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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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From January 20, 2008
Recognizing The Messiah
John 1: 29-42
Not until I moved to Oregon did I know there
was such a thing as chainsaw sculptures. They were
everywhere. Ferocious grizzlies, amiable Yogi the Bears,
whole families of bears sometimes. There were eagles and
owls and, at Christmas time, tin soldiers standing at
attention.
I thought I'd seen every variation until one day I pulled
off the highway into the parking lot of a roadside market. A
winding path connected the lot to the front door and as I
walked along, I spied a new kind of sculpture up ahead--a
man in a pose like that famous one, The Thinker.
The artistry was incredible. The proportions were spot-on
perfect and the sculptor had lined the face with wrinkles
that were most realistic. Stupendous, just stupendous, I
thought to myself as I trudged along. Just as I thought
this, it moved! This was no sculpture but a real live old
man, one in deep and motionless thought.
It is our nature to assign meaning to what we see. Sometimes
we see rightly--but not always, as I discovered that day.
Writing long after Jesus' resurrection, the author of John's
gospel wants us to see rightly. He wants us to see that
Jesus is not just anyone but is indeed the long-awaited
Messiah. To help us see rightly, the gospel writer tells us
a story about others who saw Jesus rightly.
First the Baptizer recognizes the Messiah at the Jordan when
the Spirit alights on him and remains. Then the next day,
two of John's followers see something in Jesus that so
compels them that they are moved to call him "Rabbi," and
then to accept his invitation to come and see for themselves
not only where he is staying but who he really is. "We have
found the Messiah," one says to another loud enough that we,
too, can hear.
This is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. During his last
days of ministry, Jesus tells a parable--one we find in the
25th chapter of Matthew--meant to provide clues about
recognizing him.
You may remember these hints: "For I was hungry and you gave
me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a
stranger and you welcomed me."
Last Sunday during the prayers of the people I lifted up a
young woman currently being held in the McCracken County
Jail, someone I had visited a few days before. As we sat,
the two of us, talking by phone through bulletproof glass,
Jesus' parable came to mind.
"In Matthew's gospel," I began, "Jesus tells us not to look
for him in palaces or places of privilege but among those
who are hungry and in prison. We'll find him among those
people who were always his priority. So as we talk today,
I'm speaking not only to you but to the Jesus who is here
with you, the one closer to you than your own breath."
This remark caught the young woman by surprise and she
blinked back tears.
Just as Jesus was not always rightly perceived as the
Messiah in his day, so in our time we can have difficulty
recognizing him. Just as his people expected a high-caliber
blend of religious and political leader, a sort of King
David extraordinaire, so we, too, miss the chance to
encounter him when he comes not in flowing robes but wearing
one of his many disguises.
You may be familiar with Scott Peck's book, The Road Less
Traveled. An equally important book of his is entitled, The
Different Drum, one in which the good doctor offers up a
parable that compliments the one Jesus tells in Matthew. One
that is, it seems to me, every bit as important.
There once was a monastery, the parable begins, whose
brightest days were now but a memory. Only four monks
remained, plus the abbot, and all of them were over seventy.
Theirs, they had to admit, was a dying order.
Beyond the walls of the monastery were deep woods. And in
the deepest part of those woods was a little hut that a
nearby rabbi used for spiritual retreats. Because years of
unceasing prayer had refined their collective sense of
intuition, the monks had an uncanny ability to sense when
the rabbi was there in his hut. "The rabbi is in the woods,
the rabbi is in the woods again," they would whisper
excitedly to one another.
Agonizing over the imminent death of his monastic order, one
day it occurred to the abbot that the rabbi might be the
source of wisdom. So he hurried out to the hut to seek the
rabbi's counsel. Did he, the abbot asked over tea, did he
have any advice for saving the monastery? The rabbi just
shook his head back and forth sadly. "I know how it is," he
sighed. "The spirit has gone out of the people; your
troubles are mine, as well. Few come to the synagogue
anymore." The two wept, and then read to each other from the
Psalms.
When it came time for the abbot to leave, the two men
embraced. And then the abbot asked one last time, "Is there
nothing you can tell me, no tiny piece of advice to help
save my dying order?"
The rabbi scratched his beard, looked heavenward for a time,
and then replied. "I have no advice to give. The best I can
do is to tell you that the Messiah is one of you."
All the way home, the abbot puzzled over the rabbi's remark.
Upon his return that night, his fellow monks crowded around
him. "What did the rabbi say, Father Abbot?" "Nothing. We
just wept, read the Psalms, and then he left me with a most
cryptic comment. He said that the Messiah is one of us. I
have no idea what he meant by that."
Being men and women of contemplation, the monks took the
rabbi's comment with them into prayer. They mulled it over
as they tended their gardens, as they prepared their meals
and as they settled into their beds each night. What
possible significance did the rabbi's words have? The
Messiah is one of us. Do you think, each monk asked
silently, that the rabbi meant that the Messiah is one of
the monks here at this monastery? If so, which one?
Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Father Abbot has been our
leader for more than a generation and it would make sense
for him to be the Messiah. On the other hand, the rabbi
might mean Brother Thomas--the most humble and holy of the
five.
Most certainly the rabbi did not mean to suggest that
Messiah is Sister Loretta. Loretta gets crotchety and can be
very disagreeable at times. But come to think of it, even
though she is a thorn in people's sides, Loretta often has
real wisdom to share, the kind worth pondering. Maybe the
rabbi meant Sister Loretta after all.
But certainly not Brother Phillip. Phillip is so passive, a
real nobody. But then he does have that gift for showing up
when you most need him. Out of nowhere, he appears. Perhaps
Phillip is the Messiah.
Of course the rabbi didn't mean me, the fifth monk said
silently. I'm just an ordinary person, flawed in so many
ways. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God,
that's such a stretch. You couldn't possibly have chosen me.
As the old monks quietly pondered the question of who might
be the Messiah, a subtle shift began to occur within the
monastery. The monks began treating each other with greater
and greater respect on the off chance that one among them
might truly be the Messiah. And on the off, off chance that
each monk himself or herself might be the Messiah, each
began to engage in extraordinary self-respect.
And so the feeling inside the monastery changed. Indeed, so
profound was this shift that it could even be felt outside
the monastery, among people with no previous connection to
the monastery except that they would come to picnic on its
lawn and seek solitude in the monastery's time-worn chapel.
Even without being conscious of it, visitors felt the
tremendous respect that surrounded the monks and which now
radiated out far beyond the monastery grounds.
There was something strangely attractive, even compelling,
about what people sensed. Hardly knowing why, they began to
come back to the monastery more often to picnic, play, and
even to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them
this special place. And their friends brought friends.
Then it happened that some of the visitors began talking
with the old monks, returning again and again as
relationships deepened. After a while, one of the visitors
asked if she might join the monastery. Then another. And
another.
So within a few years the monastery once again was a
thriving order and, more importantly, thanks to the rabbi's
gift, a place where others were helped to recognize the
Messiah.
Let us pray:
Gracious God, we thank you for placing the Messiah in our
midst and yet confess that we do not always recognize him.
Give us eyes to see him, ears to hear him, hearts to welcome
him, and hands to help him. Not just today but every day. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) I've adapted
"The Rabbi's Gift" from the prologue of M. Scott Peck's The
Different Drum. |
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Promises
on September 7th
at 12 noon.
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