Community Covenant Church - Sermons - Sacred Rhythms: Our Longing for God

July 1, 2007

Scripture Readings

Mark 10:46-52

46Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

48Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

49Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." 50Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

51"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."

52"Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9However, as it is written:
   "No eye has seen,
      no ear has heard,
   no mind has conceived
   what God has prepared for those who love him" — 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
      The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:
16"For who has known the mind of the Lord
      that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

“Sacred Rhythms: Our Longing for God”

Once a month, we gather as we just did, around the table of our Lord. Some call it “Communion, or “Holy Communion”. Others grew up calling it the “Eucharist”.. literally “thanksgiving”. Others know the celebration as “The Lord’s Supper”. By whatever title, and no matter how frequently it is celebrated, it is a gift of intimacy with God from God. It is an opportunity for us to draw near to God through faith, and to receive what He would offer to us.

In its most basic terms, we just an intimate meeting between God and this family of faith; an occasion to encounter God through the physical elements of bread and juice… and to lay before God our needs. Today we asked God for physical healings… for His comforting presence, and for the guiding wisdom of His Spirit, among other things.

I am stating what I hope was obvious to you, because sometimes out of tradition and ritual we forget why we do what we are doing. Holy Communion becomes, if you will, simply something you “do” as a church, rather than a potentially life-changing encounter. Now I know that there are those among us who view Communion Sunday as a special Sunday…. You come expecting more than on other Sundays. Good for you if you do so… you’re right. For indeed we receive a sacrament on Communion Sunday, a means by which God’s grace touches humanity in a special and mysterious way.

While we usually celebrate Holy Communion together, and experience that special intimacy with God as a family of faith, God also wishes us to experience an intimacy with Him on a more private level. God wants to be with us one-on-one, where His Spirit can touch our spirit, where His wisdom transforms our wisdom, where His love and grace transform our lives. Have you ever experienced that occasion of spiritual transformation where God’s presence changed you?

With the hot weather of this past week, my memory took me back about a few decades; my family had rented a beach cottage for a week up at Wells/Moody Beach just north of Ogunquit, Maine. Almost yearly my family would drive back east and include a week’s vacation at this cottage called “The Spouting Whale”. When I was smaller I spent almost all of my time throwing the Frisbee on the beach with my brothers, body-surfing in the frigid ocean, and making huge sandcastles and then watching the incoming tide obliterate them in late afternoon. But as a young adult I began learning the pleasure of sitting in the shaded porch on a big white Adirondack chair and reading good book.

This week I remembered one such morning in Maine, when I put the book down; with the ocean breeze hitting my face and the salt-water smell awakening my senses, I felt an intimate presence with God. He was with me: affirming, supporting and loving me. He was giving me what I so desperately needed at a time when my life was full of questions. Have you ever experienced that occasion of spiritual intimacy where God’s presence touched you and changed you in some way?

This morning I invite you to put yourself in the place of Bartimaeus, the man described in Mark’s Gospel, sitting along the road outside of Jericho. Like Bartimaeus you have heard of Jesus; reports of His power to heal and restore peoples’ lives. Suddenly he is coming you way.

- Will you shout out to him, or will you be quiet.

- Will you identify a need in your life that Jesus could meet if he were willing, or will you let an opportunity pass.

God desires an intimate encounter with you, but what do you desire? And if, like Bartimaeus, your desire is enough that you would shout out Jesus’ name.. even amid your friends attempts to shut you up…. how would you then answer Jesus’ question:

"What do you want me to do for you?"

Bartimaeus was blind, he wanted to see.

What would you ask Jesus to do for you?

On this first Sunday in July, as I begin a summer series of messages called “Sacred Rhythms”, inspired by a book written by Ruth Haley Barton, I begin exploring some spiritual disciplines which can draw us into an increased intimacy with God, where we can sense God’s presence and lay before Him our wants and our needs. For I am convinced that it is through our recognition of need; a deep longing for change in ourselves, that we encounter God. After all…..

- Is it not amid the recognition of our sin that we intimately encounter God at the cross?

- Is it not amid an acknowledgement of loneliness, emptiness, hopelessness and weakness that we too cry out to Jesus as He passes our way, and we begin an intimate encounter where we name our deepest longing, and then are touched by God’s grace?

It is through a deep longing for change in ourselves that we encounter God. But always remember, we may not always get what we long for, but God will give us what we need. We cannot forget the story of the paralytic lowered through a roof by his friends in front of Jesus. While Jesus will eventually physically heal this man because of the need for the Pharisees to recognize Jesus’ authority… Jesus does something even more needful for the paralytic, He forgives his sins.

We may not always get what we want, but when we desire intimacy with God we will get what we most need. Do you have a longing for change in your life, are you motivated enough to bring your needs to Jesus? Over the summer, will you explore some spiritual disciplines that will draw you closer to God and His healing touch?

Whenever we voice our longings to God, we acknowledge our need for God our Savior; we acknowledge that we are human, that we are vulnerable, and that we stand in constant need of God’s help. And that is the beginning and motivation for spirituality. For indeed, as the younger generation cries out for the world to hear, “Spirituality is not an institution, it is a relationship with God.

A year before a car accident claimed his life, Mike Yaconelli, a national leader and 40 year veteran of youth ministry, wrote a book entitles Messy Spirituality. He hit the nail on the head when he said:

Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality, not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws, but because we let go of seeking perfection and instead seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness.

Mike Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality (Zondervan, 2002), p. 13

Unfortunately, many people fail to acknowledge their brokenness. And even if some do, many see it as something they can and need to fix by their own power.

- Celebrities use their fame to point out human need in Darfur.

- Billionaires donate their fortunes to bring relief to AIDs sufferers in Africa.

- Hollywood superstars adopt children from around the world.

And all these things are good…. we may even participate because of their alignment with the cause. I think of Jesus’ disciple John who one day came to him saying

Luke 9:49-50

"Master,…. we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."

"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

When we see others, celebrities or neighbors reaching out to care for the needy, we should applaud them, encourage them, and even join with them, but know that for those who fail to turn to God amid their personal or our collective social brokenness, they will miss opportunity to encounter God. And with such missed opportunities, they will indeed miss opportunities for true spiritual transformation when we name our longings and needs and give God permission to touch us in our deepest places to meet those needs.

Ruth Haley Barton’s Sacred Rhythms, my inspiration for this summer’s preaching, is subtitled Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation. On page 24 she writes:

Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or personality type or your job title or your identity as husband or wife, mother or father, somehow defines you. But in reality, it is your desire for God and your capacity to reach for more of God than you have right now that is the deepest essence of you who are. There is a place within each one of us that is spiritual in nature, the place where God’s Spirit witnesses with our spirit about our truest identity, here God’s Spirit dwells with our spirit, and here our truest desires make themselves known. From this place we cry out to God for deeper union with him and with others.

Citation: Barton, Ruth Haley, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, InterVarsity Press 2006, p. 24

An awareness of need, of human vulnerability, and of God’s sufficiency is the beginning and the motivation for spiritual transformation.

And when we give ourselves to spirituality, desiring to experience more and more of God in Christ we are drawn into a deeper awareness of God’s power, love & forgiveness; all things which will make us stronger vessels to serve Him in our lifetime.

Did you hear the Spirit of God speaking through Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church?

1 Corinthians 2:6-7, 10-16

6We….. speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ……."

10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

God’s Spirit knows us; our brokenness and our needs better than we will ever know ourselves. So as we allow ourselves to draw closer to God; to enter into his presence, to hear His Word, to be touched by His Spirit, we are trusting God to strip away all that is false, arrogant and self-confident, and to be made new.

Consider the examples we are given in the New Testament:

- The Apostle John,,, a “Son of Thunder”, one who once sought a high position in heaven… is transformed over time into “The Apostle of Love”. Or

- The Apostle Peter; an arrogant, extremely self-confident fisherman, is formed by Jesus into a spirit-led preacher and humble leader of the early Church.

These transformations didn’t happen overnight, nor did they occur without great struggle and personal pain. When we cry out to Jesus with a longing to change, we must be ready to endure whatever is necessary for God to address our brokenness.

Pastoral training requires a certain amount of time spent in “Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). It is a place where, described in Henri Nouwen’s book, The Wounded Healer, pastors learn that in order to help others deal with their brokenness; we have to deal with our own, in light of God’s love and grace.

For most pastor, CPE is a painful time; a place where facades are shattered, where motivation is called into question. It is often a place of tears and insights into whom and what have formed us into the broken people we are. But when the brokenness is revealed, and one allows God’s Spirit to rebuild… to spiritually transform pastors, they then become stronger vessels to take God’s love and healing to others.

The biblical imagery of God as the potter and us as the clay is at the heart of spiritual formation; for we need God to mold and make us into the best we can be, even when it means starting all over again when we think we’re finished.

Can you, and are you willing to, name your deepest longing; even if it means changing how you live life; even if it means being wounded a while in order to experience God’s complete healing? Are you interested in true spirituality… a relationship, not a formula; an intimacy, not a competency? Are you motivated enough to risk entering into an intimate relationship with God where He might possibly strip away your “wants” so that He can offer you what you “need”?

Jesus Christ, God Almighty in flesh and blood has met us here today, and he asks “What do you want me to do for you?”

What is your answer?

This summer, as we explore some of the disciplines of the faith that create space and time for a deeper relationship with God, I’m going to be asking you to do things on Sunday mornings that may be new to some of you. For the most part, I will be inviting you to briefly share aspects of your faith with friends in small group settings, either before or after we celebrate our fellowship around the coffee table.

But this week, my assignment for you is easier.. a bit less threatening, but still designed to connect you with this morning’s message. So I am going to ask you to take the two discussion points listed at the bottom of your message insert, and to share your answers with a least two trusted friends as you drink coffee and eat Swedish coffeebread in our Fellowship Hall.

First,

1. Describe any occasions of spiritual transformation where God’s presence changed you in some way? Then secondly,

2. If Jesus were to say to you, “What do you want me to do for you?”, what would you say? (Describe your deepest longing for personal change.)