A Sermon by Tim Trussell-Smith
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
July 26, 2009
In her book, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor – a world-renowned preacher and Episcopal priest – writes that "Watching a preacher climb into the pulpit is a lot like watching a tightrope walker climb onto the platform ... both step out into the air ... counting now on something beyond themselves to help them do what they love and fear and most want to do." That's a very romantic image. I feel more like the tight- rope right now: tied up in knots and stretched taut. That's strange because I've been in front of a congregation to preach several times now. I've been getting more comfortable with it. That's part of the learning I've done during my first year in seminary.
But this sermon seems different. It may be that as a new member of All Saints Parish, this is my introduction to many of you, which adds to my nerves. I struggled with how much to share my own story – whether that would be helpful in revealing God's workings this morning. A few weeks ago I heard David Evett share some of his own life in a very lovely and effective sermon. But sharing oneself with our fellow believers is a tricky business. Another lesson I've learned in seminary is: it isn't always about you!
On top of that, the readings today contain not just one but three of the most famous stories in scripture – including one of the most disturbing. And honestly, I have had a hard time figuring out how they relate to one another. That's partly why I turned to Barbara Brown Taylor – hoping to find some inspiration in her poetic words. I found this a couple pages after her metaphor comparing preachers to tight-rope walkers: "Our stories are God's stories ... Sometimes they are comedies and sometimes they are tragedies; sometimes faith shines through them and other times they end in darkness, but every one of them bears witness to the truth of God's word. Preachers cannot "stay out of" their sermons any more than singers can stay out of their songs." That struck me. And so I decided to make the leap and share some of my story with you today in hopes of that somewhere we will collide with God's deep truth.
My Dad, Ken Smith, was a story-teller. He came by it honest – as an inherited family trait. Unlike most story-telling fathers, however, he chose to make a career out of it. He became a professional writer. First as a journalist and then as a creative writing professor, he worked doing what he was good at and what he loved, supporting his true vocation as a short-story-writer that led to two books of stories and many other published pieces. But he and I knew each other, as father and son, for just less than 25 years. His being a story-teller was important in how we knew each other. In some ways, the stories he told were how I knew him best. And what I have known for many years is that my own story is largely his story, as is the case with many – perhaps most – sons. Perhaps being a writers son has something to do with why I am a preacher.
And so I couldn't help reading the famous, scintillating tale of David's affair with Bathsheba without looking at it with a writer's eyes and ears. I also turned to another wonderful Christian writer – Walter Brueggemann – to help me glimpse how this dark part of David's story could "witness to the truth of God's word." In his book, aptly titled David's Truth, Brueggemann points out that the stories and psalms of David reveal a "multi-voiced" truth. They're not simple. They're not plain. They're not "flat," in his words. In fact, the stories come from several different perspectives – some who support the office of King tell us the stories which we've heard for the last several weeks: stories about the boy become King, the righteous shepherd and giant-slayer who was "faithful to God in all things." But there is another voice which has a deep mistrust for earthly powers. Clearly, this is the voice we hear today. Brueggemann describes these two voices as the "core truth" and the "counter-truth" of the David stories. The amazing thing is that the author of Samuel has inherited these stories handed down for centuries and sees them both as true. They exist side-by-side: one questioning, but not displacing, the other.
The truth is never simple and it is almost never easy. That is a lesson my Dad taught me, both as a writer and as a son, long before I ever thought of preaching. Brueggemann puts it this way: "The Truth arises amid engagement with the complexities of lived reality." For better-or-worse Israel cannot "disown" David. They cannot just put aside these stories which tell them who they are. That is a dangerous trick which we modern people have perfected but which the ancients were too wise, or perhaps just too scared, to attempt. Amazingly, they also refused to believe that there is no such thing as the Truth.
My parents separated and divorced when I was in first grade. It was immensely difficult for me to reconcile the "core truth" that my parents loved my brother and me with the "counter-truth" that they were capable of falling out of love with one another. It messed me up. I needed what Brueggemann refers to as "flat" truth. When my father remarried, I worked out a new, simple and clear "truth" in my ten-year-old heart and mind. The story went that my father had chosen someone else over my mother, my brother and myself. Adults lied. My father lied. I wanted nothing to do with him. But there is always more than one side to the truth.
In Second Samuel David has lost hold on the central truth of his life. The Truth he proclaimed while facing the giant Goliath. "There is a God in Israel." In contrast, the Psalm we read today stated that "Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God." However, the fools are not making an intellectual argument about the existence of a God. What they think doesn't matter. Their actions incarnate the emptiness of their hearts. David is just such a fool. Next week we will hear how David is confronted by the truth of his own actions. But later on, in a section which is not contained in this year's lectionary, we will find that despite the sins of David and Bathsheba, God bestows his favor on their child Solomon. Now we can all say that this is historical revisionism by supporters of the monarchy. But the truth these writers proclaim is that the truth is not simple. Our lives are not simple.
It is difficult to grow up and find that the stories we cherish are far more complex than we thought. But it doesn't change the fact that they are our stories. I remember reading my father's books for the first time and finding grains of our family's story in his fiction. It was re-worked with different names and the plot went in different directions, but his stories revealed some of his own truth. Things I wouldn't have known otherwise. I also finally listened to my father when he said he loved me. But it took me a long time to fully believe it. It took me a long time to realize that my father really was a good man. Part of that realization was only possible after I became an adult myself and realized how truly complicated life is.
That's why scripture should be complex and difficult at times. Even shocking. Our faith is all about God's unending love for us, but we experience God's love the same way we experience our human love for one another. At times it makes us mad with joy. But often it aches and burns and we almost always fail to live up to its demands. We act as if our loved ones don't matter. We are faithless at times. Everyone. That's what the seemingly opposing truths in the story of David reveal to us. They also reveal that God never dwells in the past. God is always working to build up the ruins into a better future. Just look at the Gospel reading.
The feeding of the 5,000 echoes David a little (David fed his subjects at different times and Jesus fears he will be made King like David) but it is more about Jesus as the new Moses. People follow him into the wilderness and when they are hungry they are miraculously fed with bread. In fact, John is providing an image of Eucharist. In the passage when it says, "He gave thanks." The Greek words are the source of our word Eucharist: the Great Thanksgiving. But the people make the same mistake as their ancestors did in the wilderness. They act as if a worldly power, some magic perhaps, has provided the bread. They forget about God.
I didn't grow up going to church and my parents were skeptical about organized religion, so after I had been going to an Episcopal church for a while and truly knew in my heart that I was a Christian, I decided to call my Dad and tell him. And I was terrified. I was shaking. I didn't know what he would think of me. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I thought he would love me less for making such a choice. I was being the fool.
The disciples had a similar experience that evening after the miracle of the loaves and fishes. It says that they had rowed three or four miles across a rough sea, when they saw something they couldn't have believed in their minds, despite the miracle they had just witnessed hours ago. Jesus was walking toward them across the water. Despite their lack of belief, the truth is there for them to see. But it terrifies them, nonetheless. Similarly, in my own moment of terror, I missed the obvious truth that my Dad's example of loving-acceptance was one of the reasons my heart was open to the Gospel.
That is the way of growing up and it is the way of God. God does not come to us on simple terms. God confounds our preconceived notions.
When my father died in October of 2007, I was wrestling with my call to ministry. I was living near Dad during his illness – we watched a lot of baseball together and talked about what he would do in retirement. He worried that I had lost my way. He encouraged me to go on to seminary, despite my worries about not knowing all the details. Not having everything perfectly planned. I was being the fool, this time, imagining I would and could get control of all the details. Life, as we see in today's readings, has a way of interrupting our foolishness. And then my step-mom, who I dearly love, by the way, asked, "Who can we get to lead the funeral?" Finally, I took a leap. I offered to lead the memorial service. It was the first time I had done anything like preaching. Talk about stepping out on a tightrope. I had, in fact, decided that I was not called to a preaching ministry. But the spirit had other plans. In saying good-bye to Dad on behalf of my family, in trying to honor him in a way he would be comfortable with, I found my own voice. I felt comfortable in a way I never had before. There was something working in and through me as I spoke. It still happens at times and I can't explain it in reasonable terms. After the service, my step-brother put his arm around me and said, "Brother, I think you've found your calling." It felt as if Dad was still trying to lead me on, trying to help me. The relationship didn't end, despite the facts of the world.
And how does Jesus calm his terrified disciples? He simply says, "It is I, do not be afraid." That is the way of God. In the midst of our pain and imperfection, God comes to us in the most unlikely ways. Even our dark stories "bear witness to the truth of God's word" because God is not an idea or a set of principles. The God we know is flesh and blood. We describe God as Father and Mother because God feeds us and holds us and weeps with us and says we need not be afraid to step out onto the thin high wire of love. The truth of the world claims we will lose our balance and fall. But the counter-truth of God's love claims that we can "know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" and through Him "accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine."
Amen.