January 18, 2009
Martin Luther King Weekend
Rev. Wendy Miller Olapade
Texts: 1 Samuel 3:1-10, 19-20; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; John 1:43-51

DIALOGUE

Prayer: We have come to listen to you, O God: not only with our ears, but with our hearts, and with our minds, and with our whole beings. Open us, that we might receive the truth that you speak to us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

It doesn’t take too much exegesis to understand that both of theses texts are stories of call. Samuel, Samuel…. And in the Gospel lesson, just after Andrew and Peter, both disciples of John the Baptist, were invited by Jesus to “Come and see” we hear how Jesus invites Phillip to “Follow me!” and then how Nathanael, a religious Jew, comes to believe in Christ.

20th Century Christian theologian Karl Barth said that all human history begins in being addressed. "A-dam, where are you?" That was God's first question to us. In Hebrew, the word we translate into Adam – means human being. God’s first question… Human being, where are you?

Later, God would ask, "Who told you to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree?" Then, "Where is your brother?" Finally, "What have you done?" Pretty powerful huh? Where are you, where is your brother, what have you done?

Now, we enjoy depicting ourselves as those who question God. "Do you exist God?" "Where are you God?" "Why do you allow suffering in the world?" "Are you a good God?"

But the Bible suggests otherwise. And our questions to God are not nearly so interesting as God's questions to us. "Adam, human being--where are you?"

So-- one might suggest that our whole lives are attempts to find an answer for ourselves to God’s question. Human reality is dialogical.

Now this is a challenge to the reigning ideology of our culture—a culture that claims autonomy and freedom from accountability in order to make us more efficient consumers. Life is what we want, what we say. We live for and by ourselves. No wonder that loneliness is a major modern affliction.

At the beginning of the last century, philosophers (like Buber, Marcel, etc.) asserted, counter to the prevailing tendencies of the day, that the human being is not an autonomous, independent agent, but always someone who is preceded by an addressing Thou, someone radically ‘other’ than ourselves, some external ‘other’ -- whose presence and address to us -- summons us forth. A radical other who forms us into beings who are more human than we would have been without the address.

This "other" is different from us, but also inescapable; in conversation with us, yet free from us. We are not alone. This is the greatest divine gift, our greatest human attribute, and always our great problem.

The notion that humanity is not alone, that humanity is “addressed”, is at odds with the modern picture of the self. This modern picture of the self is the mistake of Descartes, the 17th century thinker who was dubbed the “father of modern philosophy”. And it is a mistake now institutionalized in most modern novels, the U.S. Constitution, and our popular culture. Our world says things like, "I am who I am, as I am.” Or, “I am captain of my fate, master of my soul, detached, independent, free, un-addressed."

How different is the experience of, for instance, Sarah and Abraham, our forebears in the faith, who come into being as those who are addressed by a voice other than their own, a voice who comes to them not with a question--but a promise (Gen 12:1-3). Or how about Moses, or Mary, people we wouldn't have known, people who wouldn't have been, in the fullest sense, people, without being addressed.

The psalmist we listened to today either celebrated (or perhaps lamented) the inescapability of being addressed when either he or she wrote:

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you (Ps 139:7-12).

Our own UCC pastor and Old Testament Scholar, Walter Brueggemann says: that which we call "spirituality" is mostly a matter of coming to terms with this addressing-with-out being either "excessively submissive or excessively resistant" (Walter Brueggemann, The Covenanted Self, [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999], p. 2).

Scholars have rightly observed that the other by whom we are addressed is sometimes a great threat to us and who we think we want to be. We long for stability of personality, yet to be addressed, is always to be threatened by being unsettled, underway, still under construction.

Thus, we have complex defenses, strategies for fending off the other, ways to silence the address. Sometimes, as the psalmist says, we make our bed in Sheol, hide in the dark, or simply say that we now live in a world where God is dead (for in order to silence this God we must make God dead).

Still this ‘addressing reality’ pushes against us, keeps troubling us, and still asks, "Human Being, where are you?"

To be on a walk of faith, to be a Christian, to answer God’s call to discipleship is to be willing to risk pushing back against the tyrannical silencing that is engendered by secularity. To be baptized, even to be present, here in holy and sacred community-- is to be willing to risk having a conversation with the eternal, unmanageable other. As Rev. Glover noted last Sunday, baptism is about the gift of the Holy Spirit—a visible sign of an invisible grace—God with us!! I would add that in simply showing up – in the simple act of gathering in the name of Jesus – The Holy spirit IS. Here at the table, here in our midst – we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit. And my friends, that gift can be a troublesome gift, but also life-giving. The inconvenience of dialogue is the source of our existence. To be un-addressed is to be no one.

Friends, our God cares for us, yet is not commensurate with us. In dialogue we are addressed, made more than we would have been without the conversation. We need the courage to stand up to God and demand bread, peace, rain as well as the gracious willingness to submit to another who is sometimes against us in order to be for us. Here is a God who speaks in earthquake, wind, and fire. Yet-- here is a God who also evades our grasps by the still, small voice.

This dynamic is called in the Bible, says Brueggemann, covenant, "I will be your God" followed by "you will be my people." God promises, like a good mother, to resist us, to never let us go, to push us out on a journey, to always receive our prayer, and to sometimes answer, No.

We enjoy thinking of ourselves as people who decide, and strive, who probe and question. Here is a faith that beckons us also to narrate ourselves as those who have been summoned, called, addressed, promised. Sometimes, that claim of God under which we live-- is a great difficulty. It would be easier if no one owned us other than our desires, our state or the economy.

Yet on most days it is great joy to know that our lives are not our own. The uncalled life is such a bore. To be those who are summoned, called, commissioned, and examined is a great gift.

From time to time, we are addressed by people who are full of questions. "How can I believe in God?" "With all the suffering in the world, how can it be said that God is good?"

If you've spent much time in church, you by now know that our God is better at asking us questions than giving us answers. “Adam, Where are you?”

On this weekend that we celebrate the life and ministry and vision of Martin Luther King, Jr, this weekend put aside to encourage us to remember and ask ourselves what we are doing to further King’s vision of love and justice for all in the Beloved Community, I pray that you hear God calling: “Where are you?”

As we listen with open and hopeful hearts to the historic and uniquely awesome moment of the inauguration of President elect Barack Obama – I pray that we might all recognize the questions that God has posed in Obama’s message, “Yes, we Can.” Obama has taught us anew that hope is our gift, our birthright as children of a loving God. And Obama will surely, as he leads us in a time of transformation and reconciliation-- reminds us that God is always calling, always in dialogue with us, with our communities, with our governments and with our society – always asking….“Human Being Where are you?”

As we take our places in the human family of this century – this time of opportunity, the time of change and justice and love for all of our sisters and brothers….I pray that we will hear God addressing us: Human Being, Where are you?

“What are you doing with the gifts you have been given?
“Where is your brother?”
“With all the suffering in the world, how can you waste yourself?”
“What have you done?”
“What are you doing to live a life that confirms my belief in you!”

My friends, You have been addressed, called -- and this is God’s amazing grace.

Resource: Pulpit Resource, Jan.-Feb. 2003