On
my birthday last August I
got a card which pictured two doors on the front. One was half open with some
balloons and confetti flying out. The caption read, "They say when one
door closes, another opens." Inside it said, "Goodbye metabolism,
hello senior discount!" It all happened so fast! Seems like only yesterday
I was graduating from college with my brand spanking new political science
degree and I was sure that I would on be working for Henry Kissinger and the
Nixon administration…that never came to fruition…thank God!
Has
your life turned out just the way you planned it? If so, you are either very young or very
unusual. For most of us, the old saying is more accurate: "Life is what
happens while you’re making other plans." Bad things happen. Like all pastors, part of
what I do is help people who are thrust into sudden, unexpected transitions: a
bad diagnosis, the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a
friend. Life is hard. Good things happen,
too, of course, but even good transitions can be traumatic. Because whether the
change is bad or good, an old, familiar way of life has passed away and a new
way is being born. We carry who we are and what we’ve been with us, but
we are no longer the same and we need to adjust to a new reality. As Andre Gide
observed:
Through
loyalty to the past, our
mind refuses to realize that tomorrow’s joy is possible only if
today’s makes way for it;… that each wave owes the beauty of its
line only to the withdrawal of the receding one. We naturally try to hold on to the familiar
… we are all resistant to change … but this only deepens our grief
and delays the inevitable because we cannot hold on to what no longer is.
The
in-between time is the hardest.
What once was is no more, but we do not yet know what will be. We wonder: will
I be okay? Will I recover from this change? Will I succeed in my new venture?
What will happen to me now? Will I ever be as happy as I remember being? Change makes us long for the familiarity of
our imagined past. As we move into new, unfamiliar terrain, we feel lost for a
while. A friend of mine described it this way when his wife died: "I felt
like a traveler whose land no longer corresponded to the map he held in his
hand." In the land of in-between, we feel afraid, unsure, confused …
hopeful perhaps … but filled with dread at the same time.
Andy
Lester says we all live with
a "future story," some idea of what our tomorrows will be. But
life’s interruptions have a way of erasing our future story. What we
thought would be … cannot be, so for awhile we are disoriented. We must
imagine a new future story that is positive and possible in order to find our
equilibrium again.
Now
and then … whether we
like it our not … we have to change our plans. But what that really means
is that we have to change ourselves. We could even say,
we have to be “born again.” Said Erich Fromm: The whole life of the individual is nothing
but the process of giving birth to him- (or her-) self; indeed, we should be
fully born, when we die, although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to
die before they are born. This is a
universal human experience. But God has not left us without help for turning
what may seem like a disaster at the moment into a new beginning that grows our
souls, that God is our guardian and guide, that God is the midwife of our
continual rebirth. But birth is a labor, especially the birth of our souls.
We
have many words for this process: rebirth, renewal, reinvention, regeneration, reorientation.
"Paradigm shift" is one of the popular idioms these days. Last week
we heard about Simon Peter’s paradigm shift, which led to the change in
the early church so that all of us ethnics would be included, too. Today we
hear how Paul had to change his plans, again through a vision from God.
Paul was on his second missionary journey, this time with Silas and Timothy. They were traveling around
Sometimes
in our prayers we feel as if
we are begging God for something so obviously right, it seems God must be
perversely withholding it from us on purpose. But this story wants to say God
guides those who trust in God and are about God’s work in the world.
Blocked
at every turn, Paul has a
vision in the night. A man cries out: "Come over to
Women
didn’t count as equals to men in the synagogues in those days, or in all of the society. Later on,
most of those rules would be introduced into the church, too, as the church
became domesticated into an institution that the principalities and powers
could feel safe about and even become the primary conserver of the dominant
social order. But the Book ofActs shows us the
creative, formative days of the early church. One barrier after another is
broken down by the Spirit against the cultural and religious resistance of the
time. Pharisees and priests receive the gospel. Then the Samaritans get
included… an Ethiopian eunuch, too. Then … oh my Lord! - Gentiles.
And here in Acts 16 once again Paul breaks with social convention because
preaching the gospel takes precedence over rules of social order. But do you
think he wanted to do that? Paul had to change more than his plans … he
had to change himself.
Spiritual
experience shapes theology,
and already here at Philippi we see the sexist curmudgeon Paul forming a
radical idea which he will write later in his letter to the Galatians:
"There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there
is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal
3:28).
What
does Paul do? He tells these
women about Jesus. In the audience is
Now,
I don’t want to suggest every time something happens that sends us spinning in a new direction, that it
is God’s doing. I don’t believe God brings disasters on us to teach
us a lesson, though God often warns us what the consequences of our behavior
might be. But sometimes, when our plans change, it is the hand of God knowing
what is best for us. And always, we can trust in God to guide us through our
transitions. God will be with us, whatever hard changes we must accept, whatever
new directions we must take, whatever alterations time and life may bring. And
with God’s help, whether the cause is bad or good, God will help us
change ourselves with changing circumstances. God will grow our souls.
Remember
what Jesus said, that night
he gathered with his disciples and washed their feet, the night he was
betrayed, the night before he was crucified? "Peace I leave with you; my
peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your
hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid" (John 14:27). Talk
about your life-changing experience. The cross was not what any of the
disciples expected. The cross was not what Jesus preferred. And after their
leader was executed as a criminal and buried, the disciple’s world was
shattered. They knew their lives would never be the same. Everything they had
hoped for… all their plans … their happy future story gone! They
didn’t expect it. They thought it was all over! But they were right about
one thing: their lives would never be the same! Thank God! Jesus rose from the dead, and they saw him,
and their lives took on a glorious new adventure with God. Things aren’t
always what they seem, especially when a good God is at work behind the scenes.
A
lot of people go through changes kicking and screaming, resisting at every turn because they
can’t let go of what was to take on what might be. A lot of people go
through changes on the outside, but without changing on the inside, with no
growth, no rebirth, no soul shaping at all. And they
get bitter, miserable, stuck. One of the most important questions we must ask
ourselves in these moments of transition is "What is it time for me to let
go of?" But I would add, by our trust in God, that it is also a critical
time to ask, "What is it time for me to take hold of? What does God have
for me to learn … to do … to become … in all of this?"
We will experience unplanned, unexpected transitions in this life. How we
respond … with grace and courage and faith or with fear and anger and resistance
… makes all the difference between flourishing or
perishing.
I
have discovered that people who are focused on doing God’s work, who understand God has placed them here for
a reason, who sense a purpose for living and an
opportunity for caring … handle life’s changes better than those
who are too focused on themselves. Jesus always turns our eyes outward to the
world. Even when we are struggling and suffering, he leads us to forget about
ourselves and care for those whose pain is even deeper than our own. The world
isn’t about us. It’s about whom we can love. "For those who
want to save their life will lose it," Jesus said, "and those who
lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it"
(Mark 8:35). There is no painkiller quite so effective as finding someone to
help … who helps you forget about yourself.
So
many pressures in our society today push us towards isolation from one another. But God made us to be
interdependent. Jesus had his disciples. Paul traveled with Silas and Timothy.
Almost all Paul’s letters speak of someone at his side. We need healthy
circles of support to sustain us through our times of transition. We need to
keep our family relationships strong. We can’t let some petty
disagreement separate us from the people we need and who need us. God gave us
the church to be a place of encouragement and a sheltering tree when the storms
come. We can’t let minor misunderstandings separate us from a circle of
prayer who will hold us up when we feel like falling down. In this same
chapter, when Jesus speaks of peace … he gives that important command
… that above all else, we love one another. Perhaps the peace Jesus
promised to give us was not just deep peace within, but peace between us, his
peace among us.
But
I do think he also meant peace within. In his letter, years later to his beloved friends and supporters at
the church at
So
wherever you are on your life map today, whether you are in the groove easing on down the familiar pathways or
wandering the wilderness of the uncharted territory of unexpected change, take
heart. God is with you. And God will be with you. Even if things don’t
work out the way you planned, trust in the Lord. He promises a good result
ultimately to those who follow him, even if there is some suffering along the
way. And in the bargain, if you let him, the Lord will grow your soul.
May
we pray?
Life is too big for us, God. Time,
the world, the great web of human interaction - these are all beyond our
powers. And our plans get interrupted. Help us to do what lies within our power
but trust the rest to you. Open our eyes to see you are with us and working in
all of life’s circumstances. Open our hearts to change within as we go
through these changes without that our souls might grow to be more and more
loving like you. And guide us into life everlasting as we follow you in Jesus’
name.
Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa