As of today, Dr. Forrest Church is still dying from cancer. Perhaps a more accurate, certainly a more gracious and, from his perspective, a more honest way to say the same thing, is that Dr. Forrest Church is continuing to live with cancer. For the past 30 years, Forrest Church has been the Senior Pastor of All Souls Church in New York City, a post he stepped down from in October 2006, when he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and told then that he had three to six months left to live. Dr. Church, whose father was Frank Forrester Church III, a Democratic senator from Idaho, has long outlasted his doctors’ grim forecasts. His cancer went into remission after his esophagus was removed in November 2006, but tumors were found again this past February. Once again, Dr. Church was given half a year to live. Now, nearly one year later, Forrest Church is still continuing to live with cancer. He is an inspiration—not only because of his persistence about living life fully—but he has inspired millions through his 24 books, and thousands through his preaching of 30 years worth of sermons. Countless troubled souls have found comfort from his pastoring, and more have been challenged by his prophetic and courageous leadership over these past 30 years.
Living with cancer has brought to this preacher, prophet, and pastor a new mantra for living. It is this:Want what you have,
Do what you can,
Be who you are.
For three of the four weeks in January, we’ll be exploring together this three-part mantra, and today we begin with the first phrase: want what you have.
Seems an appropriate and timely thought, given our gorging on the holiday season just past. Want what you have…yeah, right. Try telling that to a young child who is being conditioned by advertising to plead for the latest game or brightest toy. Or try convincing the teen in your home or your own spouse that you all can live quite nicely without Wii or Apple iPhone or a new digital camera or any of the other top 10 Christmas gifts for 2008.
Or perhaps you, like John and me, decided early on in December to spend time rather than money this year. So it is that we enjoyed a delightful two days with our pilot son, another few days with good friends, and extra time throughout the month for reading and talking that was freed up by our decision not to decorate or send out holiday cards!
Want what you have…for this past month, this mantra has made a difference in my purchasing, in my receiving, and in my decisions. However intentional I have been trying to be about this “want what you have” business, the past week proved a real challenge. A week ago Saturday, John’s car was stolen. Surprisingly, not from our church parking lot, where it was often parked for days on end, unguarded and off the beaten track. No, it was parked in front of Barnes & Noble, in broad daylight, on one of the busiest post-Christmas shopping days; and while John was in the bookstore and I was preparing to officiate at a small wedding here at church, that old ’91 Toyota was hotwired and driven away. Want what you have…I thought as John called me to tell me that either he was losing his memory or someone had taken the car. Want what you have…I thought as we moved together from shock to dismay to strategizing and finally to humor. What we have now, I thought, is one car, two jobs in towns separated by 30 miles of freeway, one house many miles away, and no money set aside for a new vehicle. Want what you have…yeah, right!
Though I didn’t think about it at the time, later as Spirit and I were preparing this morning’s message, I wondered if the prophet Jeremiah or the author of the first-century letter to the Ephesians or Jesus himself ever became entrapped by the consumerism of their respective centuries. Today’s passages would suggest “yes!” Each seems to make a striking central point about God’s grace, God’s loving guidance, God’s never-ending kindness and patience. In reading these three passages together, as we have done this morning, it feels as if behind them lie the same temptations to consume, the same desire to accumulate stuff and more stuff, the same overwhelming and ultimately vain search for meaning in things. Over and over again, almost in contrast to this unseen temptation to consume, the scripture authors argue that God’s grace has been, is, and will be sufficient for ALL our needs.
In the passage from John’s gospel we just heard—for the third time this Christmas season—we learn that God’s reach of grace goes far beyond every obstacle within or without, and pushes us beyond those obstacles, too. We learn that a great light has dawned…a light that shines on all people and calls us to live our lives illuminated by its truth. That’s what the Epiphany season is about, according to Herman Waetjen, longtime Christian Scripture professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary, who writes: “If the light has come, those who have been seated in darkness awaiting its arrival are exhorted to greet that light and the new age that it inaugurates by shining in order to reflect its glory in all the activities and relationships of everyday life...to be the light of the world.” Waetjen puts it simply by quoting W.H. Auden’s poem, For the Time Being:
“To discover how to be human
now
is the reason we follow this star.”
Scholar James Howell concurs, noting that following the light that has burnished itself into the shadows means that nothing will ever be the same; “You don’t take the old road any longer. You unfold a new map, and discover an alternate path.” And yet, that is one of the points of the reading from John’s gospel—that the transcendent, beyond-words God took on flesh, came to us, found us, sought us out, took on our own existence, with its pains, its sorrows, its vulnerability and joys. This God is near at hand, the One who understands what you are struggling with, what we as a nation, a state, a community, a congregation are struggling with, understands even what we cannot yet put into words. Such is grace…and we have it…and if we follow the sage advice of Dr. Forrest Church, we’d be better off if we could actually want what we have.
In the Ephesians passage, we are told unequivocally that God gives each of us four holiday gifts. Our acceptance of these gifts will do more to improve our lives than any flat-screen TV or iPod or gadget in the current marketplace. First, God is blessing us with every spiritual blessing…meaning that no matter what happens in the Barnes & Noble lot or anywhere else, spiritually we will be ok. Second, God is adopting us as sons and daughters…meaning that even if our original families disappoint us and we them, God is offering us a new family with God as our loving parent. Third, God is forgiving us for everything that would distract us from God’s grace…this may be the most difficult of the gifts for us to accept, for it does also mean forgiving ourselves for our mistakes. Fourth, God is already planning and preparing our inheritance…hence no worries about our ultimate future are really even necessary. These gifts come without strings attached. Good behavior is not a prerequisite. No reciting of the correct creed or believing in the right deity is necessary. God is overflowing with an abundance of grace, and it is for all people…no exceptions…even you…even me… Such is the gift of God’s grace…and we have it…already…today…and, again, if we follow the sage advice of Dr. Forrest Church, our lives in this new year will be positively affected if we can actually want what we have.
Finally, we look back thousands of years to the prophet Jeremiah. He is writing in the wake of the most damaging time in the history of the people Israel. It is the exile. They have been violently removed from their homes. Their worship life has been destroyed. Their leadership gone. They are learning, little bit by little bit, to eek out a new life in Babylon, and they are not one bit happy about any of it. Jeremiah looks through Spirit’s eyes to a bright future as he describes God’s hand leading the people in a joyful return from exile. He provides a tender picture of the way God continues to reach out to save the people. We hear of joyful return, of homesickness healed, of the far-away God coming near, of darkness overpowered by light of God’s compassion, God’s understanding and God’s wisdom. We can almost hear the promised brooks of water; taste the hoped for wine and oil; frolic, if only in our mind’s eye, in the watered garden filled with the goodness of God’s love for us. “My people,” assures God, “my people will be satisfied with my bounty…!” When will this promised time happen, we may wonder as we sit looking at the parking place where our stolen car was once parked. When will it be my turn, God, we may ask as our job evaporates or our investments dwindle or retirement moves even further onto the distant horizon. Yet look around you, my friends in Christ! Look around! There is bounty and beauty and wonder and love in each and every direction. This is God’s bounty, and it is for us! This is God’s grace, and if we could only want what we already have, can’t you see how your own life would flourish?
These three passages, you see, are strung together by a common thread—like popcorn and cranberries on a Christmas tree—and that common thread is the grace of God which surrounds us always. As if it were air, we are invited by our loving God to breathe in God’s grace. Like water, we are urged to drink deeply every day. As if ground, we are assured we can plant ourselves firmly in the good earth of God’s grace. Like fire, we are nudged to feel the passion of God’s grace warming us, burning the dross that encumbers us, and bringing into the shadows, a light that will never be overcome. Want what we have…want God’s grace…and, no matter what happens to us, we will not feel slighted.
Forrest Church explains the relevance of this part of the mantra in his own life.
“Wanting what we have mutes the pangs of desire, which visit from an imaginary future to cast a shadow on the present…Those who know my mantra sometimes test me with it. ‘So, Forrest, do you really want cancer?’ ‘I want what I have,’ I reply. ‘To selectively eliminate all pain from our lives may work, for a brief time, for a drunkard or drug addict, but we cannot selectively wish away all that is wrong with us without including all that is right.’ Each day that I am sick,” he continues, “I pray for the sun to come up, for people to love me, for manageable tasks that I can still accomplish, for a little extra courage, for reality to blow all the debris off my plate. In short, I back away from the dedarkened windowpane of my health to gain a prospect of the whole window I am blessed to look through. The light then dances again in my daughter, Nina’s eyes. I laugh once more at my little foibles. My son, Frank, and I celebrate the Mets’ acquisition of an all-star pitcher. I call my dear friends…on the phone and talk for an hour about everything under the sun. Yes, I kvetch at unseemly waits at the chemo center (until I realize how many other folks have cancer and are waiting in line for their treatments also). I fall into a sour humor when my body wears down and cannot do what I want it to (until I shift gears and tackle something that lies well within my powers, like a moderately difficult sudoku or one of Robin Hobb’s splendid fantasy novels, where almost every character is doing worse than I am). I even snap at my wife…when she tries too hard to fatten me up for the kill. But that, too, eventually is good for a laugh. So I do want what I have, even as I do what I can…Pray for the right things,” Forrest concludes, “and your prayers will be answered.”
Our ancient friends in scripture and our distant friend who is living with cancer in New York City guide us this day. Pray for God’s grace… Accept God’s grace as it magnifies itself in people, places, events, conversations, tasks… Reflect God’s grace as water reflects sun and air dances with the winds of the Spirit… And, surely, you will want exactly what you already have in 2009! By the way, John’s stolen car was found four days later—well past the time when most stolen cars that will be returned are returned. We had, by that point, already purchased a new used car for him, and I hope that in this new year, we will continue to want these surprises of the Spirit that we already have!
