Life in Greencastle - Ferris Wheels, Nehemiah & What Holds Us Together

Ferris wheels can show us a lot, and not just because of the views high in the sky. 

If you're taking a trip up to the State Fair anytime soon, take a moment to watch where all the action is.  The focus from the crowds will inevitably be on the passenger cars.  Friends, lovers, and family members will start pairing up in the line waiting to get on, trying to figure out which car they'll get into.  And those on the ground will point up into the air, tracking the cars as they make their great arc through the air.  Each car will bring its own experience, as the passengers take in the sights of the world from high above, looking past the food trucks and animal barns.  They'll look out over 38th Street and to the skyline of Indy to the south.  They'll gasp and take a deep breath of joy or nervousness at the top of the wheel.

It can be only natural, then, to think of the passenger cars as what is most important.  It looks like that is where all the action takes place. 

But, of course, that's not the case at all.  What drives the ferris wheel is what happens at the center, where hardly anyone's attention wanders.  I don't know too many people who spend the entire time on the ferris wheel looking straight down at the center of the wheel, tracking the gears and engines that drive the motion.  The center of the ferris wheel simply does its job, and allows for all the other good things to happen.  It's only when the center fails to do its job correctly that anyone notices.

The life of our church - of any faith community - is exactly like a ferris wheel.  There's all sorts of life and activity that goes round and round, all sorts of good and great options for the members of the community to step into and experience, hopefully in a way that transforms, renews, and energizes the person for re-engagement with the world.  A good, healthy church, like ours has many different carriages for growing to be more like Jesus for the sake of others.

That's why this weekend for us as a church family is such a great sign of the Spirit's activity in our midst.

We've got a lot of passenger cars to get into!  Lots of ministries and opportunities to LOVE like Jesus, LIVE like Jesus, and SERVE like Jesus.

Let me just run down the list, so you see what I mean.

You can join our SAWs team tomorrow morning out by Morton off 36 and build not just a handicap ramp but also freedom and joy and hope.

You can come out to Second Saturday on S. Indiana St. for one of my all-time favorite free, family fun events:  a silly safari that brings joy to so many kids.  You can help us bring God's heart into the heart of Greencastle by helping us set up shop, staff our stations, and clean up after the show.

You can come to church early this Sunday and find two Adult Bible Studies going on at 9 am, one in our fellowship hall and one in our parlor on the book of Nehemiah.

You can come for church and find us gifting Bibles to our new 3rd-Graders, giving them the one book that will aid them not just for this year, but for their entire life.

You can join us at the Miller's after church for our annual picnic, bringing your swimsuits and stories and fishing poles as we connect and share life.

In fact, the only other opportunity you won't be able to step into this weekend is the meal with Sami on Sunday night, as he's had a conflict come up.  But, we'll make sure that passenger car is out there in the future.

That's a beautiful list, a kaleidoscope of engagement and activities.

But, what is really beautiful, what is truly essential, is what is at the heart of this activity.  And there is never any doubt about what drives and propels the life of any healthy church community.

Healthy churches are are centered in God's love and God's love for other people.  These are the gears and engines that drive the Church's life forward and outward into the world.  This is why it is so essential that individually and collectively, there is space in the center of our own lives for worship, for prayer, for study of God's Word, for a deep reflection and ongoing diet with the ways of Jesus.  When these things are present, the life of an individual, of a family, of a congregation, even a nation is stable, centered, life-giving and powerful.  When these things are not present, all good motion ceases.  Even worse, if things go wrong in the center, the life at the margins of the culture will suffer.  Pain and frustration emerge.  The ferris wheel breaks down.

There's no mistaking this sad reality, too.

The center of our civic culture has broken down.

The great ferris wheel of our political life is in gridlock, and - even worse - producing pain.  The ways of Jesus and of the voices of God's holy and humble prophets throughout the ages and land have been muted.  Injustice is being done to immigrants and the alien in our midst, a sure way to raise God's ire.  We've become more attached to our national means of protection and our idols of arms than we have to the ways of Jesus for our life.  But, before you start feeling like the finger is only being pointed in one direction, remember what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said so poignantly:  "few are guilty, but all are responsible."

We've all done something to cause the breakdown.

And ... 

We're all on this ferris wheel together, and we don't have the means to fix the ferris wheel ourselves.  

For that, we need something else.  We need God's life-giving power and word and wisdom, the center of all life that can move us forward together.

This is what Nehemiah realizes.  Somewhere at the center of his life was a deep awareness of Yahweh and Yahweh's commitment to building up a people of peace, justice, righteousness and shalom.

But, he forgot.  He got sidetracked.

The Book of Nehemiah begins with Nehemiah receiving word that the ferris wheel of God's people has come apart.  Jerusalem is suffering.  The Israelites are scattered and weakened and in shambles.  The operation has ceased to function.

Now, Nehemiah could have easily begun by launching into a diatribe of who was to blame.

But, instead, he does something essential and instructive.

First of all, he comes clean about the condition of his own life.  The physical deterioration of Jerusalem lays open his own spiritual atrophy (Neh. 1:5-10).  Nehemiah prays one heck of a bold prayer:  Lord, let your work of restoration begin not only with us but also with me. 

Nehemiah's prayer is all about "me" and "us," and never about "those" and "them."

In other words, instead of focusing on all the great and important activities that lay before him, all the problems that need to be addressed, all that he could target or attack, Nehemiah stops and grounds himself in God.  Help me.  Help us.  Guide us.  Strengthen me for Your work. 

Those activities and challenges will still be there, and Nehemiah will exert great strength and smarts and heart into fixing them.  But, he won't be relying upon his own strength.

He returns to his center, to Yahweh.

Friends, how is the center of your own life?

What power are you relying upon to get you through your days?

This is one of the gifts Nehemiah will give to us - to call us back to the source and center of our life, the only source that can sustain us and fulfill us.

Let us return to the life-giving, abundant, joy-filled, healing ways of Christ Jesus, and let us take that life out into the world as we work and pray and play this weekend.

~Pastor Wes