Sunday Sermon

Sunday Sermon

Joy Is Where We Come From

12 December 2010

Isaiah 35:1-10

Joy Is Where We Come From

A wise old sage who was asked by a novice what it had felt like to be come enlightened. The answer the old man had given at the time was, “A darn fool.” When the young man asked why, he replied, “Well,” he said, “ it was like going to great pains to break into a house by climbing a ladder and smashing a window and realizing later that the front door was open all the time.”

The images of Isaiah’s vision are of impossibilities. It is impossible for flower gardens to suddenly burst forth from the desert wilderness. As far as I know, flowers can’t sing either. There are no streams in the desert. The desert wilderness is a desert wilderness because there is no water there.

Having said that of course there will be someone who will say that there are flowers in the desert. There is even some water out there if you know where to look. Kathleen Norris wrote in her book Dakota: Once, when I was describing to a friend from Syracuse, New York, a place on the plains that I love, ridge above a glacial moraine with a view of almost fifty miles, she asked, “But what is there to see?” The answer, of course, is nothing.

But of course the answer could just as well have been everything depending on what you are looking for. Deserts are like that too. Some will see nothing, others will see everything there. Never mind. This is not about deserts anyway. Isaiah is a prophet but Isaiah is also a poet. The desert is a metaphor for us, of course. Isaiah doesn’t care whether the desert becomes a flower garden or not. Isaiah doesn’t care if there are streams in the desert. Isaiah wants to see human despair transformed into joy. What words can describe it?

F. Buechner says that joy is what we belong to, it is where we come from in the first place and what we long for until we find it again or more likely it finds us. 

He tells of an experience where he was surprised by joy. He and his wife and daughter who was 20 at the time went to Sea World of all places in Orlando Florida. He describes the main attraction and what happened:

The way the show began was that at a given signal they released into the tank five or six killer whales, as we call them (it would be interesting to know what they call us), and no creatures under heaven could have looked less killerlike as they went racing around and around in circles. What with the dazzle of sky and sun, the beautiful young people on the platform, the soft southern air, and the crowds all around us watching the performance with a delight matched only by what seemed the delight of the performing whales, it was if the whole creation – men and women and beasts and sun and water and earth and sky and, for all I know, God himself- was caught up in one great jubilant dance of unimaginable beauty. And then, tight in the midst of it, I was astonished to find that my eyes were filled with tears. When the show was over and I turned to my wife and daughter beside me to tell them what had happened, Their answer was to say that there had been tears also in their eyes.

This might not seem like such a big deal but years later as Buechner tells it, he was at a Preacher’s Conference in Washington where the Dean of Salisbury Cathedral in England asked him to take a look at part of a sermon he had just preached a few weeks earlier. The sermon was about how he, the Dean of Salisbury, had gone to Sea World, had watched this extraordinary spectacle in the midst of which he had suddenly discovered tears in his eyes. Buechner had never spoken of his own experience.

Buechner explained it this way: I believe there is no mystery about why we shed tears. We shed tears because we had caught a glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom, and it had almost broken our hearts. For a few moments we had seen Eden and been part of the great dance that goes on at the heart of creation. We shed tears because we were given a glimpse of the way life was created to be and is not. We had seen why it was that “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” when the world was first made, as the book of Job describes it, and of what it was that made Saint Paul write, even when he was in prison and on his way to execution. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice.” Buechner goes on: The world is full of darkness, but what I think we caught sight of in that tourist trap in Orlando, Florida, of all places, was that at the heart of darkness – whoever would have believed it? – there is joy unimaginable. The world does bad thing to us all, and we do bad things to the world and to each other and maybe most of all to ourselves, but in the dazzle of bright water as the glittering whales hurled themselves into the sun, I believe what we saw was that joy is what we belong to. Joy is home . . .

Joy is where we belong but more often than not we are somewhere else. A few years ago, I went to the place where the story tells it joy came to the world at Christmas. It is a place called Bethlehem. It seemed a very sad place. The joy apparently had come and gone. Joy is under arrest in Bethlehem. There is no peace there in Bethlehem. People are imprisoned in their own homes. The whole town is controlled by heavily armed checkpoints. There is much despair.  So much that one hardly dare to even think of joy as a possibility yet this is precisely what Isaiah declares. God will transform the sadness into gladness. All the broken dreams will be made whole again and life will be more than just possible. It will be life again.  It will be joy. How so?                              

When the people of Israel and the people of Palestine (and any other people who are at war with each other for that matter) understand that they need each other and that until they love each other they will never have peace. And when they realize that every time they hurt each other they hurt themselves. Peace will not come by violence, by might or fear. It will only come by love, not only the love that we do to one another but the surprising realization that we really do love each other and we didn’t know it yet. We didn’t know it because we were blinded by everything else that got in the way and made us hate each other. You have heard that an eye for an eye just leaves everyone blind.  Still love is more real than hate. Impossible? Ridiculous? I don’t know but if peace is impossible in Bethlehem then Isaiah doesn’t know what he is talking about. And if love is not possible then nothing is possible but death of course which is always possible, more than possible, is, in fact, just always. How does love overcome hate? How does life overcome death? I do not know the whole answer but I know part of it. Love overcomes hatred every time somebody loves somebody, every time somebody does an act of kindness, every time somebody speaks the truth to the lies, every time somebody admits they were wrong and seeks to make it right, every time somebody gives up his own way and listens to another way, every time somebody keeps hoping and working for something better. Every time that fear is overcome and love is offered and everything is risked again and again. Every time we awake to the eternal love and joy that holds the universe, we rise from death.  The poet e.e. cummings put in words that only a poet could:

i thank You God for most this amazing day

for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any─lifted from the no

of all nothing─human merely being

doubt unimaginable you?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Joy is a gift that is at home in our tears as in our laughter. Sometimes we don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Joy, unlike happiness, does not depend on circumstances. Joy comes in the least expected places.  It is striking that Paul rejoices in prison waiting for execution and Jesus wants his disciples to know the joy that is in him as he waits in the upper room for the soldiers to come and take him to his terrible death. It could be that somebody is trying to tell us something. (This is more than the words ‘don’t worry, be happy’ could tell us. This is all our happiness and all our sadness together. This is life itself, the life that does not die, the life of eternity, untellable light, lighting the very light, joy. )  Joy is present when our heart is broken and when our heart is healed. Joy is present in the ordinary time of everyday, perhaps the least expected place of all. Joy overwhelms fear and sees what is good and what is possible and what is real. Joy sees what the eye cannot see and hears what the ear cannot hear. Even in Bethlehem where the horror is very real there is another reality. It is the love that was born there and is there and will always be there as long as there is a there there. Joy sustains us through the worst of times. It is a surprising confidence in the midst of tragedy that all is not lost after all that there is an abiding presence that holds us whether we live or whether we die and it is a presence that is love but a love that cannot be described with the overused word love. It is like coming home to a place we had forgotten if we ever knew it yet is instantly recognized for what it is when we find it or more likely it finds us.

It is ironic perhaps that I mention two tourist destinations this morning, one representing the experience of despair and the other an experience of joy. It is a further irony that the experience could easily be reversed. It is not unheard of to experience despair in Orlando or joy in Bethlehem. Between and encompassing them both stretches a great desert wilderness. It is the desert of the human soul crying out for meaning and for salvation. How is it that we have become a world of such sadness and horror? Where is the way back? Where have all the flowers gone? Could Isaiah be right? There is joy for us. The desert will blossom and sing. Maybe the desert was the Garden of Eden all along we just couldn’t see it and maybe the flowers can sing, we just can’t hear them. Maybe there is hope for us when we don’t give up hoping. Maybe love is still possible when we are willing to go on loving. Maybe there really will be peace on earth when we continue to work for peace on earth. Maybe there will be justice when we are just. Maybe there will be forgiveness when we forgive. Maybe the impossible will be possible after all.

Lucy says to Charlie Brown: “Merry Christmas! At this time of year I think we should put aside all our differences and try to be kind.

Charlie Brown asks her, “Why does it have to be for just this time of year? Why can’t it be all year round?

To which, Lucy replies, “What are you, some kind of fanatic or something?

Relax, Lucy. We don’t have to be fanatics. The world has enough of those already. Joy will surprise us wherever we are whether we are successful and highly effective human being or a bumbling failure without a clue about what we are doing here, whether we are doing everything right or can’t seem to get anything right, whether we are feeling good or bad, happy or sad, whether we are cheerful or grouchy, strong or weak, and one day or night when we least expect it a tear will come to our eyes and before we can stop ourselves the joy will come and we will know it and we will know who we are.  (Hey, it could happen.)

There is joy at the heart of God and it is where we are from and where we are going. It is where we belong. The front door is always open. Even the flowers of the desert are singing for joy.  Can you hear them?

The Song that never stops singing

The Song that never stops singing isaiah 11.1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12 Advent 2 )A) 2010

We hear it in Isaiah: The wolf shall live with the lamb . . .

We hear it in Romans: May the God of hope fill you with joy . . .

We even hear it in the angry words of John the Baptiser:  Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

It is the song that never stops singing. The words change, even slip away, but the song goes on not unlike the humming of a certain bear. You know you must be near the truth of something when TS Eliot and Winnie the Pooh intersect.

Words,  the poet says,  strain,

crack, and sometime break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still.

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,

Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum,

Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,

Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,

Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.  says Pooh Bear.

In a more coherent moment, it was also Pooh Bear who said, Humms are not something you get they are something that gets you. Or something like that. I sometimes wonder if hope is like that though this business of hope is more complicated and probably more simple than one might think at first.

The rest of the famous poem by Emily Dickinson says:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so may warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land.

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Is it something that we create or is it something that creates us? Is it something we get or is it something that gets us? What is the source of our hope? Is this our song or is it simply the song that we sing; cannot help but sing? And what happens when hope is gone if it is ever gone? Is it not like breath itself? How do we go on living without at least the barest, minimal, unrecognized hope?  What does it ask of us?

In Isaiah the hope is fantastic: they will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, says the Lord. It asks us to dream.

In Matthew it is more basic: the hope is that we can change; that the kingdom is near; despite the bad news, God is always near and we can always change. Repent simply means change your ways and saying it out loud might mean that it can be done. It asks us to change. It asks us to believe that we can change.

For Isaiah's vision to be completed, Matthew's hope must also be true for there will have to be a whole lot of changing going on before we do not hurt or destroy or learn war anymore.

Is this something that just happens or do we make it happen? I think it is fair to say that we will have to be responsible for changing ourselves but it may also be true that something other than ourselves may have to convince us to change ourselves and we may have to wait for the world to change even if we are changed. And even if the world is not changed by our efforts we are changed and, being changed, we may be surprised how things will change.  

So what is our hope? One thing it might be is the simple revelation that things do change. I saw the beautiful tribute to George Harrison on public television this week. The song, "All things Must Pass Away", struck me oddly enough this time as an expression of hope. In the sadness of George's absence there was also the joy of his presence in the music and among his friends and family and fans. Nothing is permanent on this planet, in history, in our lives. At first we might think this is sad because what is good and beautiful passes away but then it occurs to me that what is evil and cruel and mean also passes away. There was another learning as I noticed George's son Danny playing guitar with the others. He looks just like his father did when he (and I more or less) were Danny's age now nearly 40 years ago. It was one of those times when the passing of time hit me right between the eyes. It made me sad because life as we know it ends and it made me glad because life goes on. George died but the music goes on and not just the songs he wrote and performed but the hope created in people coming together to dream and to celebrate love and the spirit that cannot be named that brings us together and connects us beyond our isolated circumstances binding the living in the hopes and dreams of every soul for something more than any words can say. My Sweet Lord, I really want to know you  . . . Give me hope, help me cope, give me peace on earth . . .

Another thing that our hope might be is that if we can dream of something there might be something to it not so much that it will come true but that it could and that whether it does or not it is in fact true. The dream is true because we can dream it. The truth Buechner once wrote, is what sets us wishing for it. (Wishful Thinking)

But hope is more than the simple fact that things change and more than the fantastic dreams of peace on God's holy mountain. Hope is the air we breathe while we sleep that allows us to rise for another day. It may be as simple as the hope that on this day we will enjoy a cup of coffee or conversation with a friend, that we might have something to make us glad, that we might feel something that reminds us we are alive. It might as unsimple as the hope that this very day peace and justice will break out all over the world and people everywhere will finally recognize themselves in each other and there will be love and harmony on God's holy mountain. Hope is what keeps us alive, looking forward, reaching out, doing our best. It is what keeps us going. It may not add up to a long list of great accomplishments or successes that anyone would notice but it may be enough just knowing that we are showing up again and refusing to give in to bitterness or despair or cynicism and taking another step forward with all that is glad in us and with all that is sad in us, doing what we can do to bring the peaceable kingdom, the dream of God's prophets, the hope of humankind; to bring God's new creation into being one sweet note at a time. This may not sound like much given all that is before us and if we do not take actions based on our hopes it may well be less than not much. Hope cannot replace what we fail to do but it will give us a reason to keep on failing until we get it right. Hope is like the struggle for justice - it is the winning that is never won and the losing that is never lost. The struggle itself, the hope that it matters, is itself a victory of the human spirit. It has been said that one of our primary tasks as a church is to keep hope alive (apologies to Jesse Jackson) but in fact it is really the other way around, it is hope that keeps us alive.

The song that never stops singing will carry us. It will not let us stop either. How does it go?

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la

Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,

Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum,

Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,

Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,

Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.

Bless your hearts. I will not ask you to hope for you can no more stop hoping than you can stop breathing if for nothing else than that this sermon will end. We are always looking forward to what is next, to who we will meet, to what will happen, to all the love that may surprise us with how it has grown when we meet again, to what might really be possible when our dreams come true, when everything we hoped for we also live for; when justice is not just something we hope for but something we do everyday. Hope is not just what we want or wish for but who we are. The song that never stops singing is the hum of God enlivening God's people with the will and the heart to change a world that never changes, to make right what is wrong, to bring peace where peace is not, and to never stop at all.

Hope is what is best in the human spirit. It wants to engage the adventure, to live fully the life God has given us to live.

What Will Be That Is Not Yet

What Will Be That Is Not Yet

November 28, 2010

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44

The words of the prophet Isaiah are a vision, a word seen by the prophet, an act of the imagination that looks beyond the present reality through the eyes of God, to see what will be that is not yet. What will be that is not yet.

This word, a vision of the greatness of Jerusalem as the place where the world comes together to make all things right again would have been surprising for those who heard it first for Jerusalem at that time was marginal and vulnerable and at the mercy of more powerful states around them at the time. They were not a great city in any sense except of course in their own minds. Their influence in the affairs of the world was non-existent. They were marginal at best in the affairs of the world and vulnerable to the whims of those around them. In other words, what the prophet imagines is in sharp contrast to what actually existed on the ground. The prophet imagines a Jerusalem where the rest of the world will come but not because the Jerusalem of the moment, a Jerusalem of nationalistic fervor and self-serving religion, a culture of arrogance really, the worst kind of arrogance, based on false pretenses, has finally been triumphant but rather because Jerusalem repents and returns to God and perhaps even more to the point, God returns to Jerusalem. When God’s presence is back in the house, the nations will come not because it is Jerusalem but because of the presence of God and not just to worship God but to fulfill God’s purpose of radical peace, not just the end of violence and war, but the creation of something completely different, of a peacetime economy where weapons are not simply destroyed and unused but are remade into plowshares and other useful tools for the transformation of battlegrounds to fertile gardens. This is powerful imagery, the transformation of the weapons of destruction for the tools of cultivation, of destruction to construction, a vision that promises what seems unlikely but which is also not outside what the human imagination can describe. Why not? Why not a world of peace and prosperity for all? Why not, indeed?

Most people whether they live now or 2500 years ago don’t like to hear this but the way of peace begins with our own repentance. That is to say that peace can only happen when we change our attitudes and our actions from the well established patterns of division and violence and revenge to a new way of relating to each other, a way restrained by the obligations of love and God’s justice and mercy, the way of peace. Repentance means turning away from that which destroys and separates and seeks only its own interests against all others and turning toward God who calls all peoples to come together and find ways to live where there is mutual concern, for every created living thing of God is sacred and holy. The way of peace is the way of humility and sacrifice and forgiveness. It is not the easy way or even the natural way. The way of peace must be learned and courage and sacrifice will be needed to go there and to abide there. In the vision of the prophet it is what will be that is not yet. Shalom, a vision where people seek ways to reconcile their differences and benefit each other with a deep and mutual concern.

The prophets vision is from God who comes to make things right again. It is the message of Advent that God is coming and what is not yet realized will one day be. And while we wait we are to live into the promise. Advent calls us to wait for what is coming but the waiting is not passive. There are things to be done, preparations to be made. We are to stay awake. We are to watch and be ready.

This reading in Matthew today seems at first hearing to contradict the words that say that God is always merciful and kind but it seems to me that this description not so much about what God will do but what we will do. This is a description of the world without peace, a world where random violence picks off some and leaves others unharmed. There is seemingly no justice, no reasonable explanation for anything important. To stay awake  it seems to me, could be a way of calling us to practice peace where there is no peace. We don’t know how this will end and this is one of two things in this passage that are important to hear. No one knows what will happen in the end and whatever happens will be a surprise. This is important because it guards against arrogance and manipulation. The point is not that the end is coming but that there is an end and we are not there yet and in the meantime, the time of now, and what we are about now is what matters most. To be awake is to be intentional about practicing peace, to already be what is not yet. The vision of what will be that is not yet is a call to bring the not yet to be by living it out even in the context of something completely other. This is how vision enables faith. There is a vision of shalom, of an entire peace, not a forced peace but a peace of the heart that actually desires the well being of all others at least as much as one’s own well being and this vision which is not yet fulfilled can be practiced even now.

A couple of years ago the Masssachusetts Council of Churches came out with a practical list of ways we can practice peace even if there is no peace. I really believe that we become what we practice. In any case, here is what they came up with:

Lift up common values. Can we look into the face of our enemies and see ourselves?

Do not demonize the Other. Naming those who oppose us as evil is the best way to end any hope of the conversation that might led to understanding. It is also much easier to commit violent and horrific acts against those we have dehumanized.

Avoid prejudicial stereotyping. Only the truth will set us free. Prejudice and stereotyping keep us enslaved in ignorance and lies.

Pray for enemies. God’s people, the people of the vision, of the not yet, seek not to destroy but to heal and reconcile.

Promote justice. Justice is the restoration of right relationships both with God and with one another whether it be personal, religious, political, or economic. Remember God comes to make things right. There is no peace, no shalom without a deep and abiding and lasting justice.

Resist revenge. Revenge is not justice. Justice is not revenge.

Affirm that just ends are reached by just means. The practice of peace is the way to peace. Missiles are not peacekeepers no matter what we call them and torture is an abomination, an affront to God for it harms not only the victim but the perpetrator. Doing good at any level requires also doing no harm.

Adhere to moral principles. We must insist that those in power tell us the truth, the first and most basic moral principle of all, and that we be not afraid to speak the truth to power.

Support critical self-reflection. Truth passes through confession first. Humility puts us in the right place before God. Humility is the truth. “The root of all disturbance, if one will go to its source, is that no one will blame himself.” (Dorotheus of Gaza, 6^th century)

This one is crucial. Even committed peacemakers can become too full of themselves.

Protect the innocent. Crimes against humanity do not justify crimes against humanity.

Avoid double standards. How can we as a people expect others not to have nuclear weapons if we have them ourselves? How can we expect the world to disarm if we are producing and selling the arms? Do not expect anyone to do what you won’t doyourself.

Stay grounded in the peace of God. The peace that se seek is not the peace that the world gives but the peace that only God can give. It is not the peace of the democrats or the republicans or the green party but the peace of God, the ‘what will be that is not yet’ but when it is ‘what will be’ will be more than any one part but will include the whole. Shalom.

Affirm that peacemaking is a process, a way of being and not just a final goal. We become what we practice. A wise man was once asked what is the way to peace and his answer was simply, “Peace is the way.”

Be active in the pursuit of peace. Peace is not the absence of struggle but the presence of love. Love is something we do. Love is self-giving. The practice of peace will challenge us to make sacrifices. Poverty is a major impediment to peace. How can our lifestyle benefit or harm the world’s poor? Peace is not just what we want but what we do, how we live. It is also true that we will need to be brave, peacemakers are vulnerable and peacemaking is dangerous. We should not be naïve. Peace and love will always be resisted by those who profit form their absence. Sin is alive and well in our world and in our hearts. We know it is true. Often it is what we have left undone as much as what we have done that separates us from the purpose of God to heal and reconcile the world. Sometimes we don’t know what to do or who to believe and it is good that we test and examine everything and not fall into the trap of arrogance that always claims to be right whether we know what we are talking about or not. This vision is not happening quickly from our point of view. The not yet is a long time. So long that we have been known to ask, how long, O Lord?

I am reminded of the time Christopher Robin organized an expedition to find the North Pole. No one knew where it was or even what it was they were looking for and there was much confusion and chaos along the way but when Pooh found it they all knew it (except Pooh himself of course which is perfect) because Pooh found a long pole that he used to save little Roo from drowning and whatever it was they thought it would be or wherever they thought they would find it, they knew that it was what saved them. Our journey in the not yet is not so unlike that. Sometimes in the name of peace we who want peace hurt each other and we don’t really know what it looks like or where it is but we will know when we see it because it will save us. God will save us from ourselves. What will be that is not yet is coming nonetheless and we have only to practice peace while we wait being careful to get ourselves out of the way of what love can do if whatever we do, we do for love. The vision of the prophet is clear. It is what will be that is not yet: they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.  This is the Word of God. So be it. What Will Be That Is Not Yet . . . Is Coming.  SHALOM. Peace be with you in this Advent.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

It has happened to me. I have this memory of Liz and I on her motorcycle when we were students in Spain riding slowly along in an early morning fog in the mountains south of Castilla on our way to Andalucia and Morocco when suddenly, without warning, we rode out of the fog into the brightest, clearest, blue-sky, sunshine morning since the creation. Wow! My memories of the details have faded, but my memory of the moment of clarity, when the fog was so gone it was as if it had never been, and the light was so brilliant it seemed to me to come from within my very soul to light the whole universe. Or, perhaps, it was the light of the whole universe that had entered my soul for that one moment in time or, perhaps it was a moment out of time, a glimpse of the reality that time is only a very crude attempt to make sense of.  Who can say? But there it was. A clear day. A beautiful day in time. A wild, joyous sense of the presence of life and its possibilities or of something that there are no words to describe. Have you ever driven out of a fog into brilliant sunlight? That is what this word in Paul’s letter to the Philippians is like for me. Out of the dense fog of Paul’s heavy theology comes this bright and shining and simple word of light and joy: “Don’t worry, be happy.”   

Don’t worry, be happy. Sounds like a good name for a song but how serious can it be for life in the world we have made for ourselves. And how is it that Paul who was in prison when he wrote these words could know anything about joy in the midst of his own very real suffering and after all that he had given up. He was a man you may know who enjoyed much prestige and privilege and power n his time before Jesus came into his life. He gave it all up for this joy he talks about . Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. Don’t worry, be happy.

Don’t worry, be happy. He had seen it. He had seen what the woman without a name in the story by Patricia Hampl had, the thing, if she had the words, she would tell, but which she tells anyway with her eyes that look right at you and with her smile which is described in the story this way: It was such a complete smile, so entire, it startled me every time, as if I’d heard my name called out on the street of a foreign city. As if I had heard my name called out on the street of a foreign city. Think about that for a moment. Don’t let that word get away without hearing it. As if I heard my name called out on the street of a foreign city. Oh yes. What did Paul say? The Lord is near. Just when we thought we were all alone in the universe and there was no one who knows where we are, who knows our name, we catch a glimpse of the truth─that there is one from who we are never unknown or forgotten or overlooked, one who holds us through it all, one who could make us think if only for a moment that there really is nothing to worry about after all. This is serious stuff. It is not delusionary or escapism but something substantial that changes how we see things like the man in hospice care who also had it and while people all around him were afraid and even angry to see their bodies failing and death coming he had that smile and peace that you can see and when asked about it he said that for him it was not so much that he was losing his physical self but that as he was being emptied of his physical life he was being filled with the light of eternity. He had a glimpse of what was coming. This glimpse is the something that gave the woman in the story and Paul in prison the joy the overcomes anything and everything, that wells up inside of us until we cannot help but smile, rejoice, cry out at the beauty of it all as if we suddenly were to come out of the fog and see the light that we knew was there but were seeing it for the first time for what it most truly is.

Frederick Buechner who has spent a lifetime writing the truth so that we can all understand it wrote the truth about us when he said that asking someone to stop worrying was like telling a woman with a head cold not to sniffle and sneeze so much or a lame man to stop dragging his feet. In other words, it is not so easy. It almost feels like we couldn’t stop worrying even if we knew how. Is it really even possible to stop worrying? Lord knows there is enough to worry about. Bad things happen and often without any warning or anyway to predict or control, random and cruel. Those of us who have suffered such pain already know how bad it can be and assume that if it happened once it will happen again and those of us who have been relatively lucky so far think that our turn is coming as if there were an unspoken reality that says it is only a matter of time before the other shoe falls and suffering befalls us as well. We know too much. We re wired into the world that never stops telling us all the horrors that are happening every day relentlessly reminding us of all that could and probably will go wrong.. Why wouldn’t we worry?

It was no accident that Jesus’ suffering preceded his resurrection or that Buddhism posits the first of the four great truths that all life is suffering. Sorrow, loss, pain, death await us all and those we love. Paul knew this as well as anybody. As Buechner put it one time, Paul has good reason to be anxious about everything.” And yet it is he who says do not be anxious about anything. He does not promise that there will not be a reason to worry or that there will not be suffering or that the worst things that could happen will not happen to us. No, he has something else to say and that is that there is something else somehow more powerful than the worst that can happen and it is something called the peace of God which as far as words go is about all you can say for how can we speak the unspeakable. The best we can do is the woman in the story and Paul in prison and the man in hospice and what they had that they would tell, would sing if they had any words for the light in their eyes and heart.

Jesus called it the bread of life. Paul tried to tell us how to receive it. He tells us to stop thinking of the worst and start thinking of the best. And do these things: Live and speak the truth. Be just and fair. Be gentle and kind. Desire what is good. Celebrate what is excellent. Praise what is beautiful. Instead of lamenting what we do not have, give thanks for what we do have. Do we need to be told these things? Have we already forgotten what we could not yet have even known? Paul’s is a cry to steadfast courage. Yes, it requires courage to be happy and a radical faith in the promises of God. To be happy is an act of bravery in the real world. Had we considered that? To be happy is a radical resisting of the blows of the universe that wear us all down until we just give up but we will not give up because we believe (when they asked Jesus what they had to do he simply told them to believe the one God has sent to tell us and if we think that believing such a thing will be easy we will discover that with each passing day there is nothing easy about this) but we will not give up because we believe that God is present and where God is present there is joy. There is joy. It is real. It is the light of every new day. It is joy that Paul wishes for us. We let things get in the way but the joy is here for us too when we open our eyes and our hearts to see it, when we believe the one God sent to save us. Unlike the so-called Christianity that seems to draw its life from the fear that someone somewhere might be having a good time, Paul’s bright and shiny and surprising word is that a good time is exactly what life in Christ is to be and a good time is only a small approximation of what it is.

Do you remember when Pooh and Piglet went hunting woozles? It was a snowy day and Pooh was walking aimlessly around a group of trees and when he had gone full circle he noticed that there were tracks in the snow and he decided to follow them where Piglet found him and he explained to Piglet that he was hunting woozles and piglet went along of course and before you know it there were more tracks and some of them were different, possibly wizzles, and after awhile they both were getting more and more worried and eventually talked themselves into being scared that woozles and or wizzles may have Hostile Intent and who knows where this might have led if Christopher Robin had not come along and pointed out to them that they were following their own silly tracks around and around and around again.

This is great example of what gets in the way of the gifts of God to the people of God, the joy of being alive together, living faithfully in a challenging world. When we spend our time hunting woozles we are creating problems that don’t need to be at all and are distracting us from the real problems which are plenty enough but which are themselves no match for those who don’t shrink from the real suffering of life in this world and who also believe that Christ’s life redeems all suffering now and forever and that when we walk in his way we, like him, shall overcome the world and every woe. Don’t worry, be happy is a confession of faith and a reminder that we don’t have to let life get us down, we could in fact give thanks for every breath of life we have received because in the practice of gratefulness we may well be given a glimpse of that joy which is the truest expression of the reality that trumps every other reality, the love of God for this wonderful world and for this beautiful people that you truly are. 

Remember that ancient word out of Deuteronomy that speaks not just of history but of the poetry of the human journey through God’s creation from the beginning unto this very day:  The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm . . . we are a people who are being saved. There is light shining. May it shine in us and through us. It’s Ok to be happy and not worry so much. And even if we are not there yet, don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. And don’t be so hard on yourself, either, or on each other. God is near, as near as the next breath you take, as near as the next time you open your eyes and see the light shining.

Learning to Trust

Learning to Trust

Isaiah 65: 17-25, Luke 21:5-19

I don't like the way things are going in the world today but I am learning to trust God. Admittedly, I am learning to trust God the hard way. Who knew that trust could grow from despair?  I am, quite frankly, losing hope that human beings can live in peace and create a world that is safe and blessed for everyone. As my despair for human achievement grows my trust in God grows even more. Oddly enough this does not mean that I would turn away from the world but rather that I am given new courage to face the world as it is and to understand that my part is not to save the world but to be faithful to the One who is saving the world. With so much sadness and fear, disharmony and untruth, violence and hatred about, it is tempting to just give up and forget about it but there is another way to cope, to live, to be faithful.

One of the desert fathers told this story to a young brother who was so behind in his work and prayers that he despaired of ever catching up and considered just quitting altogether. This is how the story goes:

A man had a plot of land that had become a wilderness of thistles and thorns. He decided to cultivate it and said to his son: "Go and clear the land." But when the son went to clear it, he saw that the thistles and thorns had multiplied. He thought, "How much time shall I need to clear and weed all this?" and lay on the ground instead, and went to sleep. He did this day after day. When his father found him doing nothing, the son explained his discouragement. The father replied, "Son, if you had cleared each day the area on which you lay down, your work would have advanced slowly and you would not have lost heart." The son did what his father said, and in a short time the plot was cultivated.

I am learning to trust God. I suppose some would think that trust is based on something tangible, something proven but this trust that is growing in me is nothing more than a promise, an outrageous promise at that. When the prophetic voice recorded in Isaiah 65 states joyously that God will create a new heaven and new earth and that there will be peace and love everywhere and no one will harm anyone else on God's holy mountain it was a voice that was speaking to people who knew little of joy. They were the ones who some fifty years before returned from exile to rebuild Jerusalem but still Jerusalem was nothing like it was in the glory days. Life was hard and there were powerful, sad memories. Infant mortality and premature death, war and the destruction of homes, possessions lost after a lifetime of work, the very things that the prophet now claims will be no more.

It would be easy to dismiss these words as just wishful thinking, a way to cope with a terrible time by simply pretending that it will all be worth it one day for somebody if not oneself but that would be to miss the point entirely of what it means to trust God and the joy that resonates in the words of this prophetic voice for now and not just someday. For this voice speaks of the belief that God (despite the evidence) is in charge and that all things will ultimately be shaped by God's loving will and in the meantime God is with us for the journey to the promised land.

So why is it taking so long? I don't know. All I know is that as I am slowly relieved of everything I have depended upon; that a powerful trust in God is growing in me; and that the less I can depend upon myself the more I can trust God. I think it must not be unlike what Chesterton said about why angels can fly: Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. I read somewhere that baby eagles learn to fly by being dropped in mid-air and there is nothing left to hold them or to hang on to. They discover their wings and fly.

It is God who gives us wings to fly. I know that's crazy (we don’t have wings and we never will) but sometimes it is my experience anyway that metaphors are more real than facts. And we will need those wings for even though it is in God that we place our trust it is in our own lives that God will create the peaceable kingdom. It is not our part to see or to build the whole thing but it is our part to do and be our part. It is tempting to think that the little things will mean nothing before the systemic problems of humankind but the truth is, I believe, that even though the little things can be done without seeing big changes, no big changes will happen without the little things. It is not for us to clear the earth in one mighty swath but rather it is for us to clear the ground we walk on, one act of kindness, of justice, of peace at a time. And we are encouraged not discouraged by the overwhelming sense of disaster all around us because we know in our hearts that God is the future and that God is good and that nothing good is ever lost to God. How can it be otherwise? Either we believe that God made all that is and loves what has been made; was there at the beginning and will therefore be there at the end or we don't believe it. Someone once said to me what seemed a reasonable enough question one time. The question was: How can you believe in God? My answer was also, I think, reasonable (and a revelation to me), though it was in the form of a question as well. I said, How can you not believe in God?

I am learning to trust God. It is, I believe, the truest way of the human spirit because as we learn to trust God we are also learning about who we really are and what our hope and joy really is. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Swarz collaborated on a word that expresses this human spirit infused by a growing trust in God. They wrote

when the thunder rumbles

Now the Age of God is dead

And the dreams we've clung to dying to stay young

Have left us parched and old instead

when my spirit falters on decaying alters

And my illusions fail,

O go on right then

I go on again.

I go on to say

I will celebrate again another day

I go on

If tomorrow tumbles

and everything I love is gone

I will face regret

All my days, and yet

I will still go on  . . .on 

To say that human life on earth is a challenge is not sufficient. It is an on-going struggle simply to go on living with something to hope for. What I am learning is that all the things I hoped for were illusions. Even love (which for me is at the heart of the meaning of life itself) is suspect. Do you remember that beautiful song by Joni Mitchell?

I've looked at love from both sides now,

From give and take, and still somehow,

It's love's illusions I recall

I really don't know love at all.

Even TS Eliot's words begin to make sense to me:

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope

For hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. (East Coker, Four Quartets)

It turns out that trusting God is the only thing that is real. It is hope and love that is more than hope and love. It is the hope that still remains in hopelessness, the song that never stops singing whether we still hear it or not, the love that is present when we have lost everything we love. It is waiting. It is an expectation. It is endurance. By your endurance, Jesus said, you will gain your souls. (Lk 21.19) Of course you can't just take my word for it because trusting God is not something you can do until you do it yourself. And I am not even sure that I can even do that until I simply can no longer not do it. As long as there was something else I could hope for or love or depend upon I could turn away from this waiting for God but I can no longer turn away from the waiting. I am learning to trust God.

I wanted to change the world but now I only want to know the God who is changing the world even now, creating a new heaven and new earth a peaceable kingdom in my heart and in the world that I cannot begin to see and can only just barely believe. The wars and earthquakes and famines and plagues will have their time on earth but then they will be gone and God will remain. There will be a day when there will not be a brick left of this beautiful Church in which we stand this day but there will never be a day when God is not present and standing with us. Our own lives and the lives of those we love will come and they will go and in the coming and in the going God will be there. We may never know what God can and will do but if we learn to trust God we might just be a part of what God is already doing.

I am learning to trust God. I am learning to trust what I cannot see; what I dare not hope for; what I may never know. Thus saith the Lord: Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain. (Isaiah 65.24,25) Therefore be not afraid or discouraged but let us live faithfully our part in God's future that is already present in the hearts of those who are learning to trust God. 

October31

Whose Unworthiness is Most Worthy? (only love can break your heart)

Whose Unworthiness is Most Worthy? (only love can break your heart)

Luke 18:9-14; Joel 2:23-29

There is the story of two holy men who fall to their knees in the front of the church crying out to God, saying, “I have sinned. I am unworthy. I am unworthy.” Just then a man who had come in off the street looking for a handout saw them and observing their display of piety joined them in their refrain: “I have sinned. I am not worthy. I am not worthy,” he cried. To which one of the holy men turns to the other and sneers, “Now look who thinks he’s unworthy!”

It reminds me of the great truth and paradox of humility. As soon as you think you are humble you aren’t humble anymore. Why is this important? We don’t think much about humility in our self-absorbed culture but in fact for those of us who want to know the heart of God humility is essential. We won’t get there without it. It was the first of the beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  To reverse this saying we could say that those who are not humble will not know the kingdom of heaven. It is that important. What is humility? From the Wisdom of the Desert, the little book by Thomas Merton, Abbot Pastor is quoted as saying: “A man must breathe humility and the fear of God just as ceaselessly as he inhales and exhales the air.”

We learn how to breathe by breathing. Likewise we learn humility by practicing humility.  Humility begins with what the Bible calls the fear of God which simply means a profound and serious respect for the God who created life and made relationship possible and who holds life in the mysterious embrace that passes all of our understanding. In short it begins with the belief or even the hope that God is real and we need to seek God to know what is real and who we are. In the presence of God humility is generous, merciful, non-judgmental, open, and not defensive. In Thomas Merton’s Wisdom of the Desert one of the elders was asked what is humility, and he said: If you forgive a brother who has injured you before he himself asks pardon. Humility is real when it becomes like breathing, unconsciously who we are, a state of mercy and love that rises in our heart as naturally as the sun rising on the new day.

Knowing ourselves, truly knowing ourselves, by that I mean  knowing our condition as the finite, temporary, vulnerable and unperfected beings we are, we know how much we need mercy and forgiveness. We also know that love is possible because we are born longing for love. It is to know what we are not, as well, that we are not God and that we do not know what God knows nor do we have the wisdom to judge others as God in mercy and grace will do. (This may be, by the way, the most compelling reason for the existence of God – someone who knows what we do not know implying that we, you and I and every other human on earth since the beginning of time and forever, does not and will not know what we need to know without God.) (Do I need to remind you of the damage human arrogance has done in the history of the world and ironically and most tragically the human arrogance that claims even to know the mind of God?) In short it is the knowledge that we need God, the God who is, not the God we invent for ourselves when we tire of not having all the answers easily before us. (I am reminded of the experience of Annie Dillard when she wrote: It was as if God had said, “I am here, but not as you have known me.” The fear of God includes not being so quick to assume that we know who God is. Humility is also the knowing of who we are in relationship to everybody and everything else God has made. It is the realization that we are no better and no worse than any other person carrying within us the desire to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Knowing our need for mercy, we are ourselves, merciful to others. We no longer see each other as unequal adversaries or threats but as fellow travelers, flawed, and in need of God as much as everyone else. Not only do we need God but we need each other. We stop keeping score. Humility does not keep score.

I don’t know if it is what Jesus intended but there may be some irony in his simple little test of humility in the gospel reading for today. After all we still take the bait when Jesus tells the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector at prayer. It is one of those stories designed to make us choose who we are in the story. Are we the Pharisee or the tax collector? Some of us have been around a while and we have heard this story before and we are sophisticated enough to know that the Pharisee is often the illustration of what it means to be a hypocrite, to have the form and appearance of religion down but to have misplaced the essential heart of religion, the grace and mercy and humility, and replaced them with a new game where those with the highest score are the most righteous and therefore the most worthy. 

Those of us in the know are also well aware that the Tax Collector is the despised and corrupt, pathetic creature who cheats his own people and sells out to the oppressors in doing so. Furthermore we know enough about the Jesus sayings to know that Jesus often chooses the most despised as the example for what is truly righteous shattering the common wisdom’s rules of engagement and scorekeeping every time. For what is Jesus saying if he is not saying that in this case it is not the worthy Pharisee who is most worthy but the unworthy Tax Collector who is most worthy and he is most worthy because he is aware of his unworthiness. This is what the Pharisees have missed somehow, their own unworthiness, because in the game that keeps score they are the winners not the losers.

But I wonder. Is it so simple? Could it also not be true that the Pharisees are well aware of their unworthiness, so aware in fact that they have buried it deep, so deep that they may have forgotten their whole game is founded on fear, the unhealthy fear that they are unworthy and need the assurance that they are worthy just like everybody else but have found a way to assure themselves that they are worthy, more worthy than others because surely if there is someone who is less worthy, we are then more worthy by simple logic. You can just do the math.

And the tax collector, who may escape our scrutiny because he is so pathetic and does seem genuinely sorry for what he has done, did you notice that there is no indication in this story that he going to actually change his ways after this heartfelt confession. Remember Zaccheus? He was a tax collector, too. He actually made reparations. There is no reason to believe that is what is going to happen here. It would not be easy for the tax collector to change because he is getting rich as a tax collector. It may be his only chance to get rich. If he is not the tax collector someone else will do it and he will be the one getting cheated rather than doing the cheating. 

I am reminded of that other brilliant word from Jesus, the one where Jesus asks is it better to say you will do the right thing and then not do it or to refuse to do the right then and then do it after all?

Maybe there is more to this than just choosing between the Pharisees who make excellent church members by the way because they do what they are supposed to do - they tithe, they attend worship, they pray whether they mean it or not or even know what it means, they play by the rules, (unfortunately sometimes, in keeping score, hurting each other, but we are used to that in church by now, aren’t we?) or choosing the tax collector who has done all the wrong things, who has hurt many by his actions, who stays away from the worshiping community for any number of reasons, who cannot be trusted, and is now sorry. Indeed his heart is broken. Perhaps there is more hope for him but who knows? Perhaps the choice is a choice between a heart as hard as stone or one that has been shattered into pieces. And what kind of choice is that?

Or maybe Jesus had a bigger and deeper message than a simple choice. Maybe this is about the fact that no matter how we each act it out we are all victims of the felt need to justify our existence, to prove our worth. We fear our unworthiness which we suspect is a deal breaker. Having read many papers of those coming for ordination who are trying to convince me of their worthiness, I can tell you that it is rare when someone writes of their unworthiness which is understandable given the situation, but when they do, I take notice, because it seems to me, after all these years, that until we know our unworthiness we can never know our true worth and we don’t usually go there until we can trust God enough to love us as we really are in all our glorious unworthiness. Only love can break our hearts. Only when we know we are loved will we dare to let our hearts be broken so that they can finally be healed. It is one thing to claim and pretend worthiness by our own games. It is quite another to experience the worthiness of God’s gracious and merciful love. Only then are we really free to love one another, perhaps because only then do we know what love is.

Humility is to know who we are, yes, our flaws and failures fully revealed, but it also to know that who we are is loved by God and always has been and always will be. Love is what makes the unworthy worthy. Whose unworthiness is most worthy then?

They whose unworthiness is most worthy are those who trust that they are loved for who they are and are now ready to become who they will be. In short all those who have surrendered their good works and their misdeeds, all their perceived worthiness and unworthiness, all their success and failure, all their gains and losses, to God’s love and grace and seek nothing more than to love God and God’s creation in each new day come what may.

Whether we come full of ourselves like the Pharisee in this story and need to be emptied or empty like the tax collector and need to be filled we are met where we are in the story and offered new life in the grace of God. Whether we are the Pharisee who is afraid to face his unworthiness or the tax collector who is afraid not to, there is healing for those who will let such love as this break our hearts and set us free.

Trust God to love you and loving you to make you worthy of the life that you have been given to live, free from comparisons to others, free from keeping score, a unique and beautiful gift to the hope of the world.

May we practice humility with grateful hearts, gentle and merciful in all our ways until we become the humble people who love God and all that God has made with each breath we take, the most worthy unworthy, forgiven and free, let loose on the world for the purpose of love. Amen.

Wings to fly

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-6

Be like the bird, pausing in his flight

On limb too slight,

Feels it give way, yet sings,

Knowing he has wings to fly.

-Victor Hugo

Oh yeah. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what faith is like except we are not birds. We are human beings and our wings are not so obvious or natural. The great prophet and pastor of the twentieth century, William Sloane Coffin put it well though (and you will note the difference between us and the birds): “First you leap and then you grow wings.”  

In Tigger’s case (see chapter 4 “In Which it is shown that Tiggers Don’t Climb Trees) he didn’t leap so much as fall and he didn’t grow wings at all but he fell on Eeyore and his friends who broke his fall. Sometimes faith is like that, too, the part where we get in the way enough to break the fall of the falling. When they were discussing what to do about Tigger while he was still up in the tree it did come up the idea that Eeyore could get hurt and Pooh asks Eeyore if it could hurt and Eeyore’s words are also a statement about the experience of faith and of courage when he said: That’s what would be so interesting, Pooh. Not being quite sure till afterwards.

The part about the limb giving way is a feeling we can understand. The bird can sing because he knows that he can fly but how will we keep singing when the limb gives under us, when things fall apart, when the world we had such hopes for never gets better. How long, O Lord?! It will not do to resort to denial. Even the Psalms cry out of the violence that rules the human heart and savages the human community. The very people of God themselves declare that they will bash the little ones of Babylon’s heads upon the stones. I think most of us know that Babylon still exists only we call it Iraq now. Yes it is the same place, the same piece of earth it has always been. How does it make us feel to know that the little ones of Babylon are still suffering, the violence and hatred continues on all sides with no end in sight despite what the politicians and the Generals tell us. Psalm 137 should be enough to remind us that this Bible is not a prescription but a description, a description of the human heart, a heart capable of violent murder and profound faith and love. It’s all here in the book.  

Have any of you read Annie Dillard? She writes that crash helmets should be standard issue when we come to church. She says we have no idea what we are getting into, what posers we evoke, when we open this book of books called the Bible.

This Bible, she writes, this ubiquitous black chunk of a bestseller, is a chink – often the only chink – through which winds howl. It is a singularity, a black hole into which our rich and multiple world strays and vanishes. We rack open its pages at our peril. Many educated, urbane, and flourishing experts in every aspect of business, culture, and science have felt pulled by this anachronistic, semibarbaric mass of antique laws and fabulous tales from far away; they entered its queer, strait gates and were lost.”

What is she on to, do you suppose?  If anything, she is seeking with her words, the truth, a truth that holds within itself both horror and incredible hope, the truth about us and the truth about God and the truth about the Bible which tells the story, unmasks the demons, reveals the salvation that is at least as possible as the perishing of the world.

We do not celebrate today a reconciled world, a world where love rules and hatred has finally been overcome. We do not celebrate peace on earth. What we Christians, united or not, are celebrating on this World Communion Sunday is that we are sharing Holy Communion around the world whether we agree or not on what following Jesus asks us to do and be; whether or not we even agree on what Holy Communion is or means. We gather our broken body in the broken body of Christ and, if only for a moment, we are one, despite ourselves, we are one. And in that moment of surrender we are vulnerable to being changed forever for no matter our own personal motivation for being here and participating in this rite, giving ourselves to this mystery, adding our story to the story of stories, the symbol of the ritual holds within it the reality that it symbolizes and that reality always has the power to break our hearts, hearts unknowingly hardened by fear and despair and anger and boredom, and bring us back to the sanity of life in Christ who embodies not only what love is but what peace is, in the words of the writer to Timothy, “the good treasure”, This grace given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but is now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Faith in this simple but “impossible” truth is our wings to fly. When Jesus is asked to “increase their faith his answer is revealing. IF you even have a little faith you could fly, the implication being that it is not about increasing faith but having any faith at all. Even the tiniest amount of faith is enough to save us, is enough to see us through the night, is enough to give us the courage we will need to live in a world such as ours and not give up. I cannot remember now where I read this and the words have become my own over time as I forgot where I read them but cannot forget what they mean to me: The struggle for justice is the struggle that is never won and the struggle that is never lost. Do you hear that? It is a struggle that goes on and the good news is that it isn’t over despite the condition of the world in our day and the good news is that it is worth the struggle to carry on whether we even know what winning or losing is anymore because this old world has been this way for a while and will be this way for as long as we have left to be.

When the old prophet cried out, How long O Lord? He spoke for us all forever and before long it was the same voice that lifts the response of those who have wings to fly:

We will stand at the watchposts

and station ourselves on the rampart;

we will keep watch to see what God will say to us

and what God’s answer will be to our cries.

Like faith that is not about being increased but about being at all, faithfulness is not about saving the world but carrying on until the world is saved. It is about living abundantly, to keep on giving when there is nothing left to give, to keep on hoping when all hope is gone, to keep caring when no one cares anymore, to keep loving life and the world and all that God has given us in the time we have left to love even when all the evidence seems to declare that love has finally abandoned us for good.  This faith is fragile because we are fragile but it is also indestructible because it comes from God. Jesus seems to be saying that we don’t need to increase it. We need, first, to embrace it and it will carry us. It will give us wings to fly.

Today is World Communion in a world at war. People are being hurt. Lives are being lost, hopes and dreams shattered. And everywhere, love is still possible. When we break the bread and lift the cup we are not kidding around. We are proclaiming the grace and love of God to the world and we are surrendering ourselves to the faith that will not give up on this world or on ourselves because our God will never give up on us. As the prophet said, the people of God will live by faith. We will endure. We will love where love is absent. We will rise up in the ruins of the world and declare a new day. We will overcome what is evil with what is good. When all is lost we shall declare that the lost shall be found. We will use our wings to fly and, like Eeyore, we will put ourselves in the way to catch those who have no wings to fly and who just keep falling for we are people of God and we will live in this broken world by faith with courage and love and mercy and, at this holy table, share as one with all the world the undying hope for a new day.

The Basics

The Basics                                                                                 September 26, 2010

Jeremiah32:1-3a, 6-15; I Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31

As I watch the beautiful children who are coming to Jack and Jill in the morning from my office window, I think of how they are just getting started on this grand adventure of life, meeting new people, seeing new places, getting along with others, learning new things, getting the basics and it made me think about how important the basics are. Our faith also has some basics that perhaps it would be good to review from time to time. The readings for today give us an opportunity to do just that so here we go.

First Basic: Trust God. Jeremiah has just, as usual, had bad news for his people. He knows that the near future is pretty bad. The big bad Babylonians are coming and they are going to throw everybody out of their homes and off their land. The worst has happened. The people will be displaced. They will not have a place to be. They will live the life of exile, strangers in a strange land. This is disheartening because it really feels like more than losing your place, it feels like losing your future. But what does Jeremiah do? His actions illustrate as well as any other story I can remember what it means to trust God. He bought a plot of land even though he knew that it was about to be run over and taken away. He buys a plot of land because he trusts that one day justice will prevail and he will return to that very piece of land and it will provide life for him. In short, even though the present and the near future are doomed he believes in the future, that there is a future, there is hope, because he trusts that God is just and loving and will make things right for those who wait and who never stop believing in a future with God. It is one thing to trust God when all is going well. It is quite another to continue to trust God when it feels more like God has abandoned us, when things fall apart, when everything we thought we could count on is suddenly like so much dust in the wind.

Second Basic: Know what enough is. The writer of 1 Timothy is very clear. Having stuff is dangerous. Always wanting more can consume us. A wise person once said that if we want to know peace, we should stop having what we want and start wanting what we have. Of course, the challenge for us who have so much and so many choices is to be able to discern what enough is. From the Christian Century this week: John C Bogle tells how Joseph Heller responded when someone pointed out that his billionaire party host made more money in a single day of hedge fund trading than Heller had ever earned from his book Catch-22. Heller replied: “ Yes, but I have something that he will never have: enough.”  To know what is enough is wisdom and sometimes it has to be learned the hard way. One possible clue is what having and wanting more is doing to us and to others. The irony of a life that is forever consuming is that in the end it is one’s life that is consumed. The poor rich man in the gospel reading for this day is a perfect example. There is another way, however. The problem is not just having more than enough but what do we do with the abundance?

Third Basic: Share the abundance. It is amazing how many voices are unanimous on this one. George McGovern (one of my sad heros from the past) said that “Every religion in the world instructs us to feed the hungry.” That is pretty basic. Our own John Wesley said that we should make as much money as we could make but then share the wealth with those in need. Even the Koran (can you imagine?) has this word: They shall question thee concerning what they should expend. Say: “The abundance.” Of course every religion and every other attempt to end poverty has failed even though there is enough for everybody. How ironic is it that in some parts of the world people are dying because they eat too much and in other parts of the world they are dying from not having enough to eat? There are lots of reasons for this and it is complicated but it is also simple or at least it was in the case of the rich man in our gospel story this morning. In his case it seems that it is not so much what he has done but what he has not done even perhaps what he has failed to notice needed to be done. The saddest thing of all is that he could have easily done what needed to be done. He just didn’t. After arriving in Hades, the story goes, the rich man, seeing Abraham far away across a great divide standing with the man he had repeatedly stepped over on his own doorstep, he wanted to know why nobody ever told him before it was too late that his lifestyle was not what God wanted. He hadn’t meant to harm anyone. He just hadn’t noticed that others were suffering. He somehow overlooked poor Lazarus everyday until finally the days ran out for both of them and Lazarus is in paradise and the rich man is beyond helping. How could he have known that he would ever need help, he who had never needed help from anyone?  This is one of the dangers of being rich. Not knowing our own need we do not understand or even see the need of others. That is something we can do something about however. We can pay attention. We can examine our lives more closely and see what is enough and what is needed and we can make choices that will make things better.

If only the rich man had known the golden rule. You talk about basic. This is another idea that is present in all the great religions.

Hinduism: Do not to others what ye do not wish done to yourself . . .This is the whole Dharma. Heed it well.

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary; go learn it.

Zoroastrianism: Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.

Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.

Confucianism: Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.

Islam: No one of you is a believer until you desire for another that which you desire for yourself.

Bahai: Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not. This is my command unto thee, do thou observe it.

And, of course, Jesus, in Matthew 7.12 saying, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”  The genius of this word is that we know what to do because it is what we want done to us. This is nice because we can understand it but on the other hand it provides us no cover. It brings to mind that other word from Deuteronomy that the rich man should have known: Surely this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you; nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven; that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.

In other words, there is no place to hide. There are no excuses. We trust God, we share the abundance, we help those in need, we treat others with the respect and kindness that we want for ourselves, or we just don’t.

This is basic. This is also why it is still important to hear the Word of God and ponder its meaning for us. Here is light and guidance for complicated and overwhelming times. If we practice every day with every person we meet this basic understanding to love one another as we love ourselves, we will change the world and we, too, will be changed, for there is a peace that only God can give. 1 Timothy has an important clue to finding it: As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.   

And that is what we want, isn’t it? The life that really is life. There are other basics to this faith journey, this grand adventure of life we all share from the little ones just starting off to those of us who watch them with breaking hearts because we know what they must find out, that life is hard sometimes and sometimes it hurts and things change and anything can happen and we are all afraid but it is beautiful, too, this life, and love is always possible, and that is basic, too. There are many things to learn and Jesus has promised that the Holy Spirit will teach us those things. One such moment is captured in a poem I just read that I must share with you this morning because it is a reflection of one of those ordinary moments where the life that is really life is revealed:

Put the words close enough.

Closer than that, even closer

so that one breath

will make the other turn

and the other turn

                 and say

and the wind break this leaf

from its stem, not the other

and make a cup for the dew

in the shade where the sun

won’t dry it

where the bird stops to drink

as your son waits, pointing

“birdie, birdie” and

you snap the picture, the one

where his smile is like

the first time anyone ever smiled

and its place in the frame on your desk

makes you wonder why

you don’t write poetry about this.

-Marcia Rae Johnson

The smile that is like the first time that anyone ever smiled is basic to why we live. May God teach us the basics through these holy words and with the Holy Spirit and may we come to see what is holy in every living thing and live with each other in the world as if it were the first time anyone ever lived.