Sermon

"Where Hopes and Fears Are Met:
 Possibilities Are Pondered"
A Sermon by the Rev. Ron Parker
December 22, 2002 - Fourth Sunday in Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:26-38  [Sermon Index]

The word ponder does not appear much in the Bible – four or five times at
most. In the New Testament, it is only used to refer to what Mary did after
the angel announced she was going to have a baby and then again after the
shepherds visited them in the stable. That's it for pondering. Mary pretty
much has a corner on it

I wish there were more of it in the Bible. In fact, I wish there were more
of it in my life.

Pondering.

Life is so full of analyzing and deciding and explaining and arguing and
reasoning and problem solving that there is no time for pondering.
Pondering comes to no quick conclusions, has no certain answers. It's …
well, pondering.

I think fast and make quick decisions. I glance from one thing to the next.
I have little time for pondering.

Pondering is so... well... ponderous.

It's heavy.

Mary is heavy. She's pregnant, after all. Ponderous … gestating. She has
time to ponder.

The angel doesn't say, "Just click on "B" and you'll have a baby …
instantly. Pregnancy like pondering takes time. It gives us time to make
room in our lives for a baby.

Pondering takes time.

Yesterday while visitors wandered around this room reflecting on the
expressions of hopes and fears that line our walls, I sat for awhile out
there in the second row where most of the Epworth Quilters sit. This table
below me was covered with the gold cloth and the little empty stable sat
there waiting. I found it wonderfully peaceful. There was no evidence that
there was no room in the inn. The inn was vacant … waiting. Spacious.
There was room for all sorts of possibilities. Room for pondering.

Pondering takes space.

Somehow, Mary found time and space to ponder. Was her Christmas shopping
done? The tree up? Didn't she have a party to prepare for? Or a trip to
the airport? What about all the cooking and baking? Were all the presents
wrapped? Does Martha Stewart have time to ponder, I wonder?

Hmm... Change one letter and "ponder" turns to "wonder." Perhaps pondering
is the necessary prelude to wonder.

So I sat out there where the Quilters sit and pondered this quilt that hangs
above the altar – our Christmas star this year.

The quilt is still on it's quilting frame. The edges are unfinished. If
you look closely you'll see the little patches of quilting stitches that
Betty and Martha and Betzi and Emma added last Wednesday. There is much work
yet to do.

Not only that. The quilt you see here is the product of generations. The
top was made by Sharon Strachan's grandmother. Our Quilters are doing the
quilting to finish it. This is the first of two star quilts that Sharon and
David's twin daughters will receive on their 21st birthday. How many
stitches yet to go. I can't imagine.

Quilting is neither quick nor efficient. Quilting is slow. It makes time
for gentle conversation and pondering. The quilting frame was the original
chat room.

Pondering, like quilting, is not efficient. Pregnancy is not efficient.
Knowing God is not efficient.

Neither is it predictable. That can even be scary. In this season when
the world gets darker, we are called go deeper and touch those fears we dare
not speak and flirt with hopes beyond all hope and against it.

Skeptics and bureaucrats and leaders and pundits flee from this dark and are
quick to tell us what is impossible.

But if we going to ponder possibilities, we have to stop letting the
impossibilities crowd them out of our life.

The possibilities we ponder are not confined to what we can do, but are
expanded by what God may yet do among us.

Our Old Testament reading this morning tells a story of King David after the
has defeated all his enemies and is comfortably ensconced in his new palace.

David was a doer. The stories about him say that in spite of being a
last-born shepherd boy, relegated to the night shift out in the hills with
the family flock, he was a talented musician. Then, while he was just a
teenager, he took on the Philistine giant, Goliath, and killed him with a
slingshot. That got him a reputation as a fighter and a can-do kind of guy
and one thing led to another and eventually he became king. And as will
happen with kings, it sort of went to his head.

So he says, "Well now that I'm settled here in my nice new palace. Maybe
I'll do God a favor and build Him a house, too."

"Think about it, David." – says the prophet, Nathan. "Ponder for a minute.
Here's what God says to you: 'You don't build me a house, I build you one.'"
The house God builds for David is the house of all the generations and
the nation that follow after him.

I wonder how things would be different in Israel today if people were asking
what house God is building rather than what settlement we are building.

"I will build you a house."

Starting on Sunday, January 12, we're going to begin a year of celebrating
Epworth Church's centennial. We will have many opportunities throughout
the year to remember and celebrate the people and events that have graced
those hundred years.

In the midst of this celebration, we might be tempted to say, "Look at the
house we have built for God."

Our story of David and Nathan advises us to celebrate the house that God has
built for us. And as we ponder the ways that God has been building among
us, we may begin to see some wondrous ways that God builds among us now and
into the future.

And mixing our metaphors back toward Mary, we may ponder what miracle
gestates in the womb of this church today?

The sharing of all these hopes and fears is an essential part of our
gestating and our pondering. For now, in this pregnant moment, we simply
share them. We offer them for pondering. Neither denying nor doing nor
explaining away: we ponder.

And from this pondering may emerge a call to do – perhaps some bold new
task.

Where hopes and fears are met and pondered a call is often heard. True
pondering is not wholly passive. It is also an act of courage.

Mattie J. T. Stepanek is a young boy who has been writing poetry since he
was three. Mattie has muscular dystrophy. Here is a poem Mattie wrote. It's
called "Bravery Prayer":

Dear God,
Help us to always be able
To use the feelings of
Hope and fear, together,
In one great force...
Bravery.
Bravery is extremely
Necessary in life.
If we are able
To have bravery,
We will be able
To achieve many goals in life..
Amen.

Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley, CA

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