John 1:1-14
December 25, 2016
I had an idea. Nothing came
of it.
Not the first or last time
that has happened!
It was a recurring idea. It kept
coming back
I gave it some thought,
wondered what to do with it,
even wrote down a
step-by-step “to do” list.
But the idea stalled,
sputtered, and stopped.
As ideas go, it never grew
legs.
God had an idea
In God’s good humor, the Lord
said, “Let there be . . .”
And you can fill in the
blank:
Let there be light, let there
be sky, let there be water, let there be acorns, let there be the platypus,
so on and so forth.
But on the sixth day of
creation, God said, “Let there be us…”
Not me, not you – us.
“Us” signifies a community, a
multiplicity of folks.
And “us” signifies a
relationship between heaven and earth.
It is a relationship that has
been strained many, many times, mostly by earth.
But Christmas means that God
will establish this relationship, once and for all.
That’s the Big Idea.
Call it “the organizing
principle,” “the rational center,” “the emotional heart of the matter.”
Call it what you want.
John, the Gospel writer,
calls it “Logos”
Logos signifies Word, but
more than word.
It is Intellectual concept,
but more than concept.
True north, but aimed in all
directions.
So let’s call it “the Idea.” The Big Idea.
Where do you get your ideas?
Some of them come in dreams,
as problems to be solved.
A few weeks ago, I was out
with some musical friends,
playing, “Chestnuts roasting
on an open fire.”
It is a deceptively tricky
tune,
Or at least that’s what I
said when I goofed it up.
That night I went to sleep
and dreamed all the correct chord changes.
Why, the very Idea –
It was there all along,
waiting to be found.
Where do you get your ideas?
Sometimes they come as explosions
of inspiration.
I can’t tell you how many
sermons have come to me when I’m in the shower.
Put a squirt of shampoo on my
hair and lather up,
And then – whew! – the whole
thing emerges
from the hard work of reflection
and study.
There I am, with nothing to
write it down.
Where do you get your ideas?
Sometimes they come from the hot
cauldron of emotion.
Some event causes us to
simmer and then boil, and a new idea bubbles up.
It’s probably an idea that
needs to be tested and certainly should cool off.
Did you know that after
President Abraham Lincoln died,
they found a trunk full of his
unsent angry letters?
Lincoln wrote them when he
was hot, then decided otherwise.
Some ideas are not worth pursuing.
Where do you get your ideas?
Sometimes they come as you
begin to develop skills,
And then you perceive
possibilities.
So my wife was talking to a
man who runs a woodshop.
She goes over on her lunch
break and he shows her how to use some tools.
Whoosh, the Idea comes. In
her case, it keeps coming.
So far she has made us a
dining room table, a head board for the bed,
and a table behind the couch
where she can stash balls of yarn.
She didn’t know she could do
that, until she started.
Where does anybody get their ideas?
Where does God get the idea,
the Big Idea,
the grand notion of heaven
and earth being united?
The seeds of it were there
from the beginning.
It became a problem to be
solved.
The emotion that prompted it
had to be reconciled with logic.
Most of all, the Notion has to
become an Action.
For it’s no good for an Idea
to remain a mere Idea.
It needs arms and legs and
feet to move.
It needs a tongue to bless
and correct and rejoice.
It needs a body to embrace.
And it needs to persist, so that
even if the Idea is killed,
it will crawl up out of the
grave and show you how alive it has always been.
And God’s Big Idea took flesh
and lived among us. It must always take flesh.
As one poet says, “Clay is molded, stone is sculptured, words are written
on a page, paint is splashed on a canvas, notes are penned on the music score.”
And to what end?
“Mozart’s music is performed and my spine tingles. I see
the Mona Lisa and feel liberated. I
read Les Miserables
and Jean Valjean creates compassion in me. This is the Spirit – Jesus who lived
becomes the living Christ.”[1]
So what’s the Big Idea?
That today, heaven and earth
sing together, as it was intended from the beginning.
Christ is born, God is here.
Let the Word take flesh in us
again!
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1]
Kent Ira Groff, Active Spirituality
(Alban Institute, 1994) 196.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment