I Cannot Receive God If It’s All About Me. Can You? Advent 3 December 14, 2008

(First, read the passage for this sermon: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24)

This past Monday afternoon, I was in the dentist’s chair. A very large filling had cracked, and needed to be replaced. It was so far in the back that the dentist inserted this plastic thing on the other side of my mouth, to lock my jaw open. Then she used that numbing swab on my gum, so I wouldn’t jump through the roof when she inserted the long needle with the Novocain. Then, after the Novocain had had a chance to take effect, she explained how this was a big filling, and that my mouth would be full of water, and then the assistant stuck that suction thing into my mouth, and the dentist started to drill …

The way that I survive experiences like that is to focus my mind on something else. That morning, in fact, I had been working on this morning’s passage from First Thessalonians. And do you know what words came to mind, as the suction was suctioning and the drill was drilling? It was these: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.

In all circumstances? In every situation? Even in the dentist’s chair?

Approximately 15 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, St. Paul tells the tiny group of Jesus people, meeting in someone’s house in the mid-size commercial city of Thessalonica: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

What happens when we live this way? Then I don’t think it’s all about me – and you don’t think it’s all about you. Instead, it’s about the blessings that come from God to us each moment of each day. And so – Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The next morning after the dental chair experience, I was called to the Williamsburg Regional Medical Center, to make a visit. While I was there, I thought I would check on the results of a urinalysis that had been done 13 days previously.

Four months ago, there was still a trace of that fungal infection, histoplasmosis, in my system. Dr. Flenner, in Norfolk, wanted me to have another urinalysis done, hoping the reading would be down to zero. His nurse, Jackie, had faxed me the order, and I had taken it to the hospital the day before Thanksgiving. At the Williamsburg hospital, there was a flurry of concern because there was a code (that was obviously very-important) that was missing from the order for the test, and I sat there and waited while they were on the phone to the Eastern Virginia Medical School Department of Infectious Disease, trying to contact Jackie, so she would fax down an amended order with the code that was needed. After a good wait, they still hadn’t gotten the code. They decided to do the test anyway, figuring they would work it all out later.

But 13 days later, Dr. Flenner’s office in Norfolk had not called with the test results. So, since I was at our local hospital anyway, I figured I would ask about it. I stopped at that desk where you check in to have a test done and I said, “I had a urinalysis done 13 days ago, but my doctor in Norfolk hasn’t contacted me with the results, and there was a problem with the paperwork when I had the test done, so I’d like to be sure that everything worked out. In fact, I’m going to be in Norfolk on Thursday, and if I could have a copy of the results, I can deliver it to my doctor.”

So, the very helpful woman at the check-in desk told me I would have to ask at Medical Records. “Where is Medical Records?” I asked. I followed her directions to the 4th floor.

There, I explained to a very helpful young woman at the Medical Records desk that I had had a urinalysis done 13 days ago, but there had been a problem with the paperwork, and I hadn’t heard from my doctor in Norfolk that they had received the results, and … (I don’t have to go through my whole spiel again, do I?) So the very helpful young woman asked me for my name and Social Security number and typed into her computer and waited for the screen to come up and said, “Yes, the results are back. But we can’t read them. For that, you’ll have to go down to the desk where you checked in to have the test done.”

So I went back down to the desk where I had checked in to have the test done, and explained that, “at Medical Records, they were able to tell me that the results were back, but that they couldn’t give them to me, and that I had to check back with you.” This time, both of the very helpful women at the desk conferred with each other. “Well, we wouldn’t have those results down here,” one said. “You’ll have to check upstairs in the lab.” “Ah,” I said. “Where is the lab, please?” She told me where it was on the 2nd floor. I went up there.

I found that the door to the lab is a secure entry. So I went over and asked the very helpful volunteer who is at the desk for the surgical waiting room if she knew how I could get into the lab. She said, “I can’t believe they would send you up here, but not tell you how to get in!” And she had a magic card to swipe in front of the little security box, and that released the door, and I walked through.
But there was no receptionist’s desk. There were several confusing hallways. There were lots of closed doors. A lab technician happened to be walking by, and I explained to her that I had had a urinalysis done 13 days ago, but there had been a problem with the paperwork, and I hadn’t heard from my doctor in Norfolk that they had received the results, and … She tried her best to be very helpful. But she was stumped. She explained that this area was actually off-limits to the public, and that there wasn’t a place where I could simply ask for lab results. “Perhaps,” she suggested, “if you go down to the desk where you checked in to have the test done, and got a specific name of someone up here in the lab, that person could give you the results.”

I went back down to the ground floor – and, this time, I just kept walking out the front door. I know I am defeated! I left a voice message telling Dr. Flenner’s nurse, Jackie: “I have found out that the results are back here in Williamsburg. Have they been faxed to you?” (That alerted her to get after them to send her the results.)

Have you ever had experiences like this? Here is how we are to respond: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. In all circumstances! In every situation!

Is it possible to live his way? Only when we are transformed by God the Holy Spirit, so I am formed to know that it’s not all about me, and you are formed to know that it’s not all about you. Indeed, as this is happening, the Spirit is making us holy! Hear Paul’s prayer again, from a couple of verses later in the passage: May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely.

It’s all about God. It’s all about the blessings that come from God to us each moment of each day.

But I can’t receive God if it’s all about me. Can you? Can you receive such a joyful spirit? Indeed, my examples of being in the dentist’s chair and exploring three out of the four floors of the Williamsburg Regional Medical Center are trivial, compared with true life-and-death situations of suffering that you and I and our loved ones have experienced. And those first ones who heard Paul’s letter read, those first-century Thessalonians? They were encountering daily hostility because their worship of Jesus was considered subversive not only to the Jews, and not only to the Roman official religions, but also to the various Gentile religions of the day. (The bewildering mix of religions was very similar to our own age.)

But, still: God the Holy Spirit was forming the Thessalonians into a counter-culture, marked by rejoicing and prayer and giving thanks in all circumstances. And this tiny congregation is a model for you and me, in this community. God the Holy Spirit is forming you and me in the same ways.

During this holy season of Advent, we are especially reminded to be on the watch for the coming of God’s ultimate fulfillment to history. When you and I are opened by the Spirit to God’s advent, then that same Spirit forms us to rejoice always, and to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God for you and me.

In other words, it turns out that it’s not all about me. It’s not even all about you!

Thank God for that! Thank God for the permission to let go of all that anxiety; and simply to be open to the blessings of God; to receive.

In the name of that God of grace who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia