Blogging and Not Blogging, Plus A Sermon
On the upside, I have a new lead on a job that I’m beginning to pursue. This job search is a strange roller coaster ride. With each potential job we begin to imagine the life that we would lead if we lived in that particular place. We look at houses. We think about the geography and the landscape and the sorts of activities that we might do there. We consider contacts and friends that we have in that vicinity. Rick looks at the local golf courses and the high school football program (he is an official). We create a picture of how we might live. Then, as each one falls away for one reason or another, we have to let go of the image that we created of our life. Some of them are easier to let go than others. And so we go forward, creating dreams and letting go of them, one job at a time.
I got to preach last Thursday at my field placement. Unlike last time, I got tons of advance notice this time - a whole 90 minutes.
The readings: Exodus 32: 7-14 and John 5:30-47.
I preached something like the following - though I improvised a bit here and there so this is mostly it:
Have you ever gotten bored and distracted such that you missed what was happening right in front of you?
This happens to me sometimes on the subway. I get bored and start daydreaming. All of a sudden I look up and I realize that the doors have just closed at my stop and I’ve missed it. Or, when I’m in a long meeting, and people are blabbing away, I look out the window. Soon I’m completely engrossed in what is happening between the cab driver and the fed ex driver when suddenly someone asks me a question. Naturally, I have no idea what they are talking about because I haven’t been paying attention.
When I read today’s readings, I noticed that the people were experiencing the same sorts of distractions.
In the Old Testament reading, the Hebrew people are in the desert having just come out of slavery in Egypt. They’ve been through the parted Red Sea and they are now setting up camp. Moses has gone up the mountain to talk to God and he’s been gone quite a long time. Eventually, the people get bored. In their boredom, they have the brilliant idea to entertain themselves by building some gods out of gold. And so they get started. God notices and tells Moses to go down the mountain and get their attention. They are so busy entertaining themselves that they have completely forgotten all that God is doing in their midst.
In the gospel reading from John, Jesus says to the people that they search the scriptures because you think that you’ll find eternal life in them, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. The people have gotten distracted by the scriptures - they are so busy looking into their past that they can’t see what God is doing in the moment - they fail to see Jesus and be in relationship with him.
Our world is full of distractions - especially in New York City. There is always something happening around us. And even when we don’t take advantage of the external distractions, our minds easily wander to distract us with daydreams.
I think Lent is an amazing opportunity for us to stop and recognizing what is distracting us. What is keeping us from seeing God at work in our midst - right here and right now? Are we bored and looking for something to entertain us? Are we too busy dwelling on the past - either good times or bad times? Are we focused on the future and what will come next?
But Jesus says to us, here and now, today, “Come to me to have life. Let go of your distractions and find life in me.”
