Sermon Notes for December 3rd

December 3, 2006
“Do Not Be Afraid”
Acts 18:1-11

1. The other day I was reading a review of a new book about Timothy Leary … and I suddenly had a flashback – No, not a drug flashback! --- but a reminder of how Mr. Leary and many others created the famous psychedelic 60’s – and how, in addition to all the political upheaval around the Viet Nam War and the Civil Rights movement – there was also the drug revolution.

This is how the article started out:

The good Lord—or maybe it was natural selection, but, when you look at the outcome, how plausible is that, really?—gave us, in addition to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, the fantastic variety of fungi with which we share this awesome planet: yeasts, rusts, mildews, mushrooms, and molds. Among them is ergot, a fungus that, when eaten, can cause hallucinations. Ergot is the natural source of lysergic acid, from which lysergic acid diethylamide is readily synthesized—LSD. What purpose, divine or adaptive, this substance might serve was once the subject of a learned debate that engaged scientists, government officials, psychiatrists, intellectuals, and a few gold-plated egomaniacs. Timothy Leary was one of the egomaniacs.

2. Suddenly, it all came back to me that it wasn’t all about politics, for the 60’s were also about drugs.

And I was reminded of one Saturday morning when I was answering calls for a teenage drug hotline service called YES – Youth Emergency Service. This was while I was in the seminary and YES was actually started by two fellow seminary students. And a call came in from no less than Dear Abbey – Abigail Van Buren. And I turned to the others in the room and they all plugged their phones in at the same time and we had a discussion about drugs with the famous newspaper columnist. As it turned out, she was trying to put together an answer to some question someone had written to her about and, because it was all new, she knew very little about drugs.

I don’t remember what we talked about – but everyone was pretty impressed that she had called. And it was all pretty exciting – and also dangerous. The problem being that many young people were experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs on the street and would suddenly find themselves overwhelmed … and frightened and there was no one to talk with that they trusted. Hence, the need for a confidential place to call for information and reassurance. It was truly amazing; back then many young people would take almost anything just to see what would happen.

3. For most of the general public, it all seemed to have started with Leary and others who had been experimenting with LSD or Acid. But, I learned that actually the medical establishment and the US Government (including the CIA) knew about it in the l950’s and actually conducted experiments on prisoners and others (some who didn’t know about it). And in fact, a number of famous people, including the movie star Cary Grant, tried LSD.

But it was Leary who popularized the drug and along with it marijuana and all the rest. And it was Leary who came up with the famous phrase “Turn on, tune and drop out.” Remember that? It was so popular that even Billy Graham used it to say, “Turn on to Christ, tune in to the Bible, and drop out of sin.” Everything, in fact, was advertised as the moral, legal, and sensory equivalent to a drug experience. Back in those days, everything was supposed to “blow your mind.”

And, so drugs became a part of life for millions of people and ultimately the idea of seeing life not so much in terms of responsibility, or a certain set of beliefs – but as something you experience was born.

And, I suggest, that this also has in many ways transformed religion in America. For many people, nowadays, in order for religion to be real --- it has to be an experience. And from this, in part, came the whole Pentecostal charismatic religious revival in this country. And for those who have become part of this movement, the emphasis on personal religious experience as the work of the Holy Spirit – is the answer to a deep personal hunger and emotional need. And, I suppose, for others, it appears, at least from the outside, to be more of a desire to “get high on Jesus.”

4. Well, as I look back on it from some distance now, what comes to me is the reality that I did not do drugs – while so many people did and many were people I knew then and still know today. So, why didn’t I do them? Was it because I knew they were morally wrong -- well, I don’t really think that stopped anyone back then – nor does it today, either. Unfortunately, many people, especially when they are younger, will naturally experiment with anything adults tell them not to … and this is no different today – except that today the drugs are different and, in fact, even more dangerous. The worst of course is Meth … and from everything I have learned – Meth is the most lethal drug invented in recent years.

No, what caused me not to try psychedelic drugs were two things:

One is the fact of my mother’s mental illness – which went under the name schizophrenia – which, although the symptoms are identifiable, no one really understands it even today. By last count, there were at least 10 different pre-cursory situations which are thought to contribute to it … but no one is determinate. It is a mystery. A mystery which I lived with until my mother died when I was 36. She had a brain aneurysm. At the time, she was being treated with some newer drugs and they appeared to be having some positive effect but it was too late.

5. Naturally, growing up with that sort of things you wonder if maybe it is inherited. For I really didn’t know if it would happen to me. Now I know, of course, because it didn’t.

As a result, I had no desire to mess with my own mind for I could see what could happen when someone’s brain doesn’t work properly. For, in fact, we must realize that the brain is one of the most amazing mechanisms ever invented - or shall we say, created.

Now I am not going to get into a discussion of creationism and intelligent design --- but I simply want you to consider what an amazing thing your brain is … for I suspect that most of us … can at this very moment remember something that happened to us 30 – 40 – 50 years ago … not only what happened, but what was said, the weather at that moment … try it … take for instance the day Kennedy was shot … snap … it all comes back to me … just like the time Dear Abbey called me. How long did it take … a split second … Amazing … truely amazing … and it is all up here in your skull and it all runs on organic material … called food … and it even produces electro chemical energy on which it runs … and it is entirely portable … a lap top in your head … and faster than any computer … unless, of course, as you get older, and your retrieval system begins to slow down a bit … which is normal for most people.

6. And yet, what a very delicate instrument. You sure don’t want to drop it … and you sure don’t want to put chemicals into it … and mess it up. Not good! Not good at all! And it simply astounds me that people take risks like that with such a wonderful instrument. And, of course they did, and they still do.

In fact, once when I was on the phone lines at YES … a guy called in and began describing his many drug experiences … and all the strange things … and finally he said, “And then I began to see pure white!” He seemed to be quite excited that this had happened.

Well, I didn’t know what to say, so I turned to someone on another phone and said, “He says he saw pure white, what does that mean?” And the answer was “he’s fried his brain out.” And, it was true, because he was calling from a hospital!

Now, the second reason for not fooling with drugs was because I had already had some unusual visions on my own … which for these purposes must go under the title “religious experiences.” And, unlike those, like Leary who went on to claim that they saw God and things like that on LSD, it turned out that I didn’t seem need to get high to have a personally transforming experience which I can only say, came from outside myself.

Hence, I had no use for drugs to expand my mind.

7. But, back then, the other thing is that I wasn’t exactly about to tell anyone about my experiences because in those days it wasn’t exactly “in.” In fact, it could actually have had a lot of people asking serious questions. For this was also at the high point of the psychological revolution in America in which everything was somehow supposed to be related back to your childhood traumas and back in the l950’s anyone who acted strange or reported having visions and such things risked being brought in for a psychiatric evaluation.

I am not making it up. In fact, the famous Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, when he came out in opposition to the war in Viet Nam and upset his catholic superiors … was actually brought to see a psychiatrist to find out if something was mentally wrong with him. In the Soviet Union it was even worse for dissidents who were frequently locked up in mental institutions.

So, I said nothing about these experiences. And, since my mother was mentally unstable … I wondered occasionally … how do I know if these things are really real or if maybe I am little nuts, too. After all, there was no one to talk to about it … not even in the two seminaries I attended. People back then, even religious people, more or less believed, I guess, that you just did not have any kind of spiritual contact with God. Except, of course, for a few evangelists like Oral Roberts -- who made rather outlandish claims and gave the whole idea of religious experience a bad name.

8. So, what is religious experience anyway? Can we really make contact with God or Jesus … and how does the Holy Spirit really work? In the seminary I looked for answers … and in 1970 I could hardly find one book on the subject!

All that has changed, of course, and now people talk more openly about God being at work in their lives. And so, now, can I.

Except, of course, the idea of Christian religious experience, coming through the charismatic movement has tended to focus primarily on the idea of “being born again” which is an important but only form of religious experience.

For instance, in one of my seminars this past summer, the instructor shared this story about the Rev. Martin Luther King:

As reported in the Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama
Dr. King told his congregation that the year before he had had a vision telling him to lead the bus boycott in that city. This occurred on the same day when a dynamite bundle failed to explode on his porch. King reported in his prayer “I told God that I wanted to give up leadership and that I was afraid and that God gave me a vision in the kitchen of my house ….” And he continued … “I went to bed many nights scared to death …. by threats against himself and his family.”

Then he went on, “Early one sleepless morning rationality left me … then almost out of nowhere I heard a voice saying to me …”

“Preach the Gospel, stand up of the truth, stand up for righteousness.
Since that morning” … he continued … “I am not afraid of anybody.”

9. Somewhat later, a letter to the editor in the Montgomery paper actually suggested that the voice Dr. King heard could have been the voice of the devil.

After that, other letters debated what exactly the nature of Dr. King’s revelation was. Which just shows you how controversial visions can be and how they are often misunderstood and misinterpreted.

And eventually, it turns out that Dr. King chose to tone down his story, for by the time it was reported in Time magazine in 1957 … he stopped using the word vision and simply stated that … from “somewhere” came the answer to his prayer.

Now, I would like you to notice …. for a moment the parallels in this event with scripture reading for this morning:

What is happening of course is that Paul is failing in his efforts to win over the Jewish people in Corinth. Finally, he gives up, a major disappointment, no doubt, and he was afraid of going on. Then the Bible says:

9One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city."

No interpretation necessary, I guess.

10. Except, for the fact that there are several different translations of this passage… Listen for a moment to these words from the Eugene Peterson transplantation:

One night the Master spoke to Paul in a dream: "Keep it up, and don't let anyone intimidate or silence you. No matter what happens, I'm with you and no one is going to be able to hurt you. You have no idea how many people I have on my side in this city." That was all he needed to stick it out.

So, now one place we have a vision and in another a dream. Dreams and Visions.

Well, as you know by now, I have been fascinated by both subjects for a along time … and other things as well. One of which is extrasensory perception. Although, I should add, that I am more skeptical of ESP than of either dreams and visions. Yet, who knows?

11. What this all adds up to, I think, is that at least for me, God is a lot more real than people think and can appear to us in a variety of ways whether they be visions or dreams or whatever. And while not everyone is going to have a major profound religious experience … many do … and I now know that they are not crazy – at least most of them, anyway.

And in the end, what really is at stake here is not the subjective experience itself but rather how to interpret these unusual manifestations of God. After all, how do we know they are from God and not the devil? And for the answer to this question we must turn to the most important book on the subject: William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience.

In this extraordinary account James quotes the famous Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian,and perhaps one of America's greatest preachers, to the effect that:

"The roots of a man’s virtue are inaccessible to us. No appearances whatever are infallible proofs of grace. Our practice is the only sure evidence, even to ourselves, that we are genuinely Christian. There is not one grace of the spirit of God, of the existence of which, in any believer, Christian behavior is not the most decisive evidence. The degree in which our experience is productive of practice shows the degree in which our experience is spiritual and divine."

In other words, “Don’t just talk the talk, but also you must walk the walk.”

This, too, is consistent with the teaching of John Wesley who sought to engage the believer so as to enable them to come to experience God’s Divine grace for the forgiveness of sins … in order that the spirit of Christ might come to dwell within a person and thereby begin the process of transforming that person into a true child of God.

12. So, this morning, we will, in a moment celebrate the presence of Christ in the world … by partaking of the body and blood of our savior.

Now, I am tempted to say …is that what you are about to do is ingest a mind-altering substance. So powerful that your life will be changed and your mind will be transformed. And you will be renewed from within by the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Wow! What if that could really happen? What if it does happen?

Yet, how can such a small ordinary thing – just bread and grape juice make that much difference? Nothing psychedelic about that, I guess. No fungus or mushrooms. And yet, what seems rather ordinary and insignificant can actually be changed through the miraculous nature of God’s love and the presence of Christ’s spirit. Isn’t that what we believe?

Now, for those who have not experienced the love of God in their life before, communion is truly a first step toward a greater reality.

On other hand, for those, as the liturgy says, who have been here many times before, the communion is always a constant reminder that our work is not done and our spiritual hunger is always part of our human nature such that we need always to be in the presence of God everyday so that God may say to us, as he did to Paul, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent.”

And if you think that what we do is not important, I can tell you this, not one of the persons I called about recieving home communion today said no. And all were very excited because even though they cannot be with us today, they, too, desire to be connected, not only with God, but with others. And who are the others? We are the others -- for we are the true and only Body of Christ in this world. Can you believe that?
Let us pray.