Old South Sermons:

25

by Quinn G. Caldwell, Associate Minister

Mark 1: 29-39, Isaiah 40:21-31

February 8, 2009

Listen to this sermon

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Will you pray for me? Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Old South member Kate Silfen loves cupcakes with white frosting. (#4)

Church Council member Ken Fisher has a tattoo of a dragon. (#12)

Kate Grant always falls asleep during movies. (#6)

Bright light causes Amber Kendall to sneeze. (#22)

Jim Hood loves popcorn and watermelon (#4)

I still have my childhood blankie, and his name is Kooey. (#2)

Anyone who’s been on Facebook any time in the last two weeks will know exactly what I’m talking about. Everyone else, let me explain. First of all, Facebook is a social networking Website. It works like this: each person has her own page, where she can post photos, videos, stories, and her own random comments about the status of her life. Users can link their profiles to the profiles of their friends, and then play games, share information and content, and just generally waste time. In the last couple of weeks, a movement has been taking Facebook, and through it the rest of the Internet, by storm. It’s called “25 Random Things About Me”, and at its root, it’s a chain letter. The letter is just what it sounds like: one writes 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about oneself, and then sends the list on. Etc.

The phenomenon is huge enough that Time Magazine¹, Good Morning America, and the New York Times² all did pieces on it in the last four days. You’ll find one in the Lifestyle section of the Globe this morning³. Facebook executives say that the vast majority of the 5 million notes added to their site in the last week were “25 Random Things” posts. The whole thing is snowballing so fast, in fact, that I just want to warn you that the fad may well have jumped the shark by the time this sermon is over. (For those of you who don’t know, “jumped the shark” means “stopped being cool”.)

Needless to say, the cultural forces driving the fad are being endlessly debated. Is it a writing exercise, made easier by the lack of thesis or transitions? Is it a narcissistic pastiche, designed to give us all a chance to stare in the mirror while pretending that’s not what we’re doing? Is it a cry for help?

Maybe all of them, but it’s also a chance to say something about who we are in a world that all too often labels and defines us for us. It’s a chance to tell people what moves us (for Alliea Groupp, it’s Les Miserables, the book not the show, #2) and shapes our lives (for Ken Fisher, it’s being a dad, #6). It’s also a way to be noticed, to get people’s attention and to be commented upon.

Mostly though, it’s just fun. And friends, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the world, and the country, and the economy are in pretty rough shape right now, so maybe fun, especially free fun that brings us a little closer to people we know, is just what we need.

So, because I think that the stories our Bible tells are first and foremost God’s declaration of who God is, because they are God’s attempts to tell us what moves God and what God cares about, are God trying and trying to be noticed, and because maybe just a little bit of levity is called for in days like these, herewith is my list of 25 Random Things about God—based on Isaiah 40 and Mark 1.

1. God usually doesn’t do chain letters and lists like this. He wants you to know that he is only doing it because so many people tagged him in theirs, and he was feeling guilty about not responding.

2. God finds us extremely annoying, especially when we forget what we’ve been told. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Have you not been told these things from the beginning?” God says through Isaiah. It’s clear: God thinks of us the same way Jim Hood thinks of people who put cigarette butts in the planters outside his building (#12): annoying.

3. God loves us anyway: those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, says Isaiah.

4. God is an introvert, if today’s story from Mark is to be believed; Jesus is always departing to lonely places to pray.

5. Actually, on second thought, it may be that only Jesus is an introvert; after all, God chose to create the world when she could have chosen to spend eternity alone. Plus, God does seem to appreciate it when we talk to her. So, on second thought: a correction: the Parent is an extravert, and the Son is an introvert.

6. This one time, when God was 5 bazillion years old, he came to earth as a human being. The whole thing ended up being totally painful and humiliating, but he learned a lot and accomplished a bunch, and in retrospect, he’s glad to have had such an important experience.

7. God feels about demons the same way Courtney Wright feels about people with backpacks on crowded subway trains (#23), Jennie Dineen feels about calendars (#11), and Amber Kendall feels about tater tots (#3), which is that they should be cast out.

8. Unlike Courtney, Jennie, and Amber, Jesus has the power to do something about the thing that vexes him. The story tells us that Jesus so hates the demons of compulsion and addiction and illness that take over our lives that he will bring the very power of the creator of heaven and earth to bear in driving them out.

9. God may well be a feminist. After Peter’s mother-in-law is healed, she serves Jesus. The Greek word for “serves” is the same word that is used for what Deacons do elsewhere in the New Testament (in fact, it’s the word from which our word “Deacon” is derived), and the same word used for the angels that wait on Jesus during his Temptation in the desert. Peter and Andrew may be the first disciples, but Peter’s mother-in-law is the first Deacon, and as important as the angels.

10. OK, OK, God knows it’s trite and totally like a bumper sticker, but still: God loves you just the way you are, and loves you too much to let you stay that way. Exhaustion, possession, stumbling, falling: these are not the ends that God has in mind for you, Isaiah says. God has better things in store for you, things like running, serving, praising, flying.

11. The easiest way to perceive God is as Isaiah says: in nature, in the infinitude of the sky, the glory of the stars, the cycles of growth and renewal. The hardest place to perceive God is as Jesus shows: right here, right now, in the humans around us. Anybody can feel close to God on a mountain; the challenge and goal is to feel close to God in the humanity around us. And as Abby Henderson, who was completely miserable in middle school (#3), can tell you, finding God in the people around you can be difficult indeed.

12. And yet, ever since what happened with Jesus, a God with flesh on is the only kind of God we know. A God that can be crucified is all we have; a God that can conquer crucifixion is our only hope.

13. In God’s zeal to love this world into a whole new way of being, God will never ever stop until God’s purposes are realized. Until the realm of God is fully here and all we know has found its fulfillment. Isaiah says that God will never sleep. Unlike Alliea Group, who loves sleep, and me, who loves naps (#’s 7 and 20, respectively).

14. God finds us annoying, especially when we whine. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?

15. God loves us anyway. “They shall run and not grow weary, walk and not faint.”

16. Actually, if what Isaiah says is true, it’s more than just loving us. If what Isaiah says is true, God feels about us the same way Kate Silfen feels about Fleetwood Mac (#3): we are her favorites.

17. As Isaiah points out, God is so ridiculously past the limits of our puny, time-bound comprehension that we cannot even begin to approach, apprehend, or understand God.

18. And yet, God finds our dinner parties irresistible [gesturing toward full communion table], and never turns down an invitation to one.

19. Jesus prefers houses and fields to religious institutions. Most of his miracles, like healing Peter’s mother-in-law, happen outside the institutions. When they happen inside, he usually gets in trouble. That’s not to say he doesn’t like them; just that he has a preference.

20. God frequently finds us annoying.

21. God loves us anyway. (I’m just sayin’, there is a bit of a running theme here)

22. I can’t believe I took this on; this is a ridiculous number of things to try to squeeze out of only two Scripture passages.

23. God who stretched the spangled heavens above us like a tent is our house and our home, the one in whom we live and move and have our being. We are never outside of God, ever, no matter what.

24. God, on the other hand, does not have a home of God’s own, but goes from town to town and makes a place in any part of the Creation that will welcome her in.

25. There is nothing and no one like God. This may sound simple, but is in fact important and complicated, since there are many—kings, presidents, generals, scientists, corporations, clergy—who will try to trick you into believing they are God. Don’t buy it.

The end. So there it is: 25 Random Things About God. You know how this works now. Take this list, erase all my entries, write your own 25 things about God, and forward to everyone you know.

Everybody’s doing it—or if they’re not, they should be. Amen.

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1^ “25 Things I Didn’t Want To Know About You”. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1877187,00.html. Accessed 06 February, 2009.

2^ “Ah, Yes, More About Me? Here are ‘25 Random Things’”. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/fashion/05things.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1. Accessed 06 February, 2009.

3^ “What’s Behind the ’25 Random Things About Me?’ Phenomenon?” http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/articles/2009/02/07/the_hit_list/?page=2. Accessed 08 February, 2009.

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