Text and Subtext

I once found myself giving a long and detailed description to my twenty-year-old stepson about how to install a new toilet. I'd asked him to help me with it so that I could teach him, having only recently learned it myself. But the one I'd bought had a different way of mounting the tank and I soon found that my confident and knowledgeable lesson was breaking down into lots of thoughts along the lines of “now, let's see here...” and “let me just look at the diagram again....” It was not my finest parental lesson, and my son's interest was understandably lowering.

At some point, it was necessary for me to give up on the text of the lesson and get down to the subtext of the moment, which is what was really important in the first place. Text and subtext are terms I borrow from literary work. The text is the actual content of the words. In this case, the text had to do with the setting of screws in the base of the toilet. The subtext is the unspoken message which is being conveyed under and behind the text. Nine times out of ten, or maybe all ten times, the subtext is the more important part of the message. For me, the subtext of my bad plumbing lesson contained several messages.

1.      You're growing up and I want you to be prepared for adulthood.

2.      I wish I'd learned more about taking care of a house when I was growing up.

3.      I love you, and I want to teach you what I have to pass on.

That's a lot to pack into a lesson on installing a toilet, and when the lesson broke down, I decided I'd just tell him those things, in more or less the words I just used. These were not new messages to him, but they were worth saying out loud again.

I've been thinking about the subtext of some of the things we do at church.

Text: We have ministry programs for children and youth = Subtext: we want a safe and nurturing place for the young people we love.

Text: We have a writing group for elders = Subtext: we value our life stories, and we believe that if we listen closely and honestly to our stories, we will hear the story of God.

Text: We work with outreach partners locally and around the world = Subtext: all people are our neighbors. Even if they are strangers to us, they are relatives in the family of God.

Those are just a few, but you get the point. These are not new messages, but they are worth saying out loud as often as we can.

Singing Christmas

We were singing the Christmas carols from memory. Someone would call out a name, and we would all sing the first verse together (the first verse seems to be the most we can manage from memory).

Stock photo for dramatization (not me)

The First Noel

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Away in a Manger

Then someone said “Go Tell it on the Mountain” and we all started to sing the refrain:

“Go tell it on the Mountain, over the hills and everywhere;

Go tell in on the mountain…” but there was confusion at the end.

“…that Jesus Christ was born” sang some.

“…that Jesus Christ is born” sang others.

The first one makes sense. We are the carol singers, and we are singing with joy because of the day long ago when Jesus Christ was born. Past tense. It is the day we remember every year, the day when the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

But that isn’t how the lyrics go. We sing in present tense: “Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born!”

If we think about Christmas in the past tense, we miss the message. Christ comes to be among us in our own time. Christ is born in whatever place will make room for God -actually, Christ is born even if we don’t make room. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. Jesus said that by reaching out to others we are reaching out to him.

Sermon - What Time It Is

Preached on December 1, 2013, the first Sunday of Advent, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC.

Scripture: Romans 13:11-14

¹¹Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹²the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; ¹³let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. ¹⁴Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Sermon

Living by darkness or living by daylight. Living as one asleep or waking up. The apostle Paul asks us to think about our by these stark contrasts. “The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” For all of the complexity of life, for all the shades of gray that we live in, sometimes it’s helpful to put life into stark terms.

Do you remember the parable of the two wolves that comes to us from the people of the First Nations? A grandparent says to the grandchild, “there are two wolves inside of you. One wolf is good, kind, patient, loving. The other wolf is evil, mean, selfish, full of hate. They are locked in a great struggle.”

The grandchild asks “which wolf will win?”

And the wise grandparent answers, “the one you feed.”

What kind of lives are we living? And what lives will we begin today? “You know what time it is,” writes Paul. “Now is the time for you to wake up.” And here is where I think that Paul’s metaphor is really helpful, because Paul recognizes that it isn’t just up to us. We are awake when the sun is out and we sleep in the darkness. We are affected by what’s going on around us, sometimes by light and sometimes by darkness.

Sermon - Mission:Impossible?

Preached on November 17, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC

Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. 

I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 

They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Sermon

The prophet tells of God’s promise to make new heavens and a new earth on which there will be no more weeping or suffering or violence of any kind, and I wonder if it seemed to those who heard it an impossible mission. The people to whom this vision was first shared were the Israelites who had survived two generations of captivity after the empire of Babylon conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, laid waste to their fields and vineyards, and took the people away into Babylon where they handed down their grief from generation to generation. And now they returned to the words of this impossible vision given by the prophet from God. God is about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight, and no more will there be weeping. No more will people die before old age. No more will the homes they build or the vineyards they keep be taken by someone else. No more will they cry out to God and wonder whether God has even heard their cry because God will hear before they cry and answer while they are yet speaking.

And what’s more (as if all of this weren't enough already) God’s peace will be so complete that even the wolf will stop preying on the lambs, even the lion will change to a diet of straw, and eat side by side with the ox, and the serpent always biting at our heels, the very symbol of evil, will no longer be a threat to any breathing creature. It will get by eating the dirt as it crawls.

Can we believe this? Is someone putting us on?