First U M C Santa Monica | Sermons

And so I watched the first episode of a show on NBC called “Revelations.” It’s not just a mini-series—they’re calling it a six-hour event series (whatever that is!) about the last days, the end of time. In it, a young, brilliant and quite beautiful nun and a handsome, bereaved Harvard astrophysicist encounter all sorts of strange signs and wonders that seem to point to the second coming of Christ. He believes that science can explain everything. She, of course, challenges all that, with a faith-perspective very loosely based on the Book of Revelation. The full title reads: “Omnium Finis Imminet” or the end of all things is near.

Called by one commentator “high on entertainment and low on theology,” this event-series is not Scriptural and it’s not in any way an accurate depiction of what we believe about these things. Another commentator said that it’s “a mishmash of myth, silliness and misinterpretations of Scripture.” Nevertheless, 15.8 million people watched the first episode, nearly twice the number that watched the funeral of the Pope.

15.8 million people. I suppose there are people who will watch just about anything that’s on, or anything with a young, beautiful heroine, or anything weird with a satanic killer, a baby that may be the second incarnation of Christ, and a young girl in a coma who channels dead spirits whenever lightening strikes. Hey, cool, pass the popcorn!

But I sense that underneath all that there is a hunger in our time for an encounter with the holy. The times we live in are frightening and confusing. There are wars, seemingly without end. There is awful desecration of the earth, and a blatant disregard for the lives of millions of our brothers and sisters around the globe. There are awful things and frightening things and we wonder, sometimes, how it all will end.

Makes sense, does it not, that there is also, in these times, a longing for something to
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speak to our fear. There is a longing for faith. A deep desire to know what is true and what is real and what might get us out of ourselves and a little closer to God. A longing to know what the future holds. So, while the TV’s on, let’s check it out. It’s safer than entering into the life of a religious community, like a church. 15.8 million people tuned in.

So it’s very likely that at work, or at a soccer match, or in the grocery store line, or on your morning walk and someone is going to start talking about “Revelations.” My hope is that there’s something you will be able to share about our faith that might give them something a little more profound, a little more real, a little more truly spiritual than what a TV “event” can offer. Maybe there’s something that you’ve found for your own life of faith that will speak to them.

We get some great material on this subject from today’s Gospel. It’s from a long speech of Jesus in John’s Gospel, a talk he gave to his closest disciples on the night before he was arrested and taken away from them to be crucified. He’s talking to the disciples about how he will be leaving them and understandably, they are very afraid. What does Jesus do?

Let’s first note what he does NOT do, to make a clear contrast with our TV mini-event. Jesus does not go spooky on them, and rave about weird babies and wars and horrific violence. No. He stays present with them and gives them a gift and he makes them a promise.

The gift is a gift of assurance. It is the gift of knowing what Paul Tillich called “the ground of faith.” “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” These are words we read at funerals and memorial services to comfort us when we are bereaved, when we are grieving over the death of a loved one. Countless millions have been comforted and buoyed by these words. But when Jesus first said them, he was not only speaking to our experience of death, but to those disciples’ experience of life. How were they going to live after he’d gone? How were they going to live without him? How were they to follow a Savior they could no longer see? How would they keep the faith when life became threatening and scary? We can sense their confusion, their anxiety, their fear that night.

He said to them—so simply and so profoundly—let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. Do not worry. That alone, you see, is a powerful response to the fear-mongering TV event-series. Jesus is all about love. On that night before he said these words he had first washed their feet. He has been at table with them. He had given them the new commandment to love one another as he has loved them. And he reminded them: there’s no reason, in heaven or on earth, to worry or to be afraid.

Love does not terrorize. Love does not threaten. Love does not abandon. Now there’s a word of comfort and hope, tidings of comfort and joy we might say, for a fearful time such as this one in which we live. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”
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"A Perfect Love" Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris, April 24, 2005

First the gift—the gift of abiding love--then the promise: “In God’s house are many dwelling places. I’m going to prepare a place for you. And I’ll come and take you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also.” He will be with us at the end of time when he will come again and he will be with us now, in every moment of our living. How does a Christian come to have a faith so deep as to be able, in the face of all adversity, to have a heart that is not troubled? How can we sing, in the words of the beautiful old hymn, “It is well with my soul”? In Jesus’ words, we get there by practicing trust, by gradually learning to receive his gift and to believe his promise.

These Greek verses have been translated and interpreted in so many ways. In God’s house are many mansions. In God’s house are many rooms. There’s plenty of room in the house of God. And there’s another translation of this verse that is wonderful. In God’s house are many resting places, many rest stops.

Many rest stops. They are a place to be refreshed, to get a glass of water, to take a deep breath. In God’s house are many rest stops. They are a place to take a quick nap, to compose yourself, to clear your brain. They are a place to center in. So that in the midst of everything that’s surely going to keep coming your way, when things conspire to wear you out or mess you up or rattle your cage or make you afraid, you can go to one of God’s rest stops and in silence or in worship or in prayer you can close your eyes and hear him saying again to you: I am with you. Let not your heart be troubled.

It’s so hard for us in the midst of busy lives to find a moment of peace and quiet. I recently read a short article on how to “Get Focused.” Addressed to multi-tasking people, it started out humorously: “You know the feeling. You’re sitting down to write an email to a friend when you recall it’s your mother-in-law’s birthday. So you surf over to a flower site to order a gift and your cell phone rings and it’s your husband, who wants to know what day the parent-teacher meeting is. As you reach for the calendar, the buzzer on the dryer sounds and you think, Oh, I should get the sheets out before they wrinkle.” As the writer said, “Even when we manage to nab a few minutes of peace, our heads are so full of clamoring demands that it’s hard to focus on the here and now.”

The article had several tips for helping our brains to focus: exercise, a healthy diet, exercise for our brains like crossword puzzles, and so forth, making lists, learning some centering meditation. We Christians would have some things to add, would we not, spiritual practices that take us to one of God’s rest stops? Prayer, worship… For many it’s walking the labyrinth, as one of our youth, Jennifer Wong, spoke about last Sunday, a time to slow down our bodies and focus our attention so that our soul can open to the healing presence of the living God.

Another way is one Mary Garbesi, our Director of Caring Ministries and Spiritual
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"A Perfect Love" Sermon by Rev. Patricia Farris, April 24, 2005

Formation, will introduce to our Confirmation Class this afternoon, called the Breath Prayer. It’s a very ancient Christian practice and a very doable one that doesn’t require us to go off to a monastery for a year. In a nutshell, here’s how you do it: get quiet. Pay attention to how you’re feeling and what your life most needs at the moment. And then create a very short one-line prayer that expresses your need…”O God, teach me to pray.” “O God, give me strength.” “Jesus, let me feel your love.” Or maybe it’s just one word, like “Peace.” Then, whatever your breath prayer is, let it become a regular part of all you do—when you’re in your car, or waiting in line, when you go out the front door in the morning. Pray it as you begin to prepare a meal or put the kids to bed at night. Pray it in the night when you can’t sleep or the first thing in the morning. Pray it when your heart becomes troubled and you need to return to the harbor of God’s love.

A breath prayer is one way, an ancient, Christian way, of helping us go to one of God’s many rest stops and live into the words of Jesus’ gift of peace and his promise to be with us always.

It’s all deceptively simply, but never simplistic. For Jesus, the one who will die and be raised from the dead is teaching us how to live in this world, with all of its threats and dangers and overwhelming challenges. Teaching us how to be so rooted and grounded in love that we will have the strength to withstand anything and that nothing in life or in death will ever be able to separate us from the great love of God in Christ Jesus.

Be strong in faith, dear brothers and sisters. Let not your hearts be troubled and neither let them be afraid.

Amen.

A Perfect Love Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris April 10, 2005

A Perfect Love
Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris
April 10, 2005