A Pastor's Diary

A Pastor’s Diary

Isaiah 63:7-9   |   12/29/2013

The Church of the Wayfarer

Norm Mowery, Pastor

          How many of you keep a diary?

          Many famous people have kept diaries.

          Perhaps you kept one when you were in middle school

                   —the kind with a little clasp, lock and key.

          From time to time I write in my diary.

          This week as I was preparing this sermon I read through some of the things I wrote over the past 11 years as your pastor. I became a little nostalgic especially as I think of retiring in July.

          Do you want to hear some of what is in my diary?

          O.K. Here goes!

          This is what I wrote on July 3, 2003 a few days after I started here as your pastor.

                   “I’m here. It feels right. It feels good. Carmel!”

          Six days later I wrote.

                   “I sat by the beach to drink my coffee this morning. Dolphins. Life is                           good.”

          A month later I wrote:

                   “Sat on my bench at the beach.

                             Prayed in the sanctuary.

                             Finished sermon.

                             Lunch with Gene Conley.

                   God is good.”

          On September 11 after I was here for ten weeks I wrote:

                   “This job is much harder than I ever thought it would be!

                   This place is more beautiful than I ever imagined.

                   I miss Linda. I’m lonely. I’m growing.

                   It’s a new and different world.

                   Not bad—just different.”

          On July 4, 2004 after I had been here for a year I wrote:

                   “I have the right wife.

                             I have the right children.

                             I have the right job.

                             I have the right faith.

                   I have me!

          Well, that’s enough!

          Trust me, you do not want to hear more!

                  

          As I read today's text the thought came to me that it reads like a diary especially where Isaiah says, “I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord.”

          In diaries we find joy and sorrow.

          Linda and I were in Amsterdam this past August.

          The one thing we wanted to do there was to visit the Anne Frank house. To do so we had to wait in line for two hours and we almost missed our river boat on it’s very first sailing.

          But going to the place where Ann Frank wrote her diary was the highlight of our trip.

          One of Anne’s entries was:
                   “It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary;

          not only because I have never done so before,

          but because it seems to me that neither I—

                   nor for that matter anyone else—

          will be interested in the unbosoming’s of a thirteen-year-old school girl.”

          As I read her diary—joys and sorrows, fears and feelings—it is hard for me to imagine that she will die so young.

          There are many benefits to journaling—

                   to writing down your feelings and your life’s journey.

          Journaling can help:

                    - clarify your goals,
                    - sort through ideas,
                    - make you a better communicator,
                    - have an outlet for your burdens and outrages,
                    - keep a record of your blessings and joys,
                    - affirm the reality of your life, and
                    - turn ideas into words.

          In some cases, it may even help others later to learn from or about your life. Or, as in the case of the diary of Anne Frank, it can give later readers an inside glimpse of what life under certain difficult conditions was like.

          I think that I better destroy my diary!

          It is not only very personal but it’s boring!

          A success coach, Philip E. Humbert, says that keeping a journal just feels good:

          "Using quality paper and a fountain pen or other beautiful instrument with just the right 'heft' and feel is a wonderfully sensuous, delightful experience.

          It will cheer you up, reduce your stress, make you smile and add to your life.    Who knows?

          It may even improve your sex life or make you more patient with the kids!"

          If nothing else, like me, you have a record to look back over from time to time to see how your thinking has evolved over the years.

          John Wesley is famous for his journals.

          His thinking evolved considerably over the years. We know that because of his journals.

          In 1725, he wrote that he thought he was a Christian, but for a while after 1738, he thought he had not truly been a Christian in 1725.

          But by the 1770s, he acknowledged that his middle age views might have been wrong, and that in some real sense, he had in fact been a Christian in 1725 after all.

          That’s the great thing about keeping a diary. You can look back on your life’s journey.

          Is diary-writing a lost art?

          If you're talking about a diary written out in longhand, then the answer is probably yes.          

          Yet, if you include social media—Facebook, Twitter—then it would seem there are more people keeping diaries than ever before.

          The social-media sort of diary is a good bit more permanent than the paper variety. They say anyone posting something on the Internet should simply assume it will be there forever.

          That may mean future historians will have to slog through thousands of cute cat pictures and photos of the Chinese food the writer had for lunch.

          Oscar Wilde said,

                                      “I never travel without my diary.

           One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

          Since this is the last Sunday of the year it is nice for me to think back on the year and take stock of what happened and what didn't happen.

          If you do not keep a journal perhaps this would be a good time to start.

         
          It's possible that the prophet who wrote the later chapters of the book of Isaiah had something of a diarist's bent.

          This chapter is not at all like the grand optimism of earlier chapters. Instead, they voice the pessimism of the post-exilic community. They still affirm God's sovereignty and compassion for Israel, but the writer has taken off his rose-colored glasses. This chapter can be viewed as a kind of group diary.

          This scripture, like my diary, has the same disjointed feel that diary postings from one day to the next can have.

          They move from vindication to vengeance to mercy.

          They express raw and real feelings.

          Here we see the promised vindication of Jerusalem.

          Earlier in Isaiah 63 the writer goes in another direction, pronouncing the vengeance on the nation of Edom.

          But in today's passage, the voice changes to that of a diarist, recalling God's mercy to Israel in the past.

          The reference to God acting for Israel's benefit through his saving presence is appropriate for this Sunday after Christmas. Here we see the saving presence of God coming to be with mortals.

          The paraphrase of the Bible, The Message reads,

          “God didn't send someone else to help them. He did it himself, in person."

          The whole oracle is actually a prayer.

           The implied affirmation is,

"Since God was with us in the past,

we can therefore expect his care and compassion

                                      as we continue our days."

          How about you?

          As you stand here at the close of another year I wonder where you experienced God in the last 12 months.

          In what specific ways did you grow closer to God?

                    Let’s reflect for a few minutes.

          Over what bad places in life's road did you feel "carried" by the Lord?

          What might your diary entries say about God's work in your life over the past year?

          Just yesterday I got an email. The writer wrote:

                   “I am certain that you may not remember me but I have attended    services at the church whenever possible.

                   I always come away feeling so good.

                   Your sermons have touched me.

                   I am writing to you today to ask for your guidance and prayers.”

                   I have always considered myself a Christian but as a result of events        in my life I have never been able to give myself over to Christ and embrace                       God.

          I hope to receive your thoughts and advice as I value them.”

          You see like this person we are all on a journey. It is the journey of life.

          The Bible is a diary of the lives of many people over 1500 years. It tells of all the ups and downs of people back through the ages. We can learn from their stories.

          The message from Isaiah is that we cannot take God for granted.

          Sometimes we are tempted to take God for granted?

          Taking the text by itself, it would seem to give us an easy assurance that God will be with us just as fully in the future as he was in the past.

          A better way to hear it is as a reminder not to take God's presence for granted but to live in ways that honors him as the Lord of our life.

          So if we were to make a diary entry today, it might have two parts, one looking back and one looking forward.

          The looking-back part could recount the ways in which we, upon reflection, saw God at work in our life over the year now closing.

          It could also include some words of thanks for the help and blessings we received and some words of repentance for places where we failed to be the person God calls us to be.

          In the looking-forward part, we could commit ourselves to grow in both faith and works, to integrate discipleship more fully into our lives.

          At this point at the beginning of the year, many people think in terms of resolutions, promises to one's self to make certain personal changes, many of which never happen, bearing witness to the maxim that "the life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another."

          But the looking-forward portion of our diary entry, if it is to have real impact, cannot be simply a resolution;

          it needs to be a placing of our self in God's hands, asking for his help in shaping us into who he calls us to be.

          Let us so do.

          The end of the year is a good time for both reflections on how God has been with us

          and asking for his help in shaping us into who he calls us to be.

          We have come to the end of yet another year.

          Isaiah invites us to look back thankfully

                   on how God has been working in our lives,

                   to assess our current relationship with God,

                   and to look ahead to where God may be directing us.

                                                

                                                          Prayer
          Eternal God, you are the Lord of all our beginnings and all our endings.

          Today you place in our hands an entire year, like a precious book ready for us to create the story of 2014.

          Last year's tattered pages are already bound between the covers of memory.     Help us put this year on the shelf gracefully, without dwelling on either its successes or its setbacks.
          Prepare us to welcome without fear the New Year prepared for us.

          Give us courage to face the unknown challenges ahead.

          Help us learn from the mistakes we have made in the past.

          Help us forgive ourselves that we may go on to write new chapters with confidence.
          Strengthen us with resolve.

          Give us the wisdom we need to fulfill our callings.

          If we are presented with new opportunities, lead us to make good choices.

          If we seem to have no choices at all help us hold still and listen to your voice.
          Bless those with whom we share our lives and homes that together we may grow in love and faithfulness.

          Keep us secure in your peace.

          For we pray in the name of the one who brings peace and whose prayer we now pray together saying……