Advent 3 (2006): "Why The Christian Life Is Like Learning the Running Pry"

Advent 3 (2006): "Why The Christian Life Is Like Learning the Running Pry"
Zephaniah 3:14-20; Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
Preached Dec. 17th, 2006.

John the Baptist makes me feel a little bit queasy.

John the Baptist makes me feel a little bit queasy because he told the truth, and when people speak truthfully, they don't always seem all that nice.

Though as much as John the Baptist might scare me greatly, and as much as I sometimes think that people should always be nice, we need people who speak truthfully. I need people to speak truthfully to me. I hope that I am able to speak truthfully to others, even when I'm tempted to be nice at the expense of speaking truthfully.

I hope that St. Mary Magdalene can be a place where we aren't just nice, because nice isn't the same as love. Nice will only get us so far. Nice doesn't always allow us to speak difficult but important words to each other, words worth speaking because of our great love for one another.

So when I hear John the Baptist speaking to those gathered around him on the banks of the Jordan, I get a little queasy. John is not exactly nice. He tells the truth, and the truth ain't easy.

John the Baptist says exactly what the people around him need to hear, speaking very specifically to those who come to see him. When the tax collectors come to be baptized, they ask, "Teacher, what shall we do?" John the Baptist says to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed to you." When the soldiers come to be baptized, they ask, "And what shall we do?" And John the Baptist says to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation. Be satisfied with your wages."

So it makes me wonder. If the text said, "When the parish of St. Mary Magdalene came to be baptized, and they asked, "And what shall we do?" It makes me wonder what John the Baptist would say.

This makes me queasy, because I know that John the Baptist wouldn't hesitate to tell us the truth.

***

I mentioned a number of weeks ago that at one time in my life I spent a lot of time in a canoe.

I remember one particular day on the water. I was at the peak of my paddling skills, having worked on my freestyle canoeing for about ten years already. But I was still trying to perfect one particular skill. I spent from daybreak to sundown trying to get it right. It was a solo technique, and it took all day because it was a technique that took a lot of refinement.

We called it a running pry, and what you would do was kneel in the middle of the canoe, then to tip the canoe on its side until you had about an inch or two of freeboard. Then you brought the canoe up to a fair amount of speed, paddled in a straight line towards the dock, then slipped your paddle into the water in a very particular way.

If you did it right, the canoe turned on a dime, and you came within six inches from and parallel to the dock, very, very quickly.

Now there were a number of things that could go wrong. If you put the paddle in the water the wrong way, you could tip the gunwhale of the canoe underwater and you could sink the canoe. You could also put the paddle in the water in such a way that you would launch yourself out of the canoe, and find yourself in the water beside the canoe.

The worst thing that could happen, though, was nothing. Because when nothing happens while you are traveling at full speed towards a dock is that the canoe stops abruptly, but you don't. You keep moving, and the centre thwart hits you right in the gut.

All of those things happened to me that day.

So what in the world does the running pry have to do with telling the truth? At least this: nobody learns to do anything well without someone who tells the truth.

If my teachers and didn't tell me what they knew about how to do a running pry, I would never have been able to do one. If my teachers weren’t able to tell me what I was doing wrong; what I needed to change; speaking kindly, but not always nicely; if my teachers that day weren't able to speak truthfully about what I was doing or not doing that day I wouldn't have perfected the running pry.

Nor would I have been able to perfect that running pry that day had my teachers not listened closely when I spoke truthfully about what wasn't working.

It took a relationship, where each of of could speak truthfully to each other, and directly to each other.

And it still took all day to learn, I still got wet, and I even hit the dock a couple of times. We all needed patience, we all needed to speak directly to each other, we all needed to speak truthfully. And by the end of the day I was doing it.

I would say that our life together as the church is a little like learning the running pry. Learning the running pry relies on a community willing to tell the truth, willing to be patient, and willing to speak directly. The running pry relies on a community of experience, of shared meaning, willing to teach each other, and learn to from one another, through truth and patience. And by the end of the day this kind of community can perform acts of tremendous beauty, like the beauty of a well executed, smooth and gentle running pry that brings you within inches of the dock.

***

The patience of this church, though, is not about canoeing. It is rather a patience in discernment, a patience with those who are new among us. It is a patience willing to genuinely hear the concerns of others. It is for us a community willing to really listen, where each concern is heard, and can even be transformed into a new way forward, one that no one had yet imagined. This is what patience might be for us. A patience where each concern is taken seriously.

But in the end our patience is not instrumental. Our patience is theological.

Our patience is learned from scripture, described by Paul and Zephaniah, grounded in our knowledge that the Holy One of Israel is already among us, growing away from worry towards the peace of God, because the Lord is near. If the Holy One of Israel is already among us, if the Lord is already near, there is very little we really need to worry about.

So if we imagined for a moment that on the edge of the water, it isn't my canoeing instructor, but a prophet or an apostle; and if we weren't learning the running pry but the Christian life; and we asked, "And what shall we do?" we would be glad to hear the words of Zephaniah:

Be patient; be hopeful, even; don't let your hands grow weak; fear nothing: the Holy One of Israel is already among us.

We would be glad to hear the truth from St. Paul too: Don't worry about anything; be thankful; pray about what you need: The Lord is near.

We would be glad to hear the truth, because we would know that the truth would be spoken within a context of mutual affection and love, out of a willingness to work patiently, out of a desire for each of us to do something beautiful, a patience and truth grounded in the acts of love done for us in the saving acts of God in history, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.