John Lennon wrote the words, and John Lennon sang them:
“Nobody told me there’d be days like these …
nobody told me there’d be days like these …
nobody told me there’d be days like these …
strange days, indeed …
strange days, indeed.”
And we know all about them, don’t we? These strange days.
The sad days.
Like the day I visited the Rev. Doug Muir, minister emeritus of Collier,
at Thompson House in Toronto.
Thompson House is a nursing home where Doug now lives
so that his son in Toronto can be near to him, visit him, care for him.
But our dear friend, Doug, while knowing it is better that he be there, is sad:
sad because he is missing the Shanty Bay Gold Club
the city of Barrie that has been his home for many years
and Collier where he served so graciously during part of that time
and the familiar faces and voices of dear friends.
The sad days.
The days when we lose those we love to death.
The days when a relationship is broken.
The days when life just seems as though it’s slipping away.
And the bad days.
Like the day I visited a friend, recently diagnosed with cancer,
who wants to live but who knows that life, now, is measured not in years,
but in days or weeks.
The kind of day you hope will never come.
The kind of day you wish would just go away.
But it won’t.
And the mad days.
The days when you’re mad at everything and everyone around you.
The days when you just want everyone to go away and leave you alone.
The days when, unlike my friend who wants to live, you want to die.
Strange days, indeed.
And in the midst of them the glad days.
The days when the sun is shining and the universe is unfolding as it should.
The days when life couldn’t be better
and love couldn’t be more wonderful
and everything in your world is good.
The sad, and bad, and mad, and glad days.
Nobody told us there’d be days life these;
or if they did, we probably wouldn’t have believed them.
Strange days, indeed.
And there are other kinds of days, too.
Like the time when Kim and I were living on St. Joseph Island,
the community where we had been settled to serve our first congregations.
Kim was driving our 1964 sky-blue Pontiac Laurentian.
I was sitting beside her in the front seat.
She pulled into the driveway, pulled into the garage,
and as she did, being too close to the entrance,
she managed to tear the chrome molding off the side of the car.
And let me tell you, I took a strip off of her
every bit as big as the strip she took off the car.
A couple of weeks later I was driving
that chrome-less 1964 sky-blue Pontiac Laurentian.
Kim was sitting beside me in the front seat.
I pulled into the driveway, pulled into the garage,
and I mean, pulled into the garage, hit the front of it as I drove in.
and bent it out of shape.
And Kim just looked at me. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.
Like the time the evangelist Billy Graham was on a plane
and a man, sitting directly in front of him,
was drinking to excess … and I mean excess.
He became loud and abusive,
and finally the flight attendant said to him,
“Excuse me sir, but don’t you know Billy Graham is sitting right behind you?”
The man got up, stumbled around, put out his hand, and said sloppily,
Well, Billy Graham, am I glad to meet you.
I went to a crusade of yours once and it changed my life.”
Strange days, indeed.
A man was fishing by a riverbank one day
when a shepherd came along, looking for some sheep that were lost.
“How did you lose them?” the fisherman asked.
And the shepherd replied,
“Oh, they just nibble their way lost
and can’t find the way back again.”
The days we live are full of people, countless people,
who nibble their way lost
and they can’t find the way back again.
Lost in addiction …
lost in unforgiveness …
lost in loneliness …
just lost, somewhere,
like a drifting boat cut loose from its moorings.
These are the days of our lives.
These are the days we live, or try not to live.
And they are strange days, indeed.
And they are the only days we’re going to get.
What are your days like these days?
How are their minutes and hours unfolding?
Are you able to embrace them with gladness
or are you like the fellow who woke up one morning
and rather than saying, “Good morning, God,”
began his day by saying, “Good God, its morning?”
I think that all of us are looking for something that we can wrap our days in.
We are looking for something that, even on the strangest of days,
can give our lives meaning and purpose,
that can give our lives that elusive something called hope.
G. A. Studdert Kennedy wrote:
“I want to live, live out, not wobble through
My life somehow, and then into the dark.
I must have God.”
And Dag Hammarskjold, late Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote:
“God does not die on the day
when we cease to believe in a personal deity;
but we die on the day
when we cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance
renewed daily, of a wonder,
the source of which is beyond all reason.”
It happens to countless people
who give little time,
in the midst of their strange days,
to truths that are eternal …
who make little room in their hearts,
in the midst of the sad and bad and mad days,
for the One who will journey with them through them …
who give little thought,
when life is upside-down and inside-out,
to what is true and beautiful and lovely.
Too many people have wobbled and are wobbling through …
too many people have ceased to believe in a personal deity
and are not illuminated by the steady radiance of a wonder.
And like the sheep the shepherd was looking for
they just nibble their way lost ~
lost in the confusion of their days ~
and can’t find their way back again.
In the verses read from scripture today
we are pointed to the place of hope …
we are reminded that the God of hope
is there, in the midst of our days,
if we would only have eyes to see
and hearts to welcome in that great Spirit of hope.
In welcoming in that great Spirit of hope
it does not necessarily mean that the strangeness of the day will change:
it means that we will change in the way we deal with the strangeness.
And often, more often than not, because we are transformed,
much within the day can be transformed, too.
For surely we want more than to just survive.
We want to go beyond survival ~ to fulfillment.
We long for the promise of the music.
We wish not to merely exist but to be happy and content.
We want more than just the adding up of our days
until we come to the end of them.
In the end, we want our days to have added up to something
and our lives to have meant something.
If life is not illuminated by the steady radiance of a wonder,
if the days are just wobbling through days.
let me tell you about the difference that can happen,
let me tell you about the everyday miracles that take place,
when we let that great Spirit of hope,
witnessed to in the life of Jesus ~ our crucified and risen Saviour ~
loose in our lives.
And that miracle is wrapped up in these words written by Paul:
“The life I live in the body,
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.”
I have not seen water turned into wine.
But I have seen many who were nibbling their way lost,
who were drowning in misery
and struggling to get through their strange days,
find their way back again ~ rescued and restored ~
because they chose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loved them and gave himself for them.
And hope was born.
I have not seen 5,000 people fed with five loaves and two fish.
But I have seen selfish people become caring
and stingy people become generous
because they chose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loved them and gave himself for them.
And hope was born.
I have not seen anyone walk on water.
But I have seen many who were nibbling their way lost
in destructive lifestyles find their way back
because they chose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loved them and gave himself for them.
And hope was born.
I have not seen anyone physically raised from the dead.
But I have seen people who, in the midst of their strange days,
were dead inside long before physical death came.
And when they chose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loved them and gave himself for them,
they were resurrected, enlivened, by the great Spirit of hope.
I have not seen anyone calm a storm with a single word.
But I have seen many, who had storms raging in their hearts and minds,
find peace, the “peace that passes all understanding,”
because they chose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loved them and gave himself for them.
And hope was born.
I have not seen a physically paralyzed person,
at the instruction of Jesus, take up their bed and walk.
But I have seen people
who have lived through paralyzing experiences …
who have felt like damaged goods …
who have felt like their lives were in the lost and found
and there was nobody there to claim them …
who have been knocked down so many times
it is a wonder they could get up at all, get up …
and by the power of faith’s miracle
face life with courage and grace,
battered, but not beaten …
because they chose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loved them and gave himself for them.
I have seen kindness
and goodness
and joy
flourish
where they never existed before.
I have seen people who have said “Yes”
to the One who came that they might have life,
find it.
And in saying “Yes” ~
sometimes slowly
and sometimes almost immediately ~
the Divine “YES” answered
and gave them their lives back.
And it wasn’t necessarily the greatness of their faith that did it ~
for God knows our faith is so often fragile and tentative ~
it was their faith in the greatness of God that did it.
The son of an immigrant came home from college
and told his shopkeeper father
that he was running his business all wrong.
He would make more profit
if he would just modernize his business practices.
“I don’t understand you, Pop,” he said.
“You keep your accounts payable in a cigar box
and your accounts receivable on a spindle
and all your cash is in the register.
You can’t possibly know what your profits are!”
The father smiled at him and said,
“Son, let me tell you something.
When I arrived in this country thirty years ago
all I owned was the pants I was wearing.
Now your sister is an art teacher,
your brother is a doctor,
and you will soon be a CPA.
Your mother and I own a house and a car
and this little store.
Add it all up,
and subtract the pants,
and there’s your profit!”
I believe in miracles … in the miracles all around us.
And maybe they can’t be measured in an accountants terms.
But I have witnessed faith’s miracles:
the miracles of lives restored and renewed …
the miracles of lives lost, now found …
the miracles of courage and joy and hope reborn …
the miracles of people who were wobbling through, walking straight and tall …
and it has been enough to persuade me
of the reality of God’s transforming presence
and the profit of faith in anyone’s life.
Something happens to people ~
in the midst of the strange days
of sadness, and badness, and madness ~
when the lives they live in the body
they choose to live by faith in the Son of God
who loves them and gave Himself for them.
Something happens that transforms their days …
that transforms the world within them
and transforms the world around them.
So let this be our affirmation today.
Let this be our credo when, in the midst of our strange days,
we are tempted to nibble our way lost:
“The life I live in the body,
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.”
SOLI DEO GLORIA
SCRIPTURE
“Show me your ways, O Lord,
teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Saviour,
and my hope is in you all day long.” (Psalm 25:4,5)
“Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God.” (Psalm 42:5)
“The Lord delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.” (Psalm 147:11)
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)
“ … but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
“May the God of hope
fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)
And for me, the source of that hope is found in these words:
“The life I live in the body,
I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
