end of summer

A few weeks ago, I was asked by our pastor to give the sermon on the Sunday following Synod School.  I agreed, not sure what I was really getting myself into.  I spent a lot of time on this, and several people have asked to read it.  So here it is, including a link to a partial recording of the song.  I think I have a video of one of my own choirs performing it, but I'm not going to take time to find that today.  I will keep looking.  Please keep in mind that I am not a theologian.

My scripture is Psalm 17 from The Message.

It seems to me that most of you would be better qualified to be standing here, yet here I am. I think this may have come about because I mentioned once that I had written sermons during my time working with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks in Yellowstone. Though I spent more time making salads than writing sermons, Yellowstone is the first time I truly understood ministry.

When I was deciding what to talk about, I considered digging out my journal from Yellowstone and using that, but it would have required a few hours of digging in the basement, and its doubtful that Old Faithful will go off during this service, so I don't need to plan for the interruption. I considered talking about the poetry of Metallica or the chord structure of a Green Day song, or even the form of a Motown song, but I’ll have to do that at least 14 times at school in just a few weeks. I considered talking about community and taking care of each other, but you don’t need me to tell you how awesome you are. I even thought about a racing analogy, since I’ve just spent my last two days selling tickets at the Speedway, but I saw more people than race cars.

One day while I was thinking through all of these topics, a song popped into my head. Usually when a song pops into my head, there is a reason, so I dug out the music and played through it and this is what you are getting. I came across this song during the summer of 2002 at a choral reading session. I brought it back to the choirs I was teaching, and it was their favorite song. They insisted on rehearsing it every day. The music for To Be Strong was written by Audrey Snyder, but the poetry was written by Ingrid Wendt, who teaches the process of writing poetry to teachers. I’ve broken the song up line by line.

There’s a strength in the moon, that silent pulls the tide, there’s a strength in the sun, gently pushing night aside.

Have you ever wondered about why things happen? How things work out the way they do? Was it a coincidence or meant to happen to show you something? This song is about finding strength in nature and pulling from that for your own strength. I’d like to think that maybe God lets us see these strengths both to give us examples of ways to get through things, but to also show us that we already have strength put in us on purpose. I don’t think nature thinks about what it does, and I don’t think the strongest people among us think about being strong. They just are.

I don’t think the moon thinks about how it needs to be strong enough to control the tides here on earth. The sun doesn’t really push night aside, it is just doing its job. But the image makes you think a bit. Neither of those things happens suddenly, but more gradually.

The smallest feathers of a bird will gravity defy.

Keep your eye on me; hide me under the cool wing feathers from the wicked who are out to get me, from mortal enemies closing in, David says in the Psalm. Have you ever thought about those feathers? I know when feathers make their way out of my down winter coat, I don’t stop to think about the bird from whom they came. They seem so light and fluffy, how can they be strong? And defying gravity? I definitely don’t think about that, unless I’m listening to Idina Menzel sing Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked. But I have seen a turkey protect her babies under her wing, and this is much the way that God protects us. Maybe those feathers are stronger than we thought.

There’s a strength in listening and a strength in being heard.

When Slane started to talk, I had to learn a new skill. Not only interpretation, but listening carefully to what she is saying. Now you all have heard her and know that sometimes this takes a great deal of patience. But she deserves for me to keep myself from interrupting her sometimes long explanations and descriptions. This hit home at her preschool parent teacher conference when she talked for 95% of our conference time. When I asked her why, she simply told me that she finally got her teacher to herself. It is hard to focus and acknowledge another person’s thoughts. Asking someone about their day and then actually listening to the answer or engaging with their answer is not easy, but so important. David starts this Psalm with the word listen. Listen while I build my case, O God. He’s praying to be heard.

There’s a strength in knowing when to use important words.

Something about this image got me thinking about hip-hop. Paint grace-graffiti on the fences, take in your frightened children who are running from the neighborhood bullies straight to you. I teach hip-hop history. I start with disco, then move into the four pillars of hip-hop with examples and activities to go with each. For the MC or rapper, we play a basic rhyming game to illustrate how difficult it can be. We watch a demonstration of scratching and turntables to learn about the DJ. We watch a video of old school breakdancers vs. current breakdancers from around the world. And we make our own graffiti. We talk about how it is illegal, and the different kinds (tagging vs. art), and then each student makes their name graffiti style and we hang it up around the school. Initially, the graf writers, as they are called, just wanted a voice. They kept it short and simple, but they got to express themselves in a way that they never could before. Many of them grew up in poverty in the South Bronx, and writing their name or phrase on a train car was their way out. But they had to know what to write. We have to think through what we say and how we say it, something I am terrible at doing. But God takes me, and all of us, in anyway, and helps us find the words we need, if we ask. And sometimes it is obvious, like the messages in early graffiti.

It takes courage to admit that there are still some things to learn.

The song shifts here from strength to courage and power. It steps back from strength that occurs naturally to the power found in nature or strength that takes some effort. It takes effort to admit that you just might not know all of the answers. You might need to take a step back and look at a situation from a different perspective. You might need to ask someone about their experience in a similar situation. You might be humbled by their answers. Even David does this, when he calls to God for an answer after realizing he doesn’t have his own.

There is power in a mountain whose voice can shake our home.

For two years I lived in Hawthorne, Nevada. Hawthorne is the county seat of Mineral County, which borders California. The whole town sits in about a square mile of high desert in the shadow of Mount Grant, near the shores of Walker Lake. It is 40 miles from the Walker River Paiute Reservation, 75 miles from Yosemite, 70 miles from Top Gun (yes, like the movie), and 5 hours from Las Vegas. It is surrounded by miles of bunkers full of ammunition, which has been stored there since the end of WW2. During the war it was a major manufacturer of the ammo used overseas. The bunkers belong to the army, also the town’s main employer. Most of my students’ parents worked on “the base” working with all of that ammo. It was not unusual for me to hear thunder and then hear a student say, “oh, mom didn’t tell me they were blowing things up today.” Powerful thunder indeed.

Being near Top Gun meant that sometimes while driving to nearby towns I would get through a mountain pass only to be buzzed by jets flying over. And the sounds of jets echoing off of mountains, again, powerful. You wouldn’t think that a mountain would have a voice, or that a ginormous, thousands of feet high mountain would be powerful, but it certainly can be. I’m sure my experience was just a taste of what Moses felt when he was on the mountain listening to God speak.

There is power in a seed whose roots can split a stone.

Earlier this week, we planted some carrots and peas. The carrot seeds especially are very tiny. Now, how can that be powerful? Perhaps in the food it provides, what our kids are learning about gardening, or even just in the miracle that is a seed growing into a plant? Now, what about that pine cone. How is that powerful? In Yellowstone, the lodgepole pine is the most prevalent tree. The lodgepoles suffered the worst during the big fire of 1988. But they were also one of the first trees to return after the fires. How? The pine cones are fire ready. In fact, they only release their seeds after a fire. It takes the heat to open the cones up. So the seed is powerful. But think about the stone or boulder that might split. To clock in at the Iowa Speedway I have to walk past a huge rock out front. If you’ve been to the administration building, you can’t miss the rock with a carving of Rusty Wallace in it. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed that it has split. I have no idea how or what did it, but there is a definite crack where there wasn’t one before. And imagine if it was more than extreme weather changes, but a seed growing through it.

So, putting all of that together, I have seen trees growing out of stones. And a seed started it. That is powerful.

A tree can bend and shiver yet stand firm against the storm.

I’m going to go back to Yellowstone for this one. The other kind of tree that is seen the most there is the aspen. But they don’t grow alone. An aspen grove is not really a grove, it is one tree with one root system. If one part becomes weak, it has all of the rest to support it. The same is true for us. If one of us is sick or weak or experiencing trouble in some way, we are all there to support. I’ve experienced this first hand. When Graeme was born, you were supporting me, and us, before I even work up in ICU listening to James Brown. You were our root system. In fact, when checking the analytics on our blog, it seems our root system spread to many countries and a few hundred people. You each are part of someone else’s root system. Isn’t that one of the main reasons we become part of a church? Psalm 18 starts out by stating this in another way. David says, I love you God, you make me strong. God is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight. I think this could be replaced with God is my root system, the aspen tree of which I am a part, my rescuer.

There is power in numbers and a power in being one.

I witnessed a protest during my second year of teaching. Our principal had been placed on administrative leave, and his son happened to be in 8th grade in our building. While many of the teachers were in a training and substitutes were covering our classes, the son had schemed with his friends and most of our students got up and walked out of class at the same time and began to run around the campus. The chaos that resulted was scary for us as we watched students running crazily away from the superintendent and even the police chief for an hour. Eventually it was a coworker who suggested we corral the students into the gym and the same teacher who explained to the students what was happening and why their response was not appropriate. She almost single handedly calmed down our students and sent them back to class. Power in numbers: to scare or use for good, to be armies or angels. Power in being one: to stand against the status quo or calm down the masses, to write Psalms in solitude that so often are exactly how we are feeling, or to hang on a cross for us.

There is power in a smile and in a pair of open arms. When a heart’s about to shatter there is power in a song.

Have you ever waited for your luggage to return at an airport? You can always tell the people who have been separated for a while. The hugs and smiles rejuvenate everyone around them. I often feel that way just walking into church. And isn’t it often music that rejuvenates our souls? When I’m at my lowest, I look for a song to change my outlook. I’m not as cool as David, I don’t write my own songs to express my feelings, but I might just sing along with someone else’s song.

And if my life should suddenly go wrong, when the worst I could imagine come to pass. I’ll look around, remembering what I’ve found in nature’s many ways of being strong.

The Incredibles may be one of my favorite movies. I love the analogies it presents in each family member and their role in the family. I love how the Strong Mr. Incredible comes to realize that he is not as strong as he thought, and that ultimately his strength is not in his muscles, impressive as they are. He figures out that the worst thing that could happen to him is being separated from his family, who in his case, complement his super power abilities in every way. Mrs. Incredible is flexible and can bend and stretch in a way that only moms can. The eldest child, Violet, is a teen learning how to be herself, and her power is creating invisible force fields. Dash can run so fast that he can move over water, and Jack Jack, the baby, doesn’t know his super power yet, but really it is the ability to change powers, from laser eyes to being a dead weight or a monster in a matter of seconds. I don’t know anyone like that. When they work together, they are able to overcome their enemy, Syndrome, who is trying to be a super hero with invented powers and they become one.

We each have a super power that make us naturally strong, like the moon pulling the tide or the feather defying gravity. God gave them to us, not to keep them to ourselves, but to use them. And I believe that our strengths are something that we do without thinking because they are so much a part of us. When we put these together, we are the aspen tree, held together by our roots though we stand individually. We have the strength to stay on the trail, to not give up. We are strong, and when we forget, we just have to look around us at all of the examples that nature provides. We do have the power.