January 19, 2014

          January has been for many over the centuries a time of introspection.   It is a month that begins for some with a determination to live life differently, live life better, so often motivated by New Year’s resolutions that many people make.  The word January is inspired by the Greek god Janus, the two faced god who could both look to the past and to the future at the same time.   In the first few days of this January, this imagery of Janus, this ability to look back and to look ahead, has some personal meaning for me.   Two weeks ago, my wife Maggie tendered her resignation as the rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity Episcopal church in Middletown, where she has served for the past eighteen years as she chooses to retire from active ministry this coming March.   Doing this has led both of us to look back, with a variety of emotions, to her many years of ministry and specifically, to her time in Middletown.   At the same time, two matters close to home here at Spring Glen Church lead me to look ahead.   At the Deacons meeting earlier this month, a daughter of this church, Jennifer Reagan McCleery’s request for the church’s support in her efforts to become a candidate for ordination was approved.   This action now moves to the New Haven Association on Ministry for further approval as Jennifer responds to her call by God to ministry.    And this past week, the request for Kristen Provost Switzer to complete her internship in supervised ministry here was also approved.    In recent days, I’ve spent time with both Jennifer and Kristen, talking about their gifts and talents for ministry as they and we look ahead, with great hope, to their future ministries in the church.

          With those bookend experiences, of a priest entering retirement and of students eager to continue to pursue their calls to ministry in mind, Isaiah’s words speak with a certain wisdom today.    Today’s lesson comes from the latter part of Isaiah, written by the one we know as Second Isaiah, the author of chapters 40-55, a different author from the person who wrote the first part of the book.   Second Isaiah is preaching to the nation of Israel now in exile, struggling and suffering after their nation has been conquered, the Temple destroyed, and now living in exile in the Babylonian captivity.    And to them, comes the word of God from Second Isaiah, who tells a series of four servant songs, the second of which we hear portions of today.

          This section begins with bold words—Listen to me O coastlands, pay attention you peoples from far away.   This prophet is casting a wide net, speaking his words both for those near and those far away.  What follows is a declaration of God’s purpose for this prophet’s life.   “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb, he named me.    He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away.”

          These are bold and confident words, telling the world that this prophet believes he has been destined to fulfill this high calling from the very moment of conception.  And in fact, is so gifted, that he is now God’s secret weapon, hidden away, to be brought out only in case of emergency.   Pretty bold words to speak to an enslaved people living in exile.

          Yet it is Isaiah’s next words that speak of so much of the human condition.   In response to God’s bold call, Second Isaiah declares, “But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward is with God.”   What a contrast between bold optimism and frustrated despair.

          There’s a story that has stayed with me ever since I heard it in seminary many years ago.   An eager young pastor had been invited to guest preach at large church on 5^th Avenue in New York City one Sunday.   He worked on his sermon and was feeling very confident that Sunday.   This was a church with an elevated pulpit, which one entered by walking up a very visible staircase.   When it came time for the sermon, the young pastor, feeling bold and confident and quite sure of himself, stood tall and climbed the stairs with a great presence.   And then proceeded to know 20 minutes of hell.   Nothing worked.  His humor was flat, he could not get engaged with the congregation, his confidence deflated with each long minute he spoke. Until it was finally over and he walked down the stairs with sagging shoulders, a broken spirit, and deeply humbled.

          Seeking counsel from the wise pastor who had served the church for many years, he asked what he might have done differently.   And the wise pastor said, “If you had gone up the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up.”

          I suspect we have all known the bookends of this experience.

          On this weekend set aside in our nation to remember the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, coming this year one month after the death of Nelson Mandela, we are ever mindful of the challenging lives of those God calls to be prophets in our midst, of those who in often very humbling ways were able to do great things.   King drew great inspiration from the words and witness of Jesus and Gandhi.   For decades, he sought to follow in faith, and not just to follow, but also to lead others.   Do you think the words of Isaiah, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain” ever were his words?   Did he ever dare to wonder and second guess his efforts?   Writing from his cell in the Birmingham jail, King sought to inspire and encourage, reminding his followers then and us today that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.   For we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.   Whatever effects one directly, effects all indirectly.”

          There is a theme that runs through the many words and witnesses of Second Isaiah, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and Martin Luther King Jr---the willing embrace of the role of servant.   Each of these found over the course of their lives, that purpose came by serving others.  

          Whenever I think of the humility of serving others, the role of servant leadership, I remember a story told by Max DePree, Chairman Emeritus of the Herman Miller Company.  In his book Leadership Jazz, Miller tells a story that I have always found both memorable and inspiring.  He writes:

“I arrived at the local tennis club just after a group of high school students had vacated the locker room. Like chickens, they had not bothered to pick up after themselves. Without thinking too much about it, I gathered up all their towels and put them in a hamper. A friend of mine quietly watched me do this and then asked me a question that I’ve pondered many times over the years. “Do you pick up towels because you’re the president of a company, or are you the president because you bother to pick up towels?”

          Choosing a life of servant leadership can be fulfilling and challenging.    There’s nothing like choosing to embrace the role of servant quite like the first time another person treats you like one.

          Isaiah’s and John the Baptist’s words speak with a special poignancy to us at Spring Glen Church this week.   Tomorrow, we will host once again, the unique outreach known as Abraham’s Tent.   For the next week, a group of homeless men will be our guests here.   We will provide meals, shelter and opportunities for fellowship and community.   The busy folks from our church and from Temple B’nai Israel in Woodbridge will be here throughout the night to provide a safe and warm environment, one way to begin to serve, support and equip those in a time of special challenge in their lives. 

          We serve, because as King reminds us, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.   Whatever effects one directly, effects all indirectly.”

          As we live and serve, as we move along in life’s journey from times of bold confidence to bleak despair, and then back again, let us also draw inspiration and wisdom from the verse tucked in between Isaiah’s bold assertion of confident prophecy and his words of despair that we hear today.    Tucked between them is verse 3, where God declares to both Isaiah and to us, “You are my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”   In Eugene Peterson’s translation The Message, this line reads, “You’re my dear servant Israel, through whom I’ll shine.”

          That is how we are called to servant leadership, by becoming the vessels through which God’s light shines in this dark and troubled world.   We continue to live, using the beautiful imagery from the first chapter of John, in a land of deep darkness, in which the light of God needs to shine.

In his book It Was on Fire When I Laid Down on It, Robert Fulghum tells a fitting story of this.   It was near the end of a seminar that he had traveled to Greece to attend.   The leader, a local man, was wrapping up the seminar, asking the proverbial “Are there any further questions?”

          On a lark, Fulghum, being a bit of a prankster, called out, “What is the meaning of life?”  The teacher thought for a moment before walking to the window and pulling from his pocket something the size of a quarter.   He moved it around until it caught the light and Fulghum realized it was a mirror.

          The teacher then told the tale behind it.   As a child, he was scrounging around after World War II, and found a small shattered mirror in the road.   It was in fact, the mirror of a German Army motorcycle, which had crashed in the area.    He found the largest piece of the mirror and scraped the edges on a rock, till the edges were smooth.   For years, as a poor child, he played with the mirror daily, he told them.   Discovering all the ways he could move the light around, finding ways to shine light into all sorts of places.   As he got older, he told the class, he realized that this was not just a bored child’s game, but a metaphor for life.

          “I am not the light, or the source of light,” he reminded the class.  “But the light, the truth, the knowledge and understanding is all about us, and it will only shine into the dark places if I reflect it there….I am a fragment of a mirror whose design and shape I do not know.   With what I have, I can shine light into the dark places of the world, the dark places of the human heart, and change some things in some people….Perhaps in the course of all this, others will see this and do likewise.   That is what I am all about.   That is the meaning of life for me.”

          Out of the shards and debris of warfare in his midst, that man found the answers to the basic and deepest questions of human life.   May these days of this new year, this rich time of looking behind that we might learn from our experiences and looking ahead in hope at the second chances we get by the grace of God, may this be a time in which we can find the ways in which the light and majesty of the love of God can shine.   In humble servant leadership, may we find the peace and grace that comes in a life lived mirroring the transformative love of God.   May this be the way that will empower us, next January, to see in 2014, a pattern of life and discipleship that makes 2015 look even more exciting.   Thanks be to God.  Amen.