Communion Sunday August 1, 2010 “ We Are What We Wear ” Chris Kester Colossians 3:1-11

The scripture I chose this morning is from the Revised Common Lectionary. I mention that because I want to assume not all of us understand what the Revised Common Lectionary is. The Revised Common Lectionary is a collection of scriptures designed for worship. Four scriptures are chosen for each Sunday; one from the Old Testament, one from the Psalms, a Gospel reading and one from either Revelations or one of the Epistles. An Epistle is a letter written to one of the early Christian churches, ostensibly by the Apostle Paul. Are you with me so far? So the Revised Common Lectionary, which most of us just refer to as “the” lectionary, is divided into three year cycles, the idea being that if we read all four scriptures each week, then over a period of three years we will have covered most of the Bible. One of the really cool things about lectionary readings, in my opinion, is all the scriptures for any given Sunday usually relate to one another in some way, there’s usually a theme present.

I tell you this because most clergy I know are lectionary preachers. They typically preach from the lectionary passages each Sunday. Now, I’m not an ordained clergy, heck, I’m not even a clergy “wanna be”! However, I am a Certified Lay Speaker, which means I’ve had a little bit of training about how to preach and when I do I usually set myself the challenge of preaching from the lectionary. Unfortunately, for me, that can create a dilemma if I don’t like any of the prescribed passages!

So today’s scripture passages all happen to be passages I didn’t like! They all seem to be scolding us, telling us we’d better get our collective act together or God is going to be ticked. I don’t like that message; I like upbeat, happy messages. I don’t like preaching bad news. So today’s message has been a challenge for me. I’d rather tell you how much God loves you or talk about Jesus as a role model, maybe share a parable that makes us think. Not today though, sorry.

What I’d really like to tell you about is what I’ve been reading lately! You know, I had almost forgotten how wonderful it is to read a good book. As a child one of my favorite pastimes was reading. I especially loved reading books that came in a series. I had a whole collection of Trixie Belden stories, they were like Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys stories. As a fourth grade student, I was privileged to help out in the school library and discovered a whole series of biographies about famous people, like Amelia Earhart, George Washington Carver and Nathanial Hale. The thing that most intrigued me was, the bulk of each book focused on the person’s childhood. These were famous folks who had childhood experiences like mine! I love feeling connected to the characters in a book, don’t you?

My love of reading continued into early adulthood, even early parenthood, but somewhere along the line, my life seemed too busy to allow myself the luxury of a good read. So, in the last year or so since I’ve begun reading again for pleasure, it has been a welcome return to a former love. I have discovered I still like reading books that come in a series. Last summer I read the Harry Potter books. This summer I’m reading Dan Brown’s novels. I started with The Lost Symbol, because I’ve seen the movies, Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. After reading The Lost Symbol though, of course I had to read the rest of the series! I like Dan Brown’s novels for a number of reasons, first of all, they are serious “page-turners”, they’re hard to put down. Brown is a masterful story teller, but I am fascinated with how he juxtaposes religious themes and science. Each book seems to simultaneously challenge traditional Christian beliefs and provide scientific evidence of the presence of God.

After reading the lectionary passages for this Sunday, I found myself really wanting to preach about one of Dan Brown’s books. I am particularly intrigued by the science of Noetics, he refers to in The Lost Symbol. S o o o o o . . . . , I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I have something I don’t really want to do, I find all sorts of other things to occupy my time! Instead of writing this sermon I decided to do some research on noetics! While doing that I had the most wonderful “aha!” experience and now it is no surprise to me my mind kept wandering in that direction, it was meant to! Let me explain. My research gave today’s scripture a whole new meaning and it’s going to dove-tail very nicely with next week’s worship service! I discovered the founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, is none other than Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell. The sixth man to walk on the moon, Dr. Mitchell had a profoundly spiritual experience which led him to write the lyrics to the theme song we’ll be using in our Vacation Bible School program! You’ll hear more about that next week, in the meantime, let me connect the dots for you between Dan Brown, noetics and today’s scripture.

Let’s start with a definition of noetics. Could we show that on the screen?

"no·et·ic"

from the Greek word nous, for which there is no exact equivalent in English. It refers to "inner knowing" or a kind of intuitive consciousness—direct and immediate access to knowledge beyond what is available to our normal senses and power of reason.

Inner wisdom, direct knowing or subjective understanding.

There are several ways we can know the world around us. Science typically focuses on objective evaluation, measurement and experimentation, but Cassandra Vieten, Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, puts it this way, “another way of knowing is subjective – or internal – including gut feelings, intuition, hunches – the way you know you love your children, for example, or experiences you have that cannot be explained or proven, but feel absolutely real nonetheless. This way of knowing is what we call noetic.”

Dan Brown, in The Lost Symbol explains it this way. Imagine a grain of sand, we know it has weight, but by itself it doesn’t carry enough weight to be of much consequence. Combine one grain of sand, however, with a few hundred thousand and the result is weighty (pun intended!) The science of noetics is proving that thoughts also have weight! Think about that for a minute! Thoughts have weight! Just like a grain of sand, one thought might not be of much consequence, but the collection of hundreds or thousands of thoughts can make a difference, a real difference.

If you’re here today, I can assume at some point in your life you’ve experienced something, some sort of “knowing” or gut level feeling that caused you to believe in something bigger, more powerful, more divine than yourself. You may have struggled with how to put that feeling into words, maybe even feeling a little sheepish, wondering if anyone could take you seriously. I personally, find it extremely refreshing and validating to learn that science, SCIENCE is proving what humankind has understood at a gut-level for millennia!

Which brings me around to today’s scripture. If in fact, our thoughts have weight, it means our collective thoughts have power, and if that is true, it also means we need to be careful how we use that power. Unkind, malicious thoughts bring unkind, malicious actions and behaviors into the world. Are you with me? When I have my eyes to the ground, shuffling along wrapped up in my own little life, I am actually creating all the stuff I’m preoccupied with. Instead, I can choose to occupy myself with everything Christ has shown me needs to be in my life. When I do that, this scripture becomes a message of hope and promise. My thoughts and yours can make a difference! Noetics is proving we do become the wardrobe we wear, but the good news is, we can create, with God, a world in which the old fashions are obsolete. We can strip off our filthy set of ill fitting clothes and put them in the fire. We can choose a new wardrobe where everyone can be defined by Christ and included in Christ. May it be so in my life and in yours. Amen.