Partnership with God

A pastor went to visit a new parishioner who had moved into the area and bought a long abandoned house.  After many years of neglect, the property and yard had fallen into disrepair.  When the pastor pulled up he found the owner hard at work in the front yard.  He had transformed what had been an eye-sore into a beautiful, well-maintained lawn and beddings.  The house, from the outside, was immaculate.  “My, my, my,” the pastor said.  “Isn’t it wonderful to see what you and God have been able to do with this place!”  The owner paused, wiped some sweat from his brow, and said, “Well thank you, but you should have seen it when God had it all to himself.”

There is a wonderful saying attributed to St. Augustine that goes without God we cannot, but without us God will not.  It draws on a truth that God operates this world as a joint venture with us.  Christian stewardship is properly understood as everything we do to be in partnership with God.  It is the time we invest in doing God’s work.  It is the way we use our gifts, talents, and abilities to contribute to God’s work.  And it is the money we give to fund God’s work.  Thus, Christian stewardship revolves around how we offer our time, our talent, and our treasure to God.

“To God.”  Notice I did not say “to the church.”  Christian stewardship is not about funding the operation of a parish nor is it about staffing multiple church committees.  It is about being in partnership with God so that this world moves closer to God’s dream for it.  But, in that the church sets out to do the work of God, it is one place where our stewardship is both effective and necessary.  The stewardship of your time, your talent, and your treasure does not begin with St. Paul’s and it certainly does not end with St. Paul’s, still, because St. Paul’s is a place where we come together to work with God, it is an important place for each of us to make investments.

“Our time.”  How many hours do you think goes into planning, preparing, and putting on a Sunday morning at here?  Think about the choir, the altar guild, the bulletins, the cleaning, the Sunday School, the breakfast, the sermon, the music.  I estimate it takes about of 125 hours of work – some of it is paid, but most is volunteered.  Add to this mid-week ministries, maintenance and upkeep, and leadership tasks such as the Vestry and financial oversight.  It takes a lot of people giving a lot of time so that St. Paul’s can be in partnership with God.  Think about all the other ways you use your time in Christian stewardship: listening to a friend, sending a note or e-mail to someone who is sick, praying for others, being a part of any service-oriented organization designed to make someone’s life better, the possibilities are limitless.

“Our talents.”  The stewardship of our talent seems to go hand-in-hand with the use of our time.  We give our time to do things we are capable of doing.  Our choir members use their musical talent in concert with God.  Many of our members use their physical strength to set up and take down tables and chairs.  Those who can bake make meals for people who are recovering from illness.  Thriving churches are places where people step forward to offer talents and abilities in service to God and others.  Beyond this, faithful stewards offer their talents in the world.  It may be as a coach or a caregiver, in a civic organization or with a community of neighbors.  Christians use their gifts, talents, and abilities to be in partnership with God.

“Our treasure.”  Some people complain that the church is only interested in money.  Well, not true.  It is the world that wants your money.  Advertisers bombard you with demands and requests for what is in your pocketbook.  Often these appeals come with outrageous promises of joy, youth, vitality, and a sense of accomplishment and self-importance.  A doctor requires a co-pay before you get into the examination room.  A lawyer asks for a retainer prior to working for you.  The only way to get a politician’s ear is to make a contribution.  When it comes to money, churches are something all-together unique in our society.  You can attend without contributing.  You can benefit without supporting.  You can make an appointment or request a visit without ever writing a check.  There is absolutely no connection between what you receive from the church and what you contribute to it financially.

That being said, churches do talk about money because the bible talks about money.  Fully one-sixth of Jesus’ teachings deals with money.  His insights are diverse and challenging.  This morning we heard him say that a poor widow who put one penny into the temple treasury gave more than anyone else, even those who gave thousands of dollars, because her meager offering was everything she had.  It was not going to keep the temple up and running, but her offering was heroic none-the-less. 

The bible is clear about what it means financially to be in partnership with God.  It says consistently that we are to give 10% of our income to God’s work.  It calls this amount the tithe and it has many purposes:  It helps us to acknowledge that all we have is from God; It delivers us from living for self alone; It provides a way to care for those in need or want; and it funds and furthers God’s dream for this world. 

Tithing in this day and age is a real challenge.  Most of us are so obligated to mortgages, payments, and expenses that we simply can’t afford to give away 10% of our income.  Tithing raises practical questions: is it based on what you earn before taxes or after, and should all of your tithe go to the church?  Concrete answers to these questions run the risk of legalism – do this and you are OK, don’t do it and you are not measuring up.  I think each of us has to pray through and wrestle with our own individual response.  I have found that the gentle witness of others has always helped my own discernment, so let me share with you my history and practice.

When I was a child my parents always gave me a quarter to put in the Sunday School offering basket.  Sometimes I followed through, other times I pocketed it for myself… a shaky beginning to be sure.  When I was a teenager the church encouraged young people to make a pledge.  I was a paperboy by then and making my own money, so I pledged $1 a week.  In return, the church gave me envelopes with each week marked at the top.  I did well at first, but after a few months started to fall behind.   By the end of the summer there was no way I was going to catch up and being behind felt like a terrible, crushing weight.

After I graduated from seminary and was gainfully employed I made a pledge to the church where I was serving.  I think it was around 2% of my salary.  In addition, I made commitments to my college and seminary, and gave $25 dollars a month to the charity of my choice.  All told, I gave away close to 4% of my income that first year.  The second year I had a better idea of my living expenses so I made a percentage increase in giving to the church while maintaining my other contributions.  Each year I crept closer and closer to the tithe.  But I was on pretty shaky financial ground when my marriage ended in 2002.  I drastically reduced my giving so that I could make ends meet.  With each year that has gone by I have increased my contribution to the church where I have served and have been able to find new ways of being charitable.

I am at a point in life where the expenses of beginning a home and raising children are behind me.  I am able to save more than ever before and I am able to give away more than ever before while still being comfortable.  In 2013 I have committed to give $4,800 to St. Paul’s Church.  That is 6% of my salary.  Other commitments and opportunities will push me very close to the 10% tithe.  I find now that I am not as fixated on the percentage or the amount, but on the joy I receive from living generously because it is a way of acknowledging that I am incredibly blessed.

Without God we cannot, without us God will not.  I suspect that each of us here this morning would like to know God active and at work in our lives.  One way we can make this happen is to partner with God in Christian stewardship.  I want to thank you for all the ways you already do this in and through St. Paul’s.  I am keenly aware that without what you are doing and giving I would not be here.  So let me say thank you. 

And let me close by offering you three challenges.  The first is this: consider making a tithe of your time to be in partnership with God.  What do I mean by this?  Well, assuming that you sleep 8 hours a day, you have 16 waking hours.  Can you give 10% of this time to God?  Some of you may be pretty close already.  Factor in prayer, worship, studying the bible, devotional time and reading, time given to the church, helping others, and so forth.  Start to track a tithe of your time and see where you are. 

Second: Dig up a buried talent and use it in partnership with God.  I don’t know what that talent might be, but if you come to me and tell me what it is I will help you to find a way to use it!  Remember, we are a community that even values the ability to flip a pancake!

And finally, take a step toward the tithe.  If you don’t contribute to St. Paul’s, start – even if it is a dollar a week.  If you haven’t turned in a pledge card, fill one out.  Start with something that feels doable and increase it when you are ready to take on more of a challenge.  If you are comfortable with your giving to St. Paul’s, find another charitable organization or cause to support; perhaps a place where you are already contributing your time and your talent. 

Think back to that dilapidated house and overgrown yard that the new owner worked so hard to set right.  We all want to live in a better world.  We all want to be supportive of those around us, especially those in need.  We all want to pass on something better to the next generation.  We all want to sense God present and real in our lives.  Let’s commit ourselves in full, complete Christian stewardship so that someone might come up to us and say, “Isn’t it amazing what God and you have been able to do with this world!”

Famous First Lines

See if you can spot these famous first lines:

·  “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

·  “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”  George Orwell’s 1984. 

·  “In the great green room, there was a telephone and a red balloon.”  I didn’t grow up reading Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon, but my girls sure did.

·  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

·  Do you remember how Dante’s Inferno begins?  “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”

·  And finally, here is a line I heard my sisters read aloud often: “In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.”  Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

In a sense All Saints’ Sunday is all about famous first lines – not the kind we read in novels and children’s books, but the kind we write with our own lives.  There are famous saints we remember today whose life was a first line that shaped the entire Christian story.  There are other saints known only to us – dear saints – whose first line helped to shape our Christian story.  And it is a day when we gather to welcome through baptism a new saint into the Christian faith and life and promise to help her as she sets out to write the first line of her young life. 

Why do I keep talking about life as if it is the process of writing a first line in a novel?  Well, because in many ways that is exactly what life is all about.  It is about setting a direction and a tone that will carry on long after the first line is complete; a line that somehow sets the stage for a long and glorious novel.  You see, on All Saints’ Day we affirm that this life is just the beginning; an important beginning to be sure, but a beginning.  It shapes who we are and what we are to be like.  And just like the first line of a novel launches the reader into the rest of the story, our earthly lives launch us into a new and more glorious reality where we are somehow consistent with how we begin but open to becoming so much more. 

On this day we celebrate life and reaffirm that in this life we set a course for a journey that will take us well beyond our earthly days.  Our readings from Scripture acknowledge the reality of death and the terrible emotional pain we experience every time we lose someone dear to us while holding up the hope and the promise that a time is coming when death will be no more.  They point to the belief that the ‘.’ at the end of the opening line is nothing more than the completion of the first sentence.  Much more that follows after that that first sentence ends.  And similar to Ernest Vincent Wright’s novel Gadsby, which is a book of some 50,000 words none of which contains the letter ‘e’, the Christian faith holds that the ‘.’ at the end of our first sentence, the ‘.’ marking our death, will never appear again in our story.

So pain and promise, lose and hope are present every time we gather for the burial office.  For me, it becomes even more poignant when a burial takes place during the season of Lent – that time we so rigorously avoid saying the word ‘Alleluia.’  But every burial is a Easter liturgy, so deep in the throes of Lent we change the hangings from Lenten purple to Easter white and as I stand before the body for the commendation, I look up to our triptych depiction of Christ rising from the grave and I say, “All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”  These words always put in my mind that the Christian faith faces death with a hopeful defiance.  Saying them in Lent drives home that every burial becomes an Easter moment leading to the celebration of new life.  It marks the acceptance of the one and only ‘.’ in a Christian soul will experience first hand.

Wendell Berry has captured this sense of hopeful defiance in her poem Testament.  Berry is a writer, an educator, and a fifth-generation farmer in central Kentucky.  Her poems have an earthy quality to them; a feel that he has been turning over some soil while he composed them in his mind.  Berry is a Christian who comes at the faith from the inside out.  Typically her writing is free of churchy terms and ideas, which only helps to make her writing insightful and fresh.  Listen to Berry’s four-part poem and ponder what it says to us on this All Saints’ Sunday: 

   1.

Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath
grows large and free in air, don’t call it death --
a word to enrich the undertaker and inspire
his surly art of imitating life; conspire
against him.  Say that my body cannot now
be improved upon; it has no fault to show
to the sly cosmetician.  Say that my flesh
has a perfect compliance with the grass
truer than any it could have striven for.
You will recognize the earth in me, as before
I wished to know it in myself: my earth
that has been my care and faithful charge from birth,
and toward which all my sorrows were surely bound,
and all my hopes.  Say that I have found
a good solution, and am on my way
to the roots.  And say I have left my native clay
at last, to be a traveler; that too will be so.
Traveler to where?  Say you don’t know.

   2.
   But do not let your ignorance

of my spirit’s whereabouts dismay
you, or overwhelm your thoughts.
Be careful not to say

anything too final.  Whatever
is unsure is possible, and life is bigger
than flesh.  Beyond reach of thought
let imagination figure

your hope.  That will be generous
to me and to yourselves.  Why settle
for some know-it-all’s despair
when the dead may dance to the fiddle

hereafter, for all anybody knows?
And remember that the Heavenly soil
need not be too rich to please
one who was happy in Port Royal.

I may be already heading back,
a new and better man, toward
that town.  The thought’s unreasonable,
but so is life, thank the Lord!

   3.
   So treat me, even dead,

as a man who has a place
to go, and something to do.
Don’t muck up my face

with wax and powder and rouge
as one would prettify
an unalterable fact
to give bitterness the lie.

Admit the native earth
my body is and will be,
admit its freedom and
its changeability.

Dress me in the clothes
I wore in the day’s round.
Lay me in a wooden box.
Put the box in the ground.

   4.
   Beneath this stone a Berry is planted

in his home land, as he wanted.

He has come to the gathering of his kin,
among whom some were worthy men,

Farmers mostly, who lived by hand,
but one was a cobbler from Ireland,

another played the eternal fool
by riding on a circus mule

to be remembered in grateful laughter
longer than the rest.  After

doing that they had to do
they are at ease here.  Let all of you

who yet for pain find force and voice
look on their peace, and rejoice.

And there you have the first line of All Saints Day:  life lived well here, an acceptance of its end, even an embrace of its finality, and a defiant hopefulness in what might follow!  This day let us celebrate life and as we remember the first lines of those lives that touched ours and let us continue to hone the opening sentence of our eternal story.

A Dweller on the Threshold

Bartimaeus said to Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again.”  Job said to God, “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

If you could listen to the music of only one artist or group, who would it be?  The choice for me would be easy – Van Morrison.  Known to fans like me as “Van the Man,” the Irish-born Morrison has been performing and recording music since the late fifties.  His songs range across a wide spectrum of styles: Celtic, jazz, blues, country, rock, pop, and even hymns.  His lyrics are even more eclectic; often drawn from life-experiences, yet deeply spiritual. 

As I pondered today’s readings a line from one of Morrison’s songs kept playing over and over in my head:

I have seen without perceiving

I have been another man

Let me pierce the realm of glamour

So I know just what I am.

This first verse from the 1982 song Dweller on the Threshold certainly describes something with which most of can identify – having in inkling that there is more to life, but we simply cannot grasp what it is.  If life could be equated to a modern painting, it would be like listening to an art major speak for well over an hour about its nuances and subtleties and all you or I can say about it is “nice colors.” 

Bartimaeus cannot physically see what everyone else sees, but still perceives something about Jesus that the rest have missed.  Job has been through a terrible ordeal.  He, and his ‘comforters’, talk a great deal about God, but it is only near the end that Job perceives God with clarity.  The readings play with our notions of sight and seeing, of experiencing and understanding.  It is as if our life’s work is all about gaining sight and insight of something that is always there, but we struggle to perceive it for what it is.

Morrison’s song is wrapped around this idea and it echoes the pain and frustration we humans experience when we sense we are seeing without perceiving.  The lyrics were inspired by a quirky astrology book by Alice Bailey titled Glamour – A World Problem.   According to Bailey we all have subconscious stirrings, ideas, notions, experiences, and biases, which she calls ‘glamours’, that enshroud us like fog and prevent us from seeing the world as it truly is.  Our spiritual search for answers leaves us feeling like little more than dwellers on the threshold of being able to see.  She holds that illumination comes when the Angel of the Presence shines a light on us.  Listen to how Morrison develops all of this in his lyrics:

I’m a dweller on the threshold
And I’m waiting at the door
And I’m standing in the darkness
I don’t want to wait no more

I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am

Feel the Angel of the Presence
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher

I’m a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown

I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night

Now, I am not advocating Bailey’s astrological leanings, but I do want you to notice how Morrison’s song mirrors Job’s struggle for understanding; a struggle that ends not because of anything he has done, but rather because God pierces through his darkness with the light of God’s presence.  And it mirrors Bartimaeus’ struggle for the sight that will enable him to be with Jesus on the way.

A moment like this happened for me last weekend when I was in Ohio to attend a family wedding.  On Sunday morning we worshiped at a church where I once served as an Assistant to the Rector for four years.  That was twenty years ago.  At the time, the parish was raising money to build a new sanctuary, which has long since been finished.  As I sat in this space I recognized many of the people I knew so long ago.  By the way, no one recognizes me until I introduce myself. 

I thought about all that has happened in my life over the past twenty years.  Yes, I have less hair and more inches on my waist, but the most dramatic changes are on the inside.  How can you communicate that to people you haven’t seen in two decades?  How can you possibly hope to describe all the vivid joys, the painful losses, the satisfying accomplishments, the deep insights, the incredible experiences?  And what about them as individuals and as a faith community?  How do they communicate to me all that has happened in their lives: the weddings, the funerals, the baptisms, the mission trips, the answered prayers, the congregational split, the prayers answered only by silence, and on and on and on?  It can’t be done.

As I worshipped I thought about this strange and wonderful journey we call life and how it had brought me back ever so briefly to a place I had been before to be with people I had once served.  I realized that if, twenty years ago, I could have seen everything that was going to happen in my future I could not have faced it – not the joys, not that pains, not any of it.  And I suspect that if the congregation could have been shown its future the response would be the same.  And yet there I was and there they were.  We had made it from that time and place so long ago to this moment.  And we had made it through the grace of God.  As I worshipped I was caught up with the feeling that this day – like every day – truly is a miracle. 

Something clicked for me during the Eucharistic prayer when the priest said the Memorial Acclamation: “Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.”  Christ has died is the past, I thought.  It is where we have been.  It is no more, yet the experience of it somehow becomes a part of us.  Christ will come again is in the future.  We are not there yet and knowing what will transpire as we move toward it is not in our best interest.   All we need to know is that in the future the awaiting Christ will be with us.  Christ is risen is where we are right now.  We live in an eternal present of resurrection life and joy.  This day, this moment, this now is redeemed by God and infused with grace.  This moment, like every moment, is an abiding miracle.  As I went to the altar rail to receive communion I was caught up in an overwhelming sense of peace about all that was and all that is to come because God had brought me to that day.  It is a feeling that is with me even this morning.

Alice Bailey might say one of my ‘glamours’ was taken away.  Job might say, “I too once heard with my ears, but now see with my eyes.”  Bartimaeus, no longer blind, might encourage me to follow on the way.  Van Morrison might say, “I’ll sing the song of ages and dawn will end the night.” 

To be a spiritual person is to be a dweller on the threshold.  It is to want to know, to want to see, to want to perceive.  And it is to wait for the door to open, for the light to shine, for the dawn to come.  When we meet Job and Bartimaeus today we meet them on a day when the door is opened from the other side; a day when the thing they have long awaited is granted to them.  But for each there were many, many days of dwelling at the threshold facing only a closed door.  That may not seem very satisfying, but recognize this, when the door opened, they were there waiting. 

That is the spiritual life in a nutshell, isn’t it.  That is what the search for God and truth and insight and understanding is like.  Searching does not lead directly to finding.  Rather it puts us in the right place to receive when God’s light shines forth.  Better to be Bartimaeus sitting on the road side day after day after day so that the one day when Jesus walks by you are there, then to have resigned yourself to darkness.  Better to be Job contending with his comforters so that when God speaks you are ready to listen then to have given in and given up long ago.  Better to be Van Morrison dwelling at the threshold and waiting at the door than to have walked away in defeat.

Focusing My Flickering

Toni Reynolds e-mailed this joke to me:  A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could trying not to be late for Sunday School.  As she ran she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late!  Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late!”  While she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress.  She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again!  And as she went she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late, but also, please don’t shove me any more!”

Today’s readings are interesting, to say the least – especially when paired with our annual Commitment Sunday.  Listening to the words of Job who, try as he might, cannot find the hiding God in front, behind, on the left or on the right, followed by the psalmist’s cry of being forsaken by God makes the little girl’s predicament of getting shoved seem tame.  Then we hear from Hebrews that absolutely nothing about us is hidden from God; that before God all our interior intentions are laid bare.  Finally, we hear Jesus saying that if you are wealthy – and by the standards of his day pretty much all of us here today are wealthy – you can forget about being a part of the kingdom of God.  So, sign me up, you must be thinking.  I am ready to make a commitment to the God who can’t be found when needed but still never misses a single wrong we do, and then demands we own little or nothing if we want to be a part of his crew.  These, folks, are not the basic ingredients of a successful altar call.

Let me ask a fundamental question: why should we care about God at all?  In ancient times, people believed in a god or gods who occupied some Olympian fortress meddling in human affairs at their whim and fancy.  Why care about God?  Their answer was so that the gods don’t punish you; hardly a satisfying answer to the modern mind because we now know the natural causes behind what people back then believed to be divine judgment. 

Another answer to why care about God holds that life is test to see who will get into heaven and who will be consigned to Hell; an underworld of flames and suffering.  If you pass the test by meeting some combination of being good enough and having had a required religious experience (baptism and ‘giving your life to Jesus’ being the two most prominent in the Christian tradition) then you merit an eternal reward.  Ultimately, this is not a satisfying answer either.  Do we really believe that the God who called forth this glorious creation is little more than a punitive judge-like figure keeping score of who has been naughty and who has been nice?  And do we really believe that the naughty descend to a place in the center of the earth to suffer for all eternity for the things they did wrong during their few short years of this life?

So why do we care about God?  Well, my answer is because we do.  There is something inside every human being that is seeking awe and responds to it.  There is something inside us that senses the reality of something greater than us.  We want to know this Other and to understand it, in part, so we can better know ourselves.  Why are we here?  What is our purpose?  How should we live?  If there is a Being who called forth creation than these questions can only be answered by searching for that Being.  Those of us who have searched have come to find that this Being exists and makes its essence known to us.  As we come to know God we find ourselves responding to this relationship through reverence, worship, and conformity (a word I like better than ‘obedience’ because it invites new searching as opposed to forced compliance).

But how to revere?  How to worship?  And how to align ourselves?  Every religious tradition has strands of insight derived from looking at the world around us and determining that certain attitudes, behaviors, and actions are better than others.  Most religious traditions go deeper than this to include understanding received through mystical experiences (revelations, if you will) that form the core of their teaching.  Beyond all of this, we in the Christian tradition confess that God’s very self became incarnate… a human being through whose words and actions we can see fullness of God’s desire and intent for all creation.  We human beings who seek awe and respond to it have seen in human flesh the Holy Awe at the heart of all reality.  It is in and through Jesus that we find satisfying answers to who we are, why we are here, and what we are to do.

So returning to our readings, let us embrace the truth of Job’s words… the truth that God at times is elusive; the truth that there are times when circumstances hinder our ability to detect God’s presence.  Isn’t it comforting to know that our sacred texts contain the angry, bitter words of people shaking their fists at God when their search for God comes up empty and their need for God goes unmet.  Isn’t it comforting to know that disillusionment at times is a natural and appropriate aspect of the human search for God.  In my experience, these times, while real and difficult, are never the final word.  Jesus said, “Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door will be opened.”  Sometimes we have to knock louder and longer than we would like, but the One we seek behind the door eventually opens to us.

While the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that everything about us – our exterior actions and interior motives – is known to God, it wants to shift our focus from human frailty to human potential.  The author points us to Jesus who, because he was human like us, was tempted in every way as we are.  Still, he lived into God’s design and intent not because he was divine, but through his humanity.  Now we are invited into Christ’s presence so that we might be empowered through his example and the indwelling of his Spirit to live aligned with the fullness of God’s intent.

In the Gospel we learn of one person’s search for God.  “What must I do,” he asks Jesus.  The response is to be a good and moral person – live as God intends for you to live.  The man says he has done this since he was young so Jesus, sensing he wants to go even deeper, invites this person to divest himself of all that holds him back in order to live in the Kingdom of God here and now.  This person, attached to his possessions, could not follow.  He was distracted.

I can’t say why God at times is elusive, but I do know that much more often my search for God is inhibited by factors attributable only to me.  Denise Levertov captures one of these factors in her poem Flickering Mind:

Lord, not you,

it is I who am absent.

At first

belief was a joy I kept in secret,

stealing alone

into sacred places;

a quick glance, and away – and back,

circling.

I have long since uttered your name

but now

I elude your presence.

I stop to think about you, and my mind

at once

like a minnow darts away,

darts

into the shadows, into gleams that fret

unceasing over

the river’s pulling and passing.

Not for one second

will my self hold still, but wanders

anywhere,

everywhere it can turn.  Not you,

it is I who am absent.

You are the stream, the fish, the light,

the pulsing shadow,

you the unchanging presence, in whom all

moves and changes.

How can I focus my flickering, perceive

at the fountain’s heart

the sapphire I know is there?

How can I focus my flickering?  What will aid me in my search for God (a drive which is as real inside me as my heartbeat and every bit as important)?  Jesus, in responding to Peter, hints at the answer.  Peter states that he and the other disciples have left everything to follow Jesus.  Now, we know in fact that this does not mean the disciples had liquidated all their assets because after the Resurrection, Peter and the others returned to their boats and took up again the living of fishermen.

Here is what Jesus says to Peter: “Those who have left house or family or fields for my sake [and in this I hear the allusion to searching for God and responding to God with reverence, worship, and conformity] will receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, families, and fields… and the promise of life in the age to come.”  Now, from our history, we know that none of the disciples came to own a hundred homes and a hundred fields.  Jesus was not speaking of economic gain, but of the blessed relationships that come from being joined with others who are searching for God and living in accordance with God’s ways as they come to understand it.  Today we call these blessed relationships a congregation, a community of faithful people like us here at St. Paul’s.  How do can I focus my flickering pursuit of God?  By being a part of a people who are trying to focus their flickering.  Somehow, in and through this place, our individual pursuit of God is strengthened through our collective pursuit of God. 

A Russian poet named Yelena Rubisova wrote “I am a camel, hulking, clumsy.  Go through!  Go through!” in reference to Jesus’ famous teaching about the eye of a needle.  But, obviously, for a camel this is impossible.  So Rubisova describes what needs to change:

Let me become like thread, and put anxiety aside,

so the doorkeeper’s hand will lead

me through the triumphal gates

of the eye of the needle.

I like this image.  If the search for God can be compared with passing through the eye of a needle and if we are like camels trying to do so, then two things need to happen.  First, there must be a transformation.  We must morph from camel into thread.  And second, thread still doesn’t get through the needle’s eye unless someone guides it.  Somehow, someway, God is at work in our lives; guiding us in our search and transforming us as we make our way.  And a tool God uses in this process is our collective life here at St. Paul’s.  As I recognize this in my life I find myself committing joyfully to the work and mission of this parish.  I invite you to recognize and celebrate how God uses this place in your search and I invite you to commit yourself to St. Paul’s because of how God is using it in your life and in the lives of so many others.

The Blessing of Children

A little girl was staying with her grandmother for the weekend and on Sunday they went to church together.  Now the girl had never been to church before, so everything was new and unfamiliar.  Before the service started, folks were walking up to the altar and placing cans of food on it.  “Grandma,” the little girl whispered, “what are they doing?”  “Well,” the grandmother answered, “everyone brings a can of food to church so that we can hand them out to poor people.”  The girl thought this was a good idea.  Then the music started and the choir processed down the center aisle and up toward the altar area.  “Look Grandma,” the girl said, “Here come the poor people to get their food.”

A few weeks later the grandmother brought her young grandson to church when he was visiting.  It was also was the first time he had been in church.  He squirmed and fussed and did his best to behave, but it was not easy, especially when his grandmother kept chiding him to sit still.  After the service was over the boy said, “Grandma, when I grow up I want to be a preacher.”  The grandmother was both surprised and delighted.  “Why do you want to do that,” she asked, expecting that the boy had had some kind of mystical experience.  “Well,” he said, “I think it would be a whole lot more fun to stand up and yell at everyone than it is to sit still and listen.”

Children are a blessing.  It is a cliché we affirm in the abstract, but often overlook in the moment.  I saw where Holly McNeal posted on facebook this week her joy that Justice slept six-and-a-half hours straight one night; a thankful occurrence she did not expect to repeat itself any time soon.  One of my favorite St. Paul’s memories happened when Joby Webb whisked little Graham out of church one Sunday; swooping him up in his arms and heading for the door.  The last words we heard – and we all heard them clear as a bell – came from Graham just before they exited the Narthex: “But I am being a good boy.”  My guess is the Charlene Henry has put in enough time at the Emergency Room waiting for Samantha to be seen for yet another injury that she could be qualified as a registered nurse.  Yes, in the big picture children are a blessing, but the experience of that blessing can vary greatly from moment to moment.

I have some bad news to present to the Vestry at tomorrow night’s meeting.  We need more money.  There are too many infants and toddlers in our nursery for two people to manage.  The Vestry is going to have to find the funds for a third attendant.  What a nice problem to have!  At Game Night a few weeks ago I identified another problem.  St. Paul’s has an emerging ‘boy vibe’ in and around the kindergarten age.  A ‘boy vibe’ is active, it’s busy, it’s hands-on, and – of this you can be certain – inevitably involves someone getting hurt or something getting broken.  There is also a baby girl boom happening at St. Paul’s.  I can’t wait to see the vibe they bring to the parish in just a few short years.  

Jesus took children in his arms, held them tight, and blessed them.  The act of blessing is a curious thing.  We all know it when we see it, but if asked, would have a difficult time explaining what it is we are doing, or asking God to do.  Think about it… we bless backpacks when kids go to school, our pets on St. Francis Day, the food we eat, couples when they are married, bread and wine for communion, and on and on and on.  We do it.  We are comfortable doing it.  We are comforted by doing it.  But what exactly are we doing?

There is a three-fold aspect to every blessing.  First, we are thanking God for the grace we see at work in the person, event, or thing being blessed.  Second, we are asking that God will continue to favor the person, thing, or event so that he/she/it may live fully into God’s purpose and intention.  And third, we are seeking God’s empowerment so that the person, event, or thing may in some way bear witness to the gospel in the world.  Thus, blessing has a three-fold character.  It acknowledges what is already present—God’s goodness.  It sets apart something as holy and prays for the divine grace needed to fulfill God’s purposes.  And it recognizes the person’s call to be a light to the world.

So last Friday, when I blessed our pets, I was acknowledging the goodness, love, and joy each brings to the lives of our families.  Next, I was praying that each pet will be empowered to live more fully and completely into God’s divine intent for it – and this is where actual results may vary!  And finally, I was praying that the world will know something of God’s love and goodness through each one of our pets.

Through the act of blessing children, Jesus was doing much the same.  He was acknowledging God’s goodness that it already at work in them.  He was praying for the presence of God’s Spirit in their lives so that they might grow into what St. Paul calls “the full stature of Christ.”  And he was asking that each child, in his or her own way, will be a city set on a hill, a light set out on a table, a reflection of God’s goodness and holiness all the days of their lives. 

Beginning October 28, we will have a baptism on three consecutive Sundays.  If that is not a cause for celebration and a sign of hope, I don’t know what is.  It should also be an occasion to give each one of us pause because we will make a promise to each child and to their parents that we will do all in our power to support these infants in their lives in Christ.  Not only is it a promise we make person to person, but it is a sacred promise – what the bible calls ‘a covenant’ – that we make with God.  I suppose many of us imagine standing before God at the last judgment and having to answer for all the times we took the Lord’s name in vain.  But what if that moment looks more like this – like God asking us to describe how we did all in our power to support the children we promised support at baptism?  How would you answer that question?  What have you done?  What are you doing even now?  What might you do in the future to support the children of this parish in their lives in Christ?

You know the old saying: be careful what you wish for.  Everyone in this parish – like everyone in every parish I know – wishes we had more children and young families.  Well, God is granting our wish.  And I pray God isn’t finished.  We are at that wonderful place where we walk the delicate balance of passing on the faith that was given to us in the ways it was given to us while at the same time asking our children and young people what do you want to do with the faith that is growing in you.  It is a delicate balance because we always want to pass on what is essential while at the same time be willing to let go of what is non-essential.  Sometimes knowing which is which is a challenge, isn’t it.

This morning we give thanks that we have the opportunity in a new and a fresh way to live into one of the most endearing aspects of Jesus’ witness… his love of children.  Even folks with a minimal knowledge of the bible seem to know that Jesus welcomed children into his presence and taught us to do the same.  On this morning I am so very thankful for the children and young people of St. Paul’s… for their joy, their energy, their ‘vibe’, their witness to the Gospel, and for the hope they offer for our future.  What a great time to be a part of this parish.  Let’s do all in our power to support these folks in their life in Christ.

Useful & Salty

(Salted with Fire by Jan Richardson)

Settle back while I tell you a bedtime story Scandinavians tell their children…

One day a sheep and a pig decided to build a house that they could live in together.  So they began a long journey to find just the right place to make their home.  They came upon a rabbit who asked them where they were going.  “We are going to build a house,” said the sheep and the pig.  “May I live with you?” asked the rabbit.  “What can you do to help us?” they answered.  The rabbit replied, “I can gnaw pegs with my sharp teeth and I can put them in with my paws.”  “Good,” said the sheep and the pig, “You may come with us.”  A little farther on the three met a goose who asked, “Where are you going?”  “We are going to build a house.”  “May I live with you?” asked the goose.  “What can you do to help?”  The goose thought for a moment and said, “I can pull moss and stuff it in the cracks with my broad bill.”  “Good,” said the three, “You may come with us.”  Farther still the four met a rooster who asked where they were going.  Once they told him the rooster asked if he could join them.  “I can crow very early in the morning; I can awaken you all.”  “Good,” said the sheep, the pig, the rabbit, and the goose, “You may come with us.”  The five went a long, long way until they found a place to build their house.  The sheep hewed logs and drew them.  The pig made bricks for the cellar.  The rabbit gnawed pegs with his sharp teeth, and hammered them in with his paws.  The goose pulled moss, and stuffed it in the cracks with her bill.  The rooster crowed early every morning to tell them that it was time to rise.  And they all lived happily together in their little house.

So here is the question raised by the story; it is, in fact, the same question Jesus poses at the end of this morning’s Gospel reading: What can you do that is useful? 

Jesus gets at this question through the imagery of salt and three statements about it.  The first statement is this: “everyone will be salted with fire.” It has been described as one of the most enigmatic expressions Jesus uttered.  It is not at all clear what it means, but general consensus among biblical scholars is that it relates to animal sacrifice.  Prior to being offered on a fire, a carcass was rubbed with salt to draw out the blood.  Once this was accomplished it was roasted over a fire and offered in sacrifice or served for human consumed.  The salt was useful in this process, but once used it lost the qualities that made it such leading to the second statement: “how can saltiness be restored?”  The final expression, ‘have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another,” is an imperative to be useful in all our relationships.

So again I ask you: what do you do that is useful?

No doubt, your answer changes based on the context where your find yourself.  You are useful one way at home, another way at work, and still another way here at church.  There may be common threads that connect the various ways you are useful or they may be quite independent of one another. 

How is your usefulness recognized?  Are you paid for it?  Is it a great deal of money or is it just a little?  Or perhaps your usefulness is acknowledged only with a thank you.  Some times we are the only person who knows our contribution while other times we are the last to suspect just how useful we are.  As you ponder your usefulness, are you thinking about things that you do?  Do you cook meals for the family or keep the cars in good repair or make sure the books are in order at the office or get the kids to practice on time?  When thinking of our usefulness most often we think of things we do.

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a colleague when he said to me with admiration, “Keith, you seem to be at peace with yourself and with the world around you.”  Well, the warring factions within me started a raging argument that still carries on.  One voice shouts “if he only knew” while another voice tattles “you are such a hypocrite” and so on.  But a new voice has been gaining traction in my inner the debate.  This voice reminds me that usefulness is not confined solely to what we do, but it also involves who we are.  Thomas Merton wrote that “we are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being.”  As a result, he said that we are valued not for what we are but for what we do and for what we have.  Jesus might say that we have confused salt with saltiness.  It is not how much salt you have that matters, it is how salty your life is becoming.  Or, to put it another way, our being, when grounded in God, is useful to others.

Saltiness.  Last month Laura Cook asked me to meet her at the farm where she kept her horse.  She asked me to say prayers with them the day before she was going to have her horse put down.  Debbie Askew had been in conversation with Laura about this difficult decision and agreed to join us.  When we gathered I offered some prayers from a liturgy.  I am useful that way.  But Debbie was useful from her being; comforting Laura from the vast reserves of her experiences with horses and reassuring Laura her that she was making the right decision.  It is a moment that stays with me because it highlights how each of us has something useful to offer in this glorious thing we call God’s kingdom here on earth.

The gospel reading begins with one of the disciples complaining to Jesus that someone else – someone not of their little band – was invoking Jesus’ name to effect healings.  Shouldn’t that person be stopped, the disciple wondered.  Today we might say that he wanted to micro-manage the situation.  Jesus responds that the healer should be left alone because what he is doing he is useful.  He was helping other people.

From there Jesus launches into a series of teachings that, if taken literally, encourage self-mutilation.  But played against the question of usefulness, they ask a very sensible question: What are you doing that is destructive – either to you or to others?  If our call is to be useful - to be salty - then we also need to ponder how and when we have the opposite affect.  What in our doing and what in our being is detrimental to our usefulness?  Perhaps you complain too much.  Maybe your usefulness is tarnished by selfish ambition.  Do you always have to get your way?  Are you overly critical of yourself, demeaning who you are and what you do?  If so, that aspect of your personality needs to be removed.  It needs to die on the Cross so that God may bring about a resurrection of new and more useful life in you.

This morning we celebrate the usefulness that we can offer to the world in which we live.  When done in Christ’s name it becomes a part of what it means to be a steward.  It is one way we offer in God’s service all that we are and all that we have to contribute to the project of life and living.  The tale of the sheep, the pig, the rabbit, the goose and the rooster reminds us of something Jesus said long ago: there is always some way for you to contribute, every contribution is important, and no contribution goes unrecognized by God or unrewarded.  Have salt in yourselves!