Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Philippians 4:4-9

November 18, 2007

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

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A few years ago there was a wonderful movie released called, Cast Away. The main character, Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, is a workaholic executive for Federal Express. As the story opens, we find him coaching and cheerleading the staff of one of the FedEx international shipping offices, in order to increase their enthusiasm and efficiency. He's very good at what he does. On the return flight however, his plane crashes into the sea and he finds himself stranded and alone, for four long years, on an island in the Pacific. The movie ends up being a fascinating study of human nature and survival.

There was one scene that I especially liked. During his time on the island, Chuck makes a number of unsuccessful attempts to escape on a raft, but the waves keep driving him back to the island. He's all but given up hope of being rescued. Then, one day the sea washes some flotsam up on to the beach. It turns out to be a large piece of plastic that had once been part of a Porta-Potty type Outhouse. Chuck sets it up on the beach, and then he sits back and stares at it, and stares at it, and stares at it, without a word, as what seem to be hours or maybe days pass by. Finally, a look crosses his face and he says simply, "That could work." After all that sitting and staring, an idea has popped into his mind that proves to be his ticket off the island. He turns the old Porta-Potty into a sail for his raft, which gives him just the extra push he needs to break free of the Island's current. He manages to make it out to the shipping lanes and is picked up by a passing freighter.

When I think about reflection, it is images like this that come to mind: sitting and staring until an idea pops into our heads. Of course, the staring isn't really necessary. Chuck could just as easily closed his eyes, although I not sure that would have served the movie very well. But the point is, at such times what's really going on, what's really important, is what's happening behind the eyes, not in front of them. What's really going on is reflection.

Now of all the points of Vital Christianity that Diana Bass invites us to consider, this is probably the one we're least likely to argue with. In her book, she talks about it as one of the classic divides between more and less evangelical Christianity. She says that Vital Mainline churches tend to be places that encourage people to think for themselves. There's a great little paragraph in her chapter on reflection that sums it up nicely:

Unfortunately, church people often pit the mind against the heart. Some simply ignore the mind in favor of experience; others reduce intellectual endeavor to memorizing approved dogma or Bible verses. In many religious circles, the life of the mind is deemed dangerous because of its potential to challenge authority or reject church teachings. Being a "good" Christian, whether Protestant or Catholic, means that asking the wrong sort of question is off-limits. Thus, Christian education is often a closely guarded process - geared to provide approved answers and protect Christians from thinking too hard about complex issues. Many churches encourage thinking - as long as you think like everyone else.

I'm sure you know that there are churches like that around; quite a lot of them actually. But I don't imagine anyone who actually knows us would confuse us with that kind of church. We're very big on thinking for ourselves. We are not a dogmatic church, we pay little attention to church authority, we rarely spend time memorizing Bible verses, and we do not think the mind is dangerous or that there are questions that are off-limits. On the contrary, we greatly value the gifts of mind, curiosity and reflection. Having a right to our own opinion is something we normally take for granted. So, in our case, I don't feel much need to argue in favor of a right to reflect. I would be preaching to the choir. For us, the more important question is, are we exercising that right? Is reflection something we are actually doing?

Of course, we think about things all the time. But this morning, we're not just talking about reflection in general. We're talking about the kind of reflection people need to be doing in order to be a vital congregation. Bass talks about churches that make a regular practice out of Bible Study and theological reflection. She lifts up congregations where people are continually encouraged to think about who God is and what God wants them to do with their lives. It's not the only thing that makes for vitality, but it is important.

Now, this morning, I have to tell you that I got just this far in my sermon, and I didn't know where to go with it. You see, for me, reflection is a little like breathing. I do it all the time: morning, noon and night, and pretty often in the middle of the night as well. Sometimes I think if my brain ever stopped spinning I wouldn't know who I was. I'd like to ask you, if you would, if you ever find me not reflecting just please check my pulse. Reflection is not something anyone has to convince me is important. But all this week, I've been reflecting about reflecting and it's been driving me nuts. All my thoughts have started feeding back in on themselves, like some computer virus, and it's made it very hard to write.

This much I know. We are a church that values thinking for ourselves. And because we value that, we've always tried to provide lots of opportunities for people to reflect: sermons, newsletters, forums after church, Bible and book studies - a couple of weeks ago I even started a Blog on Village Soup. Now, certainly we could make more opportunities available to you. We hear from time to time that people would like more and we always try to respond. I'd be happy to hear if there is a time slot during the week that would work for another class. If you have an idea, let me know. Basically, though, we do and will continue to have lots of opportunities to reflect on our faith: how it applies to what's going on in our lives and in the world. That's just something we do.

About three weeks ago, though I had a very interesting experience that's been on my mind ever since. As you know, we have an all-church e-mail message that goes out once a week. There are about 150 people on the address list, so I know at least some of you are receiving and reading it. This is one of the major ways in which we are connecting with the congregation these days. And if you know about the e-mail, you also know that I've been in the practice of writing a little blurb at the bottom of it, offering a thought or two. About three weeks ago I got an idea. I said to myself, "Gee, wouldn't it be great if people would ask me questions. I spend a great deal of time preparing all these sermons, newsletters and blogs and it takes a lot of ideas to keep all these things going. Wouldn't it be great if I could know what the congregation is interested in hearing me talk about?" So, in my e-mail I said what I'd really like is for you to ask me questions. Tell me what it is you want me to talk about. What I found interesting is that in the last three weeks, since I sent out that request, I have gotten exactly one response.

Now, I want you to know that I don't take it personally. I feel very well loved by this congregation and I hope you know that I love you all right back. But I find myself, "reflecting." (I do that a lot.) What does it mean, I wondered, if you have no questions? I was reminded of a time when I was in the Coast Guard, in Radioman school. I'd finished high school a couple of year's earlier feeling that I never wanted to see the inside of a classroom again. But to my surprise, I was actually fascinated to be back in school learning new things. Radioman school was a five-month program in which we had to learn typing, Morse code, teletype and a slug of radio protocols. I enjoyed it all, but I especially liked the class on radio wave theory. I had my hand up in the air all the time.

The instructor tried to address the questions I had, but after awhile he got a little frustrated. He started saying, "You know, you don't need to know that." And I said, "Really?" A couple days later, the Chief, who was one of the directors the school, came into the class and said he'd like to see me. We walked out back of the school where there was little stump. He sat me down on it and stood over me. Then he told me that I was disrupting the class. There were a lot of people, he said, who were struggling to get just the basic information they needed in order to pass. For me to keep asking questions about things I didn't "need to know" was making it hard for others to learn what they did need to know. Basically, he said, I had to knock it off. But he wasn't unsympathetic. He said to me - and I'll never forget this - he said, "I know you have a lot of questions now. But, you're young. You'll grow out of it." Now, my friends, it's hard to convey how stunned I was when he said that. I have rarely in my life felt such a sense of pity. To me this comment said a lot about who he was. But sitting there on the stump, I realized that he didn't have a clue who I was, which was really okay, because, I thought, he didn't have a "need to know."

Questions, for me, are a sign of life. They're a sign of vitality, a sign of interest and engagement. I've always been a little afraid I might someday reach the point where I just don't have any anymore. So when I ask for questions and don't get any back, I'm not quite sure how to read that. I'm not sure if it means that no one is interested. I'm not sure if it means that you've gotten all your theological and philosophical questions answered already? If that's the case, let me say I completely understand. Philosophy can be so heavy. I do philosophy a lot and I've seen people's eyes glaze over enough to know that it doesn't turn everyone on like it does me.

But something else occurs to me. For all my love of questions, there are times when I'm not much interested in asking any, and usually, it's when I'm just really feeling worn out. You know, I think there's a lot of that going on right now. It's going on in the church, in larger society in the world. People, lots of us, are just plain worn out. We're worn out from trying to deal with all of the junk that's coming at us from every conceivable direction. The war weighs on us all the time. Global Warming, oh my. You know, every time I hear weather report these days I think about Global Warming. So many of the reports are bad, or just out of the ordinary. But even when I hear a report that is normal, I find myself thinking, "Boy it's been awhile since I've heard one of those."

That's heavy, and that's scary. We don't know where we're headed. And when we look at the future of the church - which is what we're doing with this whole Vital Conversation we've been having - we look at the church and wonder if there's even going to be a future. And that's a legitimate question. It could be were not much interested in asking questions right now because we're not sure we're going to like the answers we come up with. It could mean a lot of different things. Perhaps it's just that we're not feeling really vital at the moment. It's hard to talk about vitality, if it's taking all our energy just to get through the day. I know how that feels. I've been feeling like that a lot lately.

So that's what was going through my mind this week when I tried to figure out what to do with this sermon on reflection. I thought to myself, "Well, maybe I should talk about what I've actually been reflecting on." And that's it. Not so terrific huh? Of course, I look for signs, and I believe there are signs, of hope for our future. There was a wonderful piece on NPR earlier this week about young people, college-age people, who are in the green movement. One of the things they said was that these young people are well aware of the problems we are facing, but that they live with a "determined optimism," toward the future. I love that phrase, determined optimism. It's not an optimism based in illusion or fantasy. It's an optimism that says, "We know we've got problems, but we're determined to do what we can to solve them. We're determined to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. We're determined not to be overwhelmed by everything that's going on." I love that, and I need to hear it. And right about now, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that you need to hear it too.

Paul was right, in his lovely passage that Susan read you this morning. There are some wonderful things we need to think about: whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever his just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. That's part of the antidote, I think, to our fears and anxieties: not to be unrealistic, but to have a determined optimism; to think about and to seek out what is good, what is true and what is beautiful, and to make them part of our lives and our fellowship. In my mind, I picture myself sitting on a beach, scratching at my head and saying, "Well, that could work." And it's certainly worth a try.

Amen.