“A PERFECT, FINISHED PLAN”

“A Perfect, Finished Plan”: End of Construction, Thank You for Your Patience

Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent (Year C)

This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on December 5, 2021.

One day Billy Graham and his wife Ruth were driving through a long stretch of road construction. They had numerous slowdowns, detours, and stops along the way. Finally, they reached the end of all that difficulty, and smooth pavement stretched out before them. This sign caught Ruth’s attention: “End of construction. Thanks for your patience.” She commented that those words would be a fitting inscription on her tombstone someday. “End of construction. Thanks for your patience.”

Although I imagine God probably keeps working on us even after we die, we are all clearly works in progress. We co-create and work alongside, God but he is the true artist and architect of our souls. St. Paul emphasizes this in our reading today from his letter to the Philippians when he says, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (1:6). We are works in progress, under construction; and the one who began working on us from the moment we were given the gift of life and the one who began co-working with us from the moment we intentionally received that gift of life at our baptism will bring that project to completion. “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.”

This verse has been echoing in my heart and mind over this weekend as I interviewed aspirants seeking ordination in the Episcopal Church. I had the privilege of bearing witness to powerful and moving stories about how the Spirit planted seeds of desire and vocation in souls and then brought those seeds to germination and gradual fruition. The one who began a good work in them is bringing that work to completion. After participating in a series of interviews with the Commission on Ministry from 9 to 5 yesterday, I then had the joy of basking in the beauty of David Lochtie’s art from 5 to 9 with several of you. We celebrated the creative work that God began in David through our worship here, during the COVID lockdown. The work that began with a simple stroke of a paintbrush almost two years ago came to a level of completion and communal appreciation last night. I appreciate all of you who came, and I encourage those of you who couldn’t make it to view his pieces in Lewis Hall this morning or this afternoon before Evensong. One woman said that she felt like viewing them was like walking through a kind of the Stations of the Cross, which led her to want to kneel in prayer here in our sanctuary. Many were inspired to write comments and even create some art of their own.

One painting that continued to grab my attention during the show was a dark one with a small blue rectangle at the center. It’s called “Be Loved” and it was partly inspired by a sermon I preached over a year ago on the God who knows us each by name. About this painting, David wrote, “I imagined myself as the small rectangle in the middle, alight because my Creator recognizes me and knows my name. This theme,” David said,” reminds me of the Dylan song, ‘Every Grain of Sand.’”

Now the song “Every Grain of Sand” is considered the most eloquent and sublime of Dylan’s explicitly Christian songs. It’s the final track in the underrated album “Shot of Love,” which is Dylan’s personal favorite, and it marks the conclusion of his evangelical period as a songwriter. Whatever good work God began in Dylan during his evangelical Christian phase came to a level of completion in the song “Every Grain of Sand.” The song often moves me tears partly because it was one of my father’s favorites and because the words so elegantly remind us that we are indeed loved by a God who knows the number of hairs on our head. U2’s Bono compares it to the great Psalms of David and music critic Tim Riley says it’s a “a prayer that inhabits the same intuitive zone as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ – you’d swear it was a hymn passed down through the ages.” The song is a fusion of some of Dylan’s best lyrical poetry with some of our Scripture’s most potent images and our Savior’s most consolatory teachings. And the last line of the song beautifully conveys St. Paul’s message about the God who brings to completion the good work he began in us. He says, “I’m hanging in the balance of a perfect, finished plan, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.” In the album version, for some reason, he changes it to “hanging in the balance of the reality of man,” but in the live versions (including his most recent concert), he says, “I’m hanging in the balance of a perfect, finished plan, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.”

As we continue to wait this Advent season for the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, let’s remember to be patient with each other and to be patient with ourselves because we are all works in progress, we are all under construction. And even when it feels like we’re taking one step forward and two steps back or maybe we feel like we’re not moving at all or feeling we’re depressed or anxious, the one who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. Often that journey towards completion involves a process of lowering a mountain-sized egos and smoothing our rough edges as the prophet Isaiah proclaimed. Sometimes it involves being refined by fire or being cleansed by fuller’s soap, which is a reference to launderers who use a lot of friction to remove impurities or even smack the clothes to clean them. Some of us might feel like we’re experiencing friction or fire in our lives right now. St. Paul invites us to see these challenges as part of our formation, part of our construction. The one who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. We are held in the balance of God’s perfect, finished plan, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.