Rest a While

 

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Proper 11 / Year B

Jesus said to his disciples, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”  For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 

Much of what we read in the bible feels so foreign to our day and time, but not this.  Our culture’s bedrocks seem to be frenzied activity and perpetual demands.  Meals get wedged in when and where possible: perhaps at a Chick-fil-a drive thru at 9:30 at night.  Rather than being a necessity, leisure has become a luxury well beyond what most of us can afford. 

Gandhi once said there is more to life than increasing its speed and yet this is exactly what we do.  We load our calendars with a landslide of activities.  We rev our motors well past the red lines of our personal RPM gauges.  We assume we are constantly to be doing something… anything… as long as we are doing, doing, doing.

Acedia is one of the seven deadly sins and perhaps the most misunderstood.  We get greed and gluttony and rest, but acedia is more mysterious.  Most often translated as sloth or listlessness, acedia, at least according to Kierkegaard, has something to do with the “despairing refusal to be oneself.”  For some, this refusal looks like an unwillingness to try; what we refer to as being lazy or having self-doubt.  But for others, it looks like the never slowing down.  There is a difference between being industrious (what we are created for) and being on hyperdrive all the time.

In today’s Gospel reading we see Jesus inviting his disciples to “be themselves” by seeking a time of solitude and leisure.  He helps them live out their imago dei (or divine image) by resting, as God did after six days of creative work.  The biblical rationale behind the fourth commandment to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy is not that God demands our worship.  Rather it is rooted in theology and history.  The theology: God rested on the seventh day and so should we.  The history: when God’s people were enslaved in Egypt they were made to work every day without respite.  Constant work and continual activity imprisons.  It is a refusal of one part of oneself.

This morning’s reading falls in the midst of some amazing activity in Jesus’ ministry.  It begins with Jesus asleep in a boat during a storm, no doubt exhausted from what has come before.  He disciples wake him and he calms the sea.  Once ashore Jesus encounters Legion, a man so possessed the locals chain him to a tomb.  After this and another boat trip Jesus is led to the home of a synagogue leader whose daughter is dying.  On the way, a woman reaches out and touches him, healing her illness of thirteen long years.  Next Jesus teaches in his hometown synagogue and his own people reject him.  In response he commissions his followers to go throughout the region in teams of two to preach and to pray and to heal.  In the meantime, we learn of the death of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin.  When his disciples return to report on their travels, the band is inundated by various people with multiple needs.  Is it any wonder Jesus diagnoses their need to get away!

The Gospels tell us big stories, but often in between, in just a few words or a sentence, they give us a glimpse of Jesus’ humanity.  He goes off alone to pray.  He doesn’t want anyone to know what house he is staying in.  He is hungry.  He is thirsty.  He is tired.  He withdraws.  He seeks solitude.  These are not signs of weakness or failure or selfishness.  They are acknowledgments of who he is and signs of his determination to be who God has created him to be.  They are not times when he refuses to heal or to care.  They are essential to how he responds to those who are like sheep without a shepherd.

Coming out of a protracted time of quarantine and severe restrictions it might be tempting to think we are emerging from a long period of extended leisure, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  We have spent well over a year learning new ways to do everyday things.  We have had to be more than vigilant to protect our own health as well as the health of those we love.  We have taken on new roles (like being a stay-at-home parent/teacher) while trying to keep up with our old roles (working remotely).  Whatever else this time has been, one thing is certain… it has been anything but leisurely.  And it is telling (and wise) the first response many have made as restrictions are eased has been to go away.  We recognize our need for rest, for leisure, for respite, for Sabbath.

Sam Hamilton-Poore is a Presbyterian minister who wrote a book titled Earth Gospel: A Guide to Prayer for God’s Creation.  He contends one way to care for our planet is to pray for it, and to pray for our place in it.  Here is one of his prayers that feels deeply rooted in turning from acedia by embracing who we are created to be: 

Grant me grace this day
to rest and remember
that there is nothing I have to do,
nothing I have to buy or sell,
nothing I have to produce or consume
in order to become who I already am:
your beloved creation.
May your overworked creation
and those who cannot rest today
come to know the liberation of your sabbath.

And this is my prayer for you as well.  May you come to know who you are created to be; a person with a meaningful purpose to be sure.  But also a person who does not allow yourself to be enslaved by life’s demands.  May your life be full of times to rest and to dine and to be beloved by God and those who are dear to you.    

 

 

Transforming Senselessness

 

Mark 6:14-29

Proper 10 / Year B

A shocking headline caught my attention earlier in the week: 233 Killed, 618 Injured by Gun Violence over Holiday Weekend.  These statistics are compiled by a group known as the Gun Violence Archive.  There is some ‘good’ news.  This year’s violence is 26% less than last year’s.  According to the GVA website, over 22,000 people have died from gunshot wounds so far this year.  It is sobering to note 12,000 of these were self-inflicted.  No matter what the numbers suggest to you, doesn’t it feel like our world is becoming harsher, more reactive, less kind, and less rational with each passing day?  It all seems so senseless.

How do you make sense of senselessness?  This is the question I have been living with as I pondered this morning’s gospel reading.  The death of John the Baptist at the hands of King Herod, with all the intrigue playing out behind the scenes, is a completely senseless event.  Along with the crucifixion of our Lord, it is one of the two darkest stories told in Gospels.  But unlike the crucifixion, this one seems to have no redeeming value (other than John’s disciples give his body a proper burial). 

I googled the question “how do you make sense of senselessness” and was taken aback by what came up: story after story over the past decade or so with various writers trying to come to grips with horrific events: the shooting in Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Parkland, George Floyd, the church in Texas, the Surfside collapse.  It felt like I was taking a crash course in modern tragedies.   

One writer offered this thoughtful insight:

There is definitely a need among us to talk about and make sense of an incredibly senseless act.  In times of crisis and disbelief our humanity calls us to ask the questions – Why?  How? What can we do to prevent this from ever happening again?  

There are no easy answers.  No quick and painless solutions.  No neat, precise, clear responses that can take the pain and shock away or keep evil from threatening us again.  But this national conversation is an important one to have.  Even if the answers are not readily apparent or forthcoming, it is necessary to begin to search our hearts and our souls and ask the tough, difficult and uncomfortable questions that will ultimately lead to answers that will enable us to be a better society.   We must not stop asking these questions and searching for the insights that will bring us healing, comfort and clarity. 

Another cited this bit of wisdom from Fred Rogers:

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.     

And another writer noted the importance of respect and compassion as we come together to seek wisdom.  This too feels increasingly difficult in our society where we seem to act like, “If me and mine are in charge, then I am ‘fir’ it.  But if me and mine are not in charge, then I am ‘agin’ it”; which, as a mindset, does not engender healing and hope, but only adds to the senselessness.

In today’s first lesson we hear God tell Amos a divine plumb line will be set to reveal where society has lost its way.  In the hands of a skilled worker a plumb line can reveal subtle deviations which, if not corrected, will result in dangerous structural deficiencies.  In our day and age no special tools are needed.  The problems are visible to the naked eye.  What we lack is a means of correction to unite us in working toward a better world.

We who embrace Jesus Christ hold something from beyond is at work in the world to counter the senselessness.  It is articulated so beautifully in today’s reading from the 85^th Psalm: 

I will listen to what the Lord God is saying,

  for he is speaking peace to his faithful people

  and to those who turn their hearts to him.

Truly, his salvation is very near

to those who fear him,

  that his glory may dwell in our land.

Mercy and truth have met together;

  righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Truth shall spring up from the earth,

  and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

We choose to open ourselves to what God offers to the world: to be a people of truth who exhibit mercy, a people who seek what is right as a means of creating peace.  This is our response to senselessness.  It is to join God’s team, to march in the parade God is leading, to sing in the chorus God conducts. 

The Crucifixion.  At Tuesday’s Evening Prayer from the Northumbria Community we read the lyrics of a song by the English writer and worship leader Godfrey Birtill.  Consider how what he sees in the cross differs from the senselessness of John’s death:

When I look at the blood
all I see is love, love, love.
When I stop at the cross
I can see the love of God.

But I can’t see competition.
I can’t see hierarchy.
I can’t see pride or prejudice
or the abuse of authority.
I can’t see lust for power.
I can’t see manipulation.
I can’t see rage or anger
or selfish ambition.

I can’t see unforgiveness.
I can’t see hate or envy.
I can’t see stupid fighting
or bitterness, or jealousy.
I can’t see empire building.
I can’t see self-importance.
I can’t see back-stabbing
or vanity or arrogance.

I see surrender, sacrifice, salvation,
humility, righteousness, faithfulness, grace, forgiveness,
love!  Love … love…

When I stop! … at the cross
I can see the love of God.

This speaks powerfully to the difference between the two deaths.  Jesus’ death was redemptive, John’s was senseless.  Everything Birtill says he can’t see when he looks at the Cross – abuse of power, manipulation, selfish ambition, hate, envy, vanity, arrogance, etc. – are found in spades in John’s death.  The actions of Herod and those around him make John’s death seem cruel and meaningless.  Jesus’ death on the cross is cruel to be sure, yet it becomes the clearest symbol possible of God’s love for the world.

In 2006 a man walked into a small Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster, PA and took hostages, killing five and shooting another five before taking his own life.  Most don’t remember his name, but we do remember how the Amish community reached out the killer’s wife, children, and family.  We remember how they extended forgiveness and expressed compassion.  We remember how they took something senseless and transformed it into a symbol of God’s love.

This is how we choose to live and move and have our being in this world… aligned with the salvation our Lord offers in order for God’s glory to dwell in our land.  May God empower us to reflect God’s light in the darkness of these senseless times.

Out of the Cave

 

Mark 6:1-13

Proper 9 / Year B

Plato’s allegory of the cave is discussed in every intro to Philosophy class.  Plato instructs his students to imagine the world is like a dark chamber in a deep cave.  Its only source of light is a wood fire.  Next, Plato asks his students to imagine a group of people who live in the cave.  They have never been outside the chamber, not even once.  In fact, Plato says, envision each person has spent his or her entire life sitting in a chair facing a wall of the cave with the fire burning behind them.  They never stand up.  They never turn around.  They never even look sideways to see the other people who are sitting there with them.  All they know of life is the flickering shadows cast on the cave wall as the light from the fire moves past their own sitting bodies.

Plato goes on.  One day one person sitting in a chair stands up and looks around.  He sees all the other people in the chamber.  He sees the other walls of the cave.  He even sees the fire for what it is.  He, and he alone, has a unique perspective on reality.  As he wanders around the chamber he discovers a passageway leading toward a strange new light.  It is a tunnel to the cave’s entrance.  Standing in the opening he beholds the light of the sun.  He sees color for the first time: blue skies, white clouds, green vegetation, and brilliant flowers.  And he sees other creatures: animals, birds, insects, fish, and even other people.

He, and he alone, knows there is so much more to the world than the flickering, shadowy images on the cave’s wall.  He goes back into the chamber and tries to convince the others to look around, to face the fire, and to walk out of the cave into the sunlight.  All but a few insist he is wrong.  They are convinced there is nothing more to life than the shadow images.  They will not stand.  They will not turn.  And they will not follow him out of the cave.  Only a handful of people have the courage to do as the person suggests.

Plato teaches his students he is like the one who first stands up and examines the world.  He teaches his students they are the few who accept his invitation to challenge what they know of reality.  And he holds the overwhelming majority of people are content to stare at the shadows, remaining firm in the erroneous belief the world holds nothing more and nothing better than the dark cave with the flickering images.

There is a story in Sanskrit about a frog born in a well which stays in the well and lives its entire life in the well.  Its worldview consists only of the well.  It has no way of knowing there are other wells with other frogs.  It has no way of knowing there are frogs living in ponds and frogs living in streams and frogs living in lakes and frogs living in rivers.  It knows only itself and its well.

The allegory of the cave and the story of the frog touch on an aspect of our humanity cutting across all cultures and all peoples.  Human beings from all times and all places seem to understand there is more to reality than we can grasp from our own unique, but limited perspective.  Because of this insight we hold openness and communion with one another to be better for us than isolation and fiercely protected rigidity.  It is a belief based on the experience of having someone proclaim something radically different from what we hold to be true and then having that foreign proclamation help individuals and entire cultures to take dramatic steps forward.

Isn’t this what Jesus is trying to do in the Gospel reading we heard just moments ago?  He has launched his public ministry and it has been marked by inspired teaching, miraculous healings, and breath-taking signs and wonders.  His fame is spreading far and wide.  Then Jesus returns to Nazareth, his hometown.  He is back with his teachers and coaches and scout leaders and neighbors and friends and he wants to bring to them the Kingdom of God (a reality he himself inaugurates and embodies), but they will have none of it.  They are satisfied with what they know of life.  They are comfortable, even though (and perhaps because) they are complacent.  They prefer to watch the shadows.  They choose to stay in the well. 

How tempting it is to assign this phenomenon to someone else!  How tempting it is to say I am not like them, to assert we would never bury our collective heads in the sand all the while pretending we are scanning a vast horizon!  And yet how easy it is for our understanding of life to become little more than watching shadows dance on the wall; never to turn and face one another, never to look at the fire fueling the images we admire, and never to walk out into the pure, bright light which is the true glory of God. 

And how easy it is for a faith community like ours to become like a frog in a well, never to scale the walls to see what lies outside our isolated environment.  How easy it is to become satisfied all the while being closed off from God, from one another, and from the world around us.

And, on this day when we celebrate the 245^th anniversary of our nation’s independence, how easy has it become to exchange the genius of our enterprise (our desire to create new maps and to chart new courses by listening to and learning from one another) for the worst of our nature (the inclination to create trenches and ruts to defend our own perilous perspectives).  When and why did we become so afraid of each other?

We learn from today’s reading God will not allow us to live in isolation because God’s Spirit continually comes to us to call us outward and to bring us closer to the Kingdom of God.  It may not always be comfortable.  Frequently, it may go against what we know to be conventional.  It may confuse us or make us mad or scare us to the marrow or even cause us to part ways with those we hold dear (at least for a while).  But who among us really wants to watch shadows or to live knowing only the life of a well?  Who among us wants to be nothing more than a citizen of Nazareth… a city which over the centuries, according the historical records, never produced a single achievement worthy of note?  Do you think there is a correlation between the way they closed themselves off to Jesus and the fact they never accomplished anything making an impression on the world?

The text tells us Jesus marveled at their “unbelief.”  It wasn’t just him and his vision of the Kingdom they didn’t believe in.  They didn’t believe in the grandeur of the world as God has made it.  They didn’t believe in the potential for progress.  And, I dare say, they didn’t believe in themselves.

Jesus’ response is instructive.  He moves on.  Time is too short and there are too many people who are willing to stand and turn.  He divides his followers into groups of two and sends them out.  They respond to Jesus’ invitation to explore what lies beyond the cave.  They want to see what lies beyond the walls of well.  They don’t need special training or special equipment or special clothing.  All they need is a willingness to pursue God’s dream for all people and to invite others to join in their journey.

Where are you in all of this?  In the cave fearful of looking at anything else beyond the flickering on the wall?  In the well, completely oblivious to the glorious possibilities just beyond?  Perhaps for the first time you are beginning the journey of open exploration and discovery.  Maybe you have left the cave or the well and desire to invite others to join you.  No matter where you are in this Jesus reaches out to you and says “Walk with me.  I have nothing more important to do than to show you life and the world and God and reality.”

Jesus the 'Generative Force'

Mark 5:21-43

Proper 8 / Year B

God created all things so that they might exist;

  the generative forces of the world are wholesome,

  and there is not destructive poison in them.

Solomon’s wisdom runs counter to what Charles Darwin discerned about the ‘generative forces’ of our world, which he described as survival of the fittest.  We can reconcile these two points of view fairly easily by acknowledging Darwin’s insight is biological while Solomon’s is theological.  Darwin identifies where we have come from – a dog-eat-dog world.  Solomon points to where we are going – a worldwide community of compassion and care expressing God’s dream for all people and all things. 

And of the two, there is no question which Jesus embraces.  As God incarnate he embodies ‘generative forces’ which are ‘wholesome’ (or ‘whole-making’), completely devoid of ‘destructive poison.’  Like Solomon, Jesus assigns the corruption of God’s intent to the dominion of Hades, which is not of this world, but has entered into it.  Through his words and through his deeds, Jesus works to bind and banish the destructive deeds wrought by the ‘devil’s envy’ (to use Solomon’s language).

We see a wonderful example of this in today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark.  Recall last week Jesus was asleep in a boat when a huge storm arose and threatened to swamp it.  The disciples wake him and ask, “Do you not care we are perishing?”  Everything Jesus does from that point forward through today’s reading answers their question.  First, he commands the wind to stop.  Next, they land on the shore of Genessaret and encounter Legion, a man possessed by so many demons the local townsfolk have chained him in a countryside cemetery.  Jesus frees the man of all that torments him, everything from evils spirits to the evil intentions of his fellows. 

And now today Jesus is mobbed as soon as he steps ashore at another lakeside village.  Here he will minister to two daughters of Israel, women who are connected in several different ways, yet distinct from one another.  One is a twelve-year-old girl, the other has been suffering from internal hemorrhaging for twelve years.  One, I suspect, is known to Jesus because he knows the name of her father, the other is unknown.  Both live in a time of entrenched social norms for women, meaning certain expectations are inflexible.  The women who cannot live up to what is required of them certainly experience anxiety, depression, and perhaps of host of deeper and more severe physiological and psychological maladies.

The girl’s father, Jairus, is a leader in the local synagogue.  He is educated, influential, and respected; thus he could not be more different in standing from the man Jesus just encountered in Genessaret.  Jairus is distraught because his ‘little girl’ is near death.  It is of note her father refers to her as a ‘little girl’ when in fact, in that culture, she is anything but.  Even though twelve, in her day, she is at the age when her father begins to search for a suitable husband for her.  Her marriage will be arranged; perhaps it already has been.  Does she know the man?  Like him?  Does she feel ready to be married?  The status of her father’s family will rise or fall based on who she is able to marry.  Does she feel burdened?  Pressured?  How does she anticipate this significant change in her life with enthusiasm or with apprehension? 

In his book Jesus the Village Psychiatrist, Donald Capps, a professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton University, posits the girl is suffering from clinical hysteria, most likely as a result of the cultural pressure to marry a person she does not want to marry (but he also outlines several other possibilities, such as she is the victim of abuse).  One way clinical hysteria manifests itself is through immature behavior – talking and acting childlike.  Is this why her father refers to her as ‘little girl’?  At its most extreme hysteria can lead to a catatonic state easily misinterpreted as death.  Jesus himself lends credence to this possibility by stating the girl has not died but rather is sleeping.  If Jesus knows Jairus then most likely he knows the family and most likely knows the girl and most likely has deep insight into the complexities of what is going on.  One thing is certain, when Jairus comes to him, Jesus immediately sets off to see the girl, leaving the crowd behind.

One of the people left behind is a woman with the bleeding disorder.  We are told she has seen many physicians over the course of the last twelve years, but none has been able to help.  Donald Capps notes there is little doubt their ineptitude is for them a professional embarrassment.  And he writes we can be sure they have found multiple ways to blame her for their failures.  Mark’s text speaks volumes when it notes their inability to treat her effectively has not prevented them from billing her.  We are told her resources are exhausted.  That it is a detail completely unnecessary to the telling of the story illuminates the magnitude of abuse she has endured at the hands of medical professionals.

Her culture’s expectation for women to bear children is enormous.  Her bleeding, which no doubt is related to her reproductive system, prevents her from becoming pregnant and thus she is not able to accomplish the one thing required of her to earn the sole status her society is willing to afford her.  While her material resources are exhausted, her spiritual resources are not.  Perhaps she planned on speaking with Jesus, explaining her situation, and expressing her faith so he might heal her.  But once it becomes apparent he is moving on to other things, she shifts to Plan B.  We are given insight into her private thoughts, “If I but touch Jesus’ garment, I will be made well.” 

Those of you who participate in Morning or Evening Prayer online know I often invite you to offer petitions for your own needs as well as intercessions for those whose needs are on your heart.  I do so because I believe this is one of the primary reasons we come together in prayer.  As the Prayer of St. Chrysostom says, “you have given us grace to make our common supplication to you.”  Perhaps you do not come here this morning with a prayer for yourself, but I am confident each one of us here today carries a burden for at least one person we love. 

In the two daughters of Israel we meet this morning we see examples of both kinds of prayer.  The woman with the hemorrhaging is an example of petition.  She brings her need to Jesus.  Jairus models intercession as he brings his daughter’s need to our Lord’s attention.  Both receive grace and find healing; one who seeks it and the other who has a person seek it on her behalf.  One reaches out and touches Jesus, while the other has Jesus reach out and take her by the hand. 

And Jesus, what does he model for us?  He models the truth Solomon identified centuries earlier:

God created all things so that they might exist;

  the generative forces of the world are wholesome,

  and there is not destructive poison in them.

Jesus loves these two daughters of Israel not because they have fulfilled with fidelity what their culture expects of them.  He loves them because they are God’s precious children.  And in so doing, he opens for them the ‘generative forces’ God weaves into the fabric of our world.  He enables them to experience the world as God has created it to be for them.  And this same opportunity is available for you and for me every time we bring to God our petitions for personal need and our intercessions for those we love.

The Choice to be Very Good

Proper 5 / Year B

With the easing of Covid restrictions we are learning again what it is like to live in a world with options… plenty of options.  Will I eat out or stay in?  Go to the movies or read a book?  Take in a baseball game or go for a walk?  The truth is we had plenty of options during the height of the restrictions, but with so many things being taken off the table at times it felt as if we had no choices at all.

I grew up in a faith tradition that flirted with the doctrine of Predestination: the notion God foreordains those who will receive the saving work of Christ and those who will reject it.  Taken to its extreme, this teaching implies free choice is merely an illusion.  God’s plan, set in motion from the beginning of time, is unalterable.  How unalterable?  I had a college professor who told the story of the time he tripped and fell down a flight of stairs in his home.  Bruised and dazed, he collected himself, stood up, and said, “Well, I am glad that is behind me!”  

The Creation stories in Genesis hint at something different.  They suggest God has woven options into the very fabric of all that has been made; options which are open and free possibilities which actually alter the course of history on micro and macro levels.  Recall how God entrusts Adam with the task of naming each animal.  The choices are completely out of God’s control and entirely Adam’s to make.  By including the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the serpent as elements of creation, God opens the world to be a place where God’s will is honored or ignored or misunderstood.  The Genesis stories tell us we live in a world where we have choices and that our choices have consequences.  We have some ability (but not complete ability) to determine how we will impact the world for good or for ill. 

This past week I read a commentary on the creation story of Adam and Eve whose author encourages readers to step back from a strictly literal interpretation of the text in order to see something more sweeping at work.  So rather than focusing on the Tree as a tree, the apple as an apple, and the serpent as a snake, let’s consider the bigger picture being portrayed by this story.  The commenter suggests we see in it a metaphor for the pattern of every person’s life. 

We are born into a world marked hopefully by nurture, safety, and care.  Childhood, for the most part for most of us, is an Eden-like experience – innocent, carefree, and cared for.  It does not last.  Our experience of the world changes with the onset of puberty and adolescence.  We become self-aware, which often is associated with a sense of shame and hiddenness (as we see in this morning’s first reading).  We rebel (sometimes in relatively inconsequential ways, other times in significant ways).  We gain new knowledge about good and evil, which, while positive and necessary, has the effect of shattering the innocence of childhood.  Like the curses meted out by God in today’s reading, we come to know limitations, frustrations, and humiliations.  The world becomes a more demanding place and our place in it becomes uncertain.   In adulthood we accept our responsibilities and the embrace the consequences of our decisions and our actions.  We experience the world as a place of both opportunity and challenge.  We learn no one gets through life unscathed.  Still, most of us manage to find happiness and purpose and a measure of peace.  This is the path walked by Adam and Eve.  In general terms, it is the path each of us is walking on.

As with the doctrine of Predestination, most church teachings refer to this morning’s Old Testament reading as story of “the Fall” – how the first humans lived in paradise, but lost it all through the act of tasting the fruit of a single, forbidden tree.  “The Fall” implies we are living in a world where all God intended is crashed and gone.  Adam’s sin is our sin.  Adam’s curse is our curse.  Adam’s loss is our reality.  Deal with it… unless you have been preordained to accept Jesus’ saving death on your behalf. 

One of the things I love about the Anglican tradition is how it understands the meaning of these first chapters of the bible.  Yes, we say, the world is not as God dreams it would be.  But no, we are not so completely depraved as to not be able to respond to God’s will and to follow God’s way.  We have the possibility, the ability, and the opportunity to make choices for better or for worse, for right or for wrong, for faithfulness or for falling into something less.   

At the completion of every stage of creation God looks at what has been accomplished and calls it “good.”  And when God speaks of the newly created humans, God calls them “very good.”  While it says something significant about our elevated place in the created order, recognize being created as “very good” is no where near as demanding as being created to be “perfect.”  If God had created us “perfect” than even the smallest slip would destroy our identity (just as a lone walk changes in baseball a perfect game to a no-hitter).  The calling to be “very good” implies striving and intentionality, while making room for coming up short now and again.

Which brings us back to our world of options and the choices we make.  And it brings us to Jesus.  In today’s reading we find him making a choice to conceive in a new way the notion of “family.”  He expands it from the old standards of kindred and clan to include anyone who strives to do the will of God.  Notice he does not restrict it only to those who are perfect.  Jesus welcomes into deep relationship everyone who is oriented toward God’s dream for this world.

Jesus uses this vision to incorporate an incredibly diverse group of men and woman into his fellowship.  They have different backgrounds, come from different communities, hold to a variety of religious traditions, agree not on the politics of the day.  Jesus does not disown his biological family, just the opposite.  His brother James becomes the leader of the Church in Jerusalem after Jesus ascends to the Father and it is from here a missionary zeal emerges to invite every person in the known world into the Jesus movement.  Jesus makes the consequential choice to embrace every person, not on the basis of perfection, but rather on each person’s stated intent to do God’s will.  “Very good” is his standard, not gender, nationality, or race.  It is not your political affiliation which determines if you are Jesus’ brother or sister.  It certainly is not your socio-economic level.  It definitely does not matter if you are a Hokie or a Hoo.  And whatever your position on the doctrine of Predestination, ultimately what matters to Jesus is how you attempt to do God’s will, to live into your “very goodness.” 

“Very Goodness”, goodness gracious, this can be a challenge, can’t it.  Unlike Adam and Eve, who received the initial commandment – “Don’t eat of that fruit” – yet receive little guidance and only sketchy commentary from the serpent, we are blessed to possess the Scriptures: the stories of God’s interaction with God’s people, the insights of the Psalmists, the words of the prophets, Jesus’s own teachings and example, and the wisdom of the early Church.  And we are blessed with the gift of God’s Holy Spirit who abides deep within us and directs us when we are open to hearing this Voice. 

Today, tomorrow, and every day hereafter we have choices to make.  God’s Spirit in our lives does not mean we will be (or will have to be) perfect.  Our aim always is to be faithful.  “Very good” is our benchmark and, high as it is, with God’s help, it is attainable.     

 

The Source from Above

 

John 3:1-17

Trinity Sunday / Year B

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

I am a big fan of the Turner Classic Movie Network – TCM.  I record interesting movies and watch them at my leisure, but I have more recordings than I could possibly watch in a year.  The other night I watched the Robert Duvall film The Great Santini, first released in 1979.  I had not seen it before and enjoyed it very much.  In one scene, Ben, who has just turned 18, is reading a birthday note written by his mother.  It is her loving voiceover we hear as he reads:

Wherever you go and whatever you do you walk with my blessing and love.  I’ve had my regrets and many sadnesses but I will never regret the night you were born.  I thought I knew about love – the boundaries of love – until I raised you for these past 18 years.  I knew nothing about love.  This has been your gift to me.  Happy birthday.  Momma.

“I thought I knew about the boundaries of love…”  What a tremendous phrase! 

I was an uncle long before I was a father.  I am blessed to have six wonderful nephews and nieces, each of whom I got to hold as babies.  It was pleasant enough (as long as nothing inside them came out and onto me), but nothing life-changing.  However, when my first daughter was born, the very moment the nurse first handed to me I was overcome with a kind of love I never knew existed.  I was transformed in an instance.  I have had some pretty powerful moments in my life (multiple graduations, getting married, being ordained to diaconate then to the priesthood) but nothing compares to that moment.  Before this, I thought I knew about the boundaries of love, but I knew nothing about it at all.

I don’t remember too many sermons I heard while growing up, but I do recall my youth minister preaching on John 3:16.  He called it “The Greatest Verse in the Entire Bible.”  “For God” (the greatest Being) “so loved” (the greatest virtue) “the world” (the greatest entity) “the he gave” (the greatest act) “his only Son” (the greatest person) “that whosoever” (the greatest number possible) “believes in him” (the greatest sign of faith) “should not perish” (the greatest fear) “but have everlasting life” (the greatest gift).  Or something close to this.  I remember his sermon spoke to me about the boundlessness of God’s love.

John Henry Jowett was born in England in 1864 and went on to be ordained in the Congregational Church.  Before dying in 1923 he served in several prestigious positions and was known as “the greatest preacher in the English-speaking world.”  In one sermon titled The Boundless Love of God he begins by considering how we can become lost “in the overwhelming sense of the immeasurable.”  After exploring a few of possibilities Jowett says this:

There is something more majestic than the heavens, more wonderful than the far, mysterious vistas of time, more pervasive than human need, and more abounding than human sin. The biggest thing with which the mind can cope is the infinite love of God…   The biggest thing you and I will ever know is the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

He goes on to compare God’s love to a diamond devoid of any flaw or tint.  Of human love he says this:

Love can be deteriorated and degraded by the tint of jealousy.  It can be debased by the tint of envy.  It can be vulgarized by a strain of carnal passion.  These earthly elements may be mixed with the heavenly substance, and its spiritual value is reduced.

But, in Jowett’s mind, God’s love is different:

“In him is no darkness at all!”  How would that be as a description of a diamond?  “No darkness at all!”  Nothing sinful in His love!  But more than that.  Nothing shady in it, nothing questionable, nothing compromising or morally indifferent!

Jowett then compares God’s love to various properties of water.  One way is this: 

Water rises no higher than its source.  Water can lift no higher than its source.  It is even so with love.  Our love can never raise a loved one higher than the love itself.

If Jowett is correct in this than we might want to ponder the source of our love.  For some, the source of love is rooted in the romantic.  For others it is rooted in a philosophical ethic, such as do the most good you can while producing the least harm.  For a few it is a narcissistic transaction where what passes as love is offered only as long as the other makes you feel better about yourself.  Each of these and other sources generates a love with boundaries.   God’s boundless love offers to take us far higher than possible through any other source.

Jesus famously told Nicodemus you must be born again (or born from above) in order to see the kingdom of God.  It is an invitation to discover a new source by drinking from the font of God’s boundless love.  Doing so will expand the boundaries of your love and as this happens you will begin to see the kingdom of God more clearly, you will begin to experience the kingdom of God with more awareness, and you will begin to live out the kingdom of God with more fidelity.

The boundaries of love are evident every morning when I wake up my computer and check out the overnight headlines.  Mass shootings, political squabbling, racial tension, and downright awful behavior congregate on a near daily basis.  We live in a world far removed from God’s dream and not even close to the love I felt when I held my first child for the first time.  And yet every now and then we get a glimpse of what life can be like when the source of love comes from Above.

I was a Mike’s Meats yesterday picking out something yummy for tomorrow’s dinner.  It was crowded and the checkout line was long… and slow.  I noticed the woman in front of me already had her food in a bag and was holding a receipt.  Then her husband came in from outside and joined her in line.  Something, I thought, is up.  When it was their turn at the register I heard them explain the cashier had bagged but failed to ring up five items totaling about $25.  They came back into the store, stood in line (again!), and wanted to pay for the uncharged items.  Mike, now at the register, thanked them and charged them for only two of the five items.  “How are you doing?” he asked me as he finished the transaction with the couple.  “I am pretty amazed,” I responded.  “It is just wonderful to know there are good people in the world,” I said.  Then mentioned I am a preacher and would soon be sharing this story.  At this, Mike quoted a reference from the Letter of James, “The person who seeth the good and faileth to do it has not God’s love.”

What is the source of your love?  Have you been born from above?

 

God's Breath of Restoration

 

Psalm 104:25-37

Pentecost Sunday / Year B

You hide your face,
and your creatures are terrified; *
  you take away their breath,
  and they die and return to their dust.
You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; *

  and so you renew the face of the earth.

May 18, 1980 was a memorable day in the Pacific Northwest.  It was the day Mount St. Helens erupted, lowering its elevation by over 1,300 feet and creating a crater a mile wide and 2,000 feet deep.  The initial blast and subsequent fallout devastated hundreds of square miles, transforming a lush, mountain environment into little more than moonscape.  Everyone in the region remembers vividly where they were, what they heard, and what they felt during the eruption as well as how much ash fell on where they were.  Nothing could have survived its force and the chocking effect of being buried under several feet of dense power.  Or so it seemed…

Jerry Franklin, an ecologist, was on the first helicopter to land in the blast zone.  It was only a few weeks after May 18 and as he stepped out onto the ashy surface, he looked down and was stunned to see a green shoot poking up through the dust.  He recognized it immediately to be Chamaenerion angustifolium, commonly known as fireweed.  Franklin and other ecologists knew they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe how nature recovers from devastation; a process known as ecological regeneration.

The U.S. Soil Conservation Service decided to reseed by air some 32 square miles of land, but with the creation of the Mount St. Helens National Monument in 1982 a significant tract of land was set aside to recover on its own.  I visited the park a few years ago.  It was a beautiful, sun-splashed day and the view of the mountain with its crater facing me and the surrounding panoramic landscape was impressive beyond description.  The reseeded land was readily apparent because after thirty-five years it had returned to forestland.  The areas left unattended had not advanced nearly as far, yet still showed remarkable and diverse recovery.  Its grand scale was mesmerizing and should you find yourself in this part of the country is well worth a visit.

This morning we hear a beautiful portion of the 104^th Psalm, a poem which extols God’s role in creation.  More specifically, it describes how God’s Spirit (or breath – God’s ruach in Hebrew) creates, sustains, cleanses, and restores all living things.  Far from being the prime mover or the initial source, and nowhere near being the creative architect now disengaged from creation, the theology of the 104^th Psalm holds God is intimately involved with each one of us and with all of creation.

How intimately?  Well, consider the use of breath as a metaphor.  The typical human being takes about 16 breaths per minute.  This means we breathe 960 times an hour and over 23,000 times in a day.  Each one of us takes something like 8.4 million breaths every year.  Given this, what does the image of God’s Spirit as breathe suggest to you?  It speaks to me of God’s continual, on-going relationship with us and with all of creation.  And it suggestions this connection is absolutely vital to our on-going life.

The vast majority of our 8.4 million breaths in 2021 will pass without our notice.  You will be aware of only a small percentage.  You may need to take a deep breath in order to calm down.  You may be working hard or exercising a become out of breath.  You may catch a chest cold and have difficulty breathing.  You might find yourself in a rose garden and take in a deep breath in order to enjoy the fragrance.  You may be taking a breath at the end of singing a line of your favorite hymn.  Whatever it is causing you to be aware of your breathing I suggest it is also a good time to remind yourself of the nearness of God’s Spirit, who presence always seems to come to our awareness when we need it the most.  As with the overwhelming majority of our breaths, most often we are not aware of God’s presence in our lives, but know this… God is with you… all the time… no matter where you are… no matter if you are aware of it or not.

We are hearing the psalm’s witness to God’s activity of creating, sustaining, cleansing, and restoring at a very interesting time.  As I wrote in the e-news, the speed with which Covid restrictions are being eased is only surpassed by the speed in which they were initially imposed.  I personally sense I need time to reacclimate to life as it was before.  Which is to say, I am relieved not to have to wear a mask, but I am not ready yet to engage in our Pentecost tradition of blowing up balloons, batting them around, popping them, and then pushing our way through throngs of people in order to pass the peace with a stranger.  Next year maybe.  Still, it feels like we are at the dawn of a new day when God’s Breath is going forth and renewing the face of the earth.

I would like to make a small confession to you.  I added a verse to the psalm reading.  The Lectionary calls for us to read verses 25-35 and verse 37, skipping over verse 36.  Whenever a verse is omitted by the Lectionary you should go right to your prayer book and find out what we are missing!  Here is verse 36:

Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, *

  and the wicked be no more.

Now I suspect the framers of the Lectionary decided to pass over it because its emphasis on sin, wickedness, judgement, and punishment feels out of character with the rest of the reading.  And I admit it seems to come out of leftfield.  But several commentators I read this week argued for its inclusion because as wonderful as God’s creation is it is still marred by brokenness.  We are at odds with ourselves, with one another, with other nations, and with creation itself.  There is much in need of cleansing and God’s restoration of creation is possible only after sin is confessed and wickedness is rejected.

If we were ready to sing this morning, perhaps we might use this hymn by Charles Gabriel, inspired by today’s psalm:

Thy Spirit, O Lord, makes life to abound;
The earth is renewed, and fruitful the ground;

To God ascribe glory and wisdom and might,
Let God in His creatures forever delight.

Before the Lord’s might earth trembles and quakes,
The mountains are rent, and smoke from them breaks;

The Lord I will worship through all of my days,
Yea, while I have being my God I will praise.

Rejoicing in God, my thought shall be sweet,
While sinners depart in ruin complete;

My soul, bless Jehovah, His name be adored,
Come, praise Him, ye people, and worship the Lord.

And in conclusion…

(which is always a dangerous thing to say in a sermon because if the conclusion doesn’t follow in short order the faithful just might find a way to turn their prayers books into pitchforks)…

in conclusion, either with you masks on if you opt for this, or with – Hallelujah! – no mask on for the first time in a long time…

take a moment to sit still…

breathe in…

breathe out…

bathe yourself in the beauty of this place…

breathe in…

breathe out…

look around and notice who is here with you this morning…

breathe in…

breathe out…

Repeat after me:

Thy Spirit, O Lord…

makes life to abound…

The earth is renewed…

and fruitful the ground…

The Lord I will worship…

through all of my days…

Yea, while I have being…

my God I will praise.