A
sermon preached at Old South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ,
Hallowell, Maine, May 17, 2009.
Text: John 15:9-17
The Rev. Susan M. Reisert, Minister
Could it be? Is it possible?
Is it really and truly a reality that we have come this far in our relationship,
pastor and congregation, that I have led worship for these three and three-quarter
years, offered sermon after enlightening sermon, and have not-have not-delved
into that rich treasure trove of sermon illustrations, that remarkable place
chock full of insight and important life lessons, of perspective on ethics and
relationship and the meaning of life-is it possible that we have come this far,
these many sermons, without mentioning . . . Star Trek??
I did not take the time to review all of my sermons preached here at Old South,
but I think it is true that I have not once in my time here ever used Star Trek
for a sermon illustration. Well, good Old South folk, your luck has run out.
It is time.
Perhaps it is the resurgence
of Star Trek-I saw the current movie just last Sunday afternoon-that has put
me back in my Star Trek frame of mind. But, today, we will talk a little bit
about Star Trek and, more precisely, we will talk about one of the greatest
television shows EVER to have existed, Star Trek: The Next Generation, which
ran from 1987 until 1994.
Now, for many, Star Trek
is understood as a show that held a strongly atheist bent. But, whether it meant
to or not, I often found Star Trek, The Next Generation to provide some very
helpful and insightful views into Christian themes and stories.
But, before we get into
Star Trek: The Next Generation, let's review the scripture. We read today a
wonderful passage from the Gospel of John, a passage about love and friendship,
a passage that I think we do not hold up and focus on nearly as often as we
should. Off the top of our head, when asked about memorable Gospel passages,
most Christians would probably cite one of the birth stories, the last supper,
the entry into Jerusalem, the crucifixion, the feeding of the five thousand,
and perhaps, the sermon on the mount. Today's passage ought to be one of those,
a cornerstone passage that continually feeds our sense of what it means to be
a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus Christ:
9As the Father has loved
me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you
will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide
in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you,
and that your joy may be complete. 12"This is my commandment, that you
love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to
lay down one's life for one's friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I
command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does
not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I
have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did
not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit
that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my
name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
When I read and hear these
words of love, these words of relationship and connection one to the other-individually
and as a group-one to our Savior, I hear words that beckon us to explore aspects
of our lives together that we have not yet explored before. In this passage,
Jesus takes us to a new level of awareness of what it means to follow him, as
the Son of God, and what should motivate us as followers and as his church.
This passage contains an
important command, that we love one another, as Jesus first loved us. And, from
that love, we are called friends. No longer are we kept in the dark about what
the master is doing, mindlessly fulfilling our tasks as if we are simply servants.
Now, we are active participants in the grand unfolding of God's work in this
world. We are friends. This notion of love and friendship ought to engage us
in moving into new and yet unexplored territory.
It is in the exploration of new ways of understanding that probably brings to
mind Star Trek, that science fiction franchise of many different television
series and now seemingly countless films that staked its claim-which has evolved
over these many years-but, in a theme containing those now famous words and
that infamous split infinitive:
Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life
and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
So, let's see what wisdom Star Trek: The Next Generation might convey to us
about the exploration of love and friendship.
In the very last episode
of this great series, the wise captain, Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart,
faces a profound predicament. In the midst of his beginning awareness of this
developing problem that he can barely comprehend, he finds himself in the presence
of a nemesis that has hounded him throughout the entire series, a character
who appeared once or twice a season-a character known as Q. Q is a mischievous
and seemingly omnipotent kind of being who claimed to be a representative of
this thing called "The Continuum," a group which basically watches
humanity and, in particular, the crew of the Starship Enterprise and its captain,
testing and pushing, and sometimes just plain annoying, them on their quest
to explore the universe. Q often suggests that he believes the starship and
its captain are capable of more than
In the series finale, the
Captain faces a paradox and is on the brink of ruining the very beginnings of
humanity. When he finally opens himself to the paradox and bravely makes decisions
that seem completely ridiculous, he ends up saving humanity. In the final scene
with Q, the Captain asserts that he expects the testing of the Continuum to
be over, finally, after facing and passing these many tests posed by Q and the
Continuum, and that he and is crew ought to be left in peace. Q tells him that
the trial is never over and that he must learn from this most recent experience
and to understand the significance of opening himself to the paradox. Q goes
on to offer the following advice, this advice that I think about a lot in my
work in the church, I must admit; advice that I think is wise, affirming, and
life-giving: "The exploration that awaits you [is] not mapping stars and
studying nebula, but in charting the unknown possibilities of existence."
[repeat]
Now, we are not so much
about the mapping of stars and studying nebula, but I think we can all agree
that we often get caught up in the mundane, that we settle our lives on what
is comfortable and safe, that we give up bigger challenges when smaller ones
will suffice, that we just want to get by.
I don't think that's enough
for Jesus. I don't think that's enough for our faith. I don't think that's enough
for our lives together as the church, as God's church, as a church of Jesus
Christ.
Although we cannot escape
the daily routines of our lives, I believe that Jesus tries to push us into
new directions, new paths of awareness, new ways of living and understanding.
When Jesus commands us to love as he first loved us, when Jesus looks at his
motley group of followers and asserts that they are friends and that they are
to love, I think Jesus is essentially calling them and directing them to be
explorers. And, that is where we are called as well: to be explorers. As those
first followers were, so we are as well, expected to open ourselves to the unknown
possibilities of our existence. In following Jesus, we open ourselves to new
ways of understanding and new dimensions of what is possible.
This perspective is of profound
importance to us today, in this church, in this kind of church. As a mainline
Protestant church, once, not so long ago in our memory, full of people, but
now not nearly as full as we once were, we are tempted-oh, so very tempted-to
look into our past for some glimpse of glory, some moment when we were doing
everything, or most everything, right. It is tempting to try to look into the
past for the answers for our future.
That, I believe is a mistake. A mistake just as costly as just doing what we've
been doing and hoping that it's just good enough, that our mission is simply
to hang on and to keep it going as long as possible.
We are explorers. The answers to our future, in how we gather as God's people,
as a church of Jesus Christ, is in the future, with a few clues in our present.
We are explorers, set out-called and directed, commanded even-to chart the unknown
possibilities of existence.
What does it mean, what
does it look like, to live, to act out of, this command to love one another
as Jesus first loved us? What does it mean, what does it look like, to live
as friends, as active participants, as confidantes, of our Savior, of the one
to whom we look for salvation and redemption?
What does it mean, what
does it look like, to abide in God's love, to live as people whose joy is complete?
The answers to these questions are not in the past. There is no glorious day
of fulfillment that lives in the past, if only we could re-create it, we would
experience it. The answers to these questions are yet in the future, and the
fulfillment of them won't just happen. The fulfillment of them depends on us,
on our ability to love, to be as friends of Jesus. The fulfillment of them depends
on us, on our ability to see beyond the mundane, everyday aspects of our lives,
to get beyond the ordinary, to invest in a way of life that is way beyond just
getting by. The fulfillment of Jesus' command is found in our exploration, in
our bold exploration, that we are sometimes confronted with paradoxes, with
difficult puzzles, and that sometimes, the way of living out of God's great
love for us is to act in amazingly ridiculous ways-ridiculous to this world,
but not to God.
To boldly go where no one
has gone before. That is our mission. And, it has nothing to do with being on
a fictional starship, on a fictional television show, or on a great big movie
screen. To boldly go where no one has gone before. That is our mission. To love,
to learn to love one another as Jesus first loved us. To abide in God's love.
To live and act as people who are not only loved by God, but live and act as
people who are friends of Jesus.
Our strength and glory as a church has nothing to do with how many people gather
in our pews. Our strength and glory is in how we love, how well we abide in
love, how well we engage in the fullness of joy, and in how we take seriously
our friendship with our Savior. To boldly go. To boldly go where no one has
gone before.
Buckle up. Be brave. And,
don't forget the words that Jesus said over and over again: Don't be afraid.
Praise be to God. Amen