Preparing for new beginnings Fourth sermon in series entitled: Transitions Preached on April 27, 2008 By Rev. David Tinney Text: Acts 2:1-13 Theme: Once we have dealt properly with our “endings” and wandered in the wilderness for the proper amount of time to deal with the confusion and chaos, then we are able to give birth to something new. Today I am going to be talking about coming out of the wilderness phase of transitions and looking for the signs of new beginnings and I ran across this cute story about two United Methodist pastors who were standing beside the shoulder of the road in their clerical collars holding two signs. One read “Turn Around” and the other “The end is near.” Along comes this motorists and he sees the two pastors with their nice signs and he gets mad. “Mind your own business,” he yells. “I hate to be preached at by two religious nuts.” With that he screeches his tires and precedes as fast as he can down the road. A few seconds later the two pastors hear a loud splash. The one pastor turns to the other, “I told you we should’ve just written ‘Bridge out.’” Wouldn’t it be nice if during every major decision or with ever period of transition and change we could have signs that told us exactly what to do? Let us pray… (Get out your handouts and follow along) Too often change is like an unwelcomed burglar, who breaks into the guarded sanctuaries of our lives where we worship the status quo, and absconds with the treasure of immutability. Our patterns are broken, our rhythms are thrown out of synch, and we wander in wilderness places until there is an ending – or more precisely a beginning. Today we are going to talk about the place where transition ends – beginnings. I mentioned in all three sermons so far that I have relied heavily in this series on “Transitions” on an author by the name of William Bridges. In the early 1980s he had done sufficient research with people going through change that he identified a three-step process they all had in common as they went through transition. It was a process that begins with endings, where we lose or let go of an old outlook, reality, attitude, value, or self image. Endings usually toss us into a time of confusion, chaos, and reflection which he called the neutral zone. I preached about it last week and called it the “wilderness.” Finally the wilderness gives way to new beginnings where we “take hold of and identify with a new outlook, reality, attitude, value, or self image” . This is where we feel that the wandering is finally over and we are ready to begin a new chapter of our lives. Here we can claim tomorrow with a new sense of purpose and possibility. Now all this may sound a little backwards – starting with an ending and ending with a beginning – but it matches the organic rhythms of life, birth, and seasonal change. Birth comes at the end of nine months of what some might call confusing and painful growth. Fields explode with new life after remaining fallow for the months of winter. Trees burst forth with buds after months of looking dead. The problem many of us have with this natural process of transition is that it runs counter to our mechanistic culture. We live in a context where things start with a switch or a key. There are two positions on or off, working or not working. When things don’t work we fix them. We go to the operator’s manual and we go through a checklist until we finally arrive at the problem. I have a lawnmower that I have been known to curse from time to time. Every spring that mower and I have a come to Jesus session and most of the time it wins. No matter how well I drain it in the fall of its gasoline, no matter where I store it, no matter if I took out the spark plug and kept it in a hermetically sealed container, that mower is bound and determined to fight with me on that first mowing venture. So I go through my checklist. I clean the lines. I check the plug. I make sure that carburetor is clean as a whistle. And then I start cranking, pulling, yanking, and sweating. When all else fails I get out my can of starting fluid and I spray it into that carburetor and I am victorious. All I am saying is in our mechanized world we have a systematic process to bring change. But that is not so with life. There is no manual containing all the right answers for every situation. There is no checklist for perfect change and transition and we should be thankful there isn’t because it would take the joy out of the journey of life. Most of you know that I love gadgets and if my wife gives me permission I will buy nearly any gadget out there on the market. But there is actually one gadget that she wants me to have that I refuse to buy. It is a GPS navigation device. You know what I am talking about? They are the little computerized mapping devices that not only show you where you are, where you are going, but also talk to you when you are approaching a turn or when you are foolish enough not to listen to the directions. My daughter has one and she has named the woman’s voice “Satellite Sally.” Now the reason I won’t buy one is that I love to feel where I am going and don’t want some Satellite Sally telling me where I need to turn next. I like to get lost and find my way back. I like to take spontaneous turns and experience the consequences of temporarily being lost. I like to listen to my heart and sense where it is taking me. The same is true with life. The best parts of life are often found on the back roads, the unexpected detours, and the spontaneous side trips and not just at the destinations. I believe this is key to our understanding of new beginnings. Transitions are not linear, logical, and rational processes. They are not on/off, either/or, mechanized movements. They don’t come with a manual and instructions to go from point A to point B with the least number of steps. In fact the transition process is anything but tidy. We wander in confusion, chaos, and doubt until something within us quivers with the possibility of a new beginning. Our hearts, not our heads, inform us of when it is right to emerge and receive the new possibilities awaiting us. I just saw a wave of terror sweep through all the logical, linear-minded, analytical men and women in the room. I swear I thought I heard a groaning complaint rising up and several of you whispering, “Did he just say that I am supposed to trust my heart and not my head?” Actually that is exactly what I said but let me quote William Bridges so that the words come from an expert trained in psychology. He writes that instructions to follow your heart do sound a lot like shutting off your mind but that is not what he wants to shut off. In times when we are emerging from the wilderness we need to shut off our anxious search for the perfect answer or the perfect escape from the confusion. “The solution doesn’t come from finding the right way to act but from finding your own way to go.” In other words we need to stop trying to manage or control change and instead experience it and be shaped by it. Instead of pushing through the process in a mechanical manner we need to relax into change and let our hearts be changed by the new possibilities awaiting us. If we don’t then we close down the potential of the new beginnings. But how will we know that we are embracing the right path or making the right decision? Well once again there is no universal formula. We all travel on different paths and we are all called to different destinations. But healthy new beginnings have a couple things in common. First you often feel it before you discover anything that is tangible enough to analyze or evaluate. For instance, when we are searching for a new career path we catch glimpses of what we might like to do, or we sense an attraction to a particular group of workers or skills, or we may feel a deep call from God within that keeps demanding attention. In the middle of our wandering and confusion someone might suggest a path you have never considered and it resonates, or someone might see a gift or talent within you and express it in such a way that you feel more called to explore it. We feel the direction long before we can actually touch it. Second, there will be a sense of an inner realignment with our deepest longings to our deepest passions and there is a renewal of energy. When we have used the time of the wilderness for reflection, healing, and transformation then the beginnings that often await us bring new purpose, direction, and value to our lives. It is like discovering the missing piece of a puzzle you have been working on for months and suddenly everything makes sense and the puzzle can now be completed. Before I embraced my call to the ministry I remember struggling with my career. In fact I remember riding my bike home one day and it suddenly dawned on me that a piece of me was dying each day and I could actually feel the damage my job was doing to my soul. When I allowed myself to dream of preaching or being a pastor I felt a surge of energy. It grabbed me and touched the very depths of my being. The spark of being a pastor – as small as it was in the beginning – renewed me and made me aware of a longing deep inside that would not go away. Have you ever gone through times of confusion and felt the refreshing wind of a new beginning? Then you know how it can bring new life, direction and meaning to your life. Obviously some transition processes are smaller and the smaller ones are not going to rock your universe but some of the bigger changes can completely transform your life’s path. Let me tell you two stories of powerful transition and new beginning. Most of you are familiar with the story of John Wesley the founder of Methodism. He was born in 1703 into a preacher’s family and was the 15th child. He felt called from an early age to continue in his father’s footsteps and be a pastor so he and his brother Charles went to Oxford and studied theology and was ordained a deacon in 1725. He spent the next ten years teaching and preaching and living a rigorous and humorless life of Christian discipleship. In 1735 his world came crashing in on him. He and his brother sailed to Savannah, Georgia where he intended on converting the Natives and transforming and regulating the religious lives of the prisoners and colonists. It was a complete disaster and he was thrown out of Georgia when a love affair with one of the locals turned sour and Wesley turned nasty. Wesley encountered his first major wilderness experience as he sailed back across the Atlantic Ocean in disgrace. His career, theology, and call to ministry were bouncing around as he was bouncing around on the rough seas. Midway back their ship was hit by a devastating storm and it appeared that they might all die. Wesley was paralyzed in fear but he looked on deck and saw a group of Moravians, a sect of Christian reformists, singing hymns and praising God. It was one of those small openings where he could feel new life ready to burst through, but he didn’t know what to do with it. He struggled in his wilderness for nearly three years and was often depressed. He kept trying to make sense of the inner strength and peace he had witnessed with the Moravians and the story goes that he decided to go to a Moravian meeting on Aldersgate Street in London where they were going to be studying Luther’s preface to the book of Romans. In that meeting “his heart was strangely warmed” and he was never the same again. Something touched him to his core and realigned his deepest longings with his greatest passion. He suddenly understood what he had to do and how he had to do it. From that moment on he was a man of grace and he spread his message of grace around his country of England. The second story comes from today’s reading and is a story that most of you are familiar with because it is the story used for the celebration of Pentecost. If we were on a liturgical calendar I would be preaching on this story in a couple of weeks. The story of Pentecost actually begins with an ending. It begins with the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord. Talk about major change that rocked a community – when Jesus died on that cross no one was prepared. Nor were they prepared for him breaking free of the hold of death and dwelling among them for a period of forty days as the Risen Lord. Do you remember his instructions to his followers when he finally ascends? Stay here in Jerusalem and don’t leave. Wait for the gift that that God has promised. Wait for the Holy Spirit to baptize you. So they waited. Talk about a time of confusion, chaos, and doubt. Can you imagine the conversations that were taking place as they waited not knowing what was going to happen? Can you imagine the type-A personalities complaining and trying to control the process? But the instructions left no room for managing the process so the followers waited, reflected on the past encounters with Jesus, shared stories about what they remembered, prayed, and encouraged each other. They were ready when the Holy Spirit finally arrived. That day was different from the rest. Their waiting was interrupted by the sound of the “rush of a violent wind” and the room was transformed and so were its occupants. Tongues of fire danced over the heads of each person and each began to speak in languages that were not their own. Talk about a new beginning! Talk about an opening bringing new life! Talk about a realignment of inner longs with inner passion! This has got to be one of the greatest examples in the Bible of a new beginning after a long wilderness of confusion. I delight in the final description where those who were passing by looked into the house and saw them in their spirit-intoxicated joy and said these people are filled with new wine. God was faithful to those who waited. God blessed them and they were ready to start something new and these men and women who were so much like you who are sitting and waiting for God to move in your lives – were intoxicated with new life. Let us pray… Bridges, William “The Way of Transition,” Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001. p.5 Bridges, p6 Bridges, William, “Transitions: Making sense of Life’s Changes” Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA 1980. p134. Bridges, William “The Way of Transition,” Da Capo Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001. p208. Bridges, William, “Transitions: Making sense of Life’s Changes” Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA 1980. p136 Transitions: Preparing for new beginnings 1 | Page