Your Spirit Is God’s Candle
Rev. Dr. Thomas M. Richard
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
January 8, 2012
Ezekiel 2:1-8 Luke 11:28-30

Some years ago, I heard this parable from Harrell Beck, a theologian at Boston University School of Theology.

Once upon a time the animals had a school. The curriculum consisted on running, jumping, flying, swimming, and climbing. All the animals had to take all the courses. The duck was good at swimming (better, in fact, than his teacher!), and he made passing grades at flying, but he failed miserably in running. (Have you ever seen a duck run?) Because he was low in the subject, he was made to stay after school and drop his swimming class, in order to practice running. He kept this up until he was only average in swimming – but average is acceptable, as we all know – so nobody worried about the whole thing, except for the duck, of course. The eagle was considered a problem student and was disciplined severely. She beat all the others to the top of the tree in the climbing class (but, of course, she used her own way of getting there). The rabbit started out at the top of her class in running, but she had a nervous breakdown and had to drop running because of so much make-up work in swimming. (Have you ever seen a rabbit swim?) The squirrel led the class in climbing, but then his flying teacher made him start, like all the rest, from the ground up, and he developed a Charlie-hoarse from over exertion on the take-off, and began getting C’s in climbing and D’s in running. The prairie dogs apprenticed their offspring to the Badger because the animal school board refused to add digging to the curriculum. Well, at the end of the year an abnormal eel that could swim well, run, fly and climb a little, and belonged to a group identified as marginalized, was made valedictorian of the class.

The job of learning and teaching our Faith is sometimes like that animal school. What are we trying to learn as Christians? What talents are we using or abusing in doing so? How well have we equipped people to use what they have learned? Are we using the talents God gave us?

I would love to have brought a bag of tricks and offer them to you but I have no simple answers. I would like to remind you, however, we are supposedly the people of God who are filled with the joys and challenges of being Christians. The worlds we live in can forego almost everything we do – except for what we know. This world can live with almost anything we do – more than they can live without what we know. Does that make sense to you?

What is the future of the past, which is entrusted to us – the people who know where the community of faith has been; who claim that the history of humanity is something more than dates and facts; and therefore, are the people who provide hope about where humans can go in their future? What is the future of this community of faith, which knows what it knows, and needs to share it?

First, I would like to suggest to you that teaching, learning, or practicing our faith requires that we take humanity seriously, and we Christians have not had a great track record for that. (We CAN rejoice in the tremendously heightened caring and love that has come as a result of tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and nuclear meltdowns. The Missionary Society has been so gratified that people have pulled up their sleeves and gone the site of these needs, they have contributed 100’s of thousand sod dollars over what we ever expected).

The work of Christianity, however, goes beyond disaster relief. The greater part of Christendom has had no problem believing in the divinity of Christ, but we have had a dickens of a time believing in his humanity!

It IS legitimate to be human, after all. Humanity was God’s idea! Dealing with humanity’s penchant for evil is something this world would like to blame on the devil or God. (You remember Flip Wilson’s show years ago? He had a character she developed named Geraldine. The character would put he hands on her hands and say “The devil made me do it!” Well, there is sin and evil in this world, but I don’t need to personalize it, as if it is outside humans’ mis-doings.

The meaninglessness of much of what we do with much of our time is evidence, I think, that we’ve not really sunk our teeth into the issues of the divine-human encounter – we haven’t really spent enough time on what it means to be human. A.E. Housman puts our time in perspective when he writes:

Yonder see the morning blink
The sun is up and so must I
To wash and dress and eat and drink
To look at things and watch and think
And God knows why

Neither the present day upsurge of fundamentalism (which disregards the humanity of Christ) nor the more liberal social gospel (which is casual about the faith encounter) quite gets to the point – Biblically put, “The spirit of humanity is God’s candle in this world.” Otherwise biblically put, from the great prophetic book of Ezekiel, “Child of humanity, stand on your feet, I want to talk to you!”

It becomes pretty important when we realize that it is God speaking to Ezekiel – and this passage is repeated several times in the prophet’s book.

I want to take a few moments to speak of two major ways of practicing our faith, and see how it is we can respond to God by taking up the candle of the Lord for the future of our world.

Jerry Lewis used to say the nicest present he ever received was a movie of his wedding service. When he and his wife got into an argument, he would go into his private home studio, lock the door, and run the film of his wedding backwards, and walked out of the room a free man!

This is precisely what a lot of well-intentioned Christian people are trying to do! If we stew around long enough in the second and third centuries then we won’t have to take today seriously. That is not what I mean by taking up the candle of the Lord to give light to this world. We have to take humanity seriously, the trials of humanity, seriously.

The first of the two ways we should be practicing our faith today is the prophetic way. If I understand what this means – it is that time in your life when you really grab hold of the ideas that God wants you to do something for the kingdom of God. Now, I’m the son of a Congregational Christian minister. I have grown up in our way all my life. This prophetic way, this moment or time when one is grabbed, has not been emphasized in our tradition. But I have to realize, more and more, that one cannot have a viable covenant with God that does not include without being able to point to a moment, a time in one’s life, an event which served as one’s resounding “Yes” to the Christian life. And, even if you are still a seeker, still looking for this moment or event, the time WILL come when you will be able to say, “yes” in a way you never could have imagined for yourself.

You may have felt some sense of being “called.” For others it may be that inner pull that says, “I WANT to live differently. I WILL live differently.” (You know the routine about diets, right? New Year’s resolution? I will lose weight.” By the Super Bowl, the diet is out the window!)

Don’t lose heart, however. Isaiah the prophet was called after he was anointed, ordained. Think about this. In the cases of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Hosea, it was in their call they received the heart of the caller’s message. In their call from God they received the burden of the message God wanted them to deliver to their world. The call – we are all called as they were – to be prophets to our present situation.

In this first tradition or way of doing our faith – we find the importance of the call. In that call we gain the ability to say critically – “Thus saith the Lord.” In you the Word of God suddenly becomes flesh!

The prophetic has as its message that once people were called to hear God’s word, but now, this day, you hear the word of God. You are being prophetic when you can say to yourself and others – “I hear it!” For my day I hear it! And, I’m ready to join those marching, writing letters, making statements, treating people justly and humbly, lovingly and caringly. I’m ready to join the fellowship of the reconciled who want to carry the candle of the Lord, into a world un-reconciled to itself.

You have gained the ability (if you will) to speak on behalf of God. And now, it is yours to teach and to learn with those in this congregation who have different gifts, to hear and to respond to their own calls.

The prophetic ministry is not popular these days, better to be “nice” don’t shake things up too much. Get by. Make people happy. But the prophetic way is not this at all. We teach and minister to this world with our knees shaking. So did the prophets of old. After all, you’re speaking on behalf of God! But, we must be willing to bear on our backs what was born of God in our hearts.

But here’s a warning – those who are willing to take the candle of God from the past to the future can never, ever, get on radio, television, or use any other means of communication to celebrate an increasing despair in the world. Why? Because people who carry God’s candle love people too much for that. Speak out and tell the world of its ways – speak the truth to injustice, speak the truth to apathy, but don’t be apathetic.

And here’s a request – and believe me I’m the last person to talk about this – but if you’re going to carry God’s prophetic candle – do it with some style. You know what I mean? To imagine that on Sunday morning at our worship services we should be dreary, that our Sabbath day should be dreary – I mean, really! Sometimes the teaching is harsh, the learning is difficult, but it’s never dreary.

Now, I’m not talking about soupy, syrupy, cuddly, everything-is-beautiful either. Look, Amos did not go out into the woods to preach to the streams and the trees and the lilies, or listen to the ocean breezes. Hardly! He got people so riled up about God’s message that they stoned him, they threw rocks at him!

Halford Luccock used to say that prophets are the only twice-stoned people in history – they were stoned when they delivered words about injustice, and later on, when people understood what they really meant, they stoned them again!

Let’s have some style to our prophetic ministry together. This is the Lord’s Day! This is exciting, earth shattering, world-changing stuff we’re doing here today!

But there’s another way of doing our faith. This is the apocalyptic way of doing God’s work. You see, the prophetic among us tell us that we ought to be doing this and that and then tomorrow we ought to vote for this or that, work for this or that, care for this or that…

The apocalyptic says ”in the world of tomorrow”….” Let me explain. I think if you looked in the New Testament you would see that our Lord was both. He was prophetic, no question about it. But he was also apocalyptic. But since his time, there have not been any who could do both and hold on. We have either chosen one or the other.

We seem to either talk about God’s providence, heaven, the sweet by and by, God’s peaceable kingdom where we are called to ultimately be, and we forget the other side of our call – the prophetic. There’s important work to be done for the kingdom, and God is using us to bless humanity with that work. Or, we do the opposite – we charge off to do good and we forget to put the hope of its success with God’s tomorrow.

But dreaming of tomorrow is just dreaming if you are not willing to make this dream of God’s come true. Every major movement in our history has happened because those who were yearning and dreaming decided to be prophetic AND apocalyptic.

I’m sorry, but you hear this stuff on television and the radio. “We’re all going to hell. (The end is near. The 11th hour is passed. Satan has had his day and the world is now being judged. There’s not much time left”” We hear all kinds of predictions that the end is near – that we are living in the ”end times.” Isn’t it curious, though, how’s there’s always just enough time before the world ends to send your contribution in?! And, because of the desperation with which we tend to live today, we send our money, just in case.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of being scared into hell. That is not the Gospel I’m translating. Doing one’s faith based on fear is to be working against God’s grace, and with no real hope.

No, I’d rather be singing “When I get to heaven I’m going to take off my shoes and walk all over God’s heaven…” and know that I also decided to participate in the creation of it. To dream of heaven and go about being one of God’s candles to lighten and enlighten the world about in justice, apathy, intolerance, and prejudice.

So... what does it mean to carry the candle of the Lord? What is our purpose? God said, "You shall be my people.” This means we are candle carriers for a humanity (which God loves) in need of light. Heaven will come to those who take a candle and light up this world. You are the person God wants – you, not someone else in your stead.

This is important for us to hear about our own calling. But this is also important for you to hear about your calling as a community of faith. God wants dreamers and prophets in this Church. Today you may be saying, “I want to be a candle-lighter,” but then are you willing to have your calling shaped and refined by others?

There are two things I love in my life – I love lots of people, but I love two things. Candles and flowers. So, I want to close with another metaphor for you.

Way back Jesus said, “Consider the lilies of the field….” Don’t laugh, but I want to be a flower in the garden of God. I would pray that for you. God didn’t promise you a garden of roses, but God said, “I want you to be a flower in my garden.”

Strive to be a flower in the garden. Take your chances among the in the winds and the rains and the storms and the sunshine. Understand that you are planted with a whole variety of flowers – such as you are here in this Church. There are pansies, petunias, phlox, people in all sorts of shapes and textures and colors, shapes and attitudes. Grow among the clinging vines and the climbing vines, and the brush and the shrubs. Allow a few daisies in!

Don’t mind those times when you stand stationary as a rose in a bud vase. Be happy to light up just one condition in life.

Above all, allow God to make you something beautiful to this world. May someone look at you, and you, and you, and say, “Hmmm…she reminds me of a rose, a flower… or the light of a candle.”

And could someone also say, “He looks and acts like someone who cares, who loves people for God’s sake, who conjures up the past to light the way of the future.”

That’s what I would hope for your ministry, and for the people you teach, and with whom you learn in this school of faith called First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa. A flower, a candle…God’s beauty, light. After all, your spirit IS God’s candle.