How We Grow: The Courage to Change
Notes
Transcript
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. In this time, O God, grant that we might have ears open to your still speaking voice, hearts softened and weathered enough to welcome your Spirit into our presence, and minds willing to hear your nudges and make the changes we need to move forward in this world full of pain and hurt, Amen.
Over the last few weeks, we have spent some time exploring what it means to grow spiritually. I am not going to spend time recapping those reflections because you can easily go back and listen to them, either here in our Facebook group (by clicking on the video link in the bar just below the pictures) or on YouTube in our channel and I encourage to go back and listen to them. As we prepare to come back to physical worship next week, it is really important to know what Jesus and God say to us about being in this new reality that we face. COVID-19 has changed the face of who we are and what we are going to be able to do with those changes. Today, I want to give us an opportunity to realize that we do need to begin doing things differently because change is needed.
I know, I know, before you all close out of this video, I want you to stick with me here…I know change is hard, I get it…we like where we are and what we have because it is comfortable and easy. But here’s the thing gang, if we always stay in the mode that we cannot change, there is absolutely no opportunity for growth and we lose opportunities to do more and be more. Think in terms of your children…and I know some of us would love for them to have stayed as a 6 month old infant because they were cute and adorable, did not talk back, did not test our patience, and so forth but let me ask you this…isn’t part of the reason why we want them to stay so young because they absorbed and changed so quickly at that age? I mean, think about your life, have you not been happiest when you were growing, when the world was all so new and exciting? This is the kind of excitement we need to recapture in our lives and we can, actually, we have no choice right now but to adapt and because we need to adapt, change is what is going to happen.
So, why not embrace change for a change, not to use the same word twice but really, we don’t have much choice but to change the way we have always done things so that we can adapt to the world that is changing so rapidly around us. I also want to say this…there is a reason I started our time of reflection this morning with the prayer that I did. Throughout my life, I have resisted change. I have often thought that there was absolutely nothing wrong with who I was or who I was becoming. I resisted change and there are still somethings in my life that I wish would not change but the reality is that I cannot force things to remain the way they have always been, that has only ever led to pain, frustration, resentment and anger. All of those things bring about hurt and I know I have said this before but when we are hurt, we hurt others, either intentionally or unintentionally. Those feelings are the hot bed for other pain and we begin to spiral into the depths of despair when we allow them to overtake our lives.
With that being said, I want to let you all in on a little secret…the prayer I recited at the beginning of this time is one that I use extensively in my own prayer time. It is one that some of you are very familiar with and maybe that some of you may have never heard before. It is called the Serenity Prayer...
Serenity Prayer: God Grant me the Serenity...
Serenity Prayer: God Grant me the Serenity...
This prayer, written by the great theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1932/1933 time frame, is used by many as a form of meditation. But it is also a challenge for each of us. The prayer itself really is not often quoted in its original form…and I want to give that to you because it really lays out what I want for us to get from the scripture passage from the Wisdom of Solomon…here is that prayer as Reinhold Niebuhr originally inscribed it...
Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other
Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other
While this is not the form that is most often quoted today, I wanted you to see that the challenge we all face in this world is accepting change. We need courage to do so and this prayer gives us something to strive toward in our lives. And there is great truth in what it says…we need strength and courage to change what must be changed. And like I have said frequently over the last couple of weeks, that change must begin with ourselves.
The reason I started with this prayer is that what we have to digest this morning is not something familiar or maybe even completely unfamiliar/unheard of to most of us, if not all of us. The passage I read a few moments ago from the book, Wisdom of Solomon, is not a typical Old Testament text that we see or even study. The book itself appears in very few printed Bibles and only appears on this Sunday in the lectionary. So, to get us started on this scripture, let’s spend a moment or two looking at what the book is all about...
The Wisdom of Solomon: A Brief Overview
The Wisdom of Solomon: A Brief Overview
What we have come to know about this writing is that it most likely was not written by King Solomon, who preferred the wisdom of God to fame and riches, but attributed to him by various theologians of the early church. The whole of the book speaks a lot about what it means to be righteous and to seek justice…not unlike the people of Solomon’s time, this too is what we should be chasing after. The writings included within its pages, are typically divided into three sections: Seeking Justice, the Gift of Wisdom, and Deliverance. Today’s passage is included in the writings about deliverance, specifically, the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.
While we do not know for certain when it was written, we have come to see that it was probably written sometime between 30 BC and 40 AD. There is still much debate about the date it was written but because of this, we know for certain that it was not Solomon who actually recorded what we have. Now, with that kind of history disseminated, the book itself includes a lot about what it means to live a life of faithfulness and seeking justice for those in need. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this but if you can get your hands on a copy of the Bible with the Apocrypha, you can find the Wisdom of Solomon and read it, as there is much that can be learned from its pages.
So what does a writing from the early 1st Century BC and AD have for us? As I have said, this 2,000 year old writing might hold a whole lot for us today but I am not going to spend a lot of time on this either because, what I hope you will see, is that it is very plain what we need to take away from this writing and the most important piece for us today is...
By your actions, you taught your people that those who do what is right must always want what is best for others. Your sons and daughters saw that you give to those who have sinned a chance to change their hearts and minds. In this way you encouraged them.
The writer of this particular piece of scripture was spending some time in talking about what it means to live a just and righteous life. In this verse, the writer is actually addressing God. Over the previous 4 verses and a bit more before that, the writer speaks about how God was kind and generous with the people of Israel who escaped Egypt. If you remember that story, the people, led by Moses, were in a time of great despair. They had lived under Egyptian rule for over 400 years and had become enslaved to Egypt. They were comfortable with where they were and when Moses wanted them to move out of their own way and begin moving toward what God had promised, many had grumbled and said and done things that went against what God had told them was to be followed.
So, when Moses brought up this idea of moving away from the relative protection of Egypt, people did not want to. I mean, they would have needed to leave their homes and defend for themselves. They would have no longer been cared for by someone else, they were like teenagers moving out into college or into their own apartments for the first time. While some of our teenagers long for this “freedom”, freedom from tyranny and oppression was scary. Regardless as to how we might see it, for many who live under that kind of rule, resist moving out from underneath it because it is what they are used to. It is comfortable to be protected and not have to worry about who will care for you.
So, what the writer is getting across to the people who read these words for the first time and for us today is that sometimes, we need to look beyond the immediate so that we can get to the greater possibility of what God may have in store for us. In addressing God, the writer seems to want us to see how he felt about what God was doing amongst those who escaped from the oppression of Egypt to gain hope about what God can do for them (and by extension, us). Remember too, that as those who escaped from Egypt rebelled against God, God could have sent immeasurable punishment upon them for not living as God had intended. God could have done horrible things, I mean look at what God wrought upon Egypt for not letting the people go in the first place…but yet, God did not do that. The writer is reminding those who heard and read these words that God exercised so much restraint in dealing with the rebellious people of Israel....look at the first half of that verse again...
By your actions, you taught your people that those who do what is right must always want what is best for others. Your sons and daughters saw that you give to those who have sinned a chance to change their hearts and minds. In this way you encouraged them.
By God’s actions for them, we are also taught about what it means to have mercy, compassion, and grace toward others. Because we can plainly see how God gave the Israelites all they needed, we can be assured that God will provide all that we need as well, including the strength to endure whatever lies ahead of us. God allowed the Israelites to change their hearts and minds and this encouraged them.
We can take great encouragement from these words and the things that God had done too...
God Grant Me the Courage to change...
God Grant Me the Courage to change...
As we move forward, there is much change needed…we may not be asked to leave our homes and give up all that we have to follow God’s promptings (although some of us have). We may not need to do things that cause us much pain but we do need to start doing things differently. It is not going to be comfortable at first, but it might become so. We may not even need to change much but we do need to start doing things differently. This world is hurting. This world is full of pain. This world is still full of injustices. Our strength still comes from God and we are challenged to think about what it means to live in this world but not be of this world. Much like Jesus’ parable of the weeds, sometimes you do not know what is weed and what is true plant until they are full grown but if you don’t sow the seeds, you will never know what is good plant versus weed and not to mention that you will never bear fruit either. So I challenge you today to ask the question of yourself, where is God moving in your heart to make a difference in this world? If we truly believe what my benediction challenges us to see, this question is more important today than ever before…Amen.
Kolarcik, Michael. “The Book of Wisdom.” New Interpreter’s Bible. Ed. Leander E. Keck. Vol. 5. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994–2004. 437. Print.