paul's pulpit

I survived my second time at the pulpit and have decided to copy my sermon text here on my blog for all to see. Enjoy!


Reading: Psalm 98:1-8

The Ultimate Thrill


I had a heck of a time deciding how to start and then I thought I would try something a little different. If you would all humor me for a few minutes, everyone close your eyes. Don’t worry; nothing bad is going to happen, just close your eyes. I’m even going to close mine. Now, take a deep breath and relax. Imagine you’ve had a long and exhausting day and sleep is beckoning to you. Now picture yourself in a field of flowers; green, yellow, blue, purple, red, the whole rainbow of colors. It’s a sunny, early September day, mid-morning and there is a gentle breeze blowing. It’s the perfect temperature. You look up at the sky and there’s not a cloud to be found and it is so blue that it seems as if you could just plunge into its ocean like depths. You suddenly feel yourself floating up, up, up toward the blue sky. You feel as high as the birds. You then feel yourself stop, as if suspended in the air and you see yourself in a rollercoaster car just before you plunge toward the ground at warp speed. (Loud Clap) You awake with a start; uncertain if it was something you heard that woke you or your internal system alerting you to danger. You are sweating and your heart feels as if it is going to leap out of your chest. You feel alert, aware of everything around you; every part of you feels alive. That’s an adrenaline rush; a mixture of excitement and fear. How many of you are alive this morning? Now that we’ve established everyone is alive on the outside, how many of you are really alive? I’m not talking about existing; I’ve no doubt that each of you has a pulse. I’m talking about being totally alive, outside and inside. How many of us find ourselves just going through the motions of each day; not really taking the time to enjoy life, to savor it, to feel life? I’d like to read you a list: mountain climbing, bridge jumping, skydiving, horror movies, roller coasters, and extreme sports. These are just some things that people do every day in order to feel a thrill, excitement, a rush that comes from inside. I’d like to offer another thrill: Singing God’s praises. You may wonder how that could possibly be thrilling. In today’s reading from Psalm 98, it talks about the whole earth coming to attention to sing God’s praises. “Round up an orchestra to play for God, add on a hundred-voice choir. Feature trumpets and big trombones. Fill the air with praises to God. Let the sea and fish give a round of applause, with everything living on earth joining in.” What an awesome and exciting image. Can you imagine what it would be like if every single living thing on this earth were all singing God’s praises at the same time? So what holds you back? Why aren’t you feeling that thrill inside? Are you oppressed and worn down each day by the daily grind of life? Are you worn down at work, worn down by the news each day, worn down as LGBT people by others who want to condemn us and keep us down? Are you worn down by doubts and fears that you create for yourself? Doubts and fears that come from your family, old tapes, baggage you carry around and the feeling that you aren’t good enough or worthy enough. So how can we possibly sing God’s praises when we’re so filled with “stuff?” We have to realize that we only get one chance at life. When we realize that, how could we possibly not make the most of it, get the most out of life that we can? In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray’s character seems destined to relive the same day over and over again for eternity. He gets no pleasure out of life and has become jaded and bitter. At one point he even declares himself a god because he dies in a variety of ways and yet wakes up the next day unmarred by the previous day’s death. It’s not until he becomes more humane, lets go of himself, and starts appreciating the things around him that he is allowed to move on. Many of us may feel that way; stuck, going around and around and doing the same things the same way. We need to let go of ourselves. Notice I said let go of ourselves and not let ourselves go. There is a difference. To let ourselves go is to no longer take pride in ourselves or care about anything or anyone. To let go of ourselves is to surrender our ego, jettison the baggage we carry around, throw out the old tapes, and lose the guilt and fear, to become a new person full of life and energy and appreciation. In order to have God inside of us and sing God’s praises, we have to have room for God. As long as we are full of ancient baggage, and worries and fears, there’s no room for God. There is another way that we die inside and that’s when we experience loss. You’d be hard pressed to find someone in this room who hasn’t lost someone close to them. It’s not the person who dies that is hurting; it’s the one who is left behind. Why do we allow ourselves to act like we are the ones that died? If you’ve ever been to an Irish wake, they celebrate, they drink, they laugh, they reminisce and, most importantly, they continue to live and celebrate the person who has died. There’s a line in the film Ordinary People that sums it up perfectly, “You’re here and you’re alive and don’t tell me you don’t feel that.” The last piece of this is why it’s so important to make room for God. Why it’s so important to sing God’s praises and continue the work that we do. There are people out there we have yet to touch. There are others out there who don’t yet believe that they can be gay and loved by God, that they are worthy. We have to believe inside what we are teaching otherwise we can’t make others believe. There’s a passage in Matthew 23 in which Jesus calls the religious scholars frauds. He says, “People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.” I’ve seen teachers and preachers burn out because they’ve lost that inner fire, that energy, that life force that one must have to be a teacher. It’s not possible to teach effectively without that fire inside. We have to rise above the oppression of daily life and rekindle that fire inside so we can preach what we practice and practice what we preach. Then we can make sure we are living a life of truth, inclusivity, and love. And lest you think it’s too late for you to have God inside, fear not. It seems as if there’s always one person in a relationship who takes forever to get ready. They stand in front of the mirror, they primp, and they hold things up. Meanwhile, the other person is waiting patiently, asking, ‘Are you ready yet?’ That’s God. God is waiting for you, patient, kind, loving. In Philippians it says, “Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in God. If you were present for the parade last week, you saw that our group was truly reveling in God both inside and outside. We so believed in what we were marching for, we were so alive with truth and love that we drowned out the protesters. I honestly could not tell you what one of them said, I was so intent on shouting God’s praises. That’s something we should all be doing; letting God be our adrenaline rush. We are a church alive. As we sing the sermon response, it’s a song I know you are familiar with; I challenge each and every one of you to get that fire going inside. I challenge each of you move away from death and toward life. Let the words of the song transform you, move you and inspire you. Feel free to sing out and sing proud.

P.S. The song I sang after the sermon was Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying