 2003,
remembered an August night when he wandered
into a venerated jazz haunt in Manhattan.
he walked in on a set in progress
and thought the trumpeter looked somewhat like Wynton Marsalis.

“The fourth song was a solo showcase for the trumpeter,
who, I could now see,” he writes, “was indeed Marsalis ….
He played a ballad, “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You,”
unaccompanied.
Written by Victor Young, a film-score composer, for a 1930s romance,
the piece can bring out the sadness in any scene,
and Marsalis appeared deeply attuned to its melancholy.
He performed the song in murmurs and sighs,
at points nearly talking the words in notes.
It was a wrenching act of creative expression.
When he reached the climax, Marsalis played the final phrase,
the title statement, in declarative tones,
allowing each successive note to linger in the air a bit longer.
“I don’t stand… a ghost… of… a… chance….”
The room was silent until, at the most dramatic point,
someone’s cell phone went off,
blaring a rapid sing-song melody in electronic bleeps.
People started giggling and picking up their drinks.
The moment — the whole performance — unraveled.

Marsalis paused for a beat, motionless, and his eyebrows arched.
I scrawled on a sheet of notepaper, MAGIC, RUINED.
The cell-phone offender scooted into the hall as the chatter in the room grew louder.
Still frozen at the microphone,
Marsalis replayed the silly cell-phone melody note for note.
Then he repeated it, and began improvising variations on the tune.
The audience slowly came back to him.
In a few minutes he resolved the improvisation —
which had changed keys once or twice and throttled down to a ballad tempo —
and ended up exactly where he had left off: “with… you….”
The ovation was tremendous
(http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2003/03/hajdu.htm).

Now that’s theology — a tremendous theology of improvisation.
God takes the interruptions into the story God dreams —
God accepts them and works, creatively, inspirationally —
persistently working to integrate —
to integrate those interruptions seamlessly into the music of God.

What justifies the hours of work you put into it?
A sport? A vocation? a hobby? Music? Your faith?

It’s been somewhat of an odd thing
to have this worship theme we do (improvisation)
within the liturgy and expectations of our worship.
In worship planning we talked about how
we might incorporate some improvising into the worship.
None of us like that message to young worshippers in a paper bag.
You know what I’m talking about?
Where someone puts various items in a paper bag,
and the person leading the message to young worshippers
takes the various items out of the bag (not knowing what they’re going to be)
and has to do something with them.
Seems less about the children to us.

No doubt, you noticed the different location of communion in our order of worship —
not just to be different, but also to note that communion can feel like a tag-on —
slapped onto the end of our regular worship the first Sunday of each month.
What’s it like to experience communion embedded in the very heart of worship?

You’ll also notice the last hymn is left unidentified.
Did you wonder about that?
At the end of the service we’re going to ask you to pick it.
Not your favorite hymn, mind you, but the one you think fits this service —
this theme — these ideas.
Not sure how that will work, but we’ll see!

Then there’s now.
So here we go.
I need someone to tell me an important thing—
the most important thing that happened this past week — to you — personally.
I need someone else to tell me their favorite image of or name for God.
And I need someone to tell me something you experienced this past week
that sustains your belief that transformation happens—
call it redemption if you want—
the affirmation that something not good can be resolved into something better.

I’m sorry. It’s rude, I know,
to throw you something like this.
Very forward —presumptuous.
Thing is, I assume something important happened to you this past week.
I assume you have a favorite image of and name for God.
I assume you do experience transformation.
And I use the word “assume” deliberately — quite intentionally —
knowing the risk!
I could have presumed,
but there’s something about assuming that fits our faith!

So now, seriously. The most important thing that happened to someone?
A favorite name for or image of God?
An experience of the past week that sustained your belief in transformation?

I have a friend—some of you may know Kyle Matthews.
we’ve worked together on several different occasions,
and he would take three words and three notes and create a song.
Some of you may remember Ken Medema doing the same thing.

Not what I’m doing here.
Not trying to come up with a connection between these three different experiences.
Other than to say they reflect God’s will, God’s presence, and God’s work.
I believe when we specify what’s most important to us,
there’s some reflection in that of God’s will for our lives.
It may be distorted. It may be inverted.
But I believe there’s a connection there.
Then when we name our favorite image of God,
we’re talking about our vital experience of God’s presence with us.
And when we identify transformation,
we’re proclaiming God at work with us in the world.
And I think that’s a sermon — a sermon on the habits that shape us.

How did Jesus always know what to say?
How did Jesus always know exactly what to do?
It had something to do with his having been dedicated
in the temple when he was 40 days old.
It had something to do with his having been brought up
in the customs, traditions, expectations and laws of faith.
It had something to do with his study of Scripture and his life of prayer.
Who Jesus was had something to do with the habits that formed him —
and they are habits we can choose ourselves.
The habits that shaped Jesus can shape us:
knowing what’s truly important,
naming God in the consistent experience of God’s presence,
and believing in God’s ongoing work of redemption
until life interrupts God’s story in our living
instead of God’s story interrupting some other story.

Those are pretty much the habits I’d like to form.
Those are the habits I want to form me —
the habits I choose to shape me —
not for any spontaneous response to the immediate,
but for a considered and practiced response to the eternal —
the response of my living to my faith — to my belief
in the God present to and with us all.

How ’bout you?