Become all you're meant to (Wk 1) - Vince Brackett
SPEAKER NOTES
On Enchanted Forests
::Anyone see Frozen 2?:: There’s a great couple of moments from Olaf the snowman (of course there is — he is amazing). I promise no spoilers here, but as the heroes embark on their journey for the movie in an Enchanted Forest, Olaf remarks: “I hear Enchanted Forests are places of transformation… I wonder what that word means.” And then at the end of the movie, he says, “I’m still not sure what transformation means, but I really feel like I’ve been changed by this whole experience.“
I love that. The joke with Olaf is a great meta-joke about storytelling. ::The enchanted forest is a classic element in fantasy stories:: - characters leave their ordinary world and enter into a special world (like an enchanted forest) that is full of adventure and makes you feel alive but is also full of danger… and by journeying through, heroes are transformed.
- ::In Harry Potter::: Harry has no idea the entire first half of his childhood that he is a wizard, and that he has an incredible role to play in a larger-than-life story, but then he is thrust into that magical world suddenly… and an enchanted forest plays a massive role in his story - the Forbidden Forest is the place of many of his great trials, including his biggest of all when he sacrifices himself for his friends
- ::Luke Skywalker:: discovers the Force, in him and all around him, that which unites and binds all things, as Obi-wan Kenobi explains - it need only be tapped into
- ::The big, unexplored ocean:: that is all around Moana’s island calls to her to discover who she really is and who her people really are
- ::In Stranger Things::, one of the four middle school boys the story revolves around, Dustin, explains that the Upside Down World they discover: “is right next to you and you do not even see it”
There’s an innate attraction to stories of leaving our ordinary worlds and entering into special worlds — because even as they bring danger, even as they take us out of our comfort zones to places where we don’t know the rules, they also bring transformation!… And who knows what that means, but you’ll be changed afterward.
Some have argued this is hard wired into all people of all cultures throughout history. Joseph Campbell, a 20th century anthropologist, wrote a book called The Hero of a Thousand Faces saying: the details for each culture are different (there are a thousand faces), but all cultures seem to have a story of a hero journeying out of an ordinary world and into a special world that leaves them transformed, and they all follow a basic pattern of three acts: departure - initiation - return. Our wider culture’s examples are Moana and Harry Potter and Stranger Things and Star Wars.
Jesus and the Kingdom of God
I think Jesus would agree with this.
::Jesus’ spoke of the Kingdom of God:: when he taught — as though it was a special reality in a constant process of breaking into our ordinary reality, calling out to us to enter in — a reality not yet fully evident, but nonetheless near and at hand, and we need only tap into it, reach out for it, pursue it. ::And it’s a reality where we find God all around us.::
“The kingdom of [God] is at hand.” (Matt 10 NASB) / “The Kingdom of [God] has come near.” (Matt 10 NRSV)
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matt 13 NRSV)
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12 NRSV — in response to someone’s attempt to summarize the Jewish Law as “Love god, and love one’s neighbor as oneself.”)
“[The Kingdom of God] is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” (Luke 24 NRSV)
Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. (John 3 NRSV)
The life and teachings of Jesus show us this Kingdom of God is a reality where all of the apathy and trivial of life are stripped away and we come to face to face with what really matters: justice, mercy, integrity, connection, compassion for neighbor (and even for enemy), hope, self-sacrificial love.
Just like the special worlds of our favorite fantasy stories and myths, in the Kingdom of God we are NOT in control, so we will not know all the rules and we will not be able to coast our way through, and we will confront the real evil and dangers and threats of life... BUT God is there with us… and traversing this kingdom with God will transform you into all you’re meant to be.
::It’s been suggested that Jesus (in his life and death and resurrection):: is this eternal departure-initiation-return pattern incarnate - the “journey of transformation” story come to life... all of our various cultures’ myths throughout history become reality.
::In the Bible’s book of Hebrews::, the writer calls Jesus the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” - again, as if to say he leads the way going first, and the life we’re all meant to live is to follow in his footsteps.
Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12 NRSV)
I love that. It’s a wonderfully humanity-affirming understanding of Jesus. What is God doing and saying by coming to humanity in Jesus? — It’s not a message of “humanity, you suck, you’re doing it wrong… let me fix this.” Rather it’s a message of “humanity, you have within you a roadmap, you need only the vision and empowerment to follow... let me show you the way.”
::We’re all meant to depart:: into the enchanted forest that is all around us and be transformed by the journey, if we can find the help and courage and connection we need to walk through it, and then return from it a new person — but it’s not an enchanted forest, it’s the kingdom of god — It’s not just for great works of fiction or myth! It’s for real life!
Doesn’t that ignite something in you? Isn’t this what we all long to be true, but the cynicism and hurts of life beat it out of us?
It requires some willful innocence and naïveté to believe in this. To believe in God at all. And especially to believe in Jesus’ message of the kingdom of god - that it is near and calling to us.
But isn’t cynicism overrated? And you know what’s underrated? Innocence. Childlike Faith. Trying to go through life wide eyed and awestruck — that’s underrated. Another comment from Jesus on the Kingdom of God was:
“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of [God]” (Matt 18 NRSV)
This is, I think, why special world, enchanted forest fiction grabs so many people. It’s easy to suspend disbelief and be innocent and dive head first into a story. It’s just a story. So even the most cynical of us can do that for a fantasy book or movie or tv show.
But what if there’s a version of this that can be true for us in real life?
My story
I feel like I have experienced this departure initiation return pattern through Jesus’ Kingdom of God a couple times now in my life.
Like Frodo being chased out of the Shire by the black riders in Lord of the Rings, I was chased out of the ordinary world of my youth by cancer when my mom became sick and died when I was a teenager. And through that journey I discovered God for the first time in my life — Jesus — a God who is empathetic and caring and who knows pain just like me, not a distant God controlling what happens to me, a close God who, by his own example, shows me the way through the hardest things of life.
And more recently, the story of this church BLV beginning has followed this pattern for me. I was in my mid-twenties, and I was feeling spiritually restless and culturally out of place in church settings, and then totally unexpectedly to me, in a time of prayer, I felt like Jesus said to me: “Vince, if you wanted to start a church of your own, I’d bless that.” It was very take it or leave it; not at all a demand, not at all coercive, just a sort of: if you so desire, there’s an enchanted forest for you here.
I’d never considered that before, but then I started to. And I started pursuing the training and education I’d need to do this well — dipping a toe into the bigger than me reality that Jesus seemed to indicate was there for me. And eventually, along with my friend Kyle who had been dreaming about similar things, we started this church.
And it has been... the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This has felt like risk after risk, like being out on a limb week after week, month after month, year after year — It has absolutely been an initiation.
But Jesus is right — And Olaf too. This has transformed me.
The challenges of starting and leading this church have grown me as a person, birthed in me more personal vision, taught me how to navigate loneliness and betrayal, chilled me out in the ways I’m too self-serious, taught me to laugh at myself, taught me about friendship and connection and love.
Leading this church has grown me as a leader, humbled me, so I better know what I’m good at and what I’m not good at and when I need to listen to and empower others.
The stress of this journey is what first drove me to start therapy, which has helped me more than anything else yet to identify and live in accordance with my true values.
Again, these sorts of journeys all begin with the first act of departure — responding to a call to adventure, to leave our ordinary world
Sometimes that happens when we’re restless, and we sense an invitation to step out of our comfort zones and take a risk, like me trying to start this church.
Other times, as was the case when my mom got cancer, external circumstances force us out of our ordinary world, and our choice is whether to accept the departure and venture forward courageously or resist reality and stubbornly try to camp out where we are or try to go back (which is impossible).
In either case, Jesus’ call to adventure to the first disciples in the Gospels comes to mind: “Follow me.”
If we do, his promise is that we will find ourselves in that new reality that is “right there but we don’t even know it” — in the Kingdom of God, the place of transformation.
Some different recommendations, based on how this hits you...
::If you feel like:: you’re just struggling to keep afloat and so your primary emotion hearing me say all this is not “wow, how exciting” but something like “good lord, now I feel overwhelmed. Thanks a lot Vince”... if that’s the case for you, then I have three thoughts, I wonder if one of these applies to you:
First, you might already be in the Kingdom of God, in the midst of the initiation stage of facing danger and trials, and that’s exactly why you feel so underwater... Perhaps you haven’t conceived of your current situation that way. But what if you did? What if you’ve already departed from the ordinary?
Feeling underwater is nothing to be ashamed of. We all need help! And that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Another classic element in fantasy stories is the band of allies around a hero — the Gandalf and Aragorn to Frodo. The Hermione and Ron and Dumbledore to Harry.
When I have felt particularly stressed or inadequate throughout the story of this church, I’ve felt that urge to hide, to protect myself from embarrassment, BUT I’ve also felt reminder after reminder of God’s initial promise to me — if you do this I’ll bless it — telling me to believe that the encouragement and support I need are here for me, at hand, I just need to ask for it.
And that’s proven true time and time again. Countless times over the last seven years I’ve come to a breaking point of stress over something specific, and I’ve asked God, “who can I reach out to to talk about this stress?” and every time it feels like God beings someone to mind. Call your friend in California. Reach out to that guy you have a friend crush on and ask to grab coffee. Tell your father in law. Explain that feeling to your wife and ask her to pray for you.
And in the process of all this, I have been transformed into someone who better knows how to ask for help directly. For so many of us, learning to ask for help is one of the key transformations in life God longs for us to undergo by departing our ordinary world and entering into his Kingdom. The only way to improve it is to come to the end of yourself and have to do it.
I’ve learned to be vulnerable and make an honest bid for connection, not a passive aggressive indirect comment hoping someone will come rescue me without me having to really ask for it... Now I know how to honestly and directly ask for help.
::So if that’s you, ask God::: who should I reach out to for help?” In my experience God answers this prayer every time.
My second thought, if you feel overwhelmed by the prospect of the Kingdom of god as I’m describing it, is that it may not be a time for you to depart right now. And that’s totally fine! That’s just not the chapter of your story you’re in right now. It may be unwise to try to if that’s not what God has for you right now - it might be too destabilizing.
My guess as to what God does have for you right now would be stability — that’s the implied starting point for departure — Luke Skywalker is a farm boy, Frodo is another hobbit just living his life — in the Gospels, Jesus’ first disciples Peter and Andrew are everyday fishermen.
::If a baseline of stability:: doesn’t feel in place for you, ask God for what you need to feel that.
Then when a call to adventure does come for you (and I believe it does for us all), don’t worry you won’t miss it!
My third thought if you feel overwhelmed is this: sometimes the “struggling to keep afloat” feeling can be “restlessness” in disguise.
And restlessness is the key indicator that God is calling you to adventure, that you are right on the cusp of departure stage. So ask yourself is my overwhelmedness actually just proof that I’m restless?
Before I felt like God invited me to consider starting a church, restlessness was probably my primary state.
So if you’re in a place like that, I’d say ::now is the time to respond to God::. Say yes, and ask God “what’s next?”
The details of God’s call to us will be different for us all, but I think they always involve expanding our desires and drives beyond ourselves - beyond a small consumeristic life, into a life of laying down ourselves and our comforts for the sake of others or for the sake of an important cause. Jesus said to the fishermen Peter and Andrew, “follow me and I’ll make you fishers of people” — it all comes down to connection for Jesus.
If that sounds like your next step - one thing I’ll throw out is to join our pastoral care team here at this church... This is the team of men and women who pray regularly for the needs of people in our community, and who ban together to insure people in our community who are in crisis or transition get the support they need.
It’s a step into responsibility and into helping to bear other people’s burdens, but it’s also a step into getting to feel and see God move in prayer. And that will transform you.
Next, maybe you feel excited by all I’m saying, but you want to disqualify yourself because of some regret you feel. “This may be for other people but not me because I (fill in the blank).”
I have a super simple recommendation for that: ::Ask God to encourage you::, literally to tell you how great he thinks you are… because disqualification isn’t a thing here.
Finally, maybe you hear all this and you’re like, yes Vince, exactly! I am in an enchanted forest right now. I have departed. You don’t have to convince me. I’m beyond that stage.
Chances are you’re experiencing challenges and stress. In particular, if you feel loneliness, betrayal, weariness, complexity, or crisis because of risks you’ve taken — then keep coming to church because these will be my topics on Sundays I’m speaking over the next many months. Next talk in this series will be Jan 26.
For today, those of you who have already departed, I need your help to pray for those of us here who are on the cusp of departure. ::So ask God who:: you should encourage or pray for this morning before you leave today.
Pray
I’d love to pray for us right now. Would you stand with me?