Shaken Not Stirred A Reflection for XXV Pentecost

A Reflection for XXV Pentecost (proper 27) All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC November 10, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Haggai 1:15b-2:9 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 Luke 20:27-38

“Shaken, not stirred.” That is James Bond’s line, and it is how I usually mix a martini.

Some purists would say that martinis need to stirred so as not to “bruise” the gin. Writer Somerset Maugham is supposed to have said "a martini should always be stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lie sensuously on top of one another", and there are times when I am feeling pretty mellow and the stirring is soothing. But I am not a purist, and there are times when I like the violence of having all things shaken up - after all, the world is pretty much shaken up already. Surprisingly enough, and I know you’ll be shocked, the word “martini” is never mentioned in the Bible, but the experience of the people in the Bible is of living in a world that is violently shaken and not gently and sensuously stirred. 

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today, Darius, the Persian King, has allowed the exiles to return from Babylon where their faith has been shaken a great deal. Now they want to just lie low and take it easy, focusing on their own personal and family welfare, refusing to join in a vision of a new community. Their point of view is “It is time to stop dreaming - and now what do I get out of this for me?”, living into what poet David Whyte,

in the 3rd stanza of his poem The Sun from the collection House of Belonging, observed

… Sometimes reading
Kavanagh I look out
at everything
growing so wild
and faithfully beneath
the sky
and wonder
why we are the one
terrible
part of creation
privileged
to refuse our flowering...

However, the prophet Haggai says that God is not through with the shaking process, and it is time to get to work rebuilding a new Temple as an outward and visible sign of their dependence on God. He tells them not to be afraid for, in the middle of the shaking, it is the process of going deeper into the relationship with God that will get them through. The question changes from “What do I get?” to “How do I give myself to work for the dream?” The translation from the NRSV says that “in this place I will give you prosperity”, and it fits with the talk of splendor and gold and silver. But in Hebrew, the word cited is “shalom”. We tend to think of “shalom” as meaning peace and well-being, and it does, but in this situation, there is never a return to paradise, but the finding of peace in the middle of a conflicted world.

That is the peace that Paul is addressing when he writes to the church in Thessaloniki. He had talked with them about the coming of the end of the world and they were shaken. They ask themselves, “What do I get out of this end? Am I going to get into heaven before the other guy?” Paul begs them “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us.” Yes, there will be an end, as all things must end, but the Thessalonians are to “stand firm and hold fast” to that relationship with God that Paul demonstrated and passed on to them, that shalom, that peace that passes all understanding.

In the Gospel lesson, Jesus is dealing with a group of Sadducees. Sadducees are a group that consider themselves faithful Jews and they know that they are living in a shaken world. The Romans have taken over, the country is occupied, and they are captives in the occupied state. The world looks pretty bleak. The Pharisees and Jesus look forward to another existence after death where all justice will prevail and shalom will finally prevail over turmoil, but the Sadducees see that as “pie in the sky, by and by” talk. They think that the world is already too shaken and can never be put back together. Therefore, all we can do is get what we want, use God to back up contracts (e.g., “so help me God”), and do the religious duties in the Temple for form’s sake. Their central question in this life, since they presume there is no afterlife and God seems restricted to the Temple instead of real life, is “What is in it for me and mine?” For them, shalom means making a profit and passing it on in your family, where they and what you have given them, are the afterlife.

The Sadducees ask the “gotcha” question about the woman widowed seven times, who, by virtue of her sex is not a “real” person after all, and only gains her identity as the “property” of her husband. It is a question that shows their mindset of “What is in it for me?” Jesus dismisses the question as a waste of time and invites them to a life of a living relationship with the God of Moses, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. His final answer to them will be in the shaking of his destiny. He will give of himself, his whole self, as part of his faith in that God. For Jesus the point of life is not what you get but what you give.

We refer to the church as the “body of Christ”, we give out bread and wine each week so that all may receive the body and blood of Christ, so that we might become what we eat, and give ourselves. Too often churches sell themselves as places where you can get what you need. Some churches stir up a “get out of hell free card” mentality. Some churches make their buildings look like fortresses, stirring up the image of a safe place away from the shaking world, a place of peace. Some stir up a place of beauty and awe. Some churches stir up a place where one is known, loved, and given worth. There is nothing wrong with those things as long as we realize that the focus of coming to church in this shaken world is not to discern what we can get for ourselves, but to figure out how we can give ourselves as the living body of Christ. Do we refuse to flower into who we were created to be or do we give ourselves in flowering for God’s glory?

We long for being stirred so gently and sensuously, but we are meant to be shaken, not stirred.