Moving Past the Things that Block Us

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Philippians 4:1-13:

I just finished reading about a hurricane that hit New York and New England in 1938. It had sustained winds of 150 miles an hour, and dropped nearly 14 inches of rain on Long Island in two hours and had the highest ever recorded storm surges in some locations. It also recoded the lowest barometric pressure in the Atlantic ocean by a ship’s captain who said it was the worst storm he had ever seen at sea. What made the storm particularly damaging, at least when it came to loss of life, was the fact that no one knew it was coming. The aftermath of devastation in trees downed, as well as homes washed out to sea made getting to the survivors even more difficult. They ended up having to cut in new roads into the forest to remove downed trees, many of which are still being used today. I tell that story not only because I find it interesting, and if I remember correctly Barbara Demarsh, a former member was in New England for that storm, but also because today we are thinking about and talking about the obstacles that stand in our way and how we respond to them. 

Obviously in this situation, the rescuers had an urgency to work around the obstacles anyway they can in order to be able to help people, and there are times in which the same is true for us. The urgency of the matter has us cutting through or around the obstacles that we find in our paths in order to solve the problem and get to the other side. Think of what happened here when COVID hit. A few of us had been in conversation about what it would take to put the worship service online, what we would have to do, and the obstacles in the way, but little did we know that we would make that transition and do that work in less than two weeks. Now it might not have been ideal, but we moved through quickly to make it happen, really because we had to. And it should serve as our example that we can do some pretty major things, fairly quickly when we want to or need to. But, there are other times in which the obstacles, which me may think are hugely overwhelming aren’t really anything at all, and here is great video that sort of captures that, take a look…

Now you can tell this was originally done awhile ago since neither one of them have a phone, but the reality is still the same. And of course, the purpose is supposed to be funny, while also pointing out something that is so true. Sometimes we get paralyzed by some problem that comes up, some obstacle, and yet the answer to it is so easy, we just need to get off the escalator. And so, I think part of what we have to do when we look at are obstacles is determining what are actually obstacles, what are things that are just obstacles in our minds, but not really something that should be stopping us. And then determining how we either work with the obstacle, work around the obstacle or change what it is that we want to do, and there will be some obstacles that are just too large to overcome. So, for example, there is lots of talk about going to Mars, but the obstacles to doing that, at the moment, are far too large to be beat. But the may become doable years in the future when we finally get the technology to catch up with the idea, which happens quite often. And so sometimes dealing with an obstacle is not to give up on doing something but to name that it cannot be done right now, and so needs to be set aside, or other things to help get through are worked on, so that some time in the future it can regain attention and traction to move forward.

And an off shoot of determining if something is truly an obstacle or not was what I thought was an absolutely astute comment that someone submitted on their card. And I don’t know if they intended it this way, but the way I interpreted this was that saying we should be doing this, or we should have this, can be an obstacle. It becomes an obstacle because they can become obsessions and more of a wish desire, the silver bullet, if only we had this, then all of our problems would go away, and the should then become our obstacles and they impact everything else we do, or may even try to do, because they keep coming back. Instead of focusing on what we do have or can do, they become the obstacle to keep us from even looking at anything else again. So, another example, there were several comments about us becoming more diverse, and let me say that I support that as a desire 100%. I’ve attended conferences and workshops on being a diversity oriented church, and my last church came really close to the benchmark, which was that 20% of the congregation is from outside the majority ethnic group, but that was a lot easier to do in Albuquerque. In Los Alamos, where the population is more than 90% white, ethnic diversity becomes a lot harder, and it could become one of those should things that becomes more of hindrance than an opportunity. And so that means that we then have to have a broader definition of what it means to be diverse, and think age, and opinions, and even for this community locations from where we are all originally from. Right, we have the opportunity to be engaging with people from outside the US who are living here, and that would clearly increase diversity. And also appreciating what we have, and again, youth and young families keep being named, but I would strongly encourage you if you haven’t yet come to our Sunday programming night, to please come where you will see that large diversity by age and see a different perspective than perhaps we get here on Sunday morning.

And we should also name that not all obstacles can be overcome, or need to be overcome. I had a member of the congregation at the first church I served who left because I was male and replaced a female clergy, which is what she wanted. Sometimes there are expectations, or the shoulds, that cannot be met, at least at that moment, and we simply have to name them as such and then move on to overcome them. And that then leads us to the key piece for us as we think about obstacles, and that is the role of God. And to help me do that, I’m going to invite Sam and Sam…

This story comes from 2 Kings, but think about the obstacles that the woman has to overcome to make this miracle possible, and we’ll talk more about miracles and where God works next week. But she could have told Elisha she had nothing, but her lack is not an obstacle because she has a jar of oil. And her lack of other jars isn’t really an obstacle, because she asks to borrow from others. And what about the obstacle of getting it all to the market to sell? How are they going to carry it all? What if someone tries to rob them? All the hypothetical obstacles that might have kept her from taking the next steps, and what is she going to do with all that extra money? A good obstacle to have. And what about God in this story? How many times do we see or imagine obstacles that seem too big to overcome, to big to even contemplate getting around, thinking that we have to do it all ourselves. I know that’s a common dilemma for me, of thinking that it’s up to me and forgetting about God, or even, as Cathy Hinojosa once said so wisely, we give our problems over to God only to quickly take them back so that we can solve them ourselves.

couple of years ago there was a meme that went around, especially amongst clergy that said “I can do all things through a passage of scripture taken out of context.” You could even buy t-shirts and coffee mugs with that printed on it, and it was in response to how that last line of today’s passage is often used outside of its original context. Because what Paul is talking about is the hardships and also good times that he has faced in his ministry, including being imprisoned, and shipwrecked, and times of hunger and having little, and also the opposites of those things, and through it all he knows that God has been there. God has been working to remove obstacles where necessary, and that’s why he says that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. it is the strength of knowing that Christ is with him in all situations, and that God will even help him to overcome obstacles when needed, or to move around them, or to abandon things all together, with the wisdom to know which of those things applies. Of having the sense to keep on keeping on.

The imagery we have been using for this series has been that of a caterpillar, but today we changed to a bird, because birds are definitely obstacles to caterpillars, but do they keep them from doing what they need to do? No, they take all sorts of steps to avoid birds, including one caterpillar that disguises itself as bird droppings so that they will leave it alone. But they don’t stop what they are doing, they don’t make excuses, they simply say this is an obstacle and here’s how we are going to keep going. And the same is true with us. This is not to deny that obstacle exist, they do, and as I said, some may not be able to be overcome, or they can’t be overcome at the moment, but they don’t stop us from doing other things. They don’t stop us from thinking of new ways to spread the good news, or continue in the old ways of spreading the good news, and they don’t stop us from simply walking around them or just getting off the broken escalator. And, most importantly, it’s remembering to take our problems to God so that God can move or remove those obstacles and help us to do amazing through the Christ who strengthens us. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.