Sermon from Dec 2, 2012

It’s empty in the valley of your heart / The sun, it rises slowly as you walk / away from all the fears / and all the faults you’ve left behind.

This opening line from Mumford and Son’s song called the The Cave caught my attention this week. Aren’t we always trying so hard to walk away from all of our fears, and all of our faults? Aren’t we always trying to start fresh, to understand more clearly how we are called to be? Or are we meant to be happy with who and where we are?

This is a fascinating question for us to consider, are we called to change, to move forward in dramatic and powerful ways or are we called to be happy with who we are, after all, everything we need, we have right here, inside of us. God made us and God made us good. God didn’t make us to become anyone else, God made us to be us.

It’s empty in the valley of your heart / The sun, it rises slowly as you walk / away from all the fears / and all the faults you’ve left behind.

I think we often believe we have to change according to other people’s principles, other people’s perspectives. We have to try and emulate whoever we think others want us to be. And you know, the idea of following Jesus and being like Jesus is probably to some extent the reason for our misguidedness, our desire to be like Jesus only leads to failure.

Are we called to be Jesus anyway? Are we truly called to be Jesus, or are we called to be who we are? Jesus says to us, "Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly.” These words are not about emulating Jesus as a role model; these words direct us inward, they direct us to a place where we can understand how our hearts are weighed down with the worries of this life.

The chorus of the song The Cave, sings, And I’ll find strength in pain / And I will change my ways / I’ll know my name as it’s called again. Again, these words are words that direct us inward, to our hearts, to see how it is we are weighed down by the worries and pain of this life, by the things that cling to our hearts and how we can transform those things. What is it that our name brings to us, what are the pieces of our lives that we have lost in not knowing our own name?

We are not called to change our names, we are not called to change who we are, we called to move deeper into our hearts, into our souls, so we can be more clear, and more aware of the name that God gave us. More in awe of the person that God created for amazing and great things.

I have said it a million times, I know, but it is true, the opposite of faith, is not doubt, the opposite of faith is fear, fear immobilizes us, causes us to look at things that reduce the value of other people’s names. Fear doesn’t make us small, fear often makes other people small and sometimes threatening. Fear of the future, fear of what we don’t have, fear of how we may get hurt, all of this causes us to shut down, and fall into a place that makes our name inauthentic and weighed down with the troubles of today. It removes the possibility of understanding our own name and the possibility that lies within it.

The Gospel writer says, “Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” I love how Jesus says this to us, he is speaking to each of us individually, each of us as a member of faith community. We each are asked to be alert and to be aware, to know our strength, to know our own power and use it to face the challenges of the signs that will be presented to us as well as in the ability to stand before Jesus and God as that day approaches.

The hard thing is we can’t do this on our own, we have to do it together, we have to learn one another’s names, we have to learn one another’s strengths and understand how our humanity and our strengths will be knit together to create a tapestry of beauty that will change the world.

One of the last verses of Mumford and Son’s song sings, So come out of your cave walking on your hands / And see the world hanging upside down / You can understand dependence / When you know the maker’s land. Two things stand out to me as I listen to these words.

We must change our perspective and if we have to walk out of our homes on our hands, then that is how we should do it, if we have to walk out of our homes blindfolded, than that is how we should do it. Shifting our focus from fear to hope, from fear to faith is what we are called to do, how we are called to live and why God desires us to know our name as it is called by God.

Come out of your cave walking on your hands. This is what Jesus is saying to us about looking for signs, for the coming of Jesus, for the radical indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We are called to shift our perspectives wholly from what we think of as powerful and good, from those external things that prevent us from knowing our own name, to look boldly upon our own name, and its strengths and find that our strengths are more than adequate for this world and for our own lives.

And that brings me to the second point of interest. I used to think the line at the end of the verse said, You can understand dependence / When you know the maker’s plan. But, as you might have heard, it is not plan, it is land. And I ask you what is God’s land, what are these brilliant artists saying?

I’d like to think they are shifting the perspective we have once again by recognizing that the earth isn’t God’s primary concern, God’s plan isn’t even part of what we are called to know. What we are called to know is the maker’s land, and the makers land is God’s most glorious creation: us. You and me, we are the maker’s land, we are the maker’s terrain, we are the possession of God and God alone. God owns our name, and God chooses to fill us with great possibility and knowledge and love.

And as filled individuals, as a filled community of faith, we must seek out those who have lost the meaning of their own names but desire to know their names so they can find strength in their pain, change their ways and know their names as God has called them to live. Our call is to know our name so we can sing our song as a beacon to those who are seeking a deeper relationship with Christ. Hold on hope, have faith.

And I’ll find strength in pain / And I will change my ways / I’ll know my name as it’s called again.

Or we could sing as a community of faith:

And we’ll find strength in pain / And we will change our ways / We’ll know our name as they’re called again.