Monday, August 20, 2012

Where is Your Gibeon?



Sermon given at Hamilton Union Presbyterian Church, Guilderland, NY
Sunday August 19th, 2012

Readings:
1 Kings 3: 3-14
Ephesians 5:15-20

This summer I had the privilege of working with the pastoral care department of Albany Medical Center. One of the first things I learned from our supervisor, Rev. Harlan Ratmeyer, is that pastoral care is one of the most inefficient departments in the hospital. Not exactly what you’d expect the director of a department to readily admit, especially not with such pride and satisfaction.

 The fifteen to twenty chaplains, some full-time others periodic volunteers, that roam the halls of Albany Med are not known for maximizing time, emphasizing productivity or managing output. Such models of economy and success are not easily applied to this field.

 Instead, there is a more informal allocation of time and skills, a more flexible use of one’s expertise and a somewhat unstructured environment where one’s daily tasks are unordered and unpredictable. We do not attach a particular task or skill set with a desired outcome. We are, some might say, inefficient.

 We stay for hours at the bedside of a distressed patient, or play cards in the waiting room with a five year-old child whose father has just died of a heart attack. We heed the requests of family members in need of guidance in making health proxy decisions and we minister to those who disagree about end-of-life issues. We bring patients rosary beads, prayer cards, a pocket sized Qur’an or copies of the Oprah Magazine and Readers’ Digest from the hospital’s library.

 We bring our humor, our prayers, sometimes our own tears. I’ve even played my ukulele for a group of patients on the psychiatric ward. We respond to every Code Blue, but sometimes are not needed.  We might enter a room with “Hi, I’m the Chaplain!” to which the patient replies “Get Out!”

 We don’t have a script and we are often searching for the right words. At other times, we are simply lead through the day… or night, bed to bed, prayer to prayer, with God informing our every move.

 If there is no guidebook, no recognizable schedule to the day, you might wonder, how then is a chaplain supposed to operate? How is one to structure the day and prioritize one’s responsibilities? If chaplaincy isn’t like clocking in at a bank or managing a business or measuring one’s day by energy input and product output, than what is it? How does one do this job?

 How does one know that one is being effective, when there are no easily measurable marks?

To illustrate the somewhat unspecified skill set of a hospital chaplain, I return to our first reading this morning, from First Kings. I imagine King Solomon asking similar questions as he took the throne in ancient Jerusalem. He might have asked himself, “How am I supposed to do this?” We learn that once Solomon ascends to power that “his rule was firmly established.”

But I doubt that he had a clear and outlined job description or that he himself felt fully capable in his new role. In fact, the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that Solomon was not the favored heir, that he had overwhelming political enemies including his older brothers, who sought to prevent his rise to power.

 As a young and inexperienced monarch, his credentials were rather weak and the tasks before him were daunting. We hear Solomon praying, perhaps pleading to God “But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.” Such a place of vulnerability is not what one might expect from a powerful king.

 The way in which Solomon was thrown into his new role as king in many ways reflects the model of Clinical Pastoral Education. Rather than spend time preparing for chaplaincy through guided readings and training exercises, each of the chaplain interns dove in, head first, without much of a concrete tool kit.

 With only two days on the job, I was scheduled for my first overnight on-call shift, serving as the hospital’s in-house chaplain from 5 at night until 8 the next morning. I would have liked a few pointers, if not a how-to manual. But, as many other chaplains will tell you, a road map is not something you are awarded in this form of ministry.

 As my on-call shift crept closer, I could no longer contain my unease with staying over night, alone, in the hospital. I stopped by my dad’s office before he headed home that night and I think he saw the look of terror in my eyes. He immediately suggested that we get a quick snack and I suddenly let go a sigh of relief. Finally, I didn’t have to pretend that I knew what I was doing and I admitted my anxieties openly over our cup of coffee and a bag of gummie bears in the hospital cafeteria.

It is this uncertainty and sheer lack of preparation that makes chaplaincy, or any ministry for that matter, such a unique vocation. In my case, any book I read or formal training I completed could have easily provided me with a false sense of confidence and ability, preventing me from truly reaching out to God for wisdom during those first uncertain hours.

 It is this reaching out to God, in an utter state of inability and self-doubt, that Solomon so poignantly displays. In our passage, Solomon’s conversation with God is significant. His receives the ultimate offer from God when God declares, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” This is one of the rare moments when God appears to be some genie in a bottle, ready to grant the young king whatever his heart desires.

  It seems quite risky of God to make such an open-ended offer, especially if this new king was greedy, vengeful and hungry for power. While Solomon may have had these less than humble qualities in life, in his prayer he had a more modest request. “Give your servant a discerning heart,” he said, “to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.”

 To return to our earlier discussion, Solomon’s great prayer for wisdom was, well, inefficient. With an empire to secure, a palace to construct to house his administration, and a new Temple to build to galvanize the Hebrew people into a community of faith, wouldn’t it have been more effective for Solomon to ask for maybe protection from enemies? Wealth to finance his lofty projects? A long life to stabilize a still fragile monarchy?

 Instead, Solomon asks for a wise and discerning heart. And one thing that discernment is known for is taking a rather long time. Discernment is the opposite of political strategizing, of quick decision making, of orderly itineraries and to-do lists. Not only is the discernment Solomon asking for inefficient, but in this case it was dangerous. For the leader of a still unstable government, Solomon’s request for wisdom could easily have been seen as a weakness, taking time to ponder God’s will when his enemies are banging on the back door.

 Being in a place of discernment is a risky place to be. The lengthy and often arduous process of seeking God’s will, can cause fear and anxiety - some may view you as indecisive or ineffective in your job setting. Worse yet, to discern rather than immediately act might be seen as lacking in ability, or being incompetent, traits that a king, not to mention a business leader, doctor, parent or a teacher, would want to avoid.

 In our personal lives, taking time to really ponder how God might want us to act, may challenge our familiar responses to people and situations.

 Solomon’s request for wisdom and discernment was not a likely choice for the king, not the logical gift or resource that his still threatened throne would need. For this reason I think Solomon wouldn’t have been able to ask God for this gift, or even view it as a gift, if he were, well, awake. Because, remember, Solomon was asleep, dreaming in fact when God spoke to him. His guard was down, and in an entirely different mental space when he had the wisdom... to ask… for wisdom.

 Seeking wisdom, as Solomon did, is a wandering road, a road less traveled, and a road that meanders to places one does not expect. To get to the point where he spoke with God intimately and received God’s gift of wisdom, Solomon traveled beyond his usual surroundings.

 He went to a high place called Gibeon, with the intent of offering a ritual sacrifice. Scripture tells us that the most important shrine was in Gibeon, on whose alter Solomon had offered more than a thousand sacrifices. Yet in addition to this act of ritual, Solomon also rested. And he dreamed.

It is especially noteworthy that Solomon doesn’t access God’s presence through his usual daily tasks of kingdom making or even in the religious act of sacrifice but instead through dream making. This journey that Solomon went on removed him from his usual environment and tasks and transformed him, immensely. He had to stop his routine and make space for a Holy encounter.

 I think this is particularly important in our lives today. Our days are so scheduled, so preoccupied with productivity and the idea of being useful. When was the last time you stopped, slowed down and ventured to explore someplace new, to remove yourself from what is familiar, like Solomon did.

 Even our weekly act of worshiping together can become old hat - same time, same place, same pew, same order of worship. But even in such a familiar place as this church is, might you allow your mind and body to relax to the point that God speaks to you. I wouldn’t advocate falling asleep and dreaming during Stewart’s next sermon, but I do invite you to allow your mind to drift and wander, to day dream, to allow the mental space for God to speak clearly… to you.

 Where is your altar at Gibeon, your high place of communion with God? Where can you bring yourself so that you can lay down your script, relinquish your preferred role, surrender your carefully crafted skill set, and rest, dream, in a way that gives you new insight? That allows you to ask God not for what you want, but what you really need.

 In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians that we read this morning, Paul writes, “Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” This is precisely the gift of the spirit that Solomon so humbly asked for from God.

 And if you too, take the risk to rest before God in a place of vulnerability, as utterly unprepared and in a state of unknowing, which others may view as a blatant display of blessed inefficiency, than you too will be filled with the Spirit.

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