Sermon - We Are Transmitters

     At the age of 10, filled with holy excitement and sanctified anticipation, along with a handful of children and about 30 adults, I climbed aboard a church bus in Menlo Park, California. Joyfully, we were on our way to a Billy Graham Crusade in San Francisco. With great gusto we pumped ourselves up by singing gospel songs all the way. The forty-five minute drive landed us in the parking lot of the huge auditorium known as the Cow Palace. A sea of parked cars and buses stretched before us. The very sight was a confirmation to my ten-year-old eyes that something momentous was about to occur. Struggling through the crowded lobby and climbing the stairs to the top, I stepped out onto the upper deck. A vast, elliptical auditorium filled to capacity buzzed with expectant energy. The Crusade choir had assembled on the platform in front of the big, bright blue banner proclaiming, "I am the way, the truth, the life." Crusade choir director Cliff Barrows raised his arms and several hundred voices sang out, "This is my story, this is my song, praising my savior, all the day long." The baritone, George Beverly Shea, sang How Great Thou Art. Billy Graham delivered his sermon with his typical winsome presence and compelling words. Then, at the dramatic climax of the service, the choir stood and the audience joined in singing "Just as I am without one plea that Thy blood was shed for Thee. . . . Savior divine, I come to thee." My heart pounded. I knew it was my time to take the walk. Pulled up out of my chair by the tug of the spirit, the singing throng carried me to the platform where Billy Graham stood. In the presence of 15,000 witnesses I had publicly declared that I believed in Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

     Following the service I met with one of the Crusade counselors who told me, as I had heard others say: now that I had accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, everything else in my life would be taken care of. Now that I knew Jesus I would know real peace-and most importantly when I died, I could claim heaven as my prize.

     But after only a few days, the glow of that night faded. The newness wore off and I realized my life was pretty much as it had always been. I still had problems, I still had fears, I still had doubts. Worse yet, I was still overweight. By the time I went to high school I had stopped expecting the Savior to show up and save me. Gradually I became disillusioned. Eight years later I went to seminary not because Jesus called, but because the Selective Service system wanted to draft me. By the time I graduated from seminary, Jesus had become nothing more to me than an object of academic inquiry.

     As the years advanced I developed an interest in earth-based spiritualities such as that of the indigenous traditions in South America and that of American Indians. Looking East I became fascinated with Hindus and Sikhs. The "this worldly" orientation of Buddhists simply made sense. And in reading the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh's books, Living Buddha,Living Christ and Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, I realized that the explorations of other traditions shed new light on Jesus. After a long turn East, I turned back to take a fresh look at Jesus. I discovered that he was still there as a quiet presence in my psyche. But having ventured out from conventional Christianity I realized I was seeing Jesus as never before. As Marcus Borg put it, "I met Jesus again for the first time."

     I begin on this autobiographical note because many of you have shared with me that you have traveled a similar journey. Approximately 30% of Lake Street Church members grew up in the Roman Catholic Church. Many have told me they will never go back to Catholicism but they'll always think of themselves as Catholic. Others of us were raised in other Protestant churches, learning the theology that they have since outgrown. I've heard the same story from those raised as Jews, even if only Jewish in culture. And one of our members raised a Shiite Muslim says he could never go back to it, but he'll always think of himself as a Muslim.

     Like many of you, I have discovered that my childhood conditioning remains a part of me even though I have outgrown it. For many years I hated it, resisted and defended myself against it. But there is something about our early experiences that become a part of our religious and cultural DNA. Even though we outgrow what we were taught, it remains a part of us as long as we live. In recent years I have realized there is one thing about the Christian tradition that is inextricably woven into my spiritual DNA. This something is Jesus. With the Doobey Brothers I can say, "Jesus is just all right with me." But the Jesus I know now is a different Jesus from the one I met at the Billy Graham Crusade.

     Many people of course worship Jesus. Many people pray to Jesus. For the vast majority of Christians, Jesus is the message. Jesus is God in the human form, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This according to conventional Christianity is what it means to believe in Jesus. I admit I no longer believe in Jesus. But now I believe with Jesus. With Jesus I believe that only when we learn to love our enemies do we learn the true meaning of love. With Jesus I believe the light of God is in everyone, and the kingdom of God is within us, among us and in our midst. With Jesus I believe that like the lilies of the field, God takes care of us, even if we don't know that God is taking care of us. Once I believed in Jesus, now I believe with Jesus.

     If somehow the Jesus of history were to materialize before us today, and we were to ask him to boil down his message into one sentence, I believe that like Mahatma Gandhi he would say, "My life is my message." And turning to us he might say, "So it is for you. How you think, how you act, how you treat others, how you live in general, this is the message you are giving to yourselves and to the world."

     We think of religious truth as a fixed body of beliefs that we are supposed to buy into. We think of religion as a product. But Jesus taught that spiritual truth is not a product but a process--which brings us to today's Gospel lesson. One day a wealthy young man came to him and said, I have everything money can buy. Please tell me what I have to do to find happiness and contentment. Jesus answered, "Follow the Commandments."

     But the wealthy young man quickly responded, "I've done all the right things but still something is wrong, something is missing in my life." Perhaps Jesus stops, shrugs his shoulders and says, "Okay, there is one more thing you can do. Sell everything you have, give your money to the poor and follow me." But that he couldn't do. The young man came to Jesus looking for the one definitive answer and Jesus responded by saying the spiritual life is not a product, but a process. Jesus said, "you come to me for a message but I am telling you that your life is the message."

     Following the service today we will begin another three week series of meetings we call the Adult Inquiry Group. The purpose of the Inquiry Group is to allow newcomers to become better acquainted with life at Lake Street Church. For many reasons these groups are always an inspiration because consistently, people in these groups say that Lake Street Church just what they've been looking for. This is of course music to our ears. But falling in love with Lake Street Church is not all that different from falling in love with another person or making a new friend. At first everything seems perfect. But as time wears on the newness wears off. What was once fresh and exotic becomes familiar and comfortable. After a while we begin to see the warts and blemishes-the glow fades. We are always in the market for a great product. But whether we enter a personal relationship or a relationship with a spiritual community what we actually get is not a product, but a process.

     D. H. Lawrence wrote, "As we live we are transmitters of life, and when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow through us. . . . Give, and it shall be given unto you, is still the truth about life. . . . But giving life is not so easy. . . . It means kindling the life quality--where it was not."

     To believe with Jesus is to believe that like Jesus we are all transmitting life and that on this journey--like Jesus--we too can awaken the life quality in everyone, even ourselves. This is life. Going to bed every night, sleeping, sometimes insomnia, getting up, getting out of bed, one day after another, this is it. Going to school, going to work, sitting down to eat, getting up to do the dishes, this is life. Moments of wonderful connection, moments of painful disconnection, moments of loss and profound grief--all these passing moments--hundreds of thousands of fearful, funny and joyous moments--this is life. What were we expecting? Each moment is a lifetime in and to itself. We remember the past and plan for the future. And wherever we go there we are. We live in an eternal now. This is it. This is life as it really is. Spirituality is not about being transported to a different kind of life. It is about living with an open heart and open mind in the life we have and the moment we are in. There is no product, no religion, no relationship or single answer that will tie up all our loose ends and open before us paradise, nirvana or heaven.

     But here and there we catch our breath. Here and there the soul is refreshed. Here and there the heart is opened. In a few moments we will come to the Communion table. Communion is a ritual that reminds us to believe with Jesus. The bread reminds us that even in a world of broken bodies and hearts, our souls can always find nourishment. Among other things, the cup reminds us that life is always fluid and flowing. In Communion we celebrate not a product but a process, a journey. And on this journey, we are mysteriously fed.

     I believe that the highest purpose of Communion is to remind us to believe with Jesus that life is a banquet of God, and at this table there is a place set for everyone. May our Communion transmit that life is full of grace and graciousness-and remind us graciousness, compassion, kindness and grace flow from God. Believing with Jesus, we transmit the truth that in the kingdom of God, this nourishment is not a privilege for a few, but a banquet for all.

     Fredrick Buechner says that the parables of Jesus can be understood as a metaphor for God. "God is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick out of that one lost sheep once God finds it again than out of the ninety and nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place. God is the eccentric host who goes out into the skid rows and soup kitchens and charity wards and brings home a freak show for dinner. God brings home the man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner. There's the woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes her daily rounds of the garbage cans. There's the old wino with his pint in a brown paper bag, the drug dealer, the prostitute. And then there's the village idiot who stands at the blinker light waving his hand as the cars go by. They are all seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are all lit and the champagne glasses filled. At a sign from the host, the musicians strike up Amazing Grace. If you have to explain it, don't bother."

     To believe with Jesus is to believe that life is imperfect; but if we open ourselves there is always a banquet available. In truth, we are always being fed-not only of body, but of spirit. And we can always feed each other. And whenever we get something for nothing, we are receiving grace. Life is grace. It is something for nothing. And when we return this grace by giving to each other, we know that life is a banquet.

Blessed be