"The Long Defeat"-- Luke 18:1-8 -- October 20, 2013

The news of the suicides of three teen-age girls this week has been heart-breaking and sobering. The Banner reported that a student at Mt. Anthony Union Middle School had com-mitted suicide, and our thoughts and prayers have been not only with this young girl’s family but also with Tim Payne and his staff and students as they have dealt with this tragedy. Though the initial reports are that bullying was not involved with this death, it does appear to have been involved in the cases from Mt. Abraham High School and earlier this month in Florida. One of the bullyers in the Florida case, a 14-year-old girl, is reported to have admitted to bullying the student and not caring that the girl was now dead.

Though yesterday’s Banner carried a story about the violent and abusive atmosphere in which this 14-year-old bully has grown up, it is still distressing to hear what seems to be more and more common– no sense of remorse or responsibility for the harmful results of one’s actions, a sense of anomie, that is, lawlessness, no sense of a moral code, an utter disregard for the consequences of one’s actions. We find it in computer hackers who thrill at the chaos and devastation they can wreak from the privacy of their bedrooms or kitchen tables upon not only corporations and governments but also countless citizens whose home computers are infected. We find it in ultra-libertarians, who see their own individual liberty as being paramount, regardless of their impact on others. We hear echoes of it in students who say that cheating on a test or paper is perfectly fine, as long as they don’t get caught.

"In a certain city," Jesus began, "there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people." "There is no greater definition of impunity," writes one commentator, "than someone who has power and yet has no fear of God nor regard for humanity. [Mark Davis, Left Behind, 10/20/13] People like that, including the judge in this parable, are "living as if there is no moral order to the universe, life has no divine purpose, meaning, or consequences." This judge who had no "fear of God" had "no sense of accountability for serving justice, rather than [his] own self-interest."

Jesus goes on. "In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent’–probably a relative of her deceased husband or someone else trying to advantage of her vulnerability. "For a while [the judge] refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’"

These daily encounters between the widow and the judge would have been very public scenes. All legal proceedings took place at the city gate, not in closed courtrooms, so the widow’s grievances, and her wailing upon the judge, were heard and seen in the court of public opinion as well. The Torah was quite clear about the responsibility to care for widows, orphans, and foreigners, so the judge’s disregard for the Torah was as public as his disregard for the widow’s plight. He was in fact, being shamed by this widow’s persistence, and the black and blue marks on his face (which is what the Greek implies by the word for "wearing me out") were becoming badges of shame. It is finally to restore his honor–so essential in this culture-- that he grants the widow justice.

"Listen to what the unjust judge says," Jesus concludes. "And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them."

Luke’s community was tired of waiting for the return of Jesus, tired of waiting for God to bring justice and the fulfilment of history. So, Luke says, "Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." How much more tired then, we might ask, are we, some 2000 years later? When young men and women throw themselves off towers and bridges because of callous bullying...when aid to children’s food and education programs is cut off while corporate profits soar...when elephants are slaughtered and their tusks hacked off to be made into trinkets...when political candidates are bought and sold...when a few have infinitely more than enough while most have barely enough to survive–aren’t we entitled to being a little tired and tempted to give up hope?

In JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, "the Elves of Lothlorien admit that they’re losing their forest lands. But they battle on. They describe their struggle as ‘fighting the long defeat.’" (cited by Dan Clendenin, Journey with Jesus, 10/14/13) In the letters of Tolkein, the author describes the human struggle in similar terms. "Actually, I am a Christian [he writes], and indeed a Roman Catholic, so I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’–though it contains...some samples or glimpses of final victory." (Clendenin, op cit.)

In Tracy Kidder’s biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, entitled Mountains Beyond Mountains, Farmer describes the battle to bring health care to the poor of Haiti, using Tolkein’s phrase again:

"I have fought the long defeat [Farmer says] and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory....We want to be on the winning team but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat." (Cited by Clendenin, op cit.)

Nelson Mandela, 27 years in a South African prison, Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest for so many years in Burma/Myanmar, Martin Luther King Jr., all fighting the long defeat, yet believing that, as King put it, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice." " Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart."

Over these past weeks, a crowd of people gathered on the lawn of the Capitol for what they called a Faithful Filibuster. Every day that Congress was in session over the shut-down, they engaged in prayer and a public reading of the 2000 or more verses in the Bible about poverty and justice. Their effect was powerful, and in the last days, three Republican Senators–Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine–joined them in prayer before walking into the Capitol to propose an end to the shutdown. The Faithful Filibuster was of course most powerful for those who participated in it. One woman who was on furlough came to observe, and joined in to read. "I thought I was walking over to observe something holy, but I had no idea that God was going to use this to encourage me. Being asked to step to a podium and read the word of God a day after I was told it wasn’t my place brought me to tears....We serve a God who has put passion in the hearts of all His children. If we silence even one of those voices, we are missing out on a precious piece of God’s redemptive plan for this side of Eden!" (Cited by Jim Wallis in Hearts and Minds, Sojourners, 10/17/13)

The word for "widow" in Hebrew means silent one, one unable to speak. Barbara Brown Taylor writes that the widow in this parable of Jesus "was willing to say what she wanted–out loud day and night, over and over–whether she got it or not, because saying it was how she remembered who she was. It was how she remembered the shape of her heart." (BBT, Home by Another Way, p. 201)

" Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." Don’t lose heart. Don’t forget the shape of your heart. In his sermon to the Southwest Association up at Grace Congregational Church in Rutland a few weeks ago, Jerry Handspicker spoke about our call and need to be faithful, not successful. We must not forget that the shape of our heart is relational, communal, longing for and in fact held in the heart of God. So we must continue to stand with those who have no voice, no power, even though the odds seem stacked against us. That’s why we walk in the CROP Walk this afternoon. So we must continue to "pray always," not just like brushing our teeth, as part of our spiritual hygiene program, as Barbara Taylor puts it, once in the morning and once at night, but always– always open to the heart of God, always listening for God’s whisper, always straining for a glimpse of the kingdom of God in our midst.

Jerry quoted 3 great warriors in this long defeat. Czech poet and leader Vaclav Havel wrote, "Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."

And Thomas Merton, 20^th. C. saint and Trappist monk–"Do not depend on the hope of results...you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no results at all, if not the opposite of what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself...In the end it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything."

And finally Margaret Wheatley, author and organizational consultant. Jerry quoted her, saying, "The only thing we can predict is that life will surprise us. We can’t see what is coming until it arrives, and once something has emerged, we have to work with what is. We have to be flexible and willing to adapt–we can’t keep pushing ahead, blustering on with our outdated plans and dreams. And it doesn’t do to deny what has emerged. We need to be present and willing to accept this new reality." Compelling words for the church.

" Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart."

The November issue of National Geographic magazine arrived yesterday, and the editorial addresses the question, "Why cover a place so full of sadness?" referring to their story on the ongoing violence in northern Nigeria. "Why cover a place...like northern Nigeria–a place so beset by insurgency and corruption, so full of sadness and violence? [the editor asks] "To tell stories that need to be told," answers Ed Kashi, the story’s photographer. To bear witness. To hope the story adds to the conversation. Perhaps to make a difference...Who will speak for this woman crossing the street? [the editor asks, referring to the picture of an anxious woman leading her family across the street on their way to church] Not the government. Not the terrorists who bomb churches, schools, and mosques. Violence, we know all too well, has no borders. It matters that we pay attention to and report these stories. ‘When I see someone struggling, it’s in my DNA to help,’ [photographer] Ed Kashi says. If only by bearing witness to a frightened woman crossing the street. (NG, Nov. 2013, p. 4)

Surely it is in our DNA to help, when we see someone struggling. " Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart." Remember the shape of your heart. Pray always. Do not lose heart.

May these words be hope and courage and strength for us, for the living of these days. Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Obedient, but not in love"-- Luke 17:11-19-- Oct. 13, 2013

 

You may have noticed that there’s a whole lot of blaming and complaining and griping going on these days. "Missiles of righteousness," to use a phrase from Eugene Peterson, are being launched from one side of Congress and one end of the Mall to the other. Op ed pieces and radio and tv commentators do not lack for material, as the drama in Washington continues day by day. But, of course, it’s not just taking place in Washington, but also here in our own community, where levels of anxiety are rising amongst those whose benefit checks are held up and in jeopardy, those whose children are enrolled in Headstart, those on furlough, those whose already meager food stamp benefits are soon to be reduced even more. Congress’s positive ratings, if you can even call them that, are hovering somewhere around 5%.

So, it’s easy to get caught up in the blame game, the fist shaking, the hair-pulling. And doesn’t that make it all better? Doesn’t that make you feel better? I have to say it’s not working too well for me. There’s a certain pit in my stomach when I wake up to the news on our clock radio alarm. There are certain voices that I just have to turn off when I hear them on the radio or TV. We hear plenty of "us" and "them" talk, words like "extremists," even "terrorists," the gap seems to get wider and wider and my level of frustration and even anger and disgust rises.

It was into just such a boundary region between hostile sides that Luke says Jesus and his disciples were making their way to Jerusalem, "going through the region between Samaria and Galilee," separated by ancient and deep hostilities. And just on the edge of one of the villages, 10 lepers approached. It was a mixed group, made up of Jews and Samaritans, but they were bound together in their outsider status. The skin disease was not discriminating–it took Samaritan fingers and toes as eagerly as it took Galilean ones. With their prescribed rags and tinkling warning bells, their mouths covered with whatever was left to cover with, you couldn’t really tell the difference between a leper from Galilee or a leper from Samaria.

So, "keeping their distance, [as Torah demanded], they called out, saying ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean." There was no laying on of hands here, no making of spittle and rubbing it on eyes or ears, not really even words like, "You are healed." Just the instruction to go and show themselves to the priests in the Temple, who could pronounce them clean or unclean, and give them certificates to get back to their lives, if they passed the test.

So, obediently, they did as they were told. The ten headed down the road to the Temple, and it was only then, as they were walking, that they noticed they were healed. Strength returned to limbs shriveled and shortened; hands stretched out in fullness long gone; itching, scaling skin became smooth and pink. And the nine quickened their pace, racing to the Temple to receive their clean bills of health and to get on with their lives.

But the other one realized as he ran and felt himself becoming whole that the priests in the Temple would have no clean bill for him because there was no such thing as a "clean Samaritan." He wouldn’t even be allowed inside. He would not be given back his life through any ritual, but he knew what relationship could make him whole, and the joy of it all–the healing, the healer, the Power that had shot through his body with the words of Jesus–well, the joy of it made him leap around in the air and head back the other way, back to the Source of his healing and wholeness, and in a great, loud, slobbery show of emotion, he prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet, praising God and thanking Jesus.

It was then that Jesus wondered out loud–"Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well," or, as the Greek says, "your faith has saved you."

Where were the other nine? At the Temple, Jesus, just where you told them to go. They were being obedient. "Ten behaved like good lepers, good Jews [writes Barbara Brown Taylor]; only one, a double loser [the leper and the Samaritan] behaved like a man in love." (Taylor, The Preaching Life, p. 110)

Taylor tells the story of her urban Episcopal Church in Georgia, where she was one of the priests on staff.

At this church

[she writes] we leave the sanctuary open five days a week from nine to five, like the banks and businesses that surround us. We like to think of it as a peace offering to our corporate neighbors...a kind of oasis in the middle of the city...But as you also know, the city is full of all kinds of people, and not everyone comes in here with godly intentions. So we have installed a closed circuit television camera to keep an eye on the place, to make sure no one runs off with the candlesticks or does anything unseemly in the pews, like drink or sleep or embrace. You have got to be sensible about these things.

The monitor sits beside the receptionist’s desk in the parish office, where the volunteer on the desk can keep watch over the altar and its furnishings. One day last fall the receptionist on duty became concerned. "There’s a man lying face down on the altar steps," she said. "I wouldn’t bother you, but he’s been there for hours. Every now and then he stands and raises his arms toward the altar, and lies down again. Do you think he’s all right?" Four priests and several staff members conferred over the matter and elected the parish superintendent to go check on the man. As he did so, we all huddled around the monitor to watch. Our envoy appeared on the screen, walked up to the man, exchanged a few words with him, and returned to the parish office.

"He says he’s praying."

"Aha," we said, thanking him for this information.

It went on for days. Every morning around eleven the receptionist would look up from her desk and there he would be, prostrated before the altar, his hair in knots, his worn clothes covered with dustballs from the floor. The sexton cleaned around him; the altar guild tried not to disturb him when they came to polish the silver; the florist asked if he should leave the flowers somewhere else but we said no, just step over the man and put them on the altar where they belong.

We discussed the problem at staff meeting. "Should we do something?" someone asked. "I don’t know," said someone else, "what do you think?

"I think I want to get on that guy’s prayer list," one of us said, and we all laughed.

Finally it was Sunday, and my turn to celebrate communion at the early service. He was there when I arrived, blocking my path to the altar, and I did not know what to do. Maybe he was drunk, surely he was crazy–what would happen if I asked him to move? Approaching him as if I were approaching a land mine, I tapped him on the shoulder. He was so skinny, so dirty. "Excuse me," I said, "but there’s going to be a service in here in a few minutes. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to move.’

He lifted his forehead from the floor and spoke with a heavy Haitian accent. "That’s okay," he said, rising and dusting himself off in one dignified motion. Then he left, and he never came back. The 8 o’clock service began on time. The faithful took their places and I took mine. We read our parts well. We spoke when we were supposed to speak and were silent when we were supposed to be silent. We offered up our symbolic gifts, we performed our bounden duty and service, and there was nothing wrong with what we did, nothing at all. We were good servants, careful and contrite sinners who had come for our ritual cleansing, but one of us was missing. The foreigner was no longer among us; he had risen and gone his way, but the place where he lay on his face for hours–making a spectacle of himself–seemed all at once so full of heat and light that I stepped around it on my way out, chastened if only for that moment by the call to a love so excessive, so disturbing, so beyond the call to obedience that it made me want to leave all my good works behind. [Taylor, op cit., pp. 110-12]

"Were not ten made clean?" Jesus asked. "But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well. Your faith has saved you."

Nine were obedient. One was in love. Where are we in this story? I know where I put most of my energy–it’s into being obedient. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I think, unless you find that you never do anything simply for the love of it, simply for the love of God. I am a product of those beloved "Frozen Chosen," good Protestants who know about obedience and duty and doing things properly and in order, but I confess to sharing Janice Campbell’s complaint from last week’s ‘epistle,’ that sometimes "I just can’t stand it!" When was the last time I – or you–or any of us, were overcome by love and did something impetuous, even "wild and crazy", for Love? How often do we turn aside from the Road of Obedience to say "thank you"? My guess is that we who are still in the institutional church are perceived at best to be obedient, but when was the last time we were accused of being in love?

"The root of joy," writes Brother David Stendl-Rast, "is gratefulness...it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful." What if we were to notice the blessings, the beauty, in our daily lives? Noticed them and named them? Might we experience not only blessing but joy? It’s a well-proven fact–writing down 3-5 things for which you’re grateful every night for at least a couple of weeks will make you happier. Try writing a thank-you letter to someone who has made a difference in your life, and, if they’re still alive, send it to them. Better yet, if they’re within phone or physical proximity, read it to them yourself. See not just how good it makes them feel but how good it make you feel.

The one man who not only noticed he was healed but came back to name his blessing and give thanks for it received a double blessing. "Your faith has made you whole," Jesus said. "Your faith has saved you." Nine were healed. One was saved, made whole. That’s what the others missed.

Gratitude frees us from fear and anxiety, it connects us to something larger. "If the only prayer you make is ‘thank you,’" the mystic Meister Eckhart said, "then that is enough." If we try to shape every prayer into a prayer of thanks–even those where the thanks seems premature or even naive-- it has a way of changing us, even saving us. "Thank you, God, for already being with me when I make that presentation." Instead of, "O God, help me make that presentation!" Feel the difference? "Thank you, God, for the healing you intend for Cindy." Rather than, "O God, please heal Cindy." Sometimes it’s a real challenge, especially when we know what we want to happen. Giving thanks to God for already being in the midst of our prayer concern bridges the gap between us and God.

And speaking of gaps, can you imagine what might happen if every discussion between John Boehner and Harry Reid began with each man thanking the other for something–maybe 3 things-- they had done? If those on the left and right began their conversation with each other with, "I appreciate your concern for those who are without access to health care," and "I agree that we need to build on Americans’ compassion and care for each other"? It may seem a little forced or gimmicky, but what have we got to lose?

"Were not ten made clean?" Jesus asked. "But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well. Your faith has saved you."

May we–just once–and then maybe another time–get so caught up in gratitude that we do something absurdly extravagant, something even wild and crazy, that we are overcome with joy and love. People may start talking about us, you know... and we just might be saved.

Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"The Face of Jesus"-- October 6, 2013

From the very beginning of the movement, followers of Jesus have been sharing their experiences of him and sending letters to encourage one another. "Epistles" was the word the tradition used, and the apostle Paul, of course, was one of the great epistle writers. His students and co-workers, in fact, would later write epistles, using "Paul’s" name, and it wasn’t thought of as plagiarism or copyright infringement, it was just keeping the energy and the fire going.

This morning we have an "epistle" from one of our church members who has moved away but was an important part of our church’s ministry while she and her family lived here. Janice Campbell was our Ministries Coordinator for a year, back a few years when we first tried out that position. She and her husband Ty and son Quincy now live in Virginia, but keep in touch through the wonders of the internet.

It is through that medium that Janice’s epistle comes to us today. When I read it, I thought immediately that this was a message that would be wonderful to hear on this World Communion Sunday–

The Face of Jesus

Recently I have been pondering how we usually celebrate the Lord’s Supper. And by "we", I mean the Protestant church in general with the little cups or little pieces of bread. How we stand in line, taking turns. It’s all very polite. We’re all very solemn and respectful.

I just can’t stand it. It drives me crazy.

I’m thinking of the movie of Charles Dickinson’s, "The Christmas Carol", the one with George C. Scott. When the Ghost of Christmas Present shows up, he’s like a huge Viking having a feast. And the feast is one of total Abundance. There’s food everywhere. And when he drinks wine from his goblet, it rolls down his chin. Very messy. But so full of life, it takes my breath away just to think of it. That’s how I want to celebrate.

By the way, Big J and the Boys were celebrating the Passover meal. When we celebrate the "Last Supper", we say, "In remembrance of me." When I’m remembering Jesus, I can’t be polite and solemn. I have to feel the gusto, the exuberance. And I think Jesus didn’t mean for us to only remember him at this "Lord’s Supper". I think he meant to think of him constantly, all the time, whenever we eat, whenever we drink, whenever we breathe.

OK. This brings me to last week. I was having a glass of wine, or two. And I was thinking of all this and I decided to dip bread into the wine as my own little form of Communion. And when I did, when I looked up, there was the face of Jesus. An alive face. I could see his head. No body. Just the head. It sounds weird but it didn’t seem so at the time. It was like looking into a different dimension. Seeing a live person.

He was gorgeous. Dark hair, dark beard. I hadn’t known he was so dynamic, so charismatic. I can see how everyone who saw him was drawn to him. No one could resist him. Even his enemies could not resist him, that’s why they hated him so.

He was so vivacious. And he was the personification of living in the present. He had no fear, no judgment. Just an incredible compassion and understanding. He was not particularly humble. That was not an issue.

I had never seen that face before. And I’ve never come close to seeing anyone so full of life. It wasn’t like he appreciated life or that he was in awe. It was like he breathed in life with every breath. He was in love with life. He reveled in it...

I do think it was really him. And "Jesus" is the perfect name for him. I have the feeling he had become the quintessential of himself. If we are to be like him, I sure have a hell of a long way to go.

PS…Upon reflection.

I’ve taken time to consider the face I saw…and what I see in the face. As a portrait artist, I’m experienced in detecting personalities from just looking at faces. And there are some amazing characteristics in his face.

I’ve noticed that in writing about this, my verb tense changes back in forth from past to present within the same sentence; which is a no-no for writers. You are supposed to maintain the same verb tense throughout the entire paragraph. But it occurs to me, that this experience has made me aware of Jesus being in the past and in the present at the same time. What I saw, is what I continue to see. I saw him in the past, but he is in the present as well. He transcends time.

When I said he had become the quintessential Jesus, what I saw was that the Christ was fully manifested within him, within the person of Jesus. And that is what caused him to be the fully evolved Jesus. And that is how we are to be like him. Not like Jesus, but like the fully evolved us; with the Christ fully manifested within us. And that will make me the quintessential Janice. Not Jesus. Not Abraham. Not Moses. But Janice.

There was no part of Jesus that was not fully evolved. No more "learning experiences". He was complete. Perfected.

I mentioned earlier that there was no fear. That’s true. I’ve never come upon this in anyone before. Not a smidgen of fear anywhere in him. Makes me remember, "Perfect love casts out fear." That’s true. That is what he had become.

When I say he loved life, he lived life like how little children live life. Not only completely in the moment, but he embraced everything he experienced. No holding back. He jumped into each experience whole heartedly. No judgment on if it was positive or negative. It didn’t matter. It was life. I’m thinking that is how he approached the cross, he even embraced that experience. He embraced each of life’s experiences simply because it was part of being alive, even dying. He shied away from nothing. He feared nothing.

Because of this, little kids and little puppies ran to him, knocking him over. They laughed together and rolled in the grass together. You know how they say you can judge a person by how little kids or how dogs react to them? He was totally approachable.

And he was connected. You know how there are times when you feel connected to nature? Maybe during a walk in the woods or at the ocean? He was like that all the time. Maybe that is how he could calm the sea…he just asked and the sea was happy to comply.

People felt this connection and felt his connection with them. When he looked into your face, you knew that he truly saw you, saw who you are and loved you. There was no need for you to clean up or become a better person. He loves you truly, deeply right now exactly as you are in this moment. Amazing.

Janice Campbell

Summer 2013

May we taste this sweetness, drink in this overflowing life, and live in this love as we share this meal together. So may we be fully alive, to the glory of God forever. Amen.

–ML-C

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The Face of Jesus by Janice Campbell

 

The Face of Jesus  by Janice Campbell

Recently I have been pondering how we usually celebrate the Lord’s Supper. And by “we”, I mean the Protestant church in general with the little cups or little pieces of bread. How we stand in line, taking turns. It’s all very polite. We’re all very solemn and respectful.
I just can’t stand it. It drives me crazy.

I’m thinking of the movie of Charles Dickinson’s, “The Christmas Carol”, the one with George C. Scott. When the Ghost of Christmas Present shows up, he’s like a huge Viking having a feast. And the feast is one of total Abundance. There’s food everywhere. And when he drinks wine from his goblet, it rolls down his chin. Very messy. But so full of life, it takes my breath away just to think of it. That’s how I want to celebrate.
By the way, Big J and the Boys were celebrating the Passover meal. When we celebrate the “Last Supper”, we say, “In remembrance of me.” When I’m remembering Jesus, I can’t be polite and solemn. I have to feel the gusto, the exuberance. And I think Jesus didn’t mean for us to only remember him at this “Lord’s Supper”. I think he meant to think of him constantly, all the time, whenever we eat, whenever we drink, whenever we breathe.

OK. This brings me to last week. I was having a glass of wine, or two. And I was thinking of all this and I decided to dip bread into the wine as my own little form of Communion. And when I did, when I looked up, there was the face of Jesus. An alive face. I could see his head. No body. Just the head. It sounds weird but it didn’t seem so at the time. It was like looking into a different dimension. Seeing a live person.

He was gorgeous. Dark hair, dark beard. I hadn’t known he was so dynamic, so charismatic. I can see how everyone who saw him was drawn to him. No one could resist him. Even his enemies could not resist him, that’s why they hated him so.

He was so vivacious. And he was the personification of living in the present. He had no fear, no judgment. Just an incredible compassion and understanding. He was not particularly humble. That was not an issue.
I had never seen that face before. And I’ve never come close to seeing anyone so full of life. It wasn’t like he appreciated life or that he was in awe. It was like he breathed in life with every breath. He was in love with life. He reveled in it.
I don’t quite know what to do with this. I would love to share it and talk about it with someone. Ty is the only one I can. And I have appreciated his reaction.
I do think it was really him. And “Jesus” is the perfect name for him. I have the feeling he had become the quintessential of himself. If we are to be like him, I sure have a hell of a long way to go.
PS…Upon reflection.

I’ve taken time to consider the face I saw…and what I see in the face. As a portrait artist, I’m experienced in detecting personalities from just looking at faces. And there are some amazing characteristics in his face.
I’ve noticed that in writing about this, my verb tense changes back in forth from past to present within the same sentence; which is a no-no for writers. You are supposed to maintain the same verb tense throughout the entire paragraph. But it occurs to me, that this experience has made me aware of Jesus being in the past and in the present at the same time. What I saw, is what I continue to see. I saw him in the past, but he is in the present as well. He transcends time.

When I said he had become the quintessential Jesus, what I saw was that the Christ was fully manifested within him, within the person of Jesus. And that is what caused him to be the fully evolved Jesus. And that is how we are to be like him. Not like Jesus, but like the fully evolved us; with the Christ fully manifested within us. And that will make me the quintessential Janice. Not Jesus. Not Abraham. Not Moses. But Janice.
There was no part of Jesus that was not fully evolved. No more “learning experiences”. He was complete. Perfected.

I mentioned earlier that there was no fear.  That’s true.  I’ve never come upon this in anyone before.  Not a smidgen of fear anywhere in him.  Makes me remember, “Perfect love casts out fear.”  That’s true.  That is what he had become.

When I say he loved life, he lived life like how little children live life.  Not only completely in the moment, but he embraced everything he experienced.  No holding back.  He jumped into each experience whole heartedly.  No judgment on if it was positive or negative.  It didn’t matter.  It was life.  I’m thinking that is how he approached the cross, he even embraced that experience.  He embraced each of life’s experiences simply because it was part of being alive, even dying.  He shied away from nothing.  He feared nothing.

Because of this, little kids and little puppies ran to him, knocking him over.   They laughed together and rolled in the grass together.  You know how they say you can judge a person by how little kids or how dogs react to them?  He was totally approachable.

And he was connected.  You know how there are times when you feel connected to nature?  Maybe during a walk in the woods or at the ocean?  He was like that all the

time.  Maybe that is how he could calm the sea…he just asked and the sea was happy to comply.    

People felt this connection and felt his connection with them.  When he looked into your face, you knew that he truly saw you, saw who you are and loved you.   There was no need for you to clean up or become a better person.  He loves you truly, deeply right now exactly as you are in this moment.   Amazing.

 

 

Janice Campbell

Summer 2013

 

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"Across the Great Divide" --Amos 6:1a, 4-7, Luke 16: 19-31 -- Sept. 29, 2013

 

If you didn’t make it onto Forbes Magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in America or the top 100 billionaires in the world, (or even if you did) you can go to a website entitled "globalrichlist.com," enter your income, and find out where you stand in relation to the other 7 billion or so inhabitants of the planet. I did just that–entered an approximation of what Bruce and I make annually, and it turns out that together we are in the top .07% of the richest people on earth. A pastor and a school teacher, living in Vermont, make more than 99.93% of the people in the world. I find that amazing–and more than a little troubling. It makes me re-evaluate what it means to be "human"–not so much the qualities, the longings, the emotions, the abilities of human beings, but rather what "the human experience" is like for the majority of humans. My life is obviously not the standard, but the exception.

Is the pain in the gut and light-headedness of hunger the typical human experience? Is the heartbreak of loss of children to hunger or disease what the majority of parents experience? Is living amidst squalor, crowded in living spaces with entire extended families, without furniture, the most prevalent form of human habitation? Whatever the physical circumstances–and I know there is no one "typical" or "average" description–at the very least, the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters use far fewer resources and have a vastly smaller carbon footprint than Bruce and I do, and we think we’re pretty conscientious.

In the United States, the top 5% of the population has not only weathered but prospered in this latest economic downturn, while the other 95% have fared far worse. Here in Bennington, the number of homeless people and folks needing some form of public assistance has increased, while the number of resources available has not. When I came to Bennington 18 years ago, the first homeless census I remember turned up about 36 homeless individuals on a given day in February. Today there are over 400.

"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen," Jesus said, "and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores."

Jesus’ first century hearers would not have assumed right off that the rich man was unrighteous and Lazarus a poor, but noble man. In fact, wealth was more often seen in that culture as a sign of God’s favor, poverty a result simply of birth or even punishment. The rich man doesn’t abuse Lazarus, doesn’t send his servants out to remove him from the gate. The rich man just doesn’t see Lazarus.

Then, as happens to the best of us, both men die. "The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham," Jesus says, and "the rich man also died and was buried."

Jesus is using a folk tale known in a variety of versions in a variety of places in the ancient world . It was probably originally Egyptian, one commentator says (Alyce McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, 9/29/13), and the Greek name Lazarus has the same root consonants [Hebrew has no vowels] as Eliezer, referred to in Genesis as one of Abraham’s servants. There are rabbinic tales that have Eliezer walking the earth to report to Abraham how his children are observing the Torah directives regarding widows, orphans, and the poor.

So now we find the rich man in Hades, the Greek version of the underworld, being tormented, and he looks up and finally sees Lazarus far away, at the side of, or in the bosom of, Abraham. Jesus is not trying to describe the geography of the afterworld or to tell us how to get to heaven or hell. He’s using this familiar tale to make a far more important point about how to live right now, right here.

The rich man calls out, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames." He still doesn’t see Lazarus as any more than a servant to ease his discomfort, and addresses Abraham as "Father" to claim his religious bloodline. Abraham reminds him of all the good things the rich man had received and experienced in his life and all the hard and evil things Lazarus had experienced, and now, as throughout Luke’s gospel, there is a great reversal of fortunes. Remember Mary’s song when she is pregnant–"God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."

The "great chasm" that separates Abraham and Lazarus from the rich man is less a prescription, a cruel punishment for those in torment who can see bliss across the way, than it is a description–there is simply a great divide between rich and poor. It is not simply a matter of money, but rather the "love of money," as the letter to Timothy says, "which is the root of all evil," and the real evil is the blindness it causes. One commentator writes, "Jesus knows that it’s true about money and possessions–they can grab us in ways we don’t want to think about." (Kate Huey, Sermon Seeds, 9/29/13)

Really seeing the poor, getting up close and personal, so to speak, about what their life is like, what it means to be without dental or medical or psychiatric care, what it means to be without access to showers or laundry facilities, really seeing them makes us uncomfortable. It might even offend us. Aren’t there rules for "social engagement," as they say, as our parents may have taught us?

Amos was a herdsman from the north of Israel, plucked away by God from herding his sheep and cattle and dressing his sycamore trees, to come south and warn the kings of Israel that their abandonment of God’s ways and their reliance upon foreign powers was about to result in a major disaster. This smelly, dirty shepherd was about as welcome in the halls of King Uzziah as a crazy homeless man would be in any of our homes or churches today. "Alas for those who are at ease in Zion," he croaked. When the king told him to get out and go away, Amos essentially said, "No can do." "I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; [he said] but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel."

"Alas," Amos said, "for those who lie on beds of ivory and lounge on their couches, [who] are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away." And, indeed, the elite were the first to be carried off into exile by the Babylonians. Sending Amos away, out of their sight, was not going to save them.

Then the rich man said, "Then, father, I beg you to send [Lazarus] to my father’s house– for I have five brothers–that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’"

The actress Susan Sarandon is passionate about a number of justice issues and often portrays characters who illustrate those issues. You may have seen her as Sister Helen Prejean in the movie "Dead Man Walking," for example. One morning she was interviewed on the Today Show, but wanted to talk less about her most recent film and more about the justice issues she was concerned about. When asked why, she said, "My work is imagination, and that leads to empathy, and empathy leads to activism; I’m just doing what a citizen is supposed to do." (Cited by Kate Huey, op cit.)

Jesus’ work was also about imagination–imagining the kingdom of God in parables like this one today, which can lead us to empathy and then on to activism, what a citizen of God’s realm is supposed to do. How many of you were surprised to hear about the number of homeless people in our community? How many were surprised to learn of the number of people involved in selling drugs here, let alone the number of people who buy from them? Do we see these people in our daily travels? Or do our daily travels just not put us in places where homeless people are or drug dealers deal? That’s not necessarily a criticism, it may just be a description. The chasm is wide.

But Episcopal priest Suzanne Guthrie talks about the "chasm of consciousness." How often do we choose not to notice or not to know who or what is on the other side of that divide because it’s just easier to go about our lives if we don’t know? Guthrie talks about not really wanting to know what happens to the waste or plastic she uses or who produces those products, how and who produces her clothes, where the materials that make up her cell phone or her computer come from–like the mineral coltan which comes from war-torn and rape-infested Congo. "Why go out of my way to know these things when I could have a clear conscience by not knowing? (So easy in our culture!) [she writes]. Why would I rather know and feel guilty and miserable than not know and accept what is easy and at hand? I suppose it has to do with being alive. I want to be alive. I want to continually awake to Reality. And I suppose it has to do with love. I share this human adventure for good and evil. But I’d better know the evil if I’m luxuriating in the good." (Suzanne Guthrie, View from the Edge of the Enclosure, Proper 21) And so she lifts up all these concerns in her prayers, she financially supports hospitals and clinics which are helping the women rape victims in the Congo, she lives with the discomfort and does what she can to bridge the chasm.

We are neither the rich man nor Lazarus. They are both caricatures in a parable to make a point. Though we may be wealthier than most people in the world, in our immediate context, many of us struggle to pay our basic bills, to put food on the table, we do not live extravagantly. But we can at least get the message of this parable. We are more like the 5 brothers back in their father’s house, who have Moses and the prophets, plus all our modern-day prophets and artists, plus the gospel of Jesus Christ, to warn us about the perils of letting money and possessions blind us to the needs of others, to tell us that the abundant life which Jesus said he came to give us is far more than money and stuff and power, which is how our culture would describe "abundance." Abundant life is about relationship-- with others, no matter how alike or apparently not alike they are to us. Abundant life is about relationship with God and our true selves. It’s about service and wholeness, laughter and tears. It is a scientific fact, as Natalie Angier wrote in the NY Times: "Hard as it may be to believe in these days of infectious greed and sabers unsheathed, scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up in quiet joy." (Cited by Huey, op cit.) Abundant life is being fully alive, to the glory of God. May we choose life and choose it abundantly. Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"We are stardust..."-- Proverbs 8:21-31, Colossians 1:15-20-- Sept. 22, 2013

Did you notice the moon these past few nights? The full moon a few days ago and then slivers of it disappearing night by night? One of the blessings, I try to remind myself, of having a dog is the opportunity to get outside every night and look up. While Luna is thoroughly exploring every centimeter of grass and sidewalk, catching up on all her smell-mail on posts and branches and lawns, I try to remind myself to look up and notice the sky–the moon, if it’s up, and the stars, especially if the moon isn’t up yet. It’s an ancient human exercise, this looking up at the night sky, and from it have come some of our most profound thoughts.

"We had the sky, up there," Mark Twain wrote in Huckleberry Finn, "all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened." "Whether they was made or only just happened"–that’s been the debate between religion and science for centuries, hasn’t it? But from what was once an un-bridgeable chasm between the two is emerging a new respect and even compatibility.

Carl Feit, a biologist and practicing Jew, writes that "Religion and science are two ways of looking at the world, and each helps guide our search for understanding. Profoundly religious people are asking the same questions as science: Who are we? And what are we? What’s the purpose? What’s the end? Where do we come from? And where are we going?" (Cited in The Mind of God, ed. Michael Reagan, p. 28)

On this 4^th and final Sunday of this year’s Season of Creation, we celebrate "Cosmos Sunday." It doesn’t get much "bigger picture" than that. And it is particularly in the study of the universe’s origins and workings, what is called "cosmology," that some of the most profound discoveries and connections are being made. What cosmologists are discovering, writes Sharon Begley, is that the laws of nature do seem to be comprehensible and accessible to the human mind, and so we are somehow connected to or part of the cosmos, and secondly that the cosmos seems to be "fine-tuned for existence, in an almost-too-good-to-be-true manner." (Begley, in Mind of God, p. 16)

"The Lord created me as the beginning of his way [or work]," Wisdom says in the book of Proverbs, "the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth." Wisdom emerges first and, as one scholar says, is the blueprint, the "dynamic design that inspires God and determines the various codes of creation." (Norman Habel , Seasons of the Spirit, Wk 4, Yr. C)

When God established the heavens, I was there,

[Wisdom says], when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside God, like a master worker/

architect/ playmate; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

"The living design that integrates the codes of the cosmos is not viewed as a passive, lifeless blueprint, but a vibrant, living, presence." (Habel, op cit.) Lady Wisdom, Sophia, which is the Greek word for wisdom, works and plays alongside Creator God in this "cosmological poem." Strongly feminine, Sophia permeates creation, delighting in it and celebrating God’s creativity. It is a rich, dynamic, fertile image.

Science’s Big Bang is also a rich, dynamic, and fertile image, and as Leah Schade writes, that original supernova "had life, death, and resurrection, in that it birthed the elements of the universe as it exploded. Its death brought new life–helium, hydrogen, the beginning of galaxies. This means that Nature itself contains this imprint of the crucified and resurrected Christ. It is in every place, in every creature." (Lutherans Restoring Creation, 4^th Sunday in Cration, Yr. C)

Many in the early church saw Jesus as the incarnation of Wisdom, Sophia, calling him the divine Word or logos. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation [echoing back to Proverbs]; [Paul writes in Colossians] for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers–all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together." This imprint of life, death, and resurrection, this wisdom, this word or intention, is on all creation. "So spacious is he," Peterson puts it, "so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe–people and things, animals and atoms–get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies." (The Message)

The space probe Voyager has now left our solar system and entered into interstellar space, travelling further than anyone or anything in history. It takes our imaginations with it. The Hubble telescope has already sent back images of deep space that literally confound and inspire us with their images that come to us across both time and space. It is many of the scientists involved in these explorations and discoveries that are bridging the gaps between science and religion with their profound sense of awe and wonder at what they are finding.

I belong to the group of scientists

[writes Paul Davies] who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident. Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact. There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one wishes to call that deeper level "God" is a matter of taste and definition." (Mind of God, p. 59)

"The Universe begins to look more like a great thought, than a great machine," writes Sir James Jeans. (Mind of God, p. 141)

Instead of picturing God as a medieval monarch on a marble throne,

[writes Tom Mahon in his book "The Spirit in Technology"] imagine God as the living awareness in the space between the atoms, "empty" space that makes up about 99.99 percent of the universe. Thinking of God that way gets us past some of the great theological divides of the past. Is God immanent or transcendent, internal or external, composed or compassionate? Like the question of whether the atom is wave or particle, the answer is: Yes." (Mind, p. 13)

The God of my early religious training

[writes Chet Raymo] pulled off tricks that are not beyond the powers of any competent conjuror; Harry Houdini or David Copperfield could turn a stick into a serpent or water into wine without batting an eye. But no Houdini or Copperfield can turn microscopic cells into a flock of birds and send them flying on their planet-spinning course. No Houdini or Copperfield can cause consciousness to flare out and embrace the eons and the galaxies. (Mind..., p. 80)

And the great agnostic, Carl Sagan, wrote:

I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the Universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us, are alone.

(Mind, p. 56)

"

When God established the heavens, I was there," Wisdom says. "[Christ, the Logos, the Word] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation," Paul writes. A traditional Jewish Tale explains it this way–"God said to Abraham, ‘But for me, you would not be here.’ ‘I know that, Lord,’ Abraham answered, ‘but were I not here, there would be no one to think about you.’" We are made of the same elements as stardust, we belong in the universe, are a part of the universe, are the self-consciousness of the universe, and it is to our own peril that we continue to think we can behave otherwise.

The late great scholar of myth Joseph Campbell responded to journalist Bill Moyers’ statement that the future of the human race would not be determined from space but rather right here, in how we claim and care for our identity as creatures of this planet.

Well, it certainly is [Campbell said]. When you go out into space, what you’re carrying is your body, and if that hasn’t been transformed, space won’t transform you. But thinking about space may help you to realize something. There’s a two-page spread in a world atlas which shows our galaxy within many galaxies, and within our galaxy the solar system. And here you get a sense of the magnitude of this space that we’re now finding out about. What those pages opened to me was the vision of a universe of unimaginable magnitude and inconceivable violence. Billions upon billions of roaring thermonuclear furnaces scattering from each other. Each thermonuclear furnace a star, and our sun among them. Many of them actually blowing themselves to pieces, littering the outermost reaches of space with dust and gas out of which new stars with circling planets are being born right now. And then from still more remote distances beyond all these there come murmurs, microwaves that are echoes of the greatest cataclysmic explosion of all, namely the big bang of creation, which, according to some reckonings, may have occurred some eighteen billion years ago.

That’s where we are, kiddo, and to realize that, you realize how really important you are, you know–one little microbit in that great magnitude. And then must come the experience that you and that are in some sense one, and you partake of all of that.

And it begins here, [Moyers adds]. It begins here. [The Power of Myth, 1988, p. 183]

"The final mystery is oneself," wrote Oscar Wilde. "When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?’

That is the mystery left to us to explore, even as our brother and sister physicists continue to explore the many mysteries of the cosmos. So listen, finally, to the blessing that Wisdom offers at the end of chapter 8 of the book of Proverbs–

So, my dear friends, listen carefully: those who embrace my ways are most blessed. Mark a life of discipline and live wisely; don’t squander your precious life. Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me, awake and ready for me each morning, alert and responsive as I start my day’s work. When you find me, you find life, real life, to say nothing of God’s good pleasure. But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul, when you reject me, you’re flirting with death.

May we follow in Wisdom’s ways, and so may we find life, not only for ourselves, but for the whole creation. Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"The voice in the storm" --Psalm 29, Luke 8:22-25-- Sept. 15, 2013

Our dog has been spending a lot of time in the bathroom this week. That’s where she goes when there’s a thunder and lightening storm, and we’ve had several this week. She goes into the bathroom, perhaps, because it’s got a relatively small window or is small enough to feel like a cave. Another one of our dogs used to climb into the bathtub during thunderstorms, which is actually probably not a great idea, but that’s where we would find her.

This Third Sunday in the Season of Creation this year is Storm Sunday. Lutheran preacher Stanley Saunders writes that "Humans are the only creatures on earth who have become weather-makers, to our own detriment and that of other living things around us. Over the last few decades, the storms we are creating have become more and more frequent, intense, and destructive. The consensus among scientists is that things are likely to get much, much wilder." (In Working preacher.com, 8/15/13)

One of the key facts of the 21^st century [writes Vermont author and environmental activist Bill McKibben] turns out to be that warm air holds more water vapor than cold; in arid areas this means increased evaporation and hence drought...Data shows dramatic increases–20% or more–in the most extreme weather events across the eastern United States, the kind of storms that drop many inches in a single day. [Writing in 2008, before Tropical Storm Irene, McKibben wrote,] Vermont saw three flood emergencies in the 1960's, 2 in the 1970's, 3 in the 1980's, and 10 in the 1990's and 10 so far in the first decade of the new century. (Eaarth, p. xii)

And, as we’ve seen already this summer, it’s not just here that we’re seeing changes and

it’s not just in floods–

Larger storms over land now create more lightening; every degree Celcius brings about 6% more lightening, according to the climate scientist Amanda Staudt. In just one day in June 2008, lightening sparked 1,700 different fires across California, burning a million acres and setting a new state record. These blazes burned on the new earth [Eaarth], not the old one. "We are in the mega-fire era," said Ken Frederick, a spokesman from the federal government.

(Eaarth, p. 3 )

 

　

Colorado has gotten both flood and flame this summer.

"The voice of the Lord is over the waters," sings the psalmist. "The God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty...The Lord sits enthroned over the flood...." Even to this day, earthquakes, trees being ripped up from their roots and spun, lightening strikes, tornadoes and hurricanes and floods are referred to as "acts of God." Zeus, apparently, is alive and well on Mount Olympus and hasn’t lost his taste for hurling lightening bolts at hapless mortals. You can always count on some evangelical preacher to explain events like Superstorm Sandy as God’s punishment of the kinds of sin and perversion that are found in the big East Coast cities, "Sin Cities" one and all.

Beyond such public accusations, however, we also hear survivors of various natural disasters talking about God’s saving or sparing them, unlike their neighbors, which, of course, is an expression of gratitude, but the implication is that God chose not to save the neighbor. Is that what we are to make of the psalmist’s claims that "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood" and "the voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire"?

Psalm 29 is a warning against giving credit to idols. The psalmist was making a claim that it was indeed Yahweh God, not the Canaanites’ weather-god Baal, who was Lord of all creation. It took great courage to address such a god of overwhelming power. (Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, Christian Century, 12/28/04) In the book of Job, we read, "And God said to humankind, ‘Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.’" (Job 28:28) This is not the fear of capricious punishment, but rather an acknowledgment, a respect and reverence for One whose power is beyond our power or even our imagination. And the case could be made that since we apparently think we can change the earth’s balance without consequence, we might ask ourselves, "How’s that ‘Playing God’ working for you?" Robert Colin Morris writes, "We would be closer to the mark, I believe, if we read most references to the ‘wrath’ of God as part of the automatic response of violated nature, or human nature, rather than as some personal Divine vindictiveness. We go against the grain of reality at our peril." (Weavings, Sept./Oct 2008, p. 13)

The story in Luke of Jesus’ rebuking the wind and the waves is found in various versions in Matthew and Mark as well. On the surface, on the Sunday School level, it is a miracle story, another sign of Jesus’ divinity. But, like most other Biblical stories, this is not just simple, journalistic reporting of "what actually happened." It comes layered with ancient images and echoes, of God’s voice singing out over the waters of chaos and creating order, of God’s saving one righteous man and his family from the waters that destroyed the rest of the earth, of God’s providing a passageway for the people of Israel through the Red Sea waters, freeing them from bondage.

This is the same God who is present in the midst of this storm, the story tells us, present in Jesus, who, stunningly, almost endearingly, has fallen asleep in the back of the boat. It was his idea in the first place to go across to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes, but once they were underway, "he fell asleep," Luke tells us, without the detail that Mark adds, that he fell asleep on a pillow in the stern. Peter Woods suggests that "The ones who truly know their identity and their destiny can allow themselves to be at peace in the midst of danger." (I am listening, 9/14/10) The psalmist confirms, "I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety."

This story of the crossing of Lake Genessaret, or the Sea of Galilee, is the story of all our crossings from one place, or one state, to another. This was a crossing from the known and comfortable, from home harbor, over to Gentile territory, where, in fact, their first encounter would be with a demoniac. Storms, for the most part, are due to changes–changes from low pressure to high pressure systems, from tectonic plate shifts, from movements of air masses.

Storms in our own lives, which often threaten to overwhelm us, may come from changes, from threats to what we perceive is our safety or comfort, from changes in our health or physical condition that threaten our independence, our mobility, our sense of well-being; from changes in relationships, when outside threats of job loss or other interests make us fearful of losing our bearings, when children move away, physically or emotionally, and we are overwhelmed with feelings of loss or anger or hurt or fear. Busy-ness and increasing demands on our time and resources and attention may swamp us with feelings of inadequacy or fear of losing our job or our sanity or dignity. World events may overwhelm us with their enormity and complexity and peril, until, along with the disciples, we cry out, "Master, master, we are perishing!" Wake up, God, and save us...save us from all that threatens to overwhelm us...save us from ourselves.

"Where is Wisdom to be found?" the book of Job asks. "Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom," comes the response. It is wise to recognize that we are part of something much greater than ourselves, part of a great web of creation, as we spoke about last week, connected to each and every other part, able to impart repair and healing, or destruction and harm throughout that web. But we are not the whole piece. We are not in charge. A sense of reverence, of respect, of humility is the beginning of wisdom. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska and threatened the pristine waters of the Denai Peninsula, Alaskan schoolchildren and elders went down to the shoreline and wrote notes of apology to the earth and sea in the sand. How many notes of apology do we need to write to the oceans and rivers, to the species now extinct, to the generations who will live after us? Where is wisdom to be found?

"Master, master, we are perishing!" "Where is the one who is wise?" the apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians. "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?[he wrote]. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe...[and] we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, both to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength." (1 Cor., 1: 20-25)

In this one sleeping in the back of the boat, in the middle of the storm, in this one headed for Gentile country and the man filled with the legion of demons, in this one who would empty himself so utterly on the cross that he would be filled with the glory of God, in this one is the wisdom and power of God. That’s what this favorite gospel story is about–that the God who is Lord over the winds and waves – we recognize that kind of dominating power, don’t we? – that God is also embodied in this one whose power does not come through overwhelming or dominating, but through emptying, through such deep trust that none of us are, ultimately, "perishing."

It is through turning to that true refuge in the midst of the storm that we are saved. So, in this era of "mega-fires" and super-storms, humility and sacrifice are called for. We do not tamper with our earth’s design and balance without consequences for ourselves and every other creature and ecosystem. We must stop pumping carbon dioxide and heat into the atmosphere; we must advocate to dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels; we must find new–or maybe old–ways of feeding and clothing ourselves; we must stop amassing things that distract us from the true value and worth of our lives–our relationships, our connection with the earth, our service to those in need. We can also prepare ourselves and others to weather these storms [there’s a list of things to have on hand that can help during a storm in the insert], and help one another when those storms occur. We saw that so powerfully during Irene. That is the way of the one sleeping in the boat who is able to rebuke the storm.

And in the storms of our lives, we can turn to those ways as well; through meditation and prayer, where we return to the stillness and wisdom at the heart of our true selves–"I wish I could show you," wrote the poet Hafiz, "When you are lonely or in darkness, The astonishing light Of your own Being!" We can turn to the ways of the One sleeping in the back of the boat through participation in the community of others who like us, struggle with rocky crossings and yet can remind each other where our true refuge lies. With the psalmist, we too ask for the blessing and strength of God–"May the Lord give strength to God’s people, and may the Lord bless God’s people with peace!" Amen, and amen.

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 

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"World-wide Web"-- Psalm 104:14-23, Luke 12:22-31-- Sept. 8, 2013

The poet Mary Oliver is the quintessential "observer" or "consider-er" of the lilies. Listen to her poem, "The Lily"–

Night after night/darkness/ enters the face of the lily

which, lightly, closes its five walls/ around itself,/ and its purse

of honey,/and its fragrance,/ and is content/to stand there

in the garden,/not quite sleeping,/and, maybe,/ saying in lily language/some small words/we can’t heart/even when there is no wind/anywhere,

its lips/are so secret,/its tongue/is so hidden–/or, maybe,/ it says nothing at all/but just stands there/with the patience

of vegetables/and saints/until the whole earth has turned around/and the silver moon

becomes the golden sun–/ as the lily absolutely knew it would,/ which is itself, isn’t it, /the perfect prayer?

(Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early, pp. 24-25)

"Consider the lilies," Jesus said, "how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these."

This is the second Sunday in the Season of Creation, celebrated these first four weeks in September by churches throughout the world, as we in the northern hemisphere move toward fall and our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere move toward spring. Today is "Flora and Fauna Sunday," a rather quaint and fancy name for Plants and Animals.

I remember Flora and Fauna as the names of two of the fairies in Walt Disney’s movie of "Sleeping Beauty" who, along with their sister Meriweather, took care of the young princess and were able to mitigate the effects of the curse their sister fairy Maleficent had placed upon her. You remember that story, yes? Having been excluded from the party celebrating the birth of the infant princess, this 13^th fairy, Maleficent, crashed the party and put a curse on Princess Aurora, saying that when the princess grew up, she would prick her finger on a spinning wheel and would die. The one fairy who had not yet given her gift mitigated the curse by saying that the princess would not die, but rather would fall asleep for a 100 years.

Now that may sound like a rather random word association on this Flora and Fauna Sunday, but a case could be made that the plight of plants and animals and our not-so-merry weather are all indicators of the curse we have put ourselves under as our planet warms and sickens and struggles to throw off the toxins we have poured into it and its atmosphere.

"You cause the grass to grow for the cattle," the psalmist sings to God, "and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart." Divine Wisdom has created an earth intricately woven together–grass for the cattle and plants for people to use, the high mountains for wild goats and rocks as refuge for the coneys. Rhythms of day and night, rain and dryness, work and rest; life and death; boundaries set for the waters; infinite variety; cycles of decay and renewal. And human beings as part of it all, given bread for strength and wine for gladness. God Himself/Herself delights in this creation.

In his book, Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos, Bruce Sanguin writes,

"In the last 300 years, during the age of scientific rationalism, human beings have stepped out of the flow of creation. We have extricated ourselves from the story of the life of the planet, and have assumed the position of outside observers, of beings who live on the earth, but who are not of it." (P. 13) Bill McKibben entitled his book Eaarth, spelled with 2 a’s, as it’s no longer the planet earth that has sustained life as we know it up until now. A 2005 United Nations Millenium Ecosystem Assessment found that two-thirds of the earth’s ecosystems were seriously degraded; 90% of the earth’s fish stocks depleted. Species die-off has accelerated, largely due to human activity and overpopulation. We may think we are above or outside the web of creation, but, alas, we are really proving what an integral part of the whole web we are and are poisoning our own home.

In Nov. 2004, the Gallup organization put this statement to 1000 Americans: "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." 45% agreed with that statement. If that percentage were projected out into the whole human population, that would mean, writes Bruce Sanguin, "that approximately 100 million people are walking around with no sense that we have any biological connection to the rest of creation! One wonders how that impacts lifestyle choices and environmental policy-making." (Op cit. 102)

The two stories at the beginning of the book of Genesis–and there are two different stories–are some of the most beautiful prose and poetry ever written–the first story: "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light!" and there was light." Day after day, in succession, God creates the heavens and the earth, each day declaring it all "good," until the 6^th day, when God creates human beings, male and female, in God’s image, and God looked upon it all and said, "That’s very good!" And then God rested.

The second story begins in a garden, and the Lord God scooped mud up out of the riverbank and fashioned an earth creature–adamah– which literally means, of the earth. That is our original name–Earth Creature–and we are enlivened by the breath of God. But both scientific rationalism and Biblical literalism have dis-enchanted our story, either consigning the story of the universe to sheer chance or, in the case of Biblical literalism, ignoring the incredible, awe-some discoveries of scientists about the nature of the universe and of life on our planet, and choosing instead to cling to a 2500 year old creation story never meant to scientifically explain anything.

What mathematical physicists and cosmologists like Brian Swimme have discovered about the unfolding of the universe over 14 billion years is as awesome as any fairy tale, and while Swimme does not refer to God or Spirit, he does talk about the Heart of the universe. From the original Big Bang or "Flaring Forth, " the universe burst forth from "the void," as Genesis put it, sending sub-atomic particles forth at incredible speed and temperatures, not going into space, but creating both time and space as they expanded. As the poet Hafiz wrote, "the secret One, slowly growing a body." (Sanguin, 80)

Over billions of years, through violent explosions, waves of destruction and creation, supernovas and negative spaces, starfields and galaxies formed and re-formed. On our tiny planet, one grain of sand in a universal shoreline, atoms came together, eventually differentiated, organized, learned to renew themselves. From bacteria to higher organisms, emerging from the water onto land, coming together, evolving, until creatures able to reflect upon themselves– human beings-- emerged. Our bodies share the same elements as the stars, and as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, "the only difference between us and trees or rocks and chickens is the way in which these elements are arranged." (Cited in Sanguin, p. 85)

Some people–notably some Christian people–are offended that we are related to apes and monkeys, let alone chickens and crysanthemums, but it is in fact that very kinship, or at least reclaiming and re-membering that kinship, that may finally wake us out of our disenchanted sleep and return us to the Wisdom built into creation in the first place. The emerging field of biomimicry looks to the designs and functioning of nature to learn about energy-efficiency, locally derived materials, non-toxic to the environment. Lily-like impellers have been designed for cooling systems and pumps. Velcro got its design from the hooks on the burr plant. Consider the lilies...

The stories our culture tells us–the story of consumerism, where the more you have, the happier you’ll be; or the story of Not-Good-Enough–you need to be more, do more, be something or someone you’re not; or the story of celebrity–that the glitter and lights of celebrity will warm your heart and light your way–these stories have led us to this place of estrangement from our true selves as earth creatures infused with the breath of God. And, of course, it’s more than estrangement from but also endangerment to the rest of the planet. The Sacred Story of the universe’s unfolding, connecting us with all that ever was and all that ever will be, has the power to restore us to our true selves and to turn us away from the distraction of those cultural stories to the Great Work, as Thomas Berry puts it, of healing the planet.

This web that we are part of, which quantum physics now describes for us as energy, as light, as connection far beyond our imagining, is both our blessing and our curse. It is a curse because, as we’ve seen, when one part of the web is destroyed or weakened, we all are made weaker, part of us dies. We are vulnerable. The blessing is that we each can make a difference, we each can send energy and healing throughout the web, infused as it is with God’s own being. When we practice meditation and go beneath the surface clutter and busyness, we tap into that deep Wisdom. When we engage with others in sacred rituals to re-enchant or remind ourselves of the sacredness of all things, when we celebrate, lament, encourage, empower one another to begin again, we strengthen the web. When we act and speak together for protecting and restoring the environment and its creatures, we strengthen the web. "Taking up one’s cross in an ecological age," writes Bruce Sanguin, "means exiting the culture of convenience." (Op cit., p. 175). "To make holy or sacred" is the deep meaning of the word "sacrifice." We need to return to knowing where our food comes from, supporting local farmers, growing gardens, living closer to the seasons of the earth. When we gather to pray for the earth, for the people of Syria, for the rainforests in the Amazon, for the poor and the homeless and the sick, we send our energy along the threads of the web. It makes a difference.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow... Do not be anxious, but rather strive for the kingdom–the kin-dom– of God, the kin-dom that includes all the peoples of the world, the plants and animals of the earth, even the sun and moon and the stars. "Where does the temple begin, and where does it end?" asks Mary Oliver....

There are things you can’t reach. But/ you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily/out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing/from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around/as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some/ shining coil of wind,/ or a few leaves from any old tree–/they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth./ Everything in the world/ comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake./Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold/fluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

(Oliver, op cit., pp. 8-9)

Where does the Temple begin, and where does it end?

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Put out into deep water"-- Job 38:1-18, Luke 5:1-11-- Sept. 1, 2013

If Jesus were to instruct a modern-day Peter and his fellow fishermen to "Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch," chances are that along with fish they would bring up a horrifying tangle of plastic bags, six-pack rings, articles of clothing, tires, and bottles. All you have to do is type in "trash in the ocean" in Google Images on a computer, and you will see picture after stomach-turning picture of marine life caught in plastic nooses, islands of trash as big as many cities, beaches strewn with piles of human refuse. "Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch."

This story that Luke tells about the calling of the first disciples is a Sunday-school favorite. Here is Jesus, walking along the lake, or elsewhere, "the sea." Luke calls it Lake Gennesaret, a fresh-water lake, and elsewhere in the gospels it’s identified as the Sea of Galilee; but as one commentator explains, "in antiquity, both bodies of water–salt seas and freshwater lakes–were viewed as a part of the same great subterranean reservoir that fed springs, rivers, lakes, and oceans." (Theodore Hiebert, "The Living Ocean," workingpreacher.org, 8/1/13)

Jesus sees the fishermen, washing their nets, having failed to catch anything overnight, and asks one of them, Simon, to take him out a ways so that he might teach the people pressing against him on the shore from out on the water. When he’s done speaking, he tells Simon and his companions to set out again and "Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Against the protest of an experienced fisherman who knew that sometimes you come in with nothing, Simon does what Jesus tells him and the catch is so huge he has to call his partners to come out quickly to help them bring in the haul.

When Simon finally has a chance to catch his breath upon safely reaching shore, he realizes that this stranger has access to wisdom far deeper than his own experience, which completely unsettles his sense of what is what, makes him question whether 2 plus 2 always equals 4, whether the constants and truths he relies on are all that constant. And so he is afraid, and tells Jesus to get away from him. Jesus just laughs at him and tells him, "From now on you’ll be catching people," or, as many of us learned, "I’ll teach you to become fishers of men." And Luke tells us, "they left everything and followed him."

It was Sir Francis Bacon who first said that "God has in fact written two books–...the Bible... and creation." And it could be argued that the first book–the Bible–was written–or, "God-breathed through people," as some put it–largely in response to human beings’ experience of creation, which was, like they perceived God, beyond their control, beautiful, terrifying, awe-inspiring, more complex and varied than they could ever understand. From the very first lines of the Bible, God is involved with creation, God’s spirit brooding over the face of the deep.

We now know that life on earth most likely emerged from the oceans, and not only does Scripture say that the sea is God’s, but the ocean has been a primordial archetype or image for God, the primary giver of life. "The most widespread cultural image for EL, a major title of God in the Hebrew Bible, [one writer explains] was as the Father of Waters, dwelling at the root and spring of the worlds." (Weavings,Mar/Apr 2001, pp. 13-14)

The oceans contain more than 97% of the earth’s water and more than 95% of the earth’s living space. They literally make the earth more habitable for us by absorbing about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted by humans.

"The living ocean

[writes Sylvia Earle, Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 1990-92] drives planetary chemistry, governs climate and weather, and otherwise provides the corner-stone of the life-support system for all creatures on our planet, from deep-sea starfish to desert sagebrush. That’s why the ocean matters. If the sea is sick, we’ll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one."

Alas, we know that the state of the oceans is not good.

[Earle goes on,]"Due to indifference, ignorance, and greed, we’ve placed our oceans under extreme stress and compromised their ability to sustain a healthy planet." (Cited by Hiebert, op cit.)

We’ve overfished, upset the fragile balance of animal life; dumped our trash, put out more CO2 so that as the oceans have absorbed more they’ve become more acidic, becoming hostile to marine ecology. And of course as the oceans have become warmer, they’ve spawned more violent storms, accelerated the melting of the polar ice caps, and their levels have risen at an alarming rate. "The sea is God’s," the psalmist declares, and with concerned scientists across the planet, we affirm, the ocean matters.

But let’s get back to this story by the lakeshore, or seaside. "Put out into the deep water," Jesus told Simon, "and let down your nets for a catch." The Sunday School version says that Jesus performed a miracle and the disciples followed this miracle-worker. But on another level, "This story [as one pastor writes] says that God breaks down walls (or breaks open the nets) of what we think is possible, and points us toward a future we think is impossible...and that future is the new reign of God." (Linda Pepe, Theological Stew.com) We can either keep doing what we’ve always done, holding on to the same equations that we’ve always relied upon–2 + 2=4, or success = happiness, or bigger=better, or more=better; or we can stop long enough to ask, "How’s this working for us?" And not just for us, as individuals, of course, but for the wider community, and really, for the world.

Isn’t it interesting that when the fishermen had brought their haul onto shore, their nets bursting with the catch, a professional fisherfolks’ dream come true, that "they left everything and followed Jesus." "So," as one woman put it, "having all we can, ...all we want,...all we think we need...perhaps that’s not all there is..." So, we might ask, What really matters? "What would your net need to be filled with that would blow your mind enough to leave it all behind and follow?" (Pepe, op cit.) And then, of course, we need to figure out, what does it mean to "follow Jesus"?

"Put out into the deep waters and let your nets down for a catch." In dreams, the sea or ocean waters often symbolize everything that is overwhelming. Robert Morris, an Episcopal priest and observer of his dreams, affirms that "the sea is God’s, and like the ocean, God is not always manifest as a comforting, personal presence, but as unknown, immense, and deep, to be approached with due respect...Mystics and saints warn that deepening skills of humility, compassion, faithfulness, self-control, and courage are needed for the pilgrimage into God." (Weavings, op cit., p. 12)–and we might even say, for the pilgrimage into our future.

The image that seems appropriate for many of us right now is the experience of being adrift–in our personal lives, the life of the church, the state of our nation, and the state of the planet. It’s a state of not knowing. "Being adrift comes after the storm and before landfall," one writer says, [Stephen Doughty, Weavings, ...] It’s not a state we choose. So here we are, actually probably more likely in the midst of the storms, that will no doubt be coming more frequently and more violently, in the weather, in the political climate of our country and the nations of the world, and it’s hard to imagine where we’ll end up. Or rather, all the places we can imagine are pretty scary. Who knows where the ship of the Church is headed?

Those deepening skills that saints and mystics teach us–of meditation, of humility, compassion, faithful-ness, self-control, and courage–are not the most valued in our world, but they may be the most necessary as we drift along. One sage advises, "Watch for what quickens your spirit." In the midst of so many things that would overwhelm us, when much of the time we are simply swept along and need to wait, we must stay alert for what quickens our spirit, what opportunities appear before us for action and response, grounding those actions in the depths of God.

Judy Cannato, in her important book Field of Compassion, tells the story of Nate Sears, which may well be the model of how we are to "put out into the deep waters and let down our nets for a catch" in this fearful, yet potentially awesome, world in which we live.--

One of the responsibilities of Nate Sears, a landscaper working at a housing complex on Cape Cod, is to check the piers at the adjacent beach for storm damage. One morning he was doing just that when he spotted a 10-foot pilot whale coming toward shore. He watched for a moment. He then saw a second whale, then a third, each one heading for land. Stunned at first, Nate watched the approach of the whales with awe. Then his concern took over. Since it is not unusual for whales to beach themselves on Cape Cod, Nate knew that this was probably intent of these large, gentle mammals. He summoned a neighbor, who ran to call the National Sea Shore Service. Knowing that the whales were coming so fast they would be on the beach before help could arrive, Nate quickly threw off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and waded out in the direction of the first whale. He caught up with it in waist-deep water on a sand bar. The whale was thrashing about, and he could see cuts on its body from its batter with the sand. Moved solely by instinct, Nate placed his hands on the whale and held them there. The thrashing stopped. The whale became completely still. Nate said in that moment he became aware that this was the whale’s first encounter with the human species. It seems that both human and whale were operating on instinct, each trusting the other in an encounter that neither had experienced before.

After the whale had grown calm, Nate gently turned it around and pointed it away from shore. The whale began to swim back out to sea. Losing no time, Nate approached the second whale. Again, he simply placed his hands on the creature and its thrashing stopped. Once this second whale grew still, Nate turned it away from shore. It too began to swim out. By this time members of the National Sea Shore Service arrived, and they helped Nate turn the third whale back.

Frequently, whales that threaten to beach themselves and are rescued come ashore in another location. That does not seem to be the case here. For whatever reason, the whales returned to their natural habitat without further incident. Although there is no proof, I think it was their encounter with Nate’s energy and his willingness to simply hold them in their travail that made the difference.

...We find ourselves in a world with whale-sized issues,

[Cannato writes], huge matters that seem unrestrained, threatening to not only go out of control, but take us down as well...Set in this context, Nate’s story is instructive. Finding himself in an unfamiliar and unique situation, nate responded in the moment, acting out of his own experience, following his instincts, intuitively doing the next right thing. Recognizing that time was of the essence, he trusted his ability to respond to the unknown in a way that was not only life-saving, but life-giving, both for himself and the whale. [Judy Cannato, Field of Compassion, pp. 1-4, sel.]

We do have immense resources, both technological and material, available to us, but also, perhaps like at no other time in human history, we have resources of expanded consciousness and creativity, as Cannato says, the ability to connect with one another and work together. We are part of the problem, yes, but we can also be part of the solution, opening ourselves up the One who is deep and wide, ever creative, full of mystery beyond our imagining. We can each become energy fields of compassion, joining with others to spread that field of compassion throughout creation.

Following Jesus in this day and age may mean "going out into the deep," as Nate did–"wading out to the cusp of the known/unknown, responding in care and kindness to the challenge of the moment, holding the tangible manifestations of the challenge in [our] hands, imparting [our] energy, and redirecting the movement" (Cannato, pp. 4-5) of the forces that would take us and our world closer and closer to destruction. Following Jesus includes becoming his body, taking his consciousness into ours. In this bread is the whole loaf, in this cup the whole cup. We are part of it, part of everything, so let us take and eat, take and drink. Amen, and amen.

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Aligned with Joy"-- Isaiah 58:9b-14, Luke 13:10-17-- Aug. 25, 2013

It hadn’t happened all of a sudden. At first it was just hard to stand up straight in the morning when she got out of bed. Morning stiffness, you know; totally understandable considering what she slept on-- a thin mat on the floor, which didn’t offer much padding or support. Then she couldn’t stand up after she bent over to knead the bread. Pain shot up her back and down her legs. Steadily, relentlessly, day after day it got worse. "Watch where you’re going, old woman!" people would shout at her, as she bumped into them or their carts. "I wish I could," she’d mutter, but by now her field of vision was only about 2 feet in front of her. She couldn’t really take in a deep breath any more, because her chest was all caved in, and food barely had a chance to make it all the way down, so scrunched up were her inner organs. "And behold a woman having a spirit of infirmity 18 years, even was bent together and not able to bend up into all-fullness." That’s how Luke’s Greek literally describes her (Mark Davis, Left Behind and Loving it, 8/25/13) "... was bent together and not able to bend up into all-fullness..."

All-fullness–that’s what the Sabbath was supposed to let you feel–all full (of God,) complete, just perfect. Sabbath-keeping is the jewel of Judaism. "If you refrain from trampling the sabbath," Isaiah writes, "from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth..."

A day of rest is good news to those who must work hard the other 6 days of the week. Shabbat (Sabbath) is life-giving to those who are worked to death. It is a gift to simply take delight in God, to rest in the care of God, knowing that you are made in God’s image, beautiful to behold. We’ve lost that sense of delight, can barely imagine what that "all-fullness" would feel like. Who has time for Sabbath? Who has the temperament to simply "rest in the Lord"? How boring! our kids say, and we must confess that we agree with them. And then there’s the dour, legalistic, anything but delightful history of Sabbath-keeping in the Protestant tradition, full of "no’s"–no dancing, no drinking, no card-playing, no fun, no playing, no nothing but church.

Sabbath arrives by the Presence of God,

[writes Nancy Rockwell] the Indwelling Spirit, in Hebrew, called "Shekinah." She is the Sabbath Bride, the transformational Spirit of God, source of prophecy, Wisdom, the feminine Presence of God.

So every week the Bride arrives.

...There is much mysticism about Shekinah in Judaism

[Rockwell continues]: it is said that she enters Jerusalem through the Beautiful Gate. It is said that the Messiah will enter through that very gate with her. This is the gate tradition says Jesus used to enter the city on Palm Sunday. This gate has been walled up for nearly a thousand years, and was walled up for fear those sayings might be true....Still, she comes, all over the world, to tables with lit candles where Sabbath bread is blessed by women bending over it. (Rockwell, Bite in the Apple, 8/18/13)

So the woman came to the synagogue that day, hoping against hope that Shekinah would enter through the doorway with her and that at last she too would be able to delight in Shabbat and praise God from her "all-fullness." And that day, Shekinah was there and, more than that, recognized her as sister. "Sister," he said, "Mother, Daughter of Abraham, you have been loosed from your bonds." It was as though he was pronouncing her healing rather than performing it. "You have been loosed"–already; past tense. He just touched her to make her feel her body and its energy. "Go ahead, you can stand up." And "immediately she stood up and began praising God."

"But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day." To give him the benefit of the doubt, the leader of the synagogue was trying to be faithful too. He was trying to follow the law, but he had forgotten the delight which God intended for the sabbath, the realignment to joy that the sabbath was meant to help us return to. In his duty-bound, legalistic framework, healing and restoring to wholeness were merely work, which was prohibited. When Jesus pointed out that even he, the synagogue leader, would untie his donkey or ox to lead it away to water on the sabbath, those who grumbled against Jesus were "put to shame." They could see the truth, the rightness, of what Jesus said. The law for them had gotten out of alignment with the spirit within it. Shabbat was meant for delight, for joy. Jesus didn’t set aside the law; he merely offered a different interpretation of it, and knew that it must always bend to grace. (David Lose, Working Preacher, 8/25/13) "Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" Wasn’t she bound to be loosed?

Luke makes clear that this bondage is spirit-driven, bound by Satan, but the woman may have had arthritis or scoliosis, osteoporosis, or any number of degenerative bone diseases. "She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight." But there are many things that make our shoulders droop and our backs bend over. What burdens are weighing you down, causing your body or spirit to bend over, rather than bending up to all-fullness? It may be concerns about your own health or the health of a loved one; it may be a relationship that is weighing you down, twisting up your insides so that you can barely eat; it may be fear that barely allows you to take a full breath and narrows your vision. It may be a dream deferred or squashed altogether; it may be a sense of shame or guilt. Humiliation causes our heads to drop and our shoulders to curve. Discouragement weighs down our steps. Schedules that are crammed from morning to night can crush us with their weight. The sadness and horror of the world’s events, the plight of our planet, may cause us to be "bent together and not able to bend up into all-fullness."

This story opens the door to possibility, offers a window into the all-fullness that is actually already in our midst. It is the story of a coming together, to hear the stories, to open up to the Indwelling Spirit of God, Shekinah, Wisdom. It gives us a glimpse of the kingdom, where we catch a vision of the image in which we were made and which calls us to realign our lives to that original intention. It is a taste of the messianic banquet already set before us. Telling the story itself, letting the story get inside us, can help with that realignment, that healing.

Jesus was quintessentially a story-teller, weaving words and melodies that were the very energy and vibrations of the "kingdom," the holy realm, that was coming and was and is already in our midst. Those stories continue to weave their wonder-working powers, told in many places in many ways. Where are you in this story?--

On a day long ago it came to pass as the Seanchai

[the story-teller] was taking his journey along the rivers and trails of Cúige Mumhan, he heard faint sounds of sean-nos [melodies] wafting along the soft waves of an early evening breeze. It came from the little village of Caiseal. His heart was drawn by the warm spirit of what was surely an especial cilidh* (gathering). During a cilidh old people and young would come together around the hearth of a village home and there would be music and dancing.

If a Seanchai was present there would also be the telling of stories and ofttimes, if the energy was just so, it was said that an extraordinary Seanchai would become a weaver of stories and music and people. In this way of working with tales the Seanchai is a weaver of energy and words; and sometimes healing will break forth in the gathered people. This cilidh is a sacred space of words and people’s hearts. Some say it is in this sacred space that Tír na nÓg, the blessed realm,

[the kingdom of God] can be known.

The sun is setting very late one evening and lengthening shadows of ancient trees cast a ghostly specter through the mist. A dusty trail leads to an old stone house where candles send a welcome to all who approach. Music and laughter can be heard and the Seanchai comes to the doorway of a large room where a fire burns in the aged hearth. Young and old are clapping and singing. They open a path in the crowded room as though they know this is one who tells tales, sings the music of the blessed realm and weaves wonder into longing hearts.

As he sits, the crowd grows quiet. The Seanchai closes his eyes and softly begins to sing a tale of new worlds and renewal of human hearts. An old woman stands in the back of the room, bent over with age and soft bones. She comes to listen, tucked away in a corner where she is no bother to those who dance. She has not danced for over two hundred moons and her heart has grown heavier with lack of hope at the passing of each season of the falling leaves.

The Seanchai, eyes still closed begins the haunting lines of ancient Sean-nos. Within him the music and the tale weaves its way into a place of dark where hope has not dwelt for much time. The crowd is quiet as all are transported to a new place. A heavy weight seems to rise from the room and floats as smoke to a place of light.

The old woman feels the words and the music; her eyes turn to the Seanchai and for the first time in many years she lifts her head ever so slightly. She has not gazed into another’s eyes since hope began to flow from her heart.

"Dance!" The Seanchai cries with a loud voice. Guests are startled and energy fills the room.

"But Seanchai," the old woman protests, "I cannot stand…" Her words of objection die in her throat as she begins to straighten.

"Dance!" He commands.

The room breaks out with joyous shouts; all are astonished and celebrate with much clapping and dancing. The guests flow apart like water as the old woman slowly makes her way to the center of the room and begins to move – sinew and bones – as in the time when her years were few.

The house is filled with rejoicing. Great love flows to the old woman who danced. Timeless wonder, love and praise so enfolds the cilidh that no one noticed the Seanchai quietly making his way out the door and into the damp night air. Though one later said he thought he heard the storyteller singing softly as he made his way along the dark trail.

You cannot go
To Tír na nÓg
Yea hosts have tried
And all have failed
Not by land
And not by sea
You cannot go
To Tír na nÓg

If the song
Of Tír na nÓg
Should fill your ears
And then your soul
Then not by land
And not by sea
You will surely come to Tír na nÓg
You cannot go
To Tír na nÓg
You can only come
A heart set free

(–John Jewell, Lectionary Tales, Aug. 25, 2013)

May the song of Tir na nOg, the blessed realm, the kingdom of God, fill our souls, and so may our hearts be set free. So may we bend up to all -fullness. Amen, and amen.

　

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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