I would like for us to focus on this Psalm of David as we enter the silence
asking ourselves these three questions:
1-Is there an area in my life where I am feeling overwhelmed this morning?
2-What would I describe as the enemy, that which robs me of my inner peace
and life energy? It might be fear, some loss in your life, a difficult
situation at work or school, a challenging family issue, or this nagging sense
of financial concern.
I caution you to be careful about importing enemy status onto a person, a
certain group or organization, a country, or even another religion. This is
the wisdom of Jesus' teaching. He realizes it all comes back to us . . . to
our need to examine our own attitudes. . . to be awake to what is going on
within us, realizing how futile it is to give another person the power to
take away our inner peace.
Jesus said to love and pray for your enemies, those people who cause you suffering,
or with whom you disagree. Maybe that difficult person in your life has been
placed there to teach you something about yourself and help you to grow.
3-How have I felt sheltered by God in recent days? Let's be specific,
and write down some tangible way that we have felt cared for by God.
Centering silence. . .
Lord, may the words I share this morning flow from the depths of your love
and may they be acceptable to You. Keep me mindful of my own shadow. I humbly
ask that your Spirit will speak the truth that is needed for each one of us
and that we will be open to receive it. Amen.
"God, listen to me shout,
bend an ear to my prayer.
When I'm far from anywhere,
down to my last gasp,
"I will call out,
'Guide me up High Rock Mountain!'
You've always given me breathing room,
a place to get away from it all,
a lifetime pass to your safe-house,
an open invitation as your guest.
You've always taken me seriously, God,
made me welcome among those who know and love you.
Let the days of the king add up
to years and years of good rule.
Set his throne in the full light of God;
post steady Love and Good Faith as lookouts,
and I'll be the poet who sings your glory-
and live what I sing every day."
This past week I received a phone call from a woman who has recently moved
to Klamath Falls down from Washington and is looking for a faith community
to worship. I had this marvelous conversation with her, which included just
a brief bit of her story. One interesting thing she mentioned was having taken
the survey on" belief net" about what kind of denomination you might
most fit into based on your beliefs and values. (Some of you may have taken
one of these) Anyway, she told me she tested out 100% Quaker, which was a
real surprise to her. (Another one of those unsuspecting people who find they
are Quaker before ever walking through the door of our meetinghouse.) I hope
she will come check us out.
But I hope she is not looking for a perfect church. We are far from perfect.
In fact we show all the signs of the wear and tear of life that any little
church might display through the years. I love this meeting and find great
joy in walking alongside you, sharing in the joys and responsibilities of
being in community together. (Be sure to check out the bulletin insert with
the spotlight article on Klamath Falls Friends written by our own Karen Oberst.)
Our lives take so many twists and turns. Sometimes we don't even realize we
are being guided, but circumstances seem to align themselves in such a way
that I am compelled to trust the process of divine guidance more and more.
Sometimes we think something is going to go in a particular direction. We
are convinced that this is how it is going to be and then it seems to fall
apart and way closes, as we Quakers like to say. These experiences are helping
me to learn that we need to have vision, make plans, but hold all our outcomes
lightly. Sometimes God has something different in mind.
Almost 18 years ago Bob and I moved with our two young daughters from Portland
to Klamath Falls to pastor our first church. We came with enthusiasm, idealism,
and zeal to serve God. Another special gift we brought to you was a whole
lot of inexperience. This meeting has been patient and prayerfully supportive
of the Marsalli family through these years and I feel immense gratitude for
the growth that has happened in me as I have sojourned with you as your pastor.
Much has happened in my life in 18 years and in the life of this meeting.
We have walked through valleys of loss and experienced the joy and exhilaration
of the mountaintop. Many of the things that have transpired have surprised
me. I would have to say that my most significant learning has come through
the hard places, not when things were gliding along smoothly. Maybe we are
just more spiritually awake during times of suffering. Who knows? But I do
not believe that one can sleep walk through the spiritual life and make much
progress on the journey.
There is still a remnant of faithful folks who are still with us since the
Marsallis rode into Klamath Falls. Life has happened for all of us while we
were making other plans. Way opened. . . way closed. In these past 18 years
people have married and relationships have tragically fallen apart. Children
have been born and we even lost one of our precious babies to SIDS. We have
seen two beloved people in our meeting fall victim to suicide. We've grieved
and supported one another through the death of parents, grandparents, siblings
and dear friends. We have celebrated exciting growth and experienced times
of decline. People have left us for all the usual reasons people move on,
for job relocation, going off to college, restless discontent, matters of
theological differences. You name it, in 18 years a lot has happened to this
little meeting. Yet we are still together, worshipping, growing together in
faith. Life has happened in its entire splendor and in all of its messiness,
too.
Why are you and I here this morning? Why do we choose to carve out this time
on a Sunday morning week after week to gather for worship? What connection
do we make to this hour and the life we live during the week? What relevance
does any of what we do here have for us? How do the teachings of scripture
influence our lives, our values, our beliefs, and the way we make decisions
about your time and resources? What is the church for?
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my brother, Jim, on the phone and
we were discussing some challenges he is facing in his life. He told me that
his pastor had talked in one of his sermons about being between a rock and
a holy place and that this is how he was starting to see his own circumstance.
God was there with him, guiding him, loving him, and holding him secure in
this really hard place.
Last Sunday, as I sat in our unprogrammed meeting for worship that phrase
kept coming back to me, "Between a rock and a holy place." I have
been pondering this little phrase for several weeks now and would like this
to be our theme during the month of February. What does this little phrase
say to you about your own life? What might it say about the life of our meeting?
About the uncertain times in our country and world?
You are all familiar with the phrase, "between and rock and a hard place."
I googled this phrase and found the origin of this little idiom. It means:
"In difficulty, faced with a choice between two unsatisfactory options."
The first record of this in printed word was in 1921. "To be between
a rock and a hard place, ..to be bankrupt. Common in Arizona in recent panics;
sporadic in California."
Do you feel like you are between a rock and a hard place this morning? Where
are the opportunities for us to see God in the hard and perplexing times of
our lives? What might our lives be telling us that we need to pay attention
to? What might the life of this meeting be telling us about what our next
steps are? If we as Quakers believe that our lives should speak of what we
value and believe then what are our lives saying to us, and to others? Especially
in the hard times.
Our administrative committee has once again discerned that the time has come
to create a new vision for the Friends House next door. I know that those
of you who have been around awhile, might be groaning with "Oh, no, not
this again. Boring. We haven't come up with a vision in the 6 years we've
owned this property, what makes you think we will now?"
Well, I happen to see that we are on the threshold of something new, like
the passage in Isaiah that we looked at a few weeks back. God is doing something
new, do we not perceive it? What might that new thing be?
I saw the movie, "The Curious Life of Benjamin Button" this past
Friday. If any of you have seen the movie, you will know what I mean. The
story really helps you see how nothing in our lives remains static. We are
changing constantly and the movie inspires you to think about it from such
a different viewpoint than we normally do.
Perhaps we need to look at the Friends House with the fresh hope that we are
in a holy place of opportunity. But first we might need to reflect on what
has transpired, or not transpired since God gave it to us and discern together
what we are to do with this amazing gift. How might we be good stewards of
the gift we have been entrusted with? I encourage you to stick around for
our meeting for worship and business and I will share some of the background
of the Friends House and how it came into our possession.
I think that it is important as we consider this opportunity to minister through
this God given gift to try to hold all of our judgments in the Light. Maybe
our judgment is of our meeting's inertia, or our frustration that it takes
us so long for Quakers to ever make a decision, or maybe it is of our own
indifference.
I recently said to someone that it is really exhausting sometimes to stay
awake spiritually because I'm learning that most of the things that drive
me crazy about other people has something to teach me about my own shadow.
If we are annoyed at the slowness of the process, or our own lack of vision,
what do we need to check out within ourselves first before projecting it onto
our faith community? I am speaking to myself here, too.
I believe God has guided us these many years and will continue to guide us
into the future. But we have never been where we are today, with the people
and the combination of giftedness that is sitting right here in this room.
We cannot go back and recreate some great blessing or situation of the past,
but we can listen to God for what new thing he wants to do through us today.
Let's respectfully listen to each other's ideas, holding our own agendas lightly,
(creating margins around our own perspective so that we might write someone
else's idea there.) Let's look to the One in whom we find shelter and direction
for the next step of the journey individually, and together. Will you see
this time in your life, in the life of this meeting, and the community we
live in, and even beyond to this perplexing time in our nation as a holy place
of opportunity?
