Bill Brown

December 2, 2007

This is Advent Sunday, the beginning of the Western Christian year.  It is a holy season of the Christian church, a period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity, a joyful season, usually.  And it is a very special time for some of us in this church who are meeting with a covenant group.  It is also known as the Christmas season … retailers are a wee bit nervous this year.

However, when I agreed to fill in for Ted I asked if I could take a detour from the advent lectionary and he agreed.  What I intend to do is read a Scripture, once again I will refer to my AA program.  To be honest with you it is a more practical and relevant spiritual program then my religious journey but I need and love both.  Finally I will tell you a story and hopefully tie them all together.

The scripture I have chosen is a reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church in Macedonia or Greece chapter 12 verses 7-10.  In the first 6 verses of this chapter Paul had just explained in general terms that he had some extraordinary visions and revelations from God.  Then he goes on to say this in verse 7,

“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations.  Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees.  No danger then of walking around high and mighty!  At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it.  Three times I did that, and then he told me,  

“My grace is enough; it's all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”

So I have decided to talk about human weakness, powerlessness.  Doesn’t seem to quite fit in with the joy of Advent does it.  After all who cares to admit weakness or defeat?  Practically no one does.  Our natural instincts all but cry out against the idea of personal powerlessness.  We are competitive people.  We want to win.  We want to be right.  We want to be the best.  We want the freedom to do what we want when we want.  How many times have you heard this phrase uttered, “I’m dependent on no man.”  Our society considers independence a virtue and abhors dependence.  This self-sufficiency merit badge is worn with honor.  So let’s look at what self-sufficiency has done for our society:  Every where we see anger, fear, fear of terrorists, fear of illegal immigrants taking our jobs and committing crimes, fear of losing our homes and comforts, financial woes, poverty, the strong pressure the weak, an AIDS epidemic, health care costs that are going out of sight, we are fighting wars in two countries.  Each faction saying,” I am right and you are wrong”. 

The result of all this mighty bulldozing ahead effort of self-will seems to me to bring less peace and less brotherhood than ever before.  What is my point?  My point is that we need to listen to God’s words to Paul,

“My grace is enough; it's all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”

I’m fortunate because I’m a recovering alcoholic.  I identify with those words and with Paul’s words in verse 10 of that chapter,

“Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen.  I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift.  It was a case of God's strength moving in on my weakness.  Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks, illness. I just let God take over!  And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”

For over a year now I have been in a prayer group with two other brothers-in-Christ.  Recently we have been in a book study.  The book is a compilation of Robert Farrar Capon’s books on the parables of Jesus.  He has grouped the parables and called these Kingdom, Grace and Judgment.  We have completed the first two.  Capon is an Episcopal priest who has written numerous books.  His central theme in the Kingdom parables is that Jesus’ earthly ministry was to announce the Good News that the Kingdom of God is here right now.  In the Grace parables he amplifies this theme by saying the only people to whom that message was intended were the least, the last, the lost, the little, and the dead --- he was not referring to the physically dead.  He was referring to the people who had hit bottom and were powerless over their lives for one reason or another, in fact the reason was not important.  The good news was for all the losers.  We may not want to hear that, after all who talks about a sports team’s losing streak or who lost the debate or the almost presidents, or the last runner to cross the Boston Marathon finish line?  We just don’t talk about losers.  Well we do talk about one loser don’t we?  Jesus.  He lost, he was crucified.  But by losing he was a winner. 

This sounds to me like a message of hope!  The principle “that no enduring strength will be found until we first admit complete defeat” is the very foundation of all twelve step programs.

All recovering alcoholics accept this defeat this powerlessness and admit we had lost the battle while relying only on our mighty self-wills.  Just saying “NO” doesn’t work.  After admitting this powerlessness over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable we then affirmed that there was a power greater than ourselves that could restore us to sanity.  The next step is an action step and that is being willing to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God as we understood him/her or it.  

Now I’m talking about a word with a negative connotation, dependence.  After all, if I keep turning myself over to Something or Somebody else what will become of me?  I’ll be like the hole in the doughnut.  If I look at the facts in my AA program, the more I’m willing to depend on God the more independent I actually become.  I guess what I’m saying is self-will almost always ends in frustration disillusionment and pain unless it is in line with God’s will for us.

Let’s look at dependence in our everyday walking around lives.  Electricity, computers, the internet, cell phones (I think some people have them implanted in their ears), automobiles and the availability of fuel (no matter what the cost it seems).  We are very dependent on these powerful tools being there when we need it.  We don’t question this absolute absence of independence.  In fact we are delighted with this dependence and hope that it never gets turned off.  By accepting this dependence on these marvels of science we think we are personally more independent.  However, the moment our mental or emotional independence is in question, how differently we behave.  How persistently we claim the right to decide all by ourselves just what we shall think and just how we will act.  We are certain that our intelligence, backed by willpower, can rightly control our inner lives and guarantee us success in the world in which we live.  This intelligence backed by willpower still has to meet the acid test …  How well does it work?  Well, I’ll let you answer that for yourselves because I now want to tell you that story I promised earlier.  

It is a story about moose hunting in Alaska in the winter.  I know many of you may not be excited about the topic but bear with me.  Three men, all residents of Alaska, were flown into a rugged, wilderness area some 85 miles from the closest town and airstrip.  They were dropped off on Monday and the pilot, close friend, was to return for them on Friday of that same week.  They hunted for three days without seeing a moose within shooting distance.  It began to snow on Wednesday evening and all day Thursday.  On Friday, a clear day, they had to pack the new snow down to make a runway for the pilot to land on.  They packed it down as best they could by tramping on it with their feet.  The pilot returned as planned and began to land on the freshly packed snow.  He was an experienced pilot but he made a mistake, he had not trimmed the attitude of the plane enough and the nose was pitched down just a bit too much.  As he touched down the nose came down hitting the ground and it flipped all the way over on its top.  The pilot wasn’t hurt.  However, as most pilots tended to do when hunting, he did not file a flight plan so no one knew where they were.  The radio could not transmit because there were mountains all around.  The electronic locator beacon was working and on but only a plane flying directly overhead would be able to receive the signal.

The four men were able to flip the plane upright and they assessed the damage.  The prop was bent and the struts were bent, and one of the landing gears was damaged.  One of the men was an airplane mechanic with a creative bent and a never say die attitude and perseverance without end.  He took the propeller off laid the blade on a flat rock and beat it back to as close to original shape as possible with a round rock.  He then cut two spruce saplings down, peeled off the bark and made them as smooth as possible.  He then wired and duck taped them to the struts and straightened the wings as best he could.  He did the same to the damaged landing gear.  He put the prop and nose cone back on.  They prayed as the pilot climbed into the cockpit to start the engine.  Some time after the plane was upright a Western Airlines commercial fight flew over head and the men could hear that pilot talking to Control Center in Anchorage saying he had heard the ELB but the plane looked in one piece so everything seemed alright.  However, he didn’t give the location to the Center.  And for some reason the men on the ground could not communicate with the pilot. 

They started the engine and hoped it wouldn’t shake itself to pieces as they ran it up to take off speed.  Somehow it ran smooth enough so the mechanic told the pilot to release the brakes and don’t stop.  He had to fly 85 miles hoping for smooth air all the way.  As it turns out he got to the airstrip and a rescue chopper was sent for the three men.  Three men who were powerless and all they could do was pray.  Pray that that plane didn’t run into bad weather or rough air and shake itself to pieces.  In that event they would die.  The man who put this plane together was my friend and your brother in Christ Steve Smith.  Obviously there wasn’t anything he couldn’t fix … until now.  He can’t do any of the things he loved doing, flying, hunting, fishing, fixing things especially for other people.  His body is no longer working for him, he can’t walk, feed himself, he can’t fix his own body … he is powerless.  And yet he said to me, “I don’t understand how people without faith can go through something like this.  He is strong in his faith.

So in all times of  emotional disturbance or indecision I try to pause, be quiet and say silently;

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.  Amen.   – Reinhold Niebuhr

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