Being the church today: Words

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.  

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

I spend a lot of my time dwelling with words.  I listen to words of other preachers.  I read words.  I exchange words with my family, with church members.  I compose sermons and -ahem- blog posts. Words, words, words.  Yet, this is just a fraction of words we swim in each day.  There is a tidal wave of words that wash over us every day and trying to make sense of those words, plus our own reactions, takes a lot of energy.  Even though we talk about a still speaking God, how in the world would God get a word in edgewise in this world?  Some of suggested that the God who sang creation into being, called out to Abraham and Sara, to Moses, to Deborah the judge, to Jonah, increasingly grows quieter and quieter as the world grows noisier and noisier.  It is hard to hear when we are constantly trying to sort through emails, texts, phone calls, news papers and news shows, books, and on and on.

Given all this, most of what we see today are pundits trying to shout louder above the cacophony.  The volume keeps getting turned up.  Yet, Paul, says that he came not with eloquent speeches but in weakness and in fear and trembling.  Most preachers will tell you, we are nervous on Sunday morning.  Beneath that calm exterior that says, "Oh, everything is fully in control," our minds are racing making sure we don't look too foolish up there.  Most of us are editing sermons right up to the preaching moment, even afterwards too.  I agree with Paul.  Maybe, all of us who come to church should have some fear and trembling too.  Not in a guilty way or that the roof of the church is going to cave in kind of way.  No, but in a way that realizes what we are evoking.  Annie Dillard has one of my favorite quotes:

Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.... we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.

—Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41.

We enter into the presence of the life-changing God, it matters and I pray makes all the difference for the whole week.  Yet, because worship often falls into a comfortable routine, because we sit in the same pew week after week, because the monotone voice in which we speak, we try (perhaps) to lull God to sleep.  Yet, the Spirit moves.  Recently, in worship, there was a goosebump moment during a hymn.  I had just shared words about the first chapter of 1 Corinthians, and the hymn we sang after spoke about our need for prayer, our need to acknowledge that we don't have it all figured out, our need to encounter this living God who draws us to where we can never return.  That is powerful.  There is a sense of fear...meaning "awe" and amazement.  There is a sense of hopefulness, but also a recognition that what we are doing with these words could change every thing.

I pray the words you encounter this week shape you and speak to you.  I pray the words you use are in concert with God's presence.  But most of all, I pray, you will sense the mystery of God and realize that silence can be full of an unspeakable grace and love that really does change everything.

Alleluia and Amen.