May You Have An Interesting Life
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Stories
Contents
“May You Have An Interesting Life” by C. David McKirachan
“Top Side of The Chi” by C. David McKirachan
May You Have An Interesting Life
by C. David McKirachan
John 1:(1-9) 10-18
Before creation, what was there?
We don’t do well if we try to do without linear time. So, everything has a before and an after. Makes sense.
But before? There are no sign posts, no markers, no way to have sense, the way we know it. But that’s where John dares to go. The others begin in the midst of life, with genealogies, birth stories, prophets. But John chops back, past our limits of time and sense, back to the beginning. He dares to peer out into that which is beyond. He tells us, in that dimension without sense, without order, even there, in that ‘before,’ there was the logos.
A template, a pattern, the DNA from which everything else came to be. That was there with God. (No wonder we like to stick to the others. This is too close to X Files for comfort.)
And that logos, known only to God, has now become known, in this world of sense and sensation. It has become known to us, we who are made of sense and sensation. It has become flesh and lived among the limits and constraints. It has functioned in time, in beginnings and afters, in longings and desires, in pains and in joys, in passions and apathies, in frustrations and victories, in promises kept and shattered, in specificities and in generalities. Somehow, that which was from before, from out there in the unknowable before, has come here and now.
So, how do we make common sense of this? How do we communicate this foundational truth? That, my friends, has been the conundrum of preachers and evangelists and teachers down through the years. Welcome to the club.
It might be effective to look to the fleshly version of the Word, the incarnation of this template for guidance. What did he do?
He lived in the midst of all this mess of living on this side of before. He taught. He shared. He paid attention to the little and big things. He touched people. He took risks. He went to church. He prayed. He had friends. He cried. And he probably did things that weren’t included in the Gospels, because they just seemed too human to the writers.
And finally, he suffered and he died.
Kind of covered the bases.
There is a Chinese curse, “May you have an interesting life.” Jesus had an interesting life. It was crammed full of all that stuff that is living. If we’re going to teach people and call people to follow the logos, it’s probably a good idea to encourage them to live lives full of living.
My first job as a pastor was in a little church in the inner city. Boy, did I learn a lot about living and all the stuff that goes with it. And I made so many stupid mistakes, it boggles my mind to consider how I got through that time without getting killed, jailed, or committed to an institution of some kind. But one of the biggest lessons I learned was that grace was always present. Not because I deserved it or maneuvered around to discover it or was good at having it, but because the grace and the truth of the love of God that became my most precious gift, to give or to receive, was there, in the grimy, violent, heartbreaking day to day struggle, that grace and truth was there before. Before the city, before the pain, before the church. It was part of the template, the DNA of everything. And it was there to hold on to, to point to, to offer, and to receive every day.
At the worst of times, it was there, living, breathing — there. It was part of the design.
Pretty cool, huh?
Last year around the end of the year, I remember being grateful for getting through 2019, and looking forward to the new year. “It’s only up from here.” Little did I know. We were blessed with the interesting times of 2020. But this year has given rise to another bunch of moments when the word became flesh. After all, that’s the nature of creation, isn’t it?
So, here we go on another adventure. Time to discover new incarnations out there and within us. Bottoms up!
* * *
Top Side of The Chi
by C. David McKirachan
Ephesians 1:3-14
My father loved the letter to the Ephesians. He considered it an organized, focused layout of Paul’s theology. Dad’s study of the Greek syntax made him pretty sure Paul didn’t pen it, personally. Paul wasn’t that organized. Whether written by a disciple of Paul or the apostle himself is moot. It is a beautiful use of the Greek, and of Pauline Theology. So, my father memorized it, in the Greek. I told him he was a show off.
The letter seems to be crafted to resemble a Greek ‘Chi’ — an hour glass. It opens up wide to the lordship of the maker, the cosmic god. Then, moving down it comes to the believers, the members who were and are the church, focusing at the third chapter. Then it opens up, out again to the cosmic Christ, Chi. Such was my father’s mind.
In this time of year, as we move away from the manger and face a new year’s possibility; and as we remember the pain and disappointments of a year that we are almost happy to leave behind, the order of the Ephesian epistle is attractive, considering the chaos that we hopefully seem to be emerging from. We can all stand, arms open, to the unfolding hopes and possibilities that offer themselves.
It’s a bit frightening to claim such potential, considering the hopes from the end of 2019. 2020 lay there, open, a new, unplowed field to be sewn with the seeds of a new now. We hoped. We dreamed. And here we are aching from struggles with issues and insults that we didn’t even consider in our list of things we had to watch out for. Who planned for challenges to our democracy? Or assaults on fact-based reasoning and dialogue? Who expected the plague?
I remember a prayer from the middle ages, ‘Lord protect us from the shadow of the Norsemen and the plague.’ I’ve begun using it in my devotions. Whew! The curse, ‘May you live in interesting times’ has descended upon us like a cloud of locusts.
Yup. I think we’re ready for a new year.
But the question whispers behind it all, can we depend on the center holding? Can we really found our hopes on the institutions of civilized thinking and communication? Can we depend on our science and technology to successfully confront the beasts that have taken away our ability to be together? And how do we be a nation, a civilization, and more to the point, the church of Jesus Christ, with such threats hanging over us?
The truth is, we can’t depend on our institutions, or even our reason. We are small. From dust to dust. And our institutions and our assumptions are just as fragile. We really can’t afford to found our hopes and dreams on them. The center will not hold.
Just so, the letter, whether Paul wrote it or not, does not start with the church. It does not begin with anything we have done or invented. It begins with the nature of God. It is God’s doing that we have come here. It is God’s doing that we are who we are. And this same God has now given us a relationship, a kinship to God’s very being. God has claimed us to be children, children of the most-high God. This is what the Christ’s coming has done for us. And no crumbling culture or virulent virus can alter that. In life and death, we belong to God.
Kinda puts the manger in a different perspective.
At a concert once, the choir sang “In the Bleak Midwinter.” That one always gets me. I wept. Someone asked me why I, a Christian, cried at a Christmas carol. They thought we would be rejoicing at this time of year.
I told him that the gift that has been given is so stupendous, so beyond reason or justification, that it demonstrates love that cannot be contained by simple happiness. It overloads my systems. It literally moves me beyond myself to a new identity that shows me new landscapes of the One who gives the gift, and also new potential and possibilities for me. It changes the world and it changes me.
Heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall fade away when he comes to reign
But his mother only, in her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Almighty with a kiss.
Kinda puts the whole thing in a new perspective. Top side of the Chi. I don’t think I’ll worry as much about the new year. It and I belong to God...
What can I give him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
What I can I give him. I give my heart.
And don’t forget, there are two more parts to the Epistle.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 3, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“May You Have An Interesting Life” by C. David McKirachan
“Top Side of The Chi” by C. David McKirachan
May You Have An Interesting Life
by C. David McKirachan
John 1:(1-9) 10-18
Before creation, what was there?
We don’t do well if we try to do without linear time. So, everything has a before and an after. Makes sense.
But before? There are no sign posts, no markers, no way to have sense, the way we know it. But that’s where John dares to go. The others begin in the midst of life, with genealogies, birth stories, prophets. But John chops back, past our limits of time and sense, back to the beginning. He dares to peer out into that which is beyond. He tells us, in that dimension without sense, without order, even there, in that ‘before,’ there was the logos.
A template, a pattern, the DNA from which everything else came to be. That was there with God. (No wonder we like to stick to the others. This is too close to X Files for comfort.)
And that logos, known only to God, has now become known, in this world of sense and sensation. It has become known to us, we who are made of sense and sensation. It has become flesh and lived among the limits and constraints. It has functioned in time, in beginnings and afters, in longings and desires, in pains and in joys, in passions and apathies, in frustrations and victories, in promises kept and shattered, in specificities and in generalities. Somehow, that which was from before, from out there in the unknowable before, has come here and now.
So, how do we make common sense of this? How do we communicate this foundational truth? That, my friends, has been the conundrum of preachers and evangelists and teachers down through the years. Welcome to the club.
It might be effective to look to the fleshly version of the Word, the incarnation of this template for guidance. What did he do?
He lived in the midst of all this mess of living on this side of before. He taught. He shared. He paid attention to the little and big things. He touched people. He took risks. He went to church. He prayed. He had friends. He cried. And he probably did things that weren’t included in the Gospels, because they just seemed too human to the writers.
And finally, he suffered and he died.
Kind of covered the bases.
There is a Chinese curse, “May you have an interesting life.” Jesus had an interesting life. It was crammed full of all that stuff that is living. If we’re going to teach people and call people to follow the logos, it’s probably a good idea to encourage them to live lives full of living.
My first job as a pastor was in a little church in the inner city. Boy, did I learn a lot about living and all the stuff that goes with it. And I made so many stupid mistakes, it boggles my mind to consider how I got through that time without getting killed, jailed, or committed to an institution of some kind. But one of the biggest lessons I learned was that grace was always present. Not because I deserved it or maneuvered around to discover it or was good at having it, but because the grace and the truth of the love of God that became my most precious gift, to give or to receive, was there, in the grimy, violent, heartbreaking day to day struggle, that grace and truth was there before. Before the city, before the pain, before the church. It was part of the template, the DNA of everything. And it was there to hold on to, to point to, to offer, and to receive every day.
At the worst of times, it was there, living, breathing — there. It was part of the design.
Pretty cool, huh?
Last year around the end of the year, I remember being grateful for getting through 2019, and looking forward to the new year. “It’s only up from here.” Little did I know. We were blessed with the interesting times of 2020. But this year has given rise to another bunch of moments when the word became flesh. After all, that’s the nature of creation, isn’t it?
So, here we go on another adventure. Time to discover new incarnations out there and within us. Bottoms up!
* * *
Top Side of The Chi
by C. David McKirachan
Ephesians 1:3-14
My father loved the letter to the Ephesians. He considered it an organized, focused layout of Paul’s theology. Dad’s study of the Greek syntax made him pretty sure Paul didn’t pen it, personally. Paul wasn’t that organized. Whether written by a disciple of Paul or the apostle himself is moot. It is a beautiful use of the Greek, and of Pauline Theology. So, my father memorized it, in the Greek. I told him he was a show off.
The letter seems to be crafted to resemble a Greek ‘Chi’ — an hour glass. It opens up wide to the lordship of the maker, the cosmic god. Then, moving down it comes to the believers, the members who were and are the church, focusing at the third chapter. Then it opens up, out again to the cosmic Christ, Chi. Such was my father’s mind.
In this time of year, as we move away from the manger and face a new year’s possibility; and as we remember the pain and disappointments of a year that we are almost happy to leave behind, the order of the Ephesian epistle is attractive, considering the chaos that we hopefully seem to be emerging from. We can all stand, arms open, to the unfolding hopes and possibilities that offer themselves.
It’s a bit frightening to claim such potential, considering the hopes from the end of 2019. 2020 lay there, open, a new, unplowed field to be sewn with the seeds of a new now. We hoped. We dreamed. And here we are aching from struggles with issues and insults that we didn’t even consider in our list of things we had to watch out for. Who planned for challenges to our democracy? Or assaults on fact-based reasoning and dialogue? Who expected the plague?
I remember a prayer from the middle ages, ‘Lord protect us from the shadow of the Norsemen and the plague.’ I’ve begun using it in my devotions. Whew! The curse, ‘May you live in interesting times’ has descended upon us like a cloud of locusts.
Yup. I think we’re ready for a new year.
But the question whispers behind it all, can we depend on the center holding? Can we really found our hopes on the institutions of civilized thinking and communication? Can we depend on our science and technology to successfully confront the beasts that have taken away our ability to be together? And how do we be a nation, a civilization, and more to the point, the church of Jesus Christ, with such threats hanging over us?
The truth is, we can’t depend on our institutions, or even our reason. We are small. From dust to dust. And our institutions and our assumptions are just as fragile. We really can’t afford to found our hopes and dreams on them. The center will not hold.
Just so, the letter, whether Paul wrote it or not, does not start with the church. It does not begin with anything we have done or invented. It begins with the nature of God. It is God’s doing that we have come here. It is God’s doing that we are who we are. And this same God has now given us a relationship, a kinship to God’s very being. God has claimed us to be children, children of the most-high God. This is what the Christ’s coming has done for us. And no crumbling culture or virulent virus can alter that. In life and death, we belong to God.
Kinda puts the manger in a different perspective.
At a concert once, the choir sang “In the Bleak Midwinter.” That one always gets me. I wept. Someone asked me why I, a Christian, cried at a Christmas carol. They thought we would be rejoicing at this time of year.
I told him that the gift that has been given is so stupendous, so beyond reason or justification, that it demonstrates love that cannot be contained by simple happiness. It overloads my systems. It literally moves me beyond myself to a new identity that shows me new landscapes of the One who gives the gift, and also new potential and possibilities for me. It changes the world and it changes me.
Heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall fade away when he comes to reign
But his mother only, in her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Almighty with a kiss.
Kinda puts the whole thing in a new perspective. Top side of the Chi. I don’t think I’ll worry as much about the new year. It and I belong to God...
What can I give him poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man, I would do my part.
What I can I give him. I give my heart.
And don’t forget, there are two more parts to the Epistle.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 3, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
