{"id":453,"date":"2010-10-24T15:17:09","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T15:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/?p=453"},"modified":"2020-12-02T12:36:46","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T12:36:46","slug":"early-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/early-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joel 2:23-32<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 24, 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the American Baptist Churches of Oregon Annual Gathering, Medford, OR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past couple of years, I have planted a small garden. This year I put in a couple of tomato plants, one green pepper, one Japanese eggplant, and a few strawberry plants. You need more than one strawberry plant to give you enough strawberries for your morning cereal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I actually planted 6 strawberry plants but only 3 produced fruit. The other three gave me only big green leaves. Someone told me that I needed to have a male and female to have fruit. But nowhere on the small seedling pots that I bought from Home Depot said, \u201cThis is a male or this is a female!\u201d For these 3 plants, they are hopeless and helpless as far as filling my cereal bowl with fresh strawberries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past summer, we had a rather cold growing season in the Bay Area of Northern California. Everyone with a vegetable garden was complaining about no fruits and vegetables. We had only 2 eggplants this year thus far. But there are 3 promising ones still clinging onto the plant that I am hopeful will get large enough to eat. I believe I spent more water watering these few vegetable plants than if I just went out to the supermarket and purchased them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When our two granddaughters come to visit, they would pick the red strawberries and the ripened cherry tomatoes. When my plants are able to push out just a few fruits, it\u2019s happiness to see our grandkids enjoy them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learned Helplessness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a psychologist named, Martin Seligman who is leading a movement called \u201cpositive psychology.\u201d In the 60s, he coined the phrase \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d Seligman notes that for every infant, \u201clife begins in utter helplessness.\u201d As we grow and mature, our independence and control of our worlds grows with us. Yet in adversity, some people fall back into a sort of learned helplessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seligman\u2019s research shows that people may wrongly perceive that they have no control over the outcome of a situation. Then, once this perception becomes a pattern, people will behave helplessly even when the chance to help themselves is available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is almost like the three unproductive strawberry plants just couldn\u2019t learn from the three productive ones to bear any fruit. They have \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People can learn that there\u2019s no hope. Maybe I have learned that I have no further hope for these strawberry plants to bear any fruit at all. This sense of hopelessness can affect real-life situations. Some of you may be thinking that during this mid-term election year, \u201cWhy vote when politicians don\u2019t create any real change?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, \u201cThere are so many diet plans out there and none of them work for me. I just need to stop caring about my weight and just enjoy eating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, for the ABC churches in Northern California to say, \u201cThe days when Baptist churches can gather together for fellowship and share a common mission are gone, just do what you can and get on with it.\u201d Have we learned helplessness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Seligman introduced his early work about \u201clearned helplessness,\u201d he has now come up with a more positive view called, \u201clearned optimism\u201d or positive psychology. \u201cLearned optimism\u201d is the attitude that failures and negative experiences are just flukes or, at best, just one-time occurrences. Failures or negative experiences are not permanent and that they are only specific to one situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Seligman, we can learn either helplessness or optimism. When life\u2019s difficulties show up, we can be preconditioned for either despair or hope. Just as we may have learned helplessness, for the sake of our own healthiness, we can instead learn optimism and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choose Hope<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s lesson from the prophet Joel speaks about what will happen to the inhabitants of Jerusalem after the catastrophe of a devastating locust plague. There must have been a terrible drought and locusts wiped out what potential crops were left. The plague was understood as divine punishment for their social, moral and religious failings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joel is written to a community reeling in pain and in need of hope. Though everyone thought \u201cthe day of the Lord\u201d was going to be about their deliverance, it turned out to be destruction\u2014on them and not on their enemies!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A massive swarm of locusts had devoured the land. Their food and way of life were destroyed. Feed crops were gone, and soon the herds dependent on them would die. The people\u2019s gladness and joy had withered. Their worship was cut off with the destruction of their cereal and wine offerings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the people were left to groan out and mourn their losses. Catastrophe had shattered their lives, their hope and their faith. There\u2019re no strawberries on their plants either. They would have to try to pick up themselves, so they could try to pick up all the pieces. The people of Jerusalem have learned helplessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But into that bleak reality, God speaks. God wanted more from the people than just weeping and wailing; God wanted them! \u201cYet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, rend your hearts and not your clothing\u201d (2:12-13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prophet Joel is unlike the other prophets. It has none of the usual indictments on the failings of God\u2019s people. It has none of the scathing commentary on Israel\u2019s leaders. But it tells a fuller story of optimism and hope in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it was God who delivered this pain into their lives, God didn\u2019t want their groaning; he wanted them to turn to him in relationship. Pain was an act of redemption. Out of deep pain comes the basis for a deeper relationship with God. No longer does Joel want the people to stay helpless. God wanted them back into a relationship with him and to begin learning about optimism and hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early Rain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In verse 23, we have this word, moreh<\/em>, translated as \u201cearly rain.\u201d It only occurs here and in Psalm 84<\/a>. The \u201cearly rain\u201d refers to the rain that falls in Palestine from the end of October until the first of December. As drought and a plague of locusts have struck the land, the people will be delivered by divine aid\u2014an early rain will come to renew the fertility of the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those of us who have come to Oregon from Northern California this weekend, we have come for early rain. It is the end of October. And I\u2019ve been told that it rains in Oregon more than it rains in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of us have experienced a great drought; thirsting for American Baptist fellowship. Some of us are in a great famine; hungering for food to sustain the American Baptist Body of Christ. A plague of locusts has devastated our area causing us to groan and weep. But God does not want us to keep on weeping and groaning anymore. God wants us to be back in relationship with him and with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the past year, we have been gathering our scattered churches and we are just beginning to learn how to pick up the pieces to begin fellowshipping with each other again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We asked ourselves, \u201cWill we continue to \u201clearn helplessness\u201d or might we begin to learn about hope again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Joel, God\u2019s word is telling us to choose hope and see the early rain coming. \u201cBe glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication\u201d (23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten\u201d (v. 25).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy people shall never again be put to shame\u201d (v.27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will pour out my spirit on all flesh\u201d (v. 28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sounds like hope to me. There\u2019s no room for \u201clearned helplessness\u201d with this God!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that it will take some time for the churches in Northern California to make decisions about their affiliation with the churches in Oregon. We know that it will take some time for the churches in Oregon to understand the implication of having churches in Northern California affiliating with them. But the early rains are falling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there\u2019s been a drought in Northern California, there may have been a drought in Oregon too. We\u2019re not talking about a shallow optimism here. Just as out of great pain in the life of Jesus Christ, we have received redemption with God, it will be out of deep pain and struggle before we will be able to fashion a mutually collaborative and trusting relationship with each other. But the early rains are coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is calling his children to rejoice in him because he is causing early rain to fall on the churches on the Pacific coast of Oregon and Northern California in order to become a dynamic and vital witness of American Baptist life. God\u2019s rain knows no boundaries that separate the state of Oregon from the state of California. God\u2019s rain fall on all his people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joel said, \u201cHe has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early rain and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil\u201d (23-24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\u2019s Spirit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a story about a developmentally disabled young man named, Panny in the new anthology of stories, Above Ground<\/em>. Panny takes a dare from an unscrupulous citizen, named Buddy Hansen, that he can drag a truck all the way down Main Street in a small town in southwestern Oklahoma. Buddy wants to humiliate the young man and drive him out of town, so he does everything he can to rig the contest and make Panny fail. In the end, he does fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a heroic attempt with rigged rules and a driving rain, he falls exhausted two blocks from the finish line. But after seeing the misery of his apparent defeat, Panny\u2019s fans and supporters who are surrounding him decide to lift him into the air on their shoulders and declare, against the evidence that he had, in fact, won. They simply assert that Panny had been successful despite all appearances to the contrary, and the evil, mal-intentioned Buddy was declared to be the failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The God we know is not a God of \u201clearned helplessness.\u201d Against great odds, God takes the pain from our helplessness and transforms it to a renewed relationship with him. We may not be able to finish the contest as it\u2019s set up, but with the help of Baptist friends in Oregon and with the help of Baptist friends in Northern California, we can praise God that we have been faithful in word and in deeds. The early rain is falling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that the churches in Oregon may have some stereotypes of the churches we have in the Bay Area and Northern California and in turn, those of us who have come from south of the border between Oregon and California, have stereotypes of Oregonians too! We think that all you have up here are trees. You think that all we have are sourdough bread. We may look and talk a bit different from one another. But what has been bringing people from around the entire world for many years is the oneness we have in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior and the call for proclaiming the good news in social action and evangelism as American Baptists. We are together for a reason\u2014to celebrate the hope and learned optimism that we have in Jesus Christ. This is the reason why God has been causing the early rain to fall on us this weekend!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\u2019s spirit like early rain has been poured out in our Lord Jesus Christ. Our sons and daughters will not learn helplessness anymore but they will prophesize Good News. Our old men and women are dreaming dreams of what from the past can still be relevant for today. And our young people are seeing visions of new possibilities going beyond traditional structures and arbitrary state lines. Even people who are oppressed and repressed, down trodden and marginalized, God\u2019s spirit of early rain is being poured out onto them too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As God\u2019s people known as American Baptists, God is pouring out his spirit of Good News, visions and plans, hope and promise, possibilities and opportunities, putting away our \u201clearned helplessness\u201d and putting on \u201clearned optimism\u201d and hope because God is causing the early rain to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fall Planting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I get home, it will be close to clearing away my vegetable garden for the winter. If I am fortunate, I might have a few more cherry tomatoes, a few more strawberries, and the 3 Japanese eggplants still hanging precariously on the plant. Maybe, I\u2019ll just leave the three unproductive strawberry plants and hopefully buy an opposite gender plant to see if there may be fruit next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe it just might be God\u2019s providential plan to have the churches in Oregon and the churches in Northern California come together to produce fruit that neither one of us can\u2019t do by ourselves. Perhaps together, we would be truly blessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as we are seeing the leaves change in the Fall, nothing remains the same. Everything in life changes. But nothing remains bad forever either because God is causing the early rain to fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This weekend\u2019s theme verse from 1 Corinthians 3:8<\/a> reads, \u201cThe one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose\u2026For we as God\u2019s servants, working together, you are God\u2019s field, God\u2019s building.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us plant together and water together. Let us work together because the fields are ripe for harvest. Let us build together as American Baptists with a common purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water that we have is coming from the early rain from God. No longer will we need to feel helplessness but we know the promise of hope and joy in Christ Jesus our Lord. God is pouring down abundant rain and our threshing floors are full of grain and our vats are overflowing with wine and oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is good to come into your house as American Baptist sisters and brothers, O God. Thank you for sending your Holy Spirit before us, to guide our worship and this annual regional gathering. Give us ears to hear the words of Christian friendliness you are speaking to us. Give us eyes to see the possibilities of hope and optimism around us. Give us the feet to walk as Jesus walked for peace, justice, and reconciliation. May we never neglect to share the hope we have with the world around us. Thank you, O God, for the hope of eternity. Let your early rain fall on us. These moments together are but a glimpse of dreams and visions of life with you forever. For this we thank you. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joel 2:23-32 October 24, 2010 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the American Baptist Churches of Oregon Annual Gathering, Medford, OR. For the past couple of years, I haveContinue readingEarly Rain<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[64,65],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-ng-sermons","tag-american-baptist-churches-of-oregon","tag-joel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2326,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/2326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}