November 27, 2011

Rev. Dr. Steve Poos-Benson

Pitch Your Tent in the Land of Hope

The Scripture reading this morning comes to us from the Book of Acts. This is actually a Pentecost story. The Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples who have gathered in a room and they start speaking in all these different tongues. And everybody who is outside the room hears them speaking in all these different languages, and they say “Oh my gosh, those people are drunk.” And Peter, inside the room, hears people say “they’re drunk” and he says “No, we’re not drunk, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning.” Which I think is funny because, if it’s like two o’clock, alright, we understand. But it’s nine o’clock and there’s no way we’re drunk and he comes out and he quotes King David. And the passage I’m going to read is a quote from King David. So listen for God’s word as it comes to us today.

King David said “I saw God before me for all time. Nothing can shake me. God’s right by my side. I’m glad from the inside out. I’m ecstatic. I pitched my tent in the Land of Hope.” I love that line. “I’ve pitched my tent in the Land of Hope. I know God will never dump me in Haiti’s. I’ll never even smell the stench of death. You’ve got my feet on the life path with your faith shining, sun joy all around.” And here the reading ends. May God bless these words now as we seek to apply them to our lives.

How to pitch a tent in the storm. Well today is the first Sunday of Advent. It’s hard to think about Advent and Christmas being four weeks away because we just got done with Thanksgiving. I’m still back on the Fourth of July. I’m having trouble adjusting to the fact that it’s winter and dark and Christmas is in four weeks. But here we are at Advent. And as I said, Advent has four Sundays. Hope, peace, joy and love. So today is hope.

So I started thinking about – what does it mean to have hope? What is hope? How do we have hope? We lit a candle for hope. What does that mean for us? I started looking for definitions of hope and went to Webster’s and of course there’s a bunch of definitions which mean no one really knows what hope is all about. So I went to one of my favorite websites to start looking for a definition of hope. I went to Ted.com. That’s Technology, Engineering and Design. If you do not know what Ted is, go to Ted, it’s a fascinating website where leading thinkers in technology and engineering and design have these Ted conferences and some of the most brilliant people in the world come and they speak. So I did a search on hope and found this great surgeon who did this wonderful talk on hope. I’m going to steal some of his ideas and kind of use them for myself today.

But he talked about three different definitions of hope. He said that hope, the root of hope is the word “coy”. From the Anglo Saxon Coy, which means turning around. Hope is turning around. When I started thinking about that, I thought it was so appropriate. Because sometimes life is so hard and so oppressive that it beats you down. It pushes you down. There is so much – you feel oppressed. And when you feel oppressed, you project that oppression on other people and, in other words, you become an oppressive person. And so hope is about this notion of going in a different direction. Going in a hopeful direction.

So I want you to think about your own life. Which direction are you going? Are you a hopeful person? The surgeon also talked about the fact that hope is the good that is due to you becoming a reality. The good that is due to you becoming a reality. So I want you to think about it. What is the good that is due to you? This is what gave rise to the desire of Messiah. At the end of the inter-testimental time period, right before Jesus was born, they were longing for a Messiah. They were actually looking for two Messiahs, a political Messiah to re-establish the boundaries of Israel, and a Messiah to purify the temple. Longing for a Messiah before Jesus was born. At the end of the first century, the first Christians were longing for Jesus to come back – the second coming – and they thought it was going to come at any moment. And Jesus was the good that was going to come to them. And it’s actually that longing for the good – actually gave birth to Advent.

What is the good that is due to you? That you’re longing for? What is the good that is due to you? The next definition is one I have written up here [shows picture of book]. It talked about “Breaking Peace.” He says “Hope is not having things work out the way we want them to. It’s that however things work out, that they will make sense.” Let me read that again. “Hope is not having things work out the way we want them to. It’s that however things work out, that they will make sense.” When I heard that and thought about it, it’s so true. We can go through all different types of trials and tribulations, if we know that at the end somehow things will make sense. We can have hope that our pain will, at some time, go away. We can wrestle with all different types of hardships and persecutions if we know that at the end, somehow it’s all going to make sense and that fosters our sense of hope.

The problem with that definition, though, is how do you make sense of cancer? How do you make sense of chemotherapy? How do you make sense out of a stroke? How do you make sense out of death? You know, one of the things that at Columbine, what we want to do here at Advent is talk about celebrating life in the midst of hope, peace, love, joy. Because at Columbine we do so many funerals – we’ve done close to 50 funerals this year already. And since we have to deal with so much death, we find it so important to talk about celebrating life. And one of the things I’m mindful of when I’m doing funerals and I’m talking with people in the midst of grief, is there’s this balance between memory and hope. That the older someone is when they die, we have more memories than we have hope. When someone dies in their 80s or 90s or 100s, we don’t have a lot of hope that they’re going to live that much longer. But what we have is memories of them. And those memories somehow give us peace. We still grieve the loss – loss at any age is never easy. But we have memories. And then the younger someone is, the memories become balanced out by hope. And that, I think, is why when death comes young, it’s so hard. This past week, we did a memorial service for Jeff Maxey. He was 44 years old. Talk about someone in the middle of their life. And there’s a balance between memory and hope. We had some memories – there was a beautiful DVD of his life. But yet he was 44 – there was so much left for him to do. So much left for him to live. And then the younger and younger a person becomes, the memories go down and there’s nothing but hope. That’s why the death of a teenager is so devastating. The death of a child is so devastating. In fact, I even believe that miscarriages – I think in our culture, we don’t give enough credence to the pain of a miscarriage. I miscarriage is nothing but pure expectation, longing and hope. Talk about pain – talk about a mother who has just lost a baby. Hope. How do you make sense of the senseless?

For me, this is why it’s so important to talk about hope. Because there are too many people who are hopeless. Because life has been so difficult. And that’s why I love this passage today. Where King David says “I have pitched my tent in the land of hope.” “I have pitched my tent in the land of hope.” What is the land of hope? I pitched my tent in the land of hope. What does the land of hope look like?

Some of us just got back from Israel and this is the picture of the Sea of Galilee. And it was beautiful. The Sea of Galilee. The air was soft and warm. The Sea of Galilee is this big, huge lake and the water was clear and warm and we went swimming in it. There were flowers everywhere. And to be where Jesus was walking and be in the town of Capernaum. To be on the Nom of the Attitudes. Talk about the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. The land where I will pitch my tent in the land of hope. King David is pitching his tent. He’s using this image because he’s in the midst of the land of hope. What is your land of hope? The 23^rd Psalms – “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures – he restores my soul.” How is God restoring your soul?

For me, the land of hope is a land of mystery. It’s the land where we don’t have to make sense out of everything that happens to us. How do you help somebody make sense out of Heaven? Sit beside someone whose dying, on their death bed and as we often do, when they ask, “what is Heaven going to be like?” Don’t know. I’ve never been. But the sense of surrender, of accepting the mystery of life. That, for me, is hope. Of knowing that our lives ultimately belong to God. And it is in this life that we’re going to pitch our tent. Pitch our tent.

Now however, if we’re going to pitch our tent in the land of hope, there is going to be a little bit of determination on our part. It says that I will pitch my tent in the land of hope. I will – I will face any obstacle – I will face anything that I’m up against. I will overcome any challenge. And I know that this picture is wrong on so many levels, but it grabs ahold and senses that I will overcome what is in front of me. So I want you to say this with me. I will pitch my tent in the land hope. I will pitch my tent in the land of hope.

Okay now – that was alright – I know its 11:00 o’clock and you’re waiting for lunch, you’re waiting for me to shut up. But I want you to stand up. Get yourself grounded. Sit up straight in your chair. Align your spine. Get your chakra going. Open yourself up and say this with a sense of conviction. I will pitch my tent in the land of hope. Okay, that’s a little better. Mitch told me after the eight o’clock services, he said that Neil Donald Walsh, in his book “Conversations with God”, God told Neil, he said “The most important word that you’re going to say in your life is the word that you say after the word ‘I’. If you say “I will” that sense of desire, God will give you more will. If you say “I can’t” God’s going to say, okay, go with the can’t. If you say “I might pitch my tent in the land hope, god will say “alright – might”. But it’s kind of like your mental attitude. I will. When you have this desire. When you want to – when you want to be a hopeful person – I will pitch my tent – when you have this notion that I will overcome the obstacles that are in front of me, that there is this sense of God’s spirit coming around you and empowering you. It makes you a hopeful person.

This is what, for me, is behind this Tebow mania. I’m not going to talk about Tim Tebow’s quarterbacking skills. That’s a whole other conversation. Nor am I going to talk about Tim Tebow’s theology. That’s another whole conversation. But you cannot deny that there’s something about this young man that doesn’t just capture our city, he’s captured the world. Do you know that his jersey is the number one selling sports jersey in the world? In the world? Why is that? Why is his jersey the number one selling jersey? I think it’s because it has something to do with the fact that he’s a hopeful person. I think it has something to do with the fact that he has faith and his faith somehow motivates this young man. And his hope is infections. When he comes on the field when it’s Tebow time, there’s something that happens to his teammates. They think that somehow, this guy, some way, is going to find a way to win. And he doesn’t care about his statistics, thank goodness, because he doesn’t have any. He doesn’t care about the fact that he might lose. Because there’s always going to be another game. And this sense of coming to the game, confronting the obstacles and not being intimidated by it, that’s infectious. He doesn’t care about the obstacles.

Are you infected? Not by Tebow-mania. But by hope? Do you know someone who needs to be infected by hope? If hope is infectious and if some people have been ground down, sometimes the thought of pitching a tent in the land of hope is so far beyond their dreams that they have somebody come beside them and say “we will pitch your tent in the land of hope.”

Well who is it in your life that you know of who needs to have somebody come beside them? Now granted, if you’re going to have this will to pitch your tent and overcome the obstacles, I’ll tell you, there’s a few things you need to do. I really believe that you need to remove negative people from your life. And for those of you who don’t know who this is, this is “House”. [showing picture] I don’t watch a lot of TV – my kids watch TV and they love this show. They say “Dad, you’ve got to watch this show.” House is a brilliant surgeon. A brilliant doctor. He’s also one of the most arrogant, caustic, negative people I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe my kids like watching the TV. If you have negative people in your life and you want to be hopeful, you need to remove them. And you tell me – I just spent Thanksgiving with them, for God’s sakes. We’re trying to pitch a tent in the land of hope and you’ve got somebody wanting to try to tear down your tent. You know what you need to do? Remove them from your life. Sometimes you think we have to hang in there and hang in there and hang in there with people when they’re tearing us down, tearing us down, tearing us down. And I say “No, life is too short.” If you have a negative parent, remove them. Negative sibling? Remove them. If you have a negative kid. If they’re under 18 you’re kind of stuck with them – sorry. They’re teenagers – they’re supposed to be a pain. But other people? Unfriend them on Facebook. Wouldn’t it be great if you – in life – I unfriend you – too negative. Don’t answer their texts. Don’t pick up their phone calls. Remove them. When they send you an ugly email, do not bite to the response to fire them back a hot one and respond to all. Just stay away. Remove caustic people from your life.

If you want to pitch your tent – if you want that sense of will – you know what you’re going to have to do? You’re going to have to fill your life with positive things. Fill your life with positive movies. This is the month of positive movies. These are just four that I’ve picked up. “It’s a Wonderful Life”. “The King’s Speech.” Is that not a positive movie? “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Charlie Brown’s Christmas Carol.” Come up with your favorite movie. A hopeful movie. What’s a hopeful movie? “Rudy” is a great, positive movie. What’s another one? “Up” is a great, positive movie. Give us another one. “Blind Side.” You notice, nobody is saying “The Shining.” “Paranormal I, II & II.” Really uplifting.

If you want to be hopeful people, you’re not going to go to negative movies. Remove negativity from your life. Like positive books. I was putting the keynote together real quick. “Heaven is for Real.” “90 minutes in Heaven.” “The Last Lecture.” What are the positive books that you’ve been reading? What’s a positive book? What is it called? “The Great Lion of God.” Somebody said at the 9:30 service, “Unbreakable.” That was a great book. Another one? “Undaunted Courage.” Great book.

You know – great music. Someone said at the 8:00 o’clock service that “The Sound of Music” – you know – we used to have a tradition at every single Christmas, we listen to the Sound of Music. Talk about hopeful music. [Steve sings “The hills are alive with the sound of music]. But it’s hopeful music. It’s a hopeful song. Some of you are looking like “this is so embarrassing”. But here is a song – or music – you have to listen to in Advent. Everybody, during the season of Advent, needs to listen to the Alleluia chorus. Handel’s Alleluia chorus. Because when you listen – [Mitch plays music – Steve sings]. I could be quarterback for the Broncos. [laughter] After hearing a song like that. It just kind of fills you up. And if you think I’m just kind of goofing around, this is science. It’s called neuroplascity. There’s a guy whose written a book called “The Changeable Brain”. Can’t remember his name. He talks about the fact that our brain is maliable and changes. What’s the name of the book [asking congregation]. What’s his name? Goldman. “The Brain that Changes Itself.” Karen should be – she has the M.S. Foundation – and tell me if I’m wrong. What he’s talking about is that your brain is malleable. If you fill your brain with hopeful things, it heals itself. People who have strokes, people who have M.S., that if they focus on the positive, they have positive people around them, encouraging people, that the brain can actually heal and the body can actually heal.

If you fill your life with negativity, negative people, negative thoughts, you know what happens? You become a negative person. Which direction are you going? Hope? What is the good that you’re longing for? The season of Advent is about the waiting for God to come. The waiting for the birth of the Messiah. The Messiah is the good that is going to come to us. The challenges. It’s already here. They were waiting for a Messiah to be born, to come, but they missed because they were expecting a king and he came as a baby. How is God already here? And you’re missing him because you’re looking in the wrong place. When Christ comes again, he’s not going to come in expected ways. He’s not going to go to Jerusalem. He’s not going to go to Rome or Salt Lake. Sorry – little joke – had to throw that in there. He’s going to go to someplace like Limon. Craig. Burleigh. Some place that you would never think about. That God’s going to come. And you’re going to have to be willing to see God in the face of your spouse, your partner, your friends, your clients, your colleagues, your children, your grandchildren. If you can open your eyes to see God immediately with you, it gives you hope. Hope in life. Suddenly life starts making sense. With God around you.

I will pitch my tent in the land of hope. I WILL pitch my tent in the land of hope. I will pitch my tent in the land of hope.