Sermon: We Don’t Spring Back
Text: Romans 13:11-14
Today’s scripture from Romans tells us, “Know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you. … For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.”
Buddhists believe that there is no permanent substance that we can call “Self” with a capital S. Between the former self and the next, who are we in transition?
We Christians believe and profess that we follow Jesus – the crucified and risen one. We bear witness that our lives as Christians should follow the example of Jesus – not just the selfless love, but the crucifixion, death and resurrection, as well. It is the journey in which we are all invited to participate from the moment we are baptised.
Now let me ask a question for us to reflect on as we begin our journey of Advent – What time is it for us now? Is it now the moment for us?
Recently I had a conversation with a church member. In the midst of our deep sharing, she asked how she could find hope when one day she sat and counted and realized that she had lost twenty-two people that she loved and cherished within just the past two years. Loss after loss, each one terrible on its own, all of them together creating a void of sadness. What time now would it be for her and for us, as we remember and revisit and recollect our memories of our loved ones – our friends and family members - who are still close to us in spirit in spite of their clear and obvious absence?
This week, I had my final internship evaluation process almost done, and I had to really face that my internship is coming to a close. I was quite emotional, thinking how much love I have received from this lovely congregation, lovely YOU, and how our love would continue to transform us all into the future. What time is it now for me and for you and for us in this crucible journey, in this intense, loving relationship of growth and change?
On October 17th, many of us suddenly received an email or phone call and heard the news that David had experienced a cardiac arrest in Vancouver and was in critical condition; on hearing this, many ended up in tears, including myself. We prayed with our whole hearts, but we also considered the possibility that we might hear bad news, the worst news. Yet, David was revived, came back home only a couple of weeks later, walking into our sanctuary like Lazarus on the first Sunday of November, with the love of his life, Lenore at his side. He welcomed us into his story of new-given life. What time was it then and is now for him and Lenore and their family and for us in this miracle – thank God for our doctors and nurses, but this was more than a medical miracle. This is a moment and process – so intense, it becomes transformative – that the experience changes our perspective on our life in the present and for the future and for our relationships: who are we with? What time are we living in? We can’t take granted for any minute, any relationship, after this experience of new life given through death.
When we reflect on our lives, we see every moment has a potential that can be enlightened and given full meaning by our witness of crucifixion, death and resurrection.
In the meantime, in this process of breaking, in this process of trans-figuration, we don’t SPRING BACK to who we were; we TRANSFORM to who we are to be. We always have something that we can learn from one another, guidance and wisdom, in this time of transformation.
A Filipina woman, Ninotchka Rosca, wrote a short article after the Philippines was hit by Typhoon Haiyan. She said “calling Filipinos resilient is an insult.” Here’s a quote:
“It was difficult to see and hear those words repeated in media reports, articles, military and even White House briefings: The Filipino people are resilient. A characterization which should raise anyone’s hackles, with its images of a jelly blob, quivering when punched, then quieting back to what it was before the rain of blows; sans sharpness, inert and passive, non-evaluating of what happens to its self. No, we are not resilient.”
I believe that the next part tells a piece of truth about we all experience in any hard transition for transfiguration, transformation. Rosca continues on, saying,
“WE BREAK, when the world is just too much, and in the process of breaking, are transformed into something difficult to understand. Or we take full measure of misfortune, wrestle with it and emerge transformed into something equally terrifying.”
“This is in sync with our indigenous worldview, expressed by our riddles, on which every Filipino child used to be raised: an understanding of reality, including ourselves, as METAMORPHIC (or capable of transformation.)”
A leaf by night;
a bamboo stalk by day.
- is how we look at ourselves. It is both what is and isn’t.
WE DON’T SPRING BACK. WE TRANSFORM.” The quote finishes here.
You can ask me for the full text of her article. She has more to say. Here is another testimony from our Christian community that I hope can guide us into a perspective that shines a light on what it means to be transformed and to transform.
Rev. Michael Lapsley, director of the Institute for Healing of Memories in Cape Town, South Africa, gave his testimony to the audiences of a big assembly of the World Council of Churches that was held in Busan, Korea, just one month ago. He said, “Please allow me to bear witness to my own journey of crucifixion, death and resurrection – a journey we are all invited to participate in through and since our baptism.”
In 1990, when the Reverend Lapsley was continuing to combat apartheid in South Africa, the same year that Nelson Mandela was released from jail after 27 years of imprisonment, the Apartheid state sent him a letter bomb hidden inside the pages of two religious magazines. He said, “As you can all see, I lost both of my hands, an eye and had damaged ear drums and…and. In the midst of great pain, I felt that God was with me. God had not stepped in and said ‘it is a bomb, don’t open it’. I OPENED IT. To me the great promise of scripture had been kept – “Lo I am with you always to the end of the age.” I felt that Mary who watched her son being crucified understood what it was that I was going through.”
The next part of his testimonial sermon is what I have been hoping to share for nearly two weeks and here it is. He said, “So today, I choose to walk beside others on their journey of healing – through the Institute for Healing of Memories. When I was in hospital coming to terms with the permanent character of my disability, I remembered once seeing an icon which showed Christ with one leg shorter than the other. The icon picked up the Isaiah 52 and 53 passages that the Messiah was marred beyond human semblance – disfigured... that none would desire him.”
I believe that I should stop here – I feel that I have given you a lot of material for thoughts and reflections. But let me make a sharp point here: we don’t spring back. We transform, all the more in the hardest circumstances we face and go through – we metamorphose like the Filipinos. We transform, sheltered by the God who is the ground of our being. Our hardest moments point us to the death of our ‘selves’ with a capital S and the need to compass our way to a new life, that we may have never expected or imagined before. Our heartbreak is like Mary watching her son being crucified, but still we transform with Christ. We transform into hope that can resurge only when we accept that we transform. Well, this is the time for that transformation, that hope. Advent is the time for it, not simply waiting for a holiday but for a transformation. May the Christ, our Lord and Saviour, who teaches us the way to resurrection through crucifixion and death, bless us with all our pains and challenges and cries and hopes. May this be the Advent blessing for us all this morning. Amen.
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