Become who you're meant to (Wk 5: Choice & Prophecy) - Vince Brackett
SPEAKER NOTES
Context
For my talks here on Sundays this winter we’ve been talking about the attraction to ::stories of leaving an ordinary world for a special world::
- A character departs from their comfortable and default experience of life, or often life circumstances push them out
- And they experience an initiation as they journey through a big and sometimes scary, new special world — full of risks, trials, potential loss and suffering
- But, along with the risks and hardship, this journey also brings them new friendships, new purpose, personal transformation, spiritual fulfillment — they discover all that they’re meant to be, and all life is meant to be.
This is the pattern of so many of the fantasy stories that we all love. In my talks in this series, we’ve visited Star Wars, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Moana — and it’s been great fun.
We’ve been working this theological idea that I love, which connects the departure-initiation-return pattern of these stories to the life that Jesus invites people into with his famous encouragements to be his disciple, to pick up our crosses and follow him.
The ::special world Jesus invites us to journey through:: is the Kingdom of God. So, in this series, we’ve been pairing pictures from fantasy stories with different teachings from Jesus on the Kingdom of God, and I’m loving the insight that is bringing.
Overall, it’s this: If we can trust in what we can not see — in what is beyond the ordinary of our lives and the world — if we here, ourselves, can venture into the Special World of Jesus’ Kingdom of God and trust in the spiritual side of life — things we can’t see or measure but are deeply real and powerful — if we can do that, then journeys of transformation are not just for our favorite characters from stories, they are for real life. They are for you and me.
Today’s journey element
Today will probably be my last talk in this series (although I may return again if the inspiration strikes), and I want to look at one more key element in journeys of transformation that, I think, shines a light on Jesus and his Kingdom of God.
::It is the way journey of transformation stories play with the ideas of choice and prophecy.::
A favorite example of this for me is, predictably if you’ve heard me speak before, ::Harry Potter.::
I want to take us to one point when Harry speaks with his mentor Professor Dumbledore about the anguish he feels over a prophecy about him having to kill the evil wizard Voldemort, or else be killed by Voldemort.
Think about that anguish: Harry is a teenager, in no way a killer, who’s been ripped from an ordinary teenage existence by multiple tragedies, having to consider matters of life and death, ethics and morality that he never should have to — because of the violence and cruelty that has marked his life… so much anguish for Harry.
But there is incredible belief and encouragement and wisdom in Dumbledore’s response to him, and Harry realizes something profound.
::Here’s the exchange…::
“But, sir,” said Harry, making valiant efforts not to sound argumentative, “it all comes to the same thing, doesn’t it? I’ve got to try and kill him, or —“
“Got to?” said Dumbledore. “Of course you’ve got to! But not because of the prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you’ve tried! We both know it! Imagine, please, just for a moment, that you had never heard that prophecy! How would you feel about Voldemort now? Think!”
Harry watched Dumbledore striding up and down in front of him, and thought. He thought of his mother, his father, and Sirius [his godfather]. He thought of Cedric Diggory [his friend].
(All of them had been murdered by Voldemort or his followers)
::He thought:: of all the terrible deeds he knew Lord Voldemort had done. A flame seemed to leap inside his chest, searing his throat. “I’d want him finished,” said Harry quietly. “And I’d want to do it.”
“Of course you would!” cried Dumbledore. “You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything!…
You are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy. He will continue to hunt you . . . which makes it certain, really, that —“
“That one of us is going to end up killing the other,” said Harry. “Yes.”
::But he understood:: at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew — and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents — that there was all the difference in the world.”
Bam. Powerful, right?
Harry choosing his destiny changes his experience of the hardship ahead for him — his choice strengthens him to face it, and that makes all the difference in the world. He is not destroyed by what’s ahead for him, it becomes something that will transform him into all he’s meant to be.
For Jesus
So this same ::“choice and prophecy” dynamic:: is present in Jesus’ story and his teachings about the Kingdom of God.
Let me give us a little context that I think will help us see it…
By Jesus’ time there had been quite a number of Jewish individuals rising to prominence and claiming the prophetic destiny of being the Jewish Messiah or Christ, as Jesus came to be known. These individuals would claim to be fulfilling Old Testament Bible passages that prophesied the powerful and everlasting kingdom of a future descendant of the Ancient Jewish King David, that would bring justice for the oppressed Jewish people:
So, passages like:
~2 Samuel 7~ When your (David’s) days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
~Psalm 89~ I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, ‘I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations’… My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him. The enemy will not get the better of him; the wicked will not oppress him. I will crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries… And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.
The key thing to note here is the theme of might and power and strength in these passages. Might, power, and strength was THE selling point for these near-contemporaries of Jesus who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah. And histories about the time between the close of the Old Testament of the Bible and the start of the New Testament (when Jesus shows up) back that up. These self-proclaimed Jewish Messiahs rose to prominence in ways that were bloody and political — the fruit of might, power, and strength.
Now, when Jesus came on to the scene, and he (and the Gospel writers who told his story after his death) claimed the same “Jewish Messiah” prophetic destiny, they cited many of these same passages (like 2 Samuel 7 and Psalm 89)… but in addition Jesus was also connected to another theme of passages in the Jewish prophetic writings that was extremely different, and avoided by those previously claiming to be the Messiah.
So, most notably, passages like:
~Isaiah 53~ Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
So that is obviously not power, or an exalted king, proudly ascending to an everlasting and throne and snuffing out enemies.
No, this is, as this passage has come to be called, a Suffering Servant, a person well-acquainted with being low, with grief, with loss, with losing, with powerlessness.
If the Jewish Messiah is prophesied to be not just a king, but also a sufferer, then the Messiah’s destiny is not merely something grand he’s entitled to, the Messiah’s destiny is also something hard he must courageously choose.
And there it is: ::choice and prophecy.::
In Jesus’ suffering and dying on a cross, God chooses his destiny, hardship and all — like Harry, Jesus is not dragged into the arena, but walks into it with his head held high, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Indeed, it is Jesus’ choice to be a sufferer just as much as a king that distinguishes him as a God of love: choosing solidarity with broken, imperfect human experience as his destiny — choosing self-sacrificial love, choosing to be the victim of powerful people looking for someone to blame so the powerless of society don’t have to.
For us…
Now “chosen one” prophecies are not really a part of real life for any of us… I mean, I think so… maybe your life is more exciting than mine. But this idea of choice and prophecy still feels really connecting, right?
What I think of when we talk about prophecy is: the necessary challenges we must confront in order to pursue our hopes and dreams — the ::trials and initiation parts of our journeys of transformation::
- The ::overcoming:: of fear of vulnerability in order to get the connection with other people you long for
- The ::embrace:: of humility (and maybe even humiliation) that it takes to repair a relationship in crisis
- The ::thankless:: sticking with it when standing for a person or people or purpose or cause few else will stand for feels lonely day after day after day.
- The ::courage:: to take a financial risk that doesn’t look like classic success in the name of pursuing values that are higher than financial gain
- The ::painful:: honesty or emotional overload required to self-reflect, face down our demons, and grow
- The ::pushing:: past obstacles and enduring scorn because of your skin color or gender or sexual orientation to make your voice heard and try to change the rules of society
Vulnerability, humiliation, loneliness, financial risk, painful honesty, scorn or prejudice... Do any of these sound like part of your story?
Choosing to walk through the challenges our hopes and dreams bring us to with our heads held high, rather than being dragged into the arena, does make all the difference in the world.
I remember one summer, years ago, when my brother taught me about this.
He was in the army at the time, and was in Chicago for a few weeks for a visit, and he asked me to grab coffee.
Which sounds totally nice, yeah? Except for the fact that my brother had never once done this in my entire life. My brother was an alcoholic, and we had very little relationship at all at the time, and since we were kids he had often been varying degrees of aggressive and cruel and resentful toward me.
But, you know, at that time, it had been years since any sort of dust-up between us, as he’d been in the army and no where near Chicago for years, so I said, sure, come and meet me at this coffeeshop by where I work after I get off at 4.
When we got together, I was overwhelmed. My brother explained that he had been working on the 12 steps of AA and was taking it really seriously. He was currently working on steps 8 and 9: making a list of all persons he had harmed, and becoming willing to make amends to them, and making direct amends wherever possible.
And so he, with me across the table, looked me in the eye and said he was sorry for the ways he’d hurt me, told me he loved me, and asked for my forgiveness.
This was during the first year of this church, so I was already a pastor at this time, who had spent multiple years in various support and community and ministry settings by this point in my life, but I can tell you I had never once in my life been as courageously vulnerable or as painfully honest as my alcoholic brother in that moment. He was not dragged into the arena to do that with me — if anything, I was dragged into the arena — No, his head was held high as he spoke to me of his regret and desire to change and to be reconciled with me — and it was inspiring, and it was clear to me that that made all the difference in the world for him: he wasn’t doing this because he had to, he was in a process of transformation — he’d never seemed more alive pursuing this higher purpose AA had given him.
This was my brother choosing his destiny.
Application
So let me throw out ::a couple recommendations:: on choosing our destinies, if this resonates with you…
::First,::
Look to the Almighty AND All-Suffering God (NOT the Exclusively-Almighty God)
I’m a big believer in Jesus’ Kingdom of God — that real life departure-initiation-return for any of us has to be spiritual — so let’s talk a bit about Jesus’ unique take on that.
The Exclusively-Almighty God, the god clung to by all those who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah before Jesus, is not as powerful as the Almighty And All-Suffering God Jesus shows us.
Because the marriage of All-Suffering and Almighty gets you resilience. And resilience is the most powerful thing in life I think.
If you are facing racism or prejudice or a stunted self-image or regret or overwhelming loss or weariness or exhaustion or burnout as you try to choose your destiny, you need a God who can empathize and endure with you through that.
Otherwise you become that person who is dragged into the arena of life — overcome by weariness.
I’ve mentioned throughout this series of talks: the way starting this church has pushed and challenged me personally. It has absolutely been an initiation. I have felt pushed to the brink of my ability to handle burdens and complexity and risk.
What has encouraged me personally to continue to actively, consciously choose my destiny as a pastor (with my head held high), despite those challenges, is feeling in prayer the closeness of a God who also knows burdens and complexity and risk.
An Exclusively-Almighty God can’t do that — that god is too distant, too removed. That God might hear my prayer from afar, but that God can’t make me feel understood or comforted.
I want to say, I think the God presented in a lot of American churches is not Jesus, the Almighty And All-Suffering God. It is an American-Christian creation of an Exclusively-Almighty god that is projected on to Jesus.
And if you’ve ever struggled to feel God close in the midst of challenges, I wonder if this could be at least part of the reason for that? That the Jesus you’ve been presented is missing his empathetic side?
It can take us some practice to teach ourselves to look to the true Jesus, because the American-Christian culture is so strong. Even if we grew up in a more secular environment, that projection can still dominate our view of Jesus.
So, before we’re done today, I’ll lead us in some prayer to practice looking to the Almighty And All-Suffering God.
::Second,::
Try to fill up on strength and courage every chance you get
“Be strong and courageous” is a classic encouragement in the Bible, spoken many times from God to God’s people — and it feels appropriate to bring in here.
Especially, if I can highlight anyone who’s destiny involves pushing past prejudice, implicit bias, racism, patriarchy… in 2020, a presidential election year in America…
Be strong and courageous! Don’t lose heart. Don’t become passive. If you do, you’ll have to be dragged into the arena. And, in that case, you’ll be less effective for your cause, and the experience for you will be drudgery, rather than purposeful or transformational.
Seasons will come when our strength and courage levels are high, and when that happens awesome! But the human condition is that we gradually leak and require maintenance to be filled up again.
So know that that maintenance is possible to keep up! Know that there is strength and courage out there to draw from.
- In a spiritual sense, Jesus is a well from whom we can, at any time, draw strength and courage.
- Last week, ::Kyle taught us a prayer:::
- God for me, we call you Father. God alongside me, we call you Jesus. God within me, we call you Holy Spirit
- You can use your imagination in prayer to picture each of these positionings — for us, alongside us, within us — and my hunch is that one or another will stand out to you and help you to feel that you are receiving strength and courage from God
- To pass on another Harry Potter and Professor Dumbledore exchange, we might ask Harry’s question, “Is this real or is this just happening inside my head?” To which I think God’s reply might be Dumbledore’s: “Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean it’s not real?”
- And, also, in a human sense — there are others around you from whom you can draw strength and courage!
- We may feel our own well is dry for us, but your well is not dry for another, and their well is not dry for you. One simple way to start a conversation with someone that gets us sharing struggles and drawing strength and courage from one another is ::a pair of questions:: we encourage quite a lot in this church: “What’s something that’s giving you life right now? What’s something that’s draining life from you right now?” Perhaps that helps you start a conversation with someone that can pass some strength and courage back and forth? I hope so!
Because being dragged into the arena of what’s ahead for you is no way to live! Life is in choosing our destinies with our heads held high!
Alright, stand with me, and I’d love to pray for us…