Sunday, September 09, 2007

Vitamin Glee--A Sermon

Vitamin Glee
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
September 9, 2007

The Byrds were a rock group that started in Los Angeles in 1964. In 1965 they recorded the song Turn! Turn! Turn!, which would go on and be their greatest hit. Many people liked the lyrics of the song. If you listened to the Scripture reading this morning you heard most of the lyrics. They borrowed them from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

This passage is one of the passages more people seem to like than many others. There is something very neat about these words, “for everything there is a season,” with the litany of things for which there is a season. It’s a great passage but many people seem to forget to keep reading. The verses following are unique and wonderful in their own right:

[12] I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; [13] moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

The author’s litany of time and his subsequent remarks remind us that we have no control over time and often little clue as to what God has done. So he surmises that the best thing to do with life is to live it and enjoy it. It is not unlike John 10:10 when Jesus says that he has come to that we might have life and have it to the full.

Whenever I read this passage from Ecclesiastes I always have a twinge of guilty. The words jump out. Be happy! Enjoy themselves! Eat and drink and take pleasure in their toll!

It’s almost as if the author of Ecclesiastes does not understand it. People who believe in God are not supposed to have pleasure. God’s people do not ascribe to happiness. And God’s people eating and drinking and taking pleasure????

But having said all of this, perhaps we learn in the Book of Ecclesiastes that taking pleasure in life is not only not bad, but it can be downright good. A little bit of vitamin glee never hurt anyone.

Some times we are good at creating sin where there isn’t any. We make it a lot more difficult than it is. We get the impression that anything good and worthwhile and enjoyable must be a sin.

A young woman was dating a young man and she invited him to attend church with her one Sunday. She attended a very strict congregation with a lot of rules. The preacher preached a sermon that Sunday on the evils of dancing.

He was fired up and said that dancing is the work of the devil. Two people dancing arm in arm, close together. So close in fact that they could feel the other person’s heart beat right next to their’s. Their faces were so close that they breathed the same air. This was just a sin, the preacher fired away.

After the Worship Service the pastor asked the young man if he had learned anything.

The young man said, “Yes, sir. I learned that I’m not getting nearly enough out of my dancing.

Something always strikes me about this story. It always seems as if something is enjoyable Christianity has attempted to label it a sin.

I used to teach college Ethics and I learned something about teaching ethics.

If you mention the word ethics, the first thing people think about is sex.

If you mention the word morality, the first thing people think about is sex.

If you mention sin, the first thing people think about is sex.

If you read the Bible the Bible actually says very little about sex in regards to sin. Most sexual sin in the Bible, and the only sexual sin in the Ten Commandments is adultery----which is about a whole lot more than sex. Actually, the book that does refer to human sexuality a great deal is the book Song of Songs, and it was not a book about sin.

People think about having a good time they often think about having drinks. People get together and have a few drinks as they socialize with each other.

From the mid-point of the 19th Century, Christianity has had a peculiar view of alcohol. I listened to a popular TV preacher a few years ago and he was preaching about John 2, the Wedding Feast at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. The preacher said that Jesus really didn’t turn water into wine because that would have been evil. He therefore concluded that Jesus had turned the water into grape juice. He said at the last supper when Jesus passed the cup to his disciples he used grape juice.

To say that Jesus turned water into grape juice or used grape juice at the Last Supper is a bit of revisionist history because we know exactly when grape juice was invented and by whom. It was invented in 1869 by a man named Thomas Welch because he was uncomfortable with using wine in church. Grape juice was instituted for use in churches by a Methodist Bishop, Herbert Welch, early in the 20th century.

The Bible, in reality, does not preach against the use of wine or alcohol. It does preach against drunkenness, but having a drink and getting drunk are two very different things.

My point in all of this is that the enjoyment of life is a good thing; it’s even a holy thing. Just because something is enjoyable does not mean it’s a sin. I’m obviously not advocating people run off and practice immoral or unethical behavior. I’m just trying to say that calling everything fun and enjoyable a sin misses the point.

Secondly, we need to recognize that being in the presence of God needs to have a sense of joy, enthusiasm, even fun and laughter. I love the story about a pastor’s wife in church on Sunday.

Gladys was the preacher's wife and accompanied her husband each Sunday to church. One particular Sunday when the sermon seemed to go on forever, many in the congregation fell asleep.

After the service, to be sociable, she walked up to a very sleepy looking gentleman. In an attempt to revive him from his stupor, she extended her hand in greeting, and said, "Hello, I'm Gladys Dunn."

To which the gentleman replied, "You're not the only one!"

One of the reasons I like using humor in sermons is actually fairly personal. I hated going to church when I was a kid. I really hated it. I figure that God must have had an incredible sense of humor calling me to the ministry because I really didn’t like going to church and I hated listening to sermons. I had one problem with sermons. I found them to be totally boring. That is, unless the person preaching told a really profound story, or something neat in history, or, best of all, humor.

Often when the service was over and the pastor effectively used humor, if someone asked me what the sermon was about, I couldn’t tell you. But then I’d remember the joke or the funny story, and then remember the point the preacher was making, and then I’d remember the sermon.

Most preachers preach first to themselves so part of the reason I come up with stories, historical images, and humor is so that if I were sitting out there I wouldn’t be bored. For me, a little humor brings about a sense of joy and well being and fills my soul with vitamin glee and enables me to move closer to God.

Lastly, sometimes when we approach God, we need to do so with a sense of profound joy and not complicate matters too much. Something that I have noticed about Worship over the years is that we have a tendency to make it more and more complicated.

I read this and it’s only a portion of someone having fun with church Holy Communion rules.

All Baptized persons are welcome to receive Holy Communion as long as they believe in the Real or Symbolic Presence of Christ as either Risen Lord, Rabbinic Authority, Holy Spirit Person, or Great Ethical Teacher.

If you prefer to receive Communion under the conventional species of Bread (St. Mary's Convent, Wahoo, Nebraska) and Wine (Ernest and Julio Gallo Classic Port, California, 1994) please stand or kneel with your hands by your sides at the rail.

If the nitrates in the port induce nasal congestion a light Chablis (Sutter Home, 1993) or Zinfandel (Paul Masson, April) is offered depending on availability. Please indicate this preference by placing your right hand behind your head.

Two non-alcoholic selections options are also offered. For red grape juice (Tucker's Berry Farms), place your left hand behind your head. If you prefer a white, pasteurized grape juice product, kindly place both hands behind your head. To express solidarity with oppressed farm workers in the grape industry, place both hands tightly over your mouth and hum "Le Marseillaise".

To receive an ordinary, unleavened Communion wafer kindly wink your right eye as the minister approaches. For a certified organic, whole-grain wafer, wink your left eye. For low salt, low fat bread,c lose both eyes for the remainder of the service. For gluten-free bread, blink both eyes rapidly while staring at the ceiling.

Children may receive a blessed animal cracker by showing the minister that they can cross their eyes. Parents who are concerned about the violence implied in eating animal shaped foods may join a support session that will try to lobby the church for change. It meets in the Fellowship Hall on Tuesday evenings after the C. S. Lewis Reading Group.

Most of us, if these were really the rules for Holy Communion in church, would look at them and say, never mind.

Which brings me back where I started. The writer of Ecclesiastes speaks to us of time and basically indicates that one of the best things to do with the time God has given us is to take that time and enjoy it. We have our church picnic today with good food, good friends, and games. Enjoy the day, enjoy the food, enjoy one another, and let’s all have fun together.

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