Divine Melodies

Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58

August 19, 2011

Let me just start by saying this:  On Monday I had to give up the delusion that because I have had four months to think, ponder, study, write, this was going to be the best sermon I ever wrote.  This morning, any of you harboring similar notions need to give up on that too J.

All summer, I stayed up on the lectionary.  I read the texts for each Sunday, spent time studying them, talking to colleagues about them.  And there were some great texts.  Mostly from Mark, as you know.  Good stuff.  Good fodder for good sermons, in my opinion.  Then, Monday morning, I boot up the computer, check on the text for the week, and what do I get?  Jesus, and his invitation to cannibalism. Maybe if I had read this in April and had thought about it all summer, I would have brilliant things to say about this interesting, complex, graphic, and somewhat elusive text.  As it is, after a week of nightmares filled with flesh eating creatures, you just get the normal me.

So with your expectations appropriately set…here’s what I’ve got:

I think both our passages are trying to give us contrasting pictures of how we should live:  John calls it eating bread verses eating Jesus, and Paul says it’s being filled with wine verses being filled with the spirit.  Now, I think we can all agree that eating Jesus and being filled with the Spirit are metaphors – word images.  But to understand the contrast, we have to also acknowledge that eating bread and drinking wine are not meant literally either.  John doesn’t think we need bread-free diets, and Paul is not holding forth on the immorality of teenagers getting drunk at parties. 

John and Paul were comparing the temporal life with the faithful life.   Temporal means mundane, not sacred, material.  It’s brushing our teeth, paying bills, eating cereal in the morning.  And it’s also buying things, watching TV, over-indulging, hedonism.  It’s not all bad, or necessarily immoral…in fact we need to do most of these things.  But Paul and John worry this is all people know…that they don’t get beyond the temporal things – and if it’s is all there is, they say, we’re missing out on living a Christ-filled life.

The temporal life assumes no purpose in living beyond our own survival and satisfaction.  John calls this life – quite bluntly – death.  Paul, more colorfully, calls it debauchery.  Well, actually debauchery is the English word the NRSV bible uses.  But, of course, that is not the word Paul used.  He used a Greek word “asotia”.  I’m probably stepping out of my pay grade, but I’m not sure the good people who wrote the NRSV chose the best English word for “asotia”.  And sadly, this choice has had an impact on how many Christians understand this passage, using it as an indictment for anyone who drinks too much…even, in some circles at some times in history, using it as reason to see alcohol and Christian faith as mutually exclusive.

The definition of debauchery is “excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures.”  And so, we think Paul is condemning anything that smacks of excessive indulgence – wants us to do the same.  But when you look up the definition for the Greek word Paul used, we see it means “an abandoned, dissolute life.”   Dissolute – disillusioned – withered – soul-less.  For Paul, the temporal life – the one with no purpose – leads to a desolate, barren, soul-less life.  It’s a life that never gets beyond the surface…never finds meaning or purpose or, finally, hope.  He’s not talking about immorality – he’s describing how many people experience life: painful, depressing, meaningless.

I think there are two signs of “asotia” – a desolate, abandoned life.  One is denial and the other is resignation or cynicism. 

There’s no changing reality.  We live in a world that is broken – full of suffering, oppression, violence, poverty – pretty much like Jesus did.  The way these things manifest and look has changed over 2,000 years, but the reality of brokenness is the same.  And we have choices about how we respond to and engage with this brokenness.  We can ignore it altogether.  And we do this all the time. 

I read a story about the war in Syria at 7 o’clock in the morning, and by 7:30 my mind has moved on to much more important things, like “did I remember to send Lydia’s swimsuit with her to day care this morning?”  You know, those really important, entirely temporal things.  On some level this is unavoidable.  We have to go about our lives, and to dwell on all the pain and suffering in the world all the time would be crippling.  But when this becomes our habit, our only way of operating, we are abandoning any meaningful life…we are choosing desolation.

But, even if I’m not denying what’s going on in the world, I can still choose to resign myself to the reality.  I can tell myself there’s no hope.  I feel helpless.  I can’t change anything.  I’m powerless in the face of massive systems and governments.  When we think we can’t do anything about other’s suffering, we tend to turn our attention to things we think we can control – like making sure I pack Lydia’s swimsuit for day care.   

In either case, we end up in the same place:  a desolate, disillusioned, surface level life, just going through the motions…leaving the world and our neighbors to their pain with no hope of it ever getting better.

I know this place…do you?  I’ve done both: resignation and denial.  And it does leaving me feeling desolate, like I’ve abandoned hope, not to mention those who suffer. 

But we have another choice – at least John and Paul think we do.  We can consume Jesus, or be spirit-filled.  We can move beyond the temporal.  Here, I find John’s image more helpful (though a bit more graphic, even gross).  I can imagine what it means to take Jesus into my very being.  We can take him in to our hearts, minds, and guts: who he was, how he lived, how he treated people, how he loved.  We can allow the stories about his life to infuse the way we look at the world, to color how we see one another – our neighbors and our enemies.  We can allow his choices to change our priorities and actions.  We can see things through his eyes and feel things through his heart. 

I can even imagine how we might do this.  We consume him by reading the stories, through prayer and ritual, by listening to one another, by engaging each person we meet as though they were Christ.  And this consumption works just like material consumption.  What we take in becomes a part of us.  It affects us.  As my friend used to say to her husband when he would watch pro wrestling on TV:  Garbage in, garbage out.  Well, Jesus in, Jesus out.  With the spirit of Jesus as part of our being, we transcend the temporal and move into a life full of meaning, purpose, and hope.

After contrasting the wine with the spirit, Paul moves on to talk about such a life in new terms – with a new metaphor.  He connects this Jesus-filled, spirit-filled life with singing.  He says “be filled with the spirit as you sing psalms and hymns.”  Again, I think we need to hear this as a metaphor for something much larger than literally singing hymns on Sunday morning.  

There is no question that such music can be sacred – can fill us with the spirit – can connect us to the divine in ways that mere words – or sermons, for that matter – can’t.  And that’s not trivial.  I know that’s true for many of you.  I have heard people talk about how the most meaningful thing in worship is music – how it lifts them out of the normal, non sacred world…much like Rich’s music did for us this morning.

But this isn’t just about singing hymns in church on Sunday morning.  When contrasting the temporal life with a transcendent one, Paul is talking about the hymns we sing with our very lives every day in this world.  He’s talking about filling the world with divine melodies.  Finding ways to bring God’s songs of grace, love, hope, freedom, justice to a world in desperate need of such music. 

We don’t have to have wonderful voices or play in extraordinary orchestras to make divine melodies.  We make divine music when we speak to one another in love.  When we use words that enhance understanding, rather than entrench differences. We make divine melodies when we do more than listen and nod in sympathy.  We make divine melodies when we act to alleviate suffering.  We make divine melodies when we offer healing and hope where others have abandoned people to their lives of misery.  We make the music of God when we meet someone with unconditional love where others have only ever offered judgment.  

Divine melodies contain neither chords of denial nor refrains of resignation.  If we look at another’s suffering and only feel helpless and powerless, any song we sing to them will be empty and meaningless.  If we retreat from others – deny there’s anything wrong to begin with, our songs are like fingers on a chalkboard to those who are hurting.  Divine melodies offer real, tangible, compassion and hope.

I’m sure you, like me, have been deeply affected by the recent, public shootings.  I suspect you have also heard much of the same commentary I have.  In the wake of the murders at the movie theater in Aurora, the gunning down of Sikh worshippers in Milwaukee, and the assault on the Family Research Council in Washington D.C., I find myself in that desolate place Paul talks about.  It seems all we can come up with in response to these horrific events is denial and resignation. 

I see denial rear its ugly head when we at length about these tragedies that make the national news while completely ignoring thousands of gun deaths in the United States every year.  I see denial when we claim these shootings have nothing to do with availability and accessibility of guns.

I see resignation when we offer prayers of comfort but back down from the powerful lobbies and big money that keep laws in place that feed the destruction.  I see resignation when we let the media get away with prioritizing political cat fights over senseless deaths.  We throw up our hands and get drunk on the wine of political ads and party lines.

Instead, when we see those affected by gun violence – those deemed worthy of media attention and those not – when we don’t recoil in fear or throw up our hands in defeat – we can fill the world with divine melodies.  Such songs are almost defiant in their hope that things can change while never ignoring the realities.  These are hymns of lament shared with victims.  These are psalms of persuasion uttered to those in power.  This is music that can change even the most hardened heart. 

These are songs that are impossible to sing without being filled with the spirit.  This is music that emanates from people filled with the love of Christ and the life of Jesus.  These songs can sound foolish to others, but they are sweet music to the ears of the often ignored and abandoned people in this world.  And of course, divine melodies can transform our own lives: take us from desolate grief to hope in the midst of sorrow.  Lift us from despair over our lives to strength to persevere.  Pull us from deep, dark holes into compassionate and tender light.  Divine melodies transform us, transform others, change the world.  Amen.