Incarnation With A Wagging Tail
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
Series I, Cycle C
Once there was a dog guide named Leader Dog Dolley. Dolley was a cross between a golden retriever and a German shepherd.
"Dolley," her human partner said, "soft, gentle, free-spirited dog guide, you take the fear out of my blindness. Your nose presses warning against my shin. I feel your head checking to the left then to the right. Your harness jiggles loosely in my hand. That means you are in the 'Leader Position.' I feel the muscles of your body and you tune into mine. We work as one.
"Most of the time, Leader Dog youngster, you remember to wait for me at a street crossing. You check my foot position before we negotiate a curb together. We feel its depth with unison stride. Sometimes, Dolley, your exuberance to show me you know the way overpowers your Dolley Madison dignity.
"Dog guide, you prance with pride yet match the varying paces of my arthritic body. Teammate of only seven weeks, how can you know me so well? Our instructors said a good match is vital. They worked for eighteen months with you. But how, Dolley girl, how could they have gleaned from a written application the strength of my spirit? How did they find a match for my sense of joy? How do you know me so well?
"My lifemate says you look at your harness hanging in the hall then wag your tail in anticipation. I agree, Dolley. I will match your determination. I will do your skill justice.
"You love to be on a mission, to go somewhere with a purpose. I tell you, Dolley, I know where I want to go. You do the looking. This is our charge: You find the way. I promise to yield my struggle for total independence. Together, we will have courage. Together, we will gain freedom.
"Hello, Dolley. Hello, tomorrow."
The relationship of the whole human family with God resembles the unique partnership of an assist dog team. A dog guide does not care that its partner cannot see. It asks no questions. It imposes no conditions beyond trust. It neither bullies nor demeans. Rather, it responds with its whole, joyful heart and with its whole, skillful being to the human need it perceives.
Sometimes, providing precisely what we need, God comes to us in an unusual manner. Rather than dispatch a negative focus upon the deficits of our being, God begins at the starting point of who we are in reality. God sees both our potential and our wholeness without diminishing us because of our shortfalls. No matter how we are or who we are, if any one among us calls to God with whole heart and whole being, God answers with quiet, joyful acceptance.
In these next weeks, we shall journey through the soul-sharing relationship of a blind friend and her assist dog. Let us reflect upon what this journey says to the inner passage that you and I have chosen to resume during these Lenten days.
What does the word of faith say to us? How do we believe? Heart to heart? Is that not what our religion is, a heart to heart relationship?
Ours is not a distant religion on a long, loose leash but an accessible faith as firm as the hand on the sturdy harness of a dependable dog guide. Ours is not a long-distance faith but is rather like a cellular phone conversation with God that we can engage in at any time, from any place, and for any reason.
The level of trust requisite to a fruitful working partnership with a dog guide is analogous to a generative relationship with a generous God. Neither is easy, yet both are simple.
The leap into the unknowns about faith calls for courage. The background fear of doubt is always ready to assert itself. However, the exhilaration of realizing that in God's perception we are essentially valid and worthy persons braces our effort. Our growing sense of admiration and our growing sense of respect jumpstart Easter joy.
From within this mystery of understanding and being understood, a root of mutual responsibility begins to thrive. It pushes through fertile soil. This new partnership cancels the isolation of whatever disabling condition of body, mind, or spirit has deterred our going forward. No longer alone in the business of marking time until some dreaded end, we gain a renewed sense of hope.
Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to have faith and then, once we have it, to allow faith of sufficient strength that we can keep it to gain a hold on us? The Apostle Paul understood about faith. "The word (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim) is near you, on your lips and in your heart," Paul told the church at Rome (v. 8).
Why is faith so hard if it is so near that it is all but palpable?
Why does it take so much, first of all, to admit and confess that one needs a dog guide to find the way? More than needs, it requires this partnership for a life with quality.
Why does it take so much initially to entrust to the discretion of another of God's creatures the safety of one's life?
Why does it take so much before the joy of discovering the new freedom and the regained self-respect from being so gently, carefully, and devotedly attended to comes tumbling in?
The answer lies in the little word, "If." Paul tells us, "If." "[I]f you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (v. 9).
"If" is not an if only or a wish to or a just do it. "If" is the hinge word that implies a matter of choice. "If" tells us we must become involved before it can happen. "If" says it is waiting for us to take the next move, if ... then. In the case of faith, "if" is a high-pressure word with a low-threat result.
To Paul's thinking, the "if" of faith has two canons: Confess with your lips; believe in your heart. It takes both believing and confessing to contain the mystery of faith. Faith needs both solitude and a listener. We need solitude for our own pondering. We need the presence of God and other persons to hear us and give an object to what we say.
Which comes first, believing or confessing? In one verse, Paul mentions believing first. In the next, he says confessing first. Believing and confessing go hand in hand. We need the solitary stuff of the inner heart from which belief and hope grow. Yet believing somehow does not become real until we know the freedom of speaking aloud to someone else what we believe.
If we approach faith from the other direction and confess first, that is, acknowledge belief that something is true, this telling somehow strengthens that belief. This is the mystery of faith -- the letting go of doubt while embracing that doubt, the encircling of uncertainty with a hug of possibility, the yielding while heralding, "Okay, God."
Paul says believing with our heart that God raised Christ from the dead is what justifies us. Justification is the act of being freed by God both from the guilt and from the penalty of having caused grief or pain or anguish to another.
The apostle says confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Savior is what saves us. Salvation frees us from the power of sin and evil. It saves us from the destructive force within us that causes harm and frees us for hope. Our action is belief and confession. God's action is justification and salvation.
What we want and hope to do is to believe the Resurrection story is more than a theory. We cannot know absolutely because we do not contain that wisdom. We do know that when human hope evaporates, God always surprises us by leading the way ahead with new hope. When God perceives that we are ready, God responds with a joyous heart. We do not know how hope happens, but we have a clue from a dog guide, an offered, given, and ready symbol of possibility who delights in freeing its partner for hope.
God is God who looks out for us, all of us. God, the same God of everyone, will save all who call on God in the name of God. No wonder the end note of the first Sunday of this Lenten journey is a song of joy.
"Dolley," her human partner said, "soft, gentle, free-spirited dog guide, you take the fear out of my blindness. Your nose presses warning against my shin. I feel your head checking to the left then to the right. Your harness jiggles loosely in my hand. That means you are in the 'Leader Position.' I feel the muscles of your body and you tune into mine. We work as one.
"Most of the time, Leader Dog youngster, you remember to wait for me at a street crossing. You check my foot position before we negotiate a curb together. We feel its depth with unison stride. Sometimes, Dolley, your exuberance to show me you know the way overpowers your Dolley Madison dignity.
"Dog guide, you prance with pride yet match the varying paces of my arthritic body. Teammate of only seven weeks, how can you know me so well? Our instructors said a good match is vital. They worked for eighteen months with you. But how, Dolley girl, how could they have gleaned from a written application the strength of my spirit? How did they find a match for my sense of joy? How do you know me so well?
"My lifemate says you look at your harness hanging in the hall then wag your tail in anticipation. I agree, Dolley. I will match your determination. I will do your skill justice.
"You love to be on a mission, to go somewhere with a purpose. I tell you, Dolley, I know where I want to go. You do the looking. This is our charge: You find the way. I promise to yield my struggle for total independence. Together, we will have courage. Together, we will gain freedom.
"Hello, Dolley. Hello, tomorrow."
The relationship of the whole human family with God resembles the unique partnership of an assist dog team. A dog guide does not care that its partner cannot see. It asks no questions. It imposes no conditions beyond trust. It neither bullies nor demeans. Rather, it responds with its whole, joyful heart and with its whole, skillful being to the human need it perceives.
Sometimes, providing precisely what we need, God comes to us in an unusual manner. Rather than dispatch a negative focus upon the deficits of our being, God begins at the starting point of who we are in reality. God sees both our potential and our wholeness without diminishing us because of our shortfalls. No matter how we are or who we are, if any one among us calls to God with whole heart and whole being, God answers with quiet, joyful acceptance.
In these next weeks, we shall journey through the soul-sharing relationship of a blind friend and her assist dog. Let us reflect upon what this journey says to the inner passage that you and I have chosen to resume during these Lenten days.
What does the word of faith say to us? How do we believe? Heart to heart? Is that not what our religion is, a heart to heart relationship?
Ours is not a distant religion on a long, loose leash but an accessible faith as firm as the hand on the sturdy harness of a dependable dog guide. Ours is not a long-distance faith but is rather like a cellular phone conversation with God that we can engage in at any time, from any place, and for any reason.
The level of trust requisite to a fruitful working partnership with a dog guide is analogous to a generative relationship with a generous God. Neither is easy, yet both are simple.
The leap into the unknowns about faith calls for courage. The background fear of doubt is always ready to assert itself. However, the exhilaration of realizing that in God's perception we are essentially valid and worthy persons braces our effort. Our growing sense of admiration and our growing sense of respect jumpstart Easter joy.
From within this mystery of understanding and being understood, a root of mutual responsibility begins to thrive. It pushes through fertile soil. This new partnership cancels the isolation of whatever disabling condition of body, mind, or spirit has deterred our going forward. No longer alone in the business of marking time until some dreaded end, we gain a renewed sense of hope.
Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to have faith and then, once we have it, to allow faith of sufficient strength that we can keep it to gain a hold on us? The Apostle Paul understood about faith. "The word (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim) is near you, on your lips and in your heart," Paul told the church at Rome (v. 8).
Why is faith so hard if it is so near that it is all but palpable?
Why does it take so much, first of all, to admit and confess that one needs a dog guide to find the way? More than needs, it requires this partnership for a life with quality.
Why does it take so much initially to entrust to the discretion of another of God's creatures the safety of one's life?
Why does it take so much before the joy of discovering the new freedom and the regained self-respect from being so gently, carefully, and devotedly attended to comes tumbling in?
The answer lies in the little word, "If." Paul tells us, "If." "[I]f you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (v. 9).
"If" is not an if only or a wish to or a just do it. "If" is the hinge word that implies a matter of choice. "If" tells us we must become involved before it can happen. "If" says it is waiting for us to take the next move, if ... then. In the case of faith, "if" is a high-pressure word with a low-threat result.
To Paul's thinking, the "if" of faith has two canons: Confess with your lips; believe in your heart. It takes both believing and confessing to contain the mystery of faith. Faith needs both solitude and a listener. We need solitude for our own pondering. We need the presence of God and other persons to hear us and give an object to what we say.
Which comes first, believing or confessing? In one verse, Paul mentions believing first. In the next, he says confessing first. Believing and confessing go hand in hand. We need the solitary stuff of the inner heart from which belief and hope grow. Yet believing somehow does not become real until we know the freedom of speaking aloud to someone else what we believe.
If we approach faith from the other direction and confess first, that is, acknowledge belief that something is true, this telling somehow strengthens that belief. This is the mystery of faith -- the letting go of doubt while embracing that doubt, the encircling of uncertainty with a hug of possibility, the yielding while heralding, "Okay, God."
Paul says believing with our heart that God raised Christ from the dead is what justifies us. Justification is the act of being freed by God both from the guilt and from the penalty of having caused grief or pain or anguish to another.
The apostle says confessing with the mouth that Jesus is Savior is what saves us. Salvation frees us from the power of sin and evil. It saves us from the destructive force within us that causes harm and frees us for hope. Our action is belief and confession. God's action is justification and salvation.
What we want and hope to do is to believe the Resurrection story is more than a theory. We cannot know absolutely because we do not contain that wisdom. We do know that when human hope evaporates, God always surprises us by leading the way ahead with new hope. When God perceives that we are ready, God responds with a joyous heart. We do not know how hope happens, but we have a clue from a dog guide, an offered, given, and ready symbol of possibility who delights in freeing its partner for hope.
God is God who looks out for us, all of us. God, the same God of everyone, will save all who call on God in the name of God. No wonder the end note of the first Sunday of this Lenten journey is a song of joy.
