Sermon Tone Analysis

Title

Recovering Our Vision

Outline

I am listening to a book on surviving trauma

It is secular and yet is open enough to the human experience as physical and social beings that it provides insights into our experience, insights that Paul, the Psalmist, and Jesus knew, if not cognitively, on an inner spiritual level

The important point today is that trauma tends to shut down our higher rational, reflective, and social capacities and reduce us to highly reactive animals or even passive, limp reptiles

That said, see three vignettes how our scriptures deal with trauma

Isaiah is speaking into the trauma of the exile

Now, it was well deserved, but the people are now depressed, withdrawn, trying to survive in exile

Isaiah gives them a song, like many of the Psalms, a song to be chanted rhythmically together, perhaps in a gathering

First, it recounts the past deliverances of the Lord, creating hope, trust, and perhaps a feeling of safety

Then it moves on to recount “something new” - a way, a safe way, a way with water in the wilderness, which laid between Egypt and Palestine and now lay between Israel and Palestine again.

It finishes with acceptance and belonging: “The people whom I formed for myself, that they might recount my praise.”

Perhaps as Israel chanted this and similar songs over and over this truth sank in on a deep level so that when the call came to gather to return to Palestine they got up and went rather than cowered back fearful of the new.

God knows what he is doing

Paul deals with his trauma by turning his gaze toward the future

Did he have flashbacks of stoning Stephen or of being stoned himself or of the rejection by friends and family when he turned to Jesus?

He makes his losses not something that happened to him passively but something that he chooses to put in the loss category for a greater good: “I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”

He knows he does not on his own have righteousness, but accepts Christ’s rather than live in regrets, and with Christ he accepts suffering, “to know him and the power of his resurrection and [the] sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

And he knows that this is a process and is patient with the pace of grace: “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus likewise speaks to the human situation

In this passage that may originally have been a free-floating narrative he is confronted with aggressive men dragging a cowering woman

The men are aggressive against her, for sure, for they are talking about stoning her, and they are using her to try to get Jesus, perhaps include him in the stoning.

We do not know if the relationship was consensual or forced, if she had cried out and no one had come or if she felt trapped and lapsed into passive silence (as people often do), if her partner had been killed in the onslaught of the group or if he had escaped, leaving her to bear the consequences - we only know that the men standing around accused her of adultery and were hostile

Jesus stoops to write in the sand: whether it meant anything or not it took time.

The men kept waiting and asking, but the adrenaline lessened in their systems and their higher cognitive functions started functioning.

“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then silence as he stoops to write again.

The older are not as aggressive, as age dampens the response, and (with some divine help I am sure) reflect on what the duplicity of stoning her.

As they drift away the younger feel the loss of authority and have more reflective time.

The final one to leave is the hottest head among them.

“Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?”

I am sure that the tone was quiet, calming, warm.

She finds she can speak.

And says the obvious, “No one, sir.”

Jesus replies with the obvious implication of his first statement: “Neither do I condemn you.

Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.”

Now it was God pronouncing the absolution.

It was calm and clear.

There is advice and warning in the statement.

And I do not know where she could go.

Could it be that in the end she returned to the women around Jesus where she could find security, acceptance, and healing.

I do not know.

I do suspect that whenever she remembered the event she heard that voice of Jesus, “Neither do I condemn you” and could put the event in her loss column and look forward to God’s future.

Sisters, there is a lot here to reflect upon, for most of us have had some degree of trauma by our fault or the fault of others

Perhaps this will give you a new appreciation for chanting Psalms and canticles and letting them sink into your heart - it tells me why although I liked contemporary music I have turned away from it now.

I need God’s peace sinking within.

Perhaps this will give you a new appreciation for leaving the past behind because you are drawn to the future, an appreciation that sees this as a process rather than an event.

Perhaps when you panic - especially due to your own fault - you will be able to find the place of quiet where accusing voices fade away and you hear Jesus’ non-condemning voice.

Whatever your take-away I trust our Lord that he in his quiet space will be continually drawing you from the losses of the past into the glorious future of his resurrection, into union with him.

Readings

FIRST READING

Isaiah 43:16–21

16 Thus says the LORD,

who opens a way in the sea,

a path in the mighty waters,

17 Who leads out chariots and horsemen,

a powerful army,

Till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,

snuffed out, quenched like a wick.

18 Remember not the events of the past,

the things of long ago consider not;

19 See, I am doing something new!

Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

In the wilderness I make a way,

in the wasteland, rivers.

20 Wild beasts honor me,

jackals and ostriches,

For I put water in the wilderness

and rivers in the wasteland

for my chosen people to drink,

21 The people whom I formed for myself,

that they might recount my praise.

RESPONSE

Psalm 126:3

3 The LORD has done great things for us;

Oh, how happy we were!

PSALM

Psalm 126:1–6

1 A song of ascents.

When the LORD restored the captives of Zion,

we thought we were dreaming.

2 Then our mouths were filled with laughter;

our tongues sang for joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

“The LORD had done great things for them.”

3 The LORD has done great things for us;

Oh, how happy we were!

4 Restore our captives, LORD,

like the dry stream beds of the Negeb.

5 Those who sow in tears

will reap with cries of joy.

6 Those who go forth weeping,

carrying sacks of seed,

Will return with cries of joy,

carrying their bundled sheaves.

SECOND READING

Philippians 3:8–14

8 More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith 10 to know him and the power of his resurrection and [the] sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.