Skip to main content

Introduction to Worship for 7/23/2017

By

Looking Ahead—Seven Weeks on “Gifts of the Dark Wood,” by Eric Elnes: 

I want to prepare you for the rest of the summer, starting on July 23, when we will be exploring the ideas raised by Eric Elnes in his book called “Gifts of the Dark Wood: Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics.”
     Dr. Elnes writes, “This book is about finding your place in the world at the very point where you feel furthest from it. It’s about recognizing the fierce beauty and astonishing blessing that exists within experiences that most of us fear but none of us can avoid…failure, emptiness, and uncertainty are as critical for finding our way through life as they are unavoidable” (p. 2).
     Dr. Elnes takes the expression “the Dark Wood” from Dante Alighieri, who wrote in the Divine Comedy that the Dark Wood was a place of stumbling, of turning away from God because of sin and terror. Yet there is also a strong tradition in Christianity that insists that the Dark Wood is the place where you meet God. In the Dark Wood, facing the unknown and embracing the unknowable, you “bring all your shortcomings with you… to embrace them in such a way that your struggles contribute meaningfully to the central conversation God is inviting you to have with life.”
     Using the book as a conversation partner, I will be preaching on the seven gifts that Dr. Elnes identifies: Uncertainty (July 23), Emptiness (July 30), Being Thunderstruck (August 6), Getting Lost (August 13), Temptation (August 20), Disappearing (August 27), and Misfits (September 3). During the series, I’ll be starting from scripture, as is my custom, so the blog posts will focus on the reading that we’ll be using in worship each week.
     If you would like to read the book, please let us know in the office, and we’ll order a few more copies. (We read this in the book study group last winter and everyone agreed that it would be a good sermon series.)

The Gift of Uncertainty

The Scripture lesson for this week is 1 Corinthians 13: 8b–13. This is the less-familiar half of Paul’s famous chapter on love, and it is reflecting on a lifetime of trying to live faithfully in an uncertain world. The people of Corinth have been arguing over “the right way” to do things in their lives together, and have experienced hurt and splits and destructive behavior because of the power struggles involved. After begging the people to remember that EVERYONE plays an important role, and to work together in Christ, Paul launches into the beautiful hymn of love. And at the end, he pauses, and reflects on what maturity is.
     Spiritual maturity comprises three gifts: faith, hope, and love, and they are the tools we need to walk in the dark—to live together and work together in times of uncertainty. Dr. Elnes writes:

“The call of the Holy Spirit, as inviting as it is, also tends to shake things up and bears with it a particular Dark Wood gift: the gift of uncertainty.
     “To most people uncertainty seems more like a curse than a gift. when you cannot see the endpoint of your journey, or the path ahead is not clearly marked, you grow nervous…
     “Yet religion does a disservice when it seeks to remove uncertainty from life. Have you ever noticed how the more certainty a religion claims to deliver, the more frenzied and hysterical are its adherents? The fact of matter is that life is messy and no amount of doctrine or dogma changes this. Faith built upon certainty is a house of cards that falls apart when the ‘unshakable foundation’ shifts even slightly” (p. 25).

Elnes encourages the distinction between “certainty” and “trust”, and argues that an approach to life that trusts that uncertainty is a mystery to be explored, rather than a problem to be denied, opens us to the possibility of being surprised by God. When we embrace uncertainty, we allow space for the Spirit to act.

Connecting Faith and Life

  • Do you tend to approach life as a problem to be solved, or a mystery to be lived? 
  • What kinds of people tend to be problem solvers? 
  • Are there any parts of life that simply cannot be solved? 
  • What are some spiritual practices that you think might help people become more comfortable with mystery?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Worship for 4/30/2017

By
Followers of the Way: Renowned Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan made a profound statement about this week’s gospel reading. “Emmaus never happened,” Crossan wrote. “Emmaus always happens.” What we are invited to grapple with in that statement is the truth that the factual (historical) significance of the resurrection stories is secondary to a more profound truth: the risen Christ is with us. Now. Here. That is what the early church began to learn, and it is what enabled them to move on. Luke 24:13–35 The exact location of Emmaus is not known. Perhaps this uncertainty forms a commentary on the focus scripture. Emmaus may be anywhere. Hearts burning and eyes opening do not take place in only one place, either geographical or spiritual. Emmaus comes into sight wherever a path leads us toward communion with God and whenever we recognize the risen Christ among us. On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, two disciples walk along the road to Emmaus with Jesus, informing this “strange
1 comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 9/3/2017

By
Misfits: As we come to the close of our journey through the Dark Wood, we are considering one final gift. Eric Elnes calls this the gift of “Misfits,” and by that he means two things. The first is the experience each of us sometimes has of being a misfit in our cultural context or our community, when it seems that who we are and what we want is at odds with the world around us. And the second is the gift of others who are also misfits, who guide and challenge us along the way as we strive to find our place and our purpose in God’s commonwealth together. He names this second category of misfits as “mentors”, and invites us to identify and to keep regular contact with those who can mentor us toward living fully in the gospel, and keep us from becoming too comfortable on the wrong paths. Psalm 137: 1–6 The Psalm is the classic cry of the broken hearted, finding themselves in a faraway land and a world that does not value “Zion”—the reign of God on earth. By crying out their grief a
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 5/7/2017

By
Glad and Generous Hearts: The image of Jesus as Good Shepherd is the most common one to be found in the catacombs. In days when Christianity was not yet legal, this symbol clearly evoked Jesus to those within the community, but was just another image for those outside. One source for this image is the parable of the shepherd who hunts for a lost sheep; another is the 10th chapter of John in which Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd. Yet there are other images, too, such as descriptions of things the early church did that were “shepherd-like” in caring for others. How we emulate the shepherd we follow is a key part of being Christian. Acts 2:42–47 As noted in verse 42, the rituals and practices of teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer define the early Christians. Their life together sets the stage for the Spirit’s continuing work of empowering witnesses to proclaim, in word and deed, God’s saving love that comes through Christ. This community of Jesus’ fol
Post a Comment
Read more