New Life After Lockdown

Intro

Today we begin a new series of sermons looking at the summer season. Though for many Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial beginning of Summer, we actually have several more weeks until it really begins. So as the weather heats up and school is letting out, what do we do? How do we live our lives to the fullest after almost a year and a half of lock down from COVID? We are going to look at how we connect with God, with nature and with our own creativity, but first, we begin the series by looking at how we can connect with the living. Some of you may have felt like you’ve been holding your breath throughout lock down. Holding on a little longer with masks and social distancing while you stayed away from people, especially the ones you loved! Now, in many ways you’ve succeeded! We did it! We beat COVID. We still need to keep some precautions in place, and people should definitely get vaccinated if they can, but the numbers are way down. That’s really good news!

So how do we reconnect with the living after nearly a year of lock down? We are going to look at a passage of scripture from Colossians. The book is written by the Apostle Paul and his main point is that when we are with Christ we all experience new life in him. New life after the pandemic sounds good, doesn’t it? Let’s hear our scripture for today. This is Colossians 3:1-14. Hear now the word of the Lord.

(Colossians 3:1-14)

And from Job 12:7-10, “‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” The word of the Lord for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Let’s pray: Lord, help us to be an inclusive community passionately following Jesus Christ. Help us to love as you love us, especially as we reengage with people after such a long absence. May we be your people at work in this world. In Christ we pray, amen.

I imagine most of us would tell ourselves that we want to be happy, but that can be a challenge when our routines and connections with others get disrupted. This past year has been filled with attempts at coping with new routines and attempts to make ourselves happy, but I would bet most of us probably have not been all that successful at it. Most happiness authorities would tell you you’ve got to go out and seize the day! Grab what makes you happy because you’ve got to work at it in order to truly find happiness. But that’s tough to do in a pandemic.

I’ve tried myself to do what makes me happy. With two young boys at home its tough in a pandemic. We decided to try and do something special for Memorial Day Weekend last week. The plan was to do our first camping trip out in the woods with the whole family, but like many of you, our plans were ruined by the rain. We knew Monday was going to be nice, though, so after debating what was safe, what was acceptable, what was fun to make the week special, we finally settled on going to Six Flags with the boys. And I know for some folks that seems like a bad choice. For others its no problem. If you want to stay an extra six feet away from me after church I totally understand. The nice part was that it was all outdoors. This was the first chance for my sons to go on some real roller coasters. Now they’ve been on the little ones; the portable ones for the town carnival, but the big ones; this was like a brand new experience for them. We thought, “this is going to be so special! This is definitely going to make them happy!” When we got there they were stunned at just how tall Kingda Ka was. It is the world’s tallest roller coaster and it didn’t take long for them to decide that they would definitely not be going on that one. In fact, I was rather surprised my oldest, Davy, said he wasn’t really interested in going on the ferris wheel either. It was a little too tall for him, but we did eventually agree on going on the gondola so we could ride high across the whole park and look at what else we wanted to do. That’s when Davy saw his new favorite coaster - the runaway train. A good, medium-sized ride, with no big drops. He loved it and would have been happy to ride it a hundred times in one day. But for Hal, he was good with bumper cars and teacups. Finally, at the end of the day he agreed to go on Skull Mountain, a medium-sized coaster that is in the dark. Emily and I debated whether it was okay. I said he would change his mind before he got on; she said he would be fine. It turns out we were both wrong. He didn’t chicken out and he definitely was not fine! He didn’t scream or cry on the ride, but by the end he said he would never be going on that coaster again. At the end of the night, when we were saying our evening prayers, he thanked God for the day we had and for Six Flags, but then added, “except for Skull Mountain.” Amen, little guy!

It turns out the amusement park was nice, but it didn’t really make him happy. In fact, it might have even traumatized him a little bit. Dan Buettner, a world famous author, has studied both the longest living people on earth and the happiest people on earth. He says usually we focus on things like amusement parks and shopping malls to make us happy, but those sorts of things have so little to do with what really makes us happy. Those things are so short lived it doesn’t really give us what we need, so he came up with what he calls “the lazy person’s guide to happiness.”

See happiness isn’t just one thing, or one feeling we have; its a whole bunch of things from health and emotions to how we evaluate our lives and live out our values. That’s what really makes us happy - its pursuing meaning for our lives. Buettner says the mistake most of us make is focusing too much on the short term things we think will make us happy, like the amusement park. Or, the other problem we run into, is focusing too much on long term things, like financial independence or retirement. To really be happy we have to do both. So you might think of saving money and investing it to make you happy. Yeah, sure, that helps. And its also true that the more stuff we buy the less happy we are. So instead, Buettner suggests buying experiences. Go on a trip, visit a new country, go to a concert, or, perhaps best of all, change the environment around you so you don’t have to work so hard to be happy. These are the kinds of short-term steps we can make to be happier, but there is one step we can take that is far more important than any of these things. The thing that will make us happiest in life, according to Buettner, is being with people. The happiest people on earth socialize six to seven hours a day. Now, I’m an introvert so that sounds impossible to me, but its the encounters with other people, the connections that we make that add value and meaning to our lives.

Interestingly, social media doesn’t count here. Online connections can actually make us less happy and more disconnected from people, but for every one new real friend you add to your social network you are 15 percent more likely to be happy! Perhaps the most important advice he gives it that, even though many of us accumulate friends from school or work, its really important to keep pursuing active friendships with happy people that like to laugh. They gotta be funny friends, or at the least, think that you are funny, even if your jokes are as bad as mine! That’s the 101 version of finding happiness - connect with people, especially with people that bring you joy!

But our world is in a strange place right now. The last year of the pandemic has forced many of us into isolation, or to interacting with people in online only environments. That’s not good! We are already divided enough between politics and how to handle the pandemic, but these online interactions are causing a growing mistrust between people in a time when we are already stressed out from the pandemic. We need those in-person connections; the casual interactions we used to have with people during our 6-7 hours of socializing. These days we are getting way less, so we don’t hear people’s stories or know their motives for why they are doing what they are doing. That breeds mistrust. Add to that the increase in communication through emails, text messages and social media and a joke meant to have some fun is suddenly a jab that hurts. Exhaustion from stress comes off as anger meant to hurt others.

Susan Beaumont, a spiritual director, asks a key question of us in this stage, “can you trust your gut right now?” Usually we use our gut as a guide to measure people’s actions, to better gauge their purpose, but our gut reactions might be off because of the disconnect we’ve had over the last year. We assume things that just aren’t true of other people. We aren’t as connected, we don’t know background stories and we make a judgement based on our gut. And that actually makes it harder for us to be happy people, to find true joy, because we are pushing people away instead of connecting with them more! So these days, when it comes to people, don’t trust your gut. Your instincts are leading you the wrong way.

So what can we do? How can we have that perfect summer, happy with the people surrounding us? Well, one answer comes from the Apostle Paul. He is writing to the people of Colossae in the book ‘Colossians.’ Now things aren’t all rosy for Paul. He has been put in prison just for talking to people about Jesus, but he does have one thing going for him. He is able to have all the visitors he wants, and he hears from others how things are going in all the churches spread across Europe and Asia and Africa. But he hears a disturbing report. In Colossae there’s a group of Christians there that are struggling. The city they live in is filled with people that are into mystical religion. One way this impacts people is with this really strong belief that there are these angelic forces at work. They believe these angels are in control of the cosmic order and they determine the destiny of every individual. Hopefully you can see right away how that is at odds with Christianity. Angels aren’t in charge; God is. Our destiny is not forced on us - its a choice we make when we choose to follow Jesus Christ; that is what determines our future. The Apostle Paul says its not mystical experiences or mystical powers that connect us together; God, in creating us in his image, did that long ago.

The people in that city were off in another way, and maybe this one hits closer to home for some of you. The religious folks not only thought mystical experiences were the key, they also thought that the soul was all that mattered. Because the body would eventually perish they said “its not important!” The only thing that mattered in their worldview was spiritual things because if its spiritual its eternal. Ever heard someone comment on another person as “so heavenly minded they are no earthly good?” That’s what happens when we become obsessed with the mystical, trying to purify our spirits. This is what’s know as the “Orphic” view of the body, and Paul says, “look, you’re dead wrong.” Its not the pursuit of the spiritual that makes you like Christ, its when your body starts acting like Christ that matters.

Back then they thought they had to put their bodies to death so they could become spiritual. The Apostle Paul is using their own ideas to make the point - you don’t put your body to death, you put to death ....”whatever is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed.” That’s what needs to be put to death. Then he adds a few more things just to make sure we all are feeling how challenging and difficult this life in Christ really is. “Get rid of: anger, wrath, malice, slander and abusive language. Don’t lie to one another.”

The point is not so much the list of details; the point is that when you choose to follow Christ, your life has to change. We move from angry and bitter to kind and patient. We forgive others just as God forgives us. Then he puts the cherry on top of this new life in Christ - “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Today that might not sound quite so revolutionary, but at the time no other group lifted up love in this way. Christians said loving others was the way we show Christ at work in our lives. It is literally the best thing we can do to be like Christ.

We might be busy pursuing our own happiness this summer, or even skeptical of the people around us because of being away from people for so long, but the key in all of this is to love like Jesus. When you wake up in the morning let that be the first thing you put on, like a shirt, just pull it over yourself. “I am an example of Christ; I will clothe myself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. I will love like Jesus.” That’s how you really become happy.

A few months ago when people were being vaccinated in these huge mega-sites, one famous person living in Massachusetts had to get vaccinated, too. It was Celloist Yo-Yo Ma. He asked if he could play a few songs for the folks in the observation area. So he set up in the back, masked and socially distanced, and played. One of the folks working at the site said, “Many people were moved to tears. It was an exceptional moment at the end of a long day of giving shots.” What a simple, but beautiful gift freely given to others.

I know none of us here are cello masters, but there is a unique gift we can give to others in this world. We can give ourselves. Even if you aren’t comfortable reengaging in the world after the pandemic, yet; you can still call people. You can send letters and gifts and let the love of God overflow into how you treat others. Be a blessing, reengage with the living; bring happiness for yourself by loving those around you. It’s the way to have a perfect summer after a year of lock down. Amen? Amen.