5december.htm

Clement of Alexandria: 5 December 2000

General Theological Seminary, New York, NY

Readings: Colossians 1:11-20

"It is far better to be happy than to have your bodies act as graveyards for
animals. Accordingly, the
apostle Matthew partook of seeds, nuts and vegetables, without flesh".
So wrote Titus Flavius Clemens,
probably better known to us as Clement of Alexandria,
theologian, biblical scholar, intellectual,
and champion
of vegetarians.

The stories of saints
are full of curious details,
whether it's Hildegard of Bingen
building a sewer under her abbey,
Perpetua and her companions,
gored by a leopard, a bear, a boar
and a savage cow,
or Clement
objecting to eating meat,
curious details, which might be irrelevant
except
that it is those very details
which remind us
that these are not just cardboard cut-outs,
mythical ideals in an illusory world,
but real people
who staked their lives
on their faith,
people who,
as the "Preface" to Lesser Fasts and Feasts puts it, exhibit
heroic commitment to Christ.
Some of them
are more peculiar than others,
but for century after century, generation after generation,
their stories have been cherished
as examples of the faithful Christian life.

Telling stories
is one of the time-honored ways
of sharing our faith,
stories
about people
just
like
us.
People
with hopes
and fears,
who sometimes get it right
but more often, it seems,
get it wrong.
People who laugh, and cry, who fall asleep during sermons, and who trip over
their own words.
Men who weep, women who laugh, even children
who face up to giants.
In struggles
and in joy
stories
connect the people of God
in every age,
they connect the world of scripture
with the busyness of Chelsea Square
at 6.21
on a wintery Tuesday night.

Which is why, I suspect, we hear a whole lot more sermons
on the stories of the gospels
than we do on the epistles, especially those parts of the epistles
which just seem all too much
like a theological or liturgical
excursus.
Like the one we have tonight, in the reading from Colossians.
There is no plot, no characters, no point-of-view. No story, in any
traditional sense of a narrative, just half
a prayer and a slab of a hymn.
And if stories
are at the heart of the Christian faith,
then half a prayer
and a slab of a hymn
seems to be stuck somewhere
in the far reaches of the brain,
and as far as a sermon is concerned, are a pretty poor way
to begin.

But perhaps
if we dig a little deeper
there is a story here too.
Perhaps somewhere behind
this half a prayer
and slab of a hymn
there is a story just as real
as the stories stuck here
behind
the walls of a seminary
and the pews
of a chapel.
A story that's not so unlike
our own.

Of course
to find that story
you have to read between the lines,
to search out
what might have been going on,
to imagine the rumors
which came to the ears of Paul - or whoever wrote in his name -
and prompted him to take up his pen
to write
this letter.
At first glance it seems
that this community, this church
is doing pretty well.
He's heard reports
of their faithfulness
and stories of their love,
but all the while, an unsettling undercurrent
that something
is not quite right.
Nothing you can quite put your finger on, nothing to grasp hold of,
just a collection of little discrepancies.
A tendency to become obsessed with rules - "do not handle, do not taste, do
not touch" (2:21);
an inclination to keep searching for new knowledge, as if it to unlock
some as yet unseen
door,
a taste for speculation
and a fondness for novelty.
Just small things, none of them
in itself
a cause for concern,
but together...

Reading between the lines
it seems like the Colossians are faithful, but struggling.
And in their struggles, they reach out for anything
that might promise
to be a lifeline. Anything
that can promise them
certainty,
anything
that can sustain
their hope.

That's the Colossians' story, a story which echoes
from these pages, a story
not so unlike our own.

But it's not
the only
story here.

This last summer, I spent most my time
preparing for exams.
Lean Cuisine, diet Coke and chocolate
became the staples of my life,
the darkly muffed rumble of traffic
my familiar 3am companion,
and sheets of ink scrawled paper
still come fluttering down from my bookcase every time I open my porch door.
I was getting ready, for 25 hours when I would spew out
everything I know about
preaching, 25 hours which would make or break
my academic career,
25 hours which would prove or disprove my vocation as a preacher,
25 hours to show me, and my God, as a fraud.
As you can tell,
I had got
just a little bit overwhelmed
by it all.

And in the middle of my panic, someone asked me,
"Where is God in this?"
Quietly, insistently,
"Where is God in this?"

I
could tell you
all about God's place
in the act of proclamation,
I could show up for church,
even participate in the liturgy,
converse at coffee hour.
But ask me
where was God,
and I wasn't even sure
where to look.

Where I was
and where the Colossians were, and where many of us get to be
is not so different.
Here in seminary
trying to follow
this strange thing called vocation,
we stare tiredly at the lines of black print
which refuse to find their way into our heads,
we get caught up in the juggle trading off this month's winter coats
against next year's
student loans,
we sit in chapel, minds racing over the lists of tasks
we should already have done.

We are so tied up
with the activities of being faithful
that we can no longer find
the one we are trying so desperately
to be faithful to,
nor the one
who is faithful
to us.

Where is God in this?
Half a prayer
and a slab of a hymn:
that's where God is.

One story
is the story
of the struggle to be faithful,
the other
the story of God
God who is faithful:
A tiny baby
in a bed of hay.
A young man
touching crippled legs
and sightless eyes
and scarred souls.
A bloody corpse
laid broken
in a tomb.
A resurrected body
breathing peace and life.

One story
the struggle to be faithful,
the other story,
one who is faithful:
A Christ
who is the image and the fulness
of the God our tired eyes
cannot see.
A Christ
who embraces this creation,
every part of its life
drawing life from his life.
A Christ
who pervades this world
every atom, every breath,
held together in him.
A Christ
who constitutes the church,
its ground, its root,
the heart of its being.
A Christ -
labored birth, palpable life, bloody death, glorious resurrection,
source of life...

One story
the struggle to be faithful,
the other story
one who is faithful:

A God who has rescued us
even when we don't know
we need rescuing,
a God who has liberated us,
even when we tie ourselves up in knots,
a God who has forgiven us,
even when we are too broken
to confess.

One story
the struggle to be faithful,
the other story,
one who is faithful...

Except
that if you really listen
to this half a prayer
and a slab of a hymn,
you discover
that these two stories
are not as far apart
as they might sometimes
seem,
not as far apart
as time
and geography
might have us believe.
Because the One
who is faithful,
meets us
in our struggle to be faithful,
the One who is faithful
is the core of our faith.
The stories
are not separate
but wound together,
bound together,
human and divine
one
in Christ.

Now you might think that's
a good place to finish this sermon.
Except
it seems to me
that there's one more piece to all this,
a piece which is really important for us to grasp hold of.
Because for all we would like
an immediate end
to our struggle,
the story of the One who is faithful
doesn't promise that.
What is promised
instead
is strength to continue,
patience to endure.
And perhaps that
is not so surprising.
Because we worship One
who joined the struggle,
who did not consider equality with God
something to be held onto
for dear life,
but humbled himself,
broken body, spilled blood,
a struggle
to death.
And we worship One
who calls us to that same struggle,
a life of self-giving
in the service of God
and of the people
of God,
and shares with us
that broken body, bread of life,
and spilled blood, cup of salvation.

All the while asking,
"Where is God in this?"
all the while
hanging on
to the stories.
Not because
the stories
have any power
in themselves,
but because they re-call us,
re-direct us,
re-assure us
of the God who is absolutely
faithful,
source and end
of our faith.

Caught between two advents,
we hang on to the story,
hang on to the story,
and every time
we eat the flesh
and drink the blood
we proclaim Christ's death
until he comes.
Amen.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
5 December 2000