Our Sunday Message

Between Now and Not-Now, Held by Affection: Numbers 14:1-4, Mark 1:9-15, 1 Timothy 4:13-16
Rev. Dr. Darren Middleton (Guest Preacher)
July 15, 2007
Seventh Sunday of Kingdomtide

  My good friend Jerry Bynum, illustrious native of that other Corinth, once presented my father-in-law with a gift that honored Bob’s intense longing to escape his South Memphis origins for something more rarefied, certainly higher, and quite possibly sublime: “I wasn’t born in Mississippi,” the plaque says, “but I got here as fast as I could.” Many moons ago Bob scampered across to Clarksdale and married Iva Lou, my elegant mother-in-law, and home, as they say, is where the heart lies.
  Today I am home. Even though I spent my life’s first quarter century far away from here, growing up amid the imposing headstocks that marked the Nottinghamshire coalfields, it is in this city, among Memphians I know and love, that I possess the most pronounced sense of belonging. I am home. And it feels good to look out from this historic pulpit, graced in the past by some of the finest preachers this part of the Baptist world has ever produced, and see so many friends and family. I am home. In this building, used to the sound of singing; which has seen baptisms and funerals; where people have come to be married, or to celebrate the birth of a child; where people have wept, and been filled with joy; where people have wrestled with the deep things of life, have prayed urgently, been stirred and changed. I am home. Where my spiritual heart lies.
Soon after I arrived on these shores in 1993, and some time before I could really say I had a home here, I became aware of the difference between our two cultures. I don’t mean the difference between our football and whatever it is that you think you are doing, though sometimes I wonder, but the acute sense that our peoples are different, our expectations are different, and our lives are different. Almost immediately, and there is no shame in admitting this, I found myself feeling betwixt and between, uneasy and anxious, not unlike the women and men I see at Commencement these days, no longer students but not yet graduated, itching to move on but strangely suspended in time.
  Scholars call this experience “liminality”; and they often say that people weighed down by liminal or transitional moments run the risk of identity loss, some disappearance of self, especially as they struggle to make their way through whatever it is that dis-orients and de-stabalizes them. In-between times are far from easy. And I do think much of my identity would have dissolved had it not been for my lovely wife, Betsy, her extravagantly loving family, my best mate Greer Richardson Jr., and my good friend Bobby Rogers.
  It was Bobby who introduced me to the Tennessee poet Charles Wright, whose verse graces the cover of the bulletin this morning and whose lines I am stealing for my sermon title, and for that Bobby’s gesture I shall forever be grateful. I say this because at just the right moment in my life, emotionally, spiritually, and culturally, I came across the words you have before you: “We’re placed between now and not-now, held by affection.”
  Lord only knows if Charles Wright would approve of how I wound up interpreting this line, and I choose to see it hinting at how God works through friends and family to create in us a sense of belonging, but I do know that it helped me through my uneasy transition from one home to another.
  Today I feel held by your affection, an affection as dear to me this morning as it was when it first appeared in my life fourteen years ago, and I love you fiercely.
  This said, I’m fixin to tell you about God’s word for us today. Yes, you heard it right, “fixin to,” that’s the official state verb of Texas!
Home, a sense of place, and the feeling of belonging are themes that pulsate at the heart of our texts this morning – but in a strange way. You would think that ancient Israel’s old generation, marked by the scars of enforced slavery and bereft of any land to call their own, would arrive at the cusp of Canaan and rejoice. But they do not. Caught between now and not-now, they do not feel held by Yahweh’s affections; instead, they cry loudly and weep bitterly. Some even yearn for the old days back home – if “home” is the right word – in Egypt. And while the writer of Numbers rejects such appalling nostalgia, many embrace it; indeed, we are told that the old generation rebels, refuses to enter Canaan, and wanders homeless for forty traumatic years before death takes them all. It’s not a pretty sight.
  What we have with Numbers 14 is a turning point – and the writer wants us to see this in more ways than one. If we examine the general story structure of the book of Numbers, for instance, we’ll find it divides into two unequal yet highly significant parts – the first 25 chapters chronicle the death of the old generation in the wilderness and the last 10 chapters describe the birth of a new generation of hope on the edge of the promised land. So, Numbers 14 represents a textual turning point – an intersection in the story, so to speak, after which things are never the same again.
  Numbers 14 represents a thematic turning-point also. Here the old generation sees itself caught between two worlds, between Back-Then and Not-Now, as it were, and since they are unwilling to trust Yahweh’s promise and power to lead the Lord’s people into Canaan, to conquer the Canaanites and their gods, the old generation chooses the past and thus suffers. The writer tells us this story so that we will recognize in it something of our own. He writes so that we will all see the text’s theme as our theme – that Israel’s choice represents our choice, their turning point ours also, and that the same God who brought Israel out of Egypt, is even now working in our lives.
  Together, we are on the cusp of something. Dr. Corr worked hard to improve our theological literacy, intensify our commitment to social justice, and heighten our liturgical sensitivity, but now that he is no longer with us we feel in transition, anxious as well as alone, yet our turning point challenge involves trusting God as our wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.
  We are at a defining moment in our church’s history, an edge of Canaan time, placed between now and not now, yet held by Affection – God’s generous affection.
  To lose touch with this Love, as ancient Israel’s old generation did, is to run the risk of losing direction too. Rest in such Love, my friends, and then proceed out carefully, open to the Spirit’s adventurous leading and into God’s affection-filled future.
  Now, to be honest, sometimes God’s affection appears demanding as well as difficult. We witness as much when we press for details on the story of Jesus’ baptism in Mark’s Gospel. Here the writer describes another turning point, this time in the life of the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who decides to be baptized by John. We all know the ritual. And many of us know the words that come from heaven on that pivotal day: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” But look closely. Note the violent wording of Mark 1:10 in the NRSV: how Jesus “saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.” It’s also worth noting that Mark’s Koine or common Greek supports this troubling hint of divine violence, and that it appears again in v.12. Here the Spirit “drives” or “shoves” Jesus into the wilderness. The Koine verb that Mark uses means “to cast out” or “to eject by force”; taken together, then, v.10 and v.12 imply that God’s love and affection can sometimes work in ways that appear less than tender.
  But why would God act so forcefully, so emphatically, and not through some form of gentle nudging and quiet hush? It’s all very puzzling, I know, but perhaps we can grasp Mark’s overall point by looking again at v.12, this time setting aside the violent phrasing, and focusing on his use of the word “immediately” instead. Scholars often note that “immediately” is one of Mark’s motifs – he uses it throughout his Gospel, often to express the urgency that accompanies the defining nature of some specific moment. In v.12 God acts immediately and Jesus, for his part, does not step out of the baptismal river and begin his ministry at full speed, which he might have been tempted to do after hearing heaven’s affirming voice but, instead, he steps back, takes stock, and prepares himself for an uncertain future’s perils and possibilities.
  God literally shoves Jesus into the wilderness. And here the Son of the Living God finds himself placed between a kind of now and not-now, held by his Father’s affection, and inspired to use the in-between time as groundwork for the journey that would lead to Golgotha as well as our salvation. We read this story, as we read all others in scripture, because we will recognize in it something of our own. Even the harsh or painful moments in our lives, which frequently accompany the turning points we experience, can become, once we have made peace with them, both insight and inspiration for our spiritual formation. Often we are tempted to make haste though life’s intersections, to take the not-now and turn it into now, quickly and without pause, but what happens during and immediately after Jesus’ baptism teaches us restraint and prayer. When we fill the space between now and not-now with our own patient devotion to God, as we are in this difficult interregnum, we follow Jesus as only good Baptists know how.
  Take heart. We Baptists are not alone. So many of today’s concerns were yesterday’s dilemmas, as any good student of church history will tell you, and the passage from 1 Timothy only illustrates this general point. The actual context behind the passage is quite complex.   However, we do know that by the time the writer of 1 Timothy puts pen to paper, he and others are painfully aware that the Apostles and other first generation Jesus-followers have gone on to glory, leaving a leadership vacuum behind them, which the writer tries to fill by reimagining ministry so that Christians think of it as an office, an important church appointment requiring ordination and commanding a salary (1 Timothy 4.14; 5.17, 22). This is a considerable development from the days of the free charismatic ministries of 1 Corinthians 12. That was Back-Then. The now of 1 Timothy’s time is an interim time. To get to the not-now of the future the writer reflects prayerfully, trusts in God’s love, and then moves ahead with his call for organization and institutionalization. Whatever else it accomplishes, 1 Timothy captures the moment when the early church, caught between infancy and toddlerhood, reaches out to God who, with outstretched arm and affectionate heart, takes her by the hand and helps her to walk.
  God has been helping the church to walk, or, switching the metaphor, to deal with turning points, throughout her history. Looking back, God may be seen in the assembled bishops who issued a statement about Christian belief, the Nicene Creed, in 325 AD; in the protest of a German priest called Martin Luther in 1517; in the push for greater unity among Christians at the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948; in the modernizing reforms of the Roman Catholic church at the Second Vatican Council in 1962; and yes, even in the so-called Baptist battles, now in their 28th year!
  We are on the cusp of something at First Baptist. We’ve selected a Senior Pastor Search Committee, we’ve participated in a congregational self-study, and we’ve started to find our voice on a range of matters connected with the future as well as our past. I am encouraged. You ought to be encouraged. We are between now and not-now, it is true, and enduring such liminality often seems hard, but remember the poet’s wisdom – we are held by Affection. But don’t simply take the poet’s word for it. Learn from scripture and Christian history also. Trust God entirely, be patient with the search and call process, pray for your Search Committee, and, in the days ahead, look for ways to love your church wastefully. I can think of no better way to witness in this delicate, interim time. You are held in God’s Affection, my friends; and quite frankly, there is no better place for us to be. And all God’s people said: Amen!
  Lord of the ages,
  You are our beginning and end – the Affection that holds us, as we are, caught between now and not-now.
  We trust You.
  For Your faithfulness in the past, we thank You;
  For Your constant care we praise You;
  And for our future in Your love, we place ourselves
  Into Your keeping and offer our lives for Your service;
  Through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.